Homosexuality and the DSM

On December 14, 1973, the Board of Trustees of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) made a monumental decision: it voted to remove homosexuality from the publication long considered the authoritative list of psychological disorders. The following month, the entire APA upheld the board’s decision by a vote of 5,834 to 3,810, and homosexuality was deleted as a pathology in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 2nd edition (DSM).¹ Suddenly, what had been regarded for millennia as wretched and shameful was classified as less abnormal than fear of water, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or depression.

Of course, pressure to make the change had long been mounting. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Indiana University researcher Alfred Kinsey published studies suggesting that 10% of white males were “more or less” exclusively homosexual for at least a three-year period in life.² And though Kinsey’s research was deeply flawed—disproportionately studying convicted sex offenders and members of gay-advocacy groups³—many touted his work as demonstrating the normalcy of homosexuality.

Thus, psychologist Evelyn Hooker set up an experiment in the early 1960s to evaluate whether homosexuality was intrinsically abnormal. Comparing psychological test results from a group of homosexuals and a group of heterosexuals, she concluded that all homosexuals were not manifestly disturbed. In fact, skilled psychologists in her study could not distinguish between the two groups based on their test results alone. Some said the study proved that homosexuality was as emotionally healthy as heterosexuality. Yet they failed to note that Hooker’s study excluded homosexuals who had ever been under psychiatric or psychological treatment, and that she worked with pro-gay organizations to recruit healthy subjects.⁴ Indeed, it was another example of a conclusion regarding homosexuality based on flawed research.

Then in 1967, the National Institute of Mental Health formed a task force to study homosexuality, but it excluded any scientists who argued that the practice was not a normal sexual variant.⁵ Predictably, its conclusions were foregone.

Around the same time, what became known as the gay liberation movement began with a riot of homosexuals at a bar in Greenwich Village, New York, and pressure on the psychiatric community increased to declare homosexuality normal.⁶ As the APA vote neared, the National Gay Task Force wrote a letter urging psychiatrists to remove homosexuality from the DSM, then solicited signatures from five APA leaders and mailed the letter to the entire APA membership—all without disclosing that the document had been written by gay activists.⁷ One APA member cited such activism as an important influence on the vote.⁸

Notably, removing homosexuality from the DSM did not mean that all psychiatrists considered it normal. Four years after the vote, a survey revealed that 69% of psychiatrists regarded homosexuality as a “pathological adaptation.”⁹ A more recent survey suggested that a majority of psychiatrists around the world continued to view homosexual acts as signaling mental illness in the 1990s.¹⁰

Still, the homosexuality vote paved the way for other practitioners of sexual perversion to seek recognition by the APA. Movements have arisen to remove both Gender Identity Disorder and Pedophilia from the DSM.¹¹

Yet amid such moral confusion, Christians need not despair. While the APA’s decision on homosexuality certainly dishonored God, it also opened an unprecedented door to ministry, for now the Church has an opportunity to shine as the only source of help for those seeking release from the bondage of sexual sin.¹²

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