Thursday, June 20, 2002

So, I started reading this essay by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick in the "Come Out Fighting: A Century of Essential Writing on Gay & Lesbian Liberation" [as an aside, I'm not sure who's more surprised by my choice of reading material, Catherine or me], and discovered something completely fascinating. Everyone knows that homosexuality was de-pathologized in 1973--the Board of Directors of the American Psychiatric Association removed it from the DSM-III (approved by a vote of the membership in 1974). However, what is never mentioned is that, in that same year, "gender identity disorder" was added to the DSM. Homosexuality wasn't de-pathologized at all, it just underwent a name change. It was okay to be gay, but if you were nelly or butch, then you were still a diseased freak.

I haven't finished the article yet, so I'm not sure where the author is actually going with this, but that point just really interested me. It also interested me that John Money was quoted in a *positive* light, a happenstance I can't believe.

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