An excerpt from "The Annals of Homosexuality":
The Sexual Deviations and the Diagnostic Manual," by Charles W. Socarides, M.D., American Journal of Psychotherapy, Volume XXXII, Number 3, July 1978
"... This 1978 article by NARTH past-president Charles Socarides describes the intellectual confusion and diagnostic inconsistency which led to the removal of homosexuality from the diagnostic manual. Those changes rendered chaotic, Dr. Charles Socarides notes, some very fundamental truths about unconscious dynamics...
Those words from Dr. Socarides have indeed proven to be predictive: today, there is a growing movement which conceptualizes gender as a personal choice--one which need not be correspondent with the person's biological sex. Gay activists have been mobilizing in order to rid the diagnostic manual of the category of Gender-Identity Disorder, and they are working to prevent clinicians from treating childhood gender-identity disorder as a problem--instead calling for an acceptance of a child's cross-gender behavior as expressive of "who that child really is."
Dr. Socarides provides a step-by-step account of the historical events leading to the normalization of homosexuality, the rationale presented by those who favored removal of homosexuality as a disorder, and the objections to this position held by other psychiatrists who were versed in the therapy of homosexuality...
This paper presents an historical account and a critical analysis of the diagnostic problems surrounding our understanding of the sexual deviations and their position in our classification system.
Appropriate therapy can only be based on accurate diagnosis. Exceptions of this principle of psychiatric care cannot be made for social/political reasons without incurring formidable difficulties both for the diagnostician and the patient as well...
If such changes are due to social and/or political activism, neither the goal of individual liberties nor the best interests of society are served. These changes would remove from psychoanalysis and psychiatry entire areas of scientific progress, rendering chaotic fundamental truths about unconscious psychodynamics, as well as the interrelationship between anatomy and psychosexual identity.
The tragic consequences of the politicizing of the sexual area of diagnosis have already occurred, as homosexuality has been deleted as a psychiatric disorder from the latest printing (July 1974) of the DSM II, even from its bracketed position beside "sexual orientation disorder." This position misinforms psychiatry, the medical profession, individual homosexuals, their families and governmental agencies which are responsible for mental health policies and third party payments...
Some behavioral sciences insist that there are no sexual deviations, only alternative or different lifestyles, and that these conditions are merely a matter of social definition, some made permissible by society, and others socially condemned. This is in keeping with the behavioristic point of view that all one could see, test, and modify was conscious behavior; and if human beings were allowed to express their sexuality freely, culture would change to reflect and accept all individuals as healthy. The conclusion drawn, as in the case of homosexuality, is: homosexuals are healthy; society is "sick"; consequently in order to remedy society's ills, fundamental changes in psychiatric diagnosis must be undertaken...
Some statisticians, beginning with Kinsey, behavioral psychologists, and psychiatrists (in contrast to most psychoanalysts) supply incidence rates of certain phenomena as if behavior had no connection with motivation. Since neither conscious nor unconscious motivation is even acknowledged, these studies arrive at a disastrous conclusion that the resultant composite of sexual behavior is the norm of sexual behavior. The next step is to demand that the public, the law, medicine, psychiatry, religion, and other social institutions unquestioningly accept this proposition...
On December 14, 1973 the Board of Trustees of the American Psychiatric Association, meeting in Washington, D.C., eliminated homosexuality from the official Diagnostic and Statistical Manual without presenting substantive evidence for such a drastic revision of basic concepts of healthy vs. unhealthy sexual development. It should be noted that the World Health Organization's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual has not as yet followed suit.
One of the two reasons for the removal was an official position paper (12) prepared by Dr. Robert Spitzer (Chairman, Nomenclature Task Force on Homosexuality, A.P.A.) for the Board prior to its decision. According to an article in Psychiatric News, "It was essentially upon the rationale of Dr. Spitzer's presentation that the Board made its decision."(13) This paper in essence repeated Kinsey's earlier assertion that homosexuality did not meet the requirements of a psychiatric disorder since it "does not either regularly cause subjective distress or [is] regularly associated with some generalized impairment in social effectiveness or functioning"...
The removal of homosexuality from the DSM II was all the more remarkable when one considers that it involved the out-of-hand and peremptory disregard and dismissal not only of hundreds of psychiatric and psychoanalytic research papers and reports, but also of a number of other serious studies by groups of psychologists, psychiatrists, and educators over the past seventy years (the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry Report, 1955; the New York Academy of Medicine Report, 1964; the Task Force Report of the New York County District Branch A.P.A. 1970-72). It was a disheartening attack upon psychiatric research and a blow to many homosexuals who looked to psychiatry for more help, not less...
Summary
Prior to 1973, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual had made valuable contributions our comprehension of the sexual deviations so that clinical research was beginning to fathom their ineluctable secrets. The "normalizing" of homosexuality and the consequent revision of the DSM reflecting this position cannot help but slow scientific progress, produce despair in those with a sexual deviation, and diminish efforts at prophylaxis based on sound principles of causation and treatment.
This author provides a step-by-step account of events leading to the "normalization" of one of the major sexual disorders, the rationale presented by those who favor removal of homosexuality as a disorder, and the objections to this position held by other psychiatrists versed in the therapy of these conditions..."