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Wednesday, 15 March 2006 06:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daToday:
Also, I listened to a really neat This American Life episode from 2002 called 81 Words, about the APA's decision in 1973 to remove homosexuality from its list of diseases. Of course I knew the broad story, but I think this detailed version was fascinating to me because it required psychiatrists of all stripes. From gay protesters on the outside who shut down meetings, to one brave gay psychiatrist who risked having his license removed by talking candidly on stage in front of a national convention of his peers, to Dr. Evelyn Hooker's research showing (for the first time) that scientifically gays were just as healthy as straights, to the many closeted "GayPA" members, to the even more closeted gay and lesbian psychiatrists part of the higher political layers of the APA, and finally to the president-elect of the APA, who was an extremely closeted gay man as well.
Apparently in 1970, 90% of psychologists believed homosexuality was a disease. That included many members of GayPA, who were closeted, ashamed, and afraid for their jobs. (But of course it's a disease; it's what they'd been taught; and nearly all gay people were sick, it's who they treated, weren't they?)
Then after Hooker's research, the balance shifted and some of these secret pockets could use their power to bring about change. Slowly. Such a weird story.
- At work, I finally finished a batch of system hardware upgrades that took considerably longer than I would've expected. (On the order of a month longer). In the process I learned more Debian internals than I wanted to, but still are useful for teh job.
- I got home from work before 6pm for the first night in- I honestly don't remember how long. And the sun is up late enough that I got to walk the pooch in bright daylight, wonder of wonders. That made me feel great. And it'll only get better from now on. There's light at the end of the tunnel!
- Thanks to walking in the daylight, I found my hat, which went missing some days ago before it got cold again. It was lying in a (now disolved) snowdrift a few blocks away, on one of Rover's and my usual walking routes.
- Today at the U there was an excellent talk on Mac OS internals, which I hope to write up in a separate post. Much learning over lunch.
- I won an Apple Nano teeshirt. It's black, with a white nano on the front (actual size), and a grey apple logo on the back. I've not decided if I'll wear it, but it's good fabric and it'll make a fine black undershirt.
Also, I listened to a really neat This American Life episode from 2002 called 81 Words, about the APA's decision in 1973 to remove homosexuality from its list of diseases. Of course I knew the broad story, but I think this detailed version was fascinating to me because it required psychiatrists of all stripes. From gay protesters on the outside who shut down meetings, to one brave gay psychiatrist who risked having his license removed by talking candidly on stage in front of a national convention of his peers, to Dr. Evelyn Hooker's research showing (for the first time) that scientifically gays were just as healthy as straights, to the many closeted "GayPA" members, to the even more closeted gay and lesbian psychiatrists part of the higher political layers of the APA, and finally to the president-elect of the APA, who was an extremely closeted gay man as well.
Apparently in 1970, 90% of psychologists believed homosexuality was a disease. That included many members of GayPA, who were closeted, ashamed, and afraid for their jobs. (But of course it's a disease; it's what they'd been taught; and nearly all gay people were sick, it's who they treated, weren't they?)
Then after Hooker's research, the balance shifted and some of these secret pockets could use their power to bring about change. Slowly. Such a weird story.
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Date: Friday, 17 March 2006 04:13 am (UTC)Anyway, the producers touch on this question near the end, and finally argue that this was a grey area between science and morality; and it was eye-opening to the psychiatrists to discover that they were biasing their science one way or the other depending on their own morality. And the question simply wasn't able to be decided purely by science.
I also waffle about social constructions of 'X' where X is anything from gender-presentation to homosexuality to religion to morality in general. Why do people (singularly or socially) behave against their best interests when they know they're doing so? Why do I?
Yeah. I think you'd like the episode.