Gay Liberation and the APA
In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association (APA) revised its classification of homosexuality as a mental illness in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Often viewed as a landmark moment for the Gay Liberation Movement, the APA’s decision was in part facilitated by internal leadership shifts as a younger, socially conscious generation came to prominence. More significantly, the change was spurred by years of pressure from the gay community (Drescher, 2015). Gay activists famously disrupted the APA’s 1970 conference in San Francisco by barring the entrance to the event and shutting down its homosexuality panel. Although many hailed the 1970 protest as a success, the movement naturally included some who disagreed with its combative and clamorous tactics. In the annual meetings that followed, gay activist encounters with the APA ranged from confrontation to collaboration; from 1971 to 1973 reclassification advocates appeared as militant demonstrators, as well as invited experts seeking reform.
Histories of anti-psychiatry frequently cite gay liberation as an overlapping movement or as an example of anti-psychiatry activities. The association drawn between the two stems from organized efforts by queer communities and individuals against the APA and its pathologization of homosexuality. However, contemporary scholarship and commentary have cast doubt on the alignment between reclassification efforts and anti-psychiatry. As Regina Kunzel (2018) argues, some activists – including Frank Kameny and Barbara Giddings who spoke on the “Gay is Good” panel at the 1971 convention – aimed to normalize homosexuality. In other words, rather than strike against the legitimacy of psychiatry, a prominent sector of reclassification activists sought acceptance from the psychiatric community. Indeed, in 2006, Kameny clarified his own stance, writing:
“My—our—sole intent was to reverse what we (and I, as a scientist by training and background) considered a scientifically baseless characterization of homosexuality as pathological. Institutions, such as the APA, often require a very strong nudge to reverse long-standing past positions. That was the case here. Remember, when I seized that microphone, I was present there at the Convocation by formal, official invitation…. Antipsychiatry I am not.” (Quoted, McCommon, 2006)
Although Kameny and other reformers distanced themselves from associations with anti-psychiatry, as Lewis (2016) points out, contemporaneous progressive gay and lesbian activists espoused views embracing the nonnormativity of their sexuality and social outcast status. Influenced by “mad pride,” feminism, anticapitalism, Szasz and Foucault’s ideas about the medicalization of homosexuality, amongst others, these radical activists rejected the psychiatric establishment and its authority far more so than the central players in the reclassification campaign. Whether official or ideological, similarities and alliances between progressive queer activists and anti-psychiatry-aligned movements persisted for decades.