In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. Prior to its declassification as a mental health issue, electroconvulsive therapy was commonly thought to treat and eliminate homosexual behavior. Predominantly in the 1940's and 1950's, insane asylums were filled to the brim with the social deviants of the day. Addicts, masochists, alcoholics, homosexuals, and transvestites were the main occupants of these asylums. Homosexuals would be involuntarily admitted to these psychiatric facilities by their families with the hope that they would be cured of their "sexual illness".Not only could they not leave the asylum, but numerous forms of electrocution and torture were used on these people to "condition their behaviors". For the gay men in these places, the therapy was particularly barbaric.
Male patients would be presented with erotic photo slides in order to evoke a sexual response. Each time the patient reacted positively to the slides, an intense shock would be delivered directly to the patient's genitals. These shock treatments led to virtual castration and induced seizures which caused memory loss and nerve damage. Another major form of therapy for homosexuals was the lobotomy. The "ice pick lobotomy" as it was often called, involved the scraping away of the frontal lobes of the brain through the patients eye sockets. This was thought to diminish homosexual tendencies and cure severe mental health issues.
Dr. Walter Freeman is the man credited with the popularity of lobotomies during the 1940's and part of the 1950's. Of the thousands upon thousands of lobotomies he performed, nearly 40 percent were on homosexuals. Receivers of lobotomies, who were perfectly healthy before their treatments, lived the rest of their lives severely disabled with no hope for normality. By the 1950's, medications were being created that took the grunt work out of conversion therapy. Thorazine was a pill that had virtually the same effect as a lobotomy. The medication made its way through mental institutions and soon took the place of the surgical lobotomy by 1954.
The decision to declassify homosexuality as a mental illness occurred during the tail end of the Civil Rights Movements that took place during the 1950's-1970's. African-American rights movements followed by the women's and gay rights movements allowed cultural shifts to take place like never before. The majority of 21st century society is against the inhumane practice of conversion therapy. However, there are still those who find extreme displeasure with the idea of homosexuality. Organizations and groups across the world work to convert gay men and women to heterosexuality with forms of therapy like those discussed above.
The Vice President of the United States is a well-known proponent of conversion therapy and has made it a large part of his platform. Many people believe that this will create normalization of the inhumane treatment of gay people. With the support of well-funded organizations and groups, the dark history of conversion therapy is once again coming to light.
Research:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamie-scot/shock-the-gay-away-secrets-of-early-gay-aversion-therapy-revealed_b_3497435.html
Adam Hall
ReplyDeleteI found this article particularly interesting because of the many connections that can be made to other topics we have discussed in class. The first connection I drew after reading the article and the blog post was a contrast to ancient cultures. In ancient societies such as Rome and Greece, erotic relationships between a man and a younger male were commonplace. In Greece in particular, pederasty was popular, drawing a link between male-male relationships and a sense of civic virtue. A similar connection for women was seen in Victorian society with the onset of fashion plates and dolls. In Victorian culture, relations between women and girls, or women and women, were commonly accepted for a vast majority of the period. Fast forward to the 1940's, and homosexuality is being actively sought out and persecuted across the nation and even across the world. These supposed "sexual deviants" were seen as a threat to a morally upright society, a stark contrast to the view of some older cultures when these relationships were tied to the ideology of civic duty and a right upbringing. In modern society, rights for the LGBT community have been on the upswing, with the recent SCOTUS legalization of gay marriage. While it is disconcerting to have a Vice President so opposed to the rights of the LGBT community, especially when he believes in the extremes of conversion therapy, it will be interesting, and terrifying, to see how much sway the new VP will have over the treatment of homosexuals and others he deems as "sexually immoral".
Another interesting point I saw within this article was a connection to two of the four separate subcultures of earlier Victorian society. In the article it states that lobotomies became the norm largely because they were supported by doctors until lobotomies became obsolete in 1954 with the introduction of a pill that served the same purpose. The general acceptance of such horrid procedures shows the influence of medical discourse at the time. Many people during this time believed in science and factual evidence, which was largely provided by the scientific and medical communities. If so many doctors were supporting these procedures, then there must be some logical evidence behind their claims. However, as the 1950's-1970's wore on with the progression of the Civil Rights, Women's, and LGBT movements, conversion therapy began to fall to the wayside. This shows a shift in culture from medical discourse to rich vernacular culture. I know this was post Victorian era, but the idea still holds merit. As the large majority of the population began to push for equal rights, medical discourse began to lose some of its sway. It is bad policy for doctors to disagree with the large majority of their patients; if they do so, they will inevitable begin to lose patients and revenue. With the success of these movements, and their continued fight for equal rights, lobotomies, thorazine, and conversion therapy have almost fallen out of discourse. Whether any part of this dark culture makes its way back towards the forefront of public discourse and policy remains to be seen, but one can only hope that this dark mark on our nation's past remains in the past.