You have Dr. John Fryer to thank for the fact you are not considered mentally ill for being gay. He was known only as “Dr. H. Anonymous,” the disguised gay psychiatrist who stood up against the American Psychiatric Association on this day in 1972.
After a finding in 1952 that homosexuals were "ill primarily in terms of society and of conformity with the prevailing social milieu," the American Psychiatric Association included homosexuality in its official list of mental illnesses.
For several years, gay activists Barbara Gittings (shown below) and Frank Kameny, among others, considered the American Psychiatric Association’s classification of homosexuality as a mental illness as the greatest obstacle to equal rights for gays and lesbians.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Popular methods for "curing homosexuality" at the time were often torturous, such as electric shock aversion therapy.
A diagram from 1971 of a system to deliver electric shock aversion therapy to gay men:
Source: boxturtlebulletin.com
In 1972, Gittings and Kameny (pictured holding the "Gay is Good" sign), were finally given permission to organize a panel on homosexuality for that year’s APA convention.
The panel’s topic was to be “Lifestyles of Non-Patient Homosexuals.” Gittings and Kameny were part of the panel, but they also felt it was important to include a professional psychiatrist who was gay. Finding one who would agree to speak was virtually impossible.
Everyone turned them down, except John Fryer.
His only condition? He would do it in disguise.
Source: andrejkoymasky.com
