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"To suggest that
a person comes voluntarily

to change his sexual orientation

is to ignore the powerful
environmental stress

that has been telling him
for years he should change.

To grow up in a family

where the word 'homosexual'
was whispered,

to play in the playgrounds

and hear the words
'faggot' and 'queer.'

To go to church and hear of sin

and then to college
and hear of illness.

And finally,
to the counseling center

that promises to cure

is hardly to create
an environment of freedom

and voluntary choice.

What brings them into
the counseling center

is guilt, shame

and the loneliness
that comes from their secret.

I suggest you first
desensitize them

to their guilt.

I think their choice would be
more voluntary and free."

Charles Silverstein, 1972.

- Morning.
- Morning.

Well, can you tell me
what brings you in here?

Yeah, I--

I was kind of having trouble.

Personal problems, you know?

I'd like
to, uh, outline for you

a-- a kind of assessment
procedure.

Uh, if you should
try to, uh, uh,

say, masturbate
to a female image,

uh, what do you think
your reaction would be?

What do you think would happen?

Nothing.

It'd be like, uh, masturbating

to the thought of a chair.

This is what I--
I'd like you

to, uh-- to try in the coming
week whenever you masturbate.

I'd like you to

just set a Playmate picture.

And I want you
to, uh, stimulate yourself,

to masturbate with
your, uh, homosexual image.

And then at that point
of inevitability,

what I'd like you to try to do

is just to switch your eyes,

open your eyes
and look at the picture

and focus on
the picture visually.

And-- And have your climax.

No.

Look-- Look, I came
here to make a decision

and to get myself moving
in the right direction.

This sounds like a game

and I just don't want to get
involved with games.

I-- This is important to me.

Sure, I understand.

But I look at it, rather,

as a way of-- of gathering
some useful information

and, uh... uh, I'd like you
to try it for just a week.

And I'll see you next week
at the same time.

Everything that
I'd been doing was wrong.

It was-- It was unethical.
It was immoral.

And it was really wrong.

Well, I grew up, uh, in a lower

middle class suburb of Boston

called Dorchester,
also in Roxbury

in the early '40s.

Kind of a poor family

in a Jewish ghetto
part of the city.

I was pretty much
a Boston boy until

I got out of college.

I would say sometime at
Harvard in my sophomore year

is when I got interested
in psychology.

I didn't start out that way.

I started out as
a government major, poli sci,

and then I was
a German lit major for a while,

but I was always interested
in people and myself,

what's going on with me,

and I just sort of fell into

the intro course at Harvard
in my sophomore year.

My main influence was reading
Freud's introductory lectures

that he gave at Clark University

in the early 20th century.

In the summer between
my freshman and sophomore year,

I worked the swing shift,

the graveyard shift
at a ham factory,

helping out on an assembly line,

packing hams.

Uh, to fill the time
in those early hours

when there weren't many
people around on the train,

I read Freud's lectures.

I found Freud's thinking
irresistibly annoying.

It was kind of,
"How can he say such things?"

Like, if someone dreams of
a train going into a tunnel,

why does this mean
something sexual

with regard to
the person's mother?

How can he understand

what people
are really thinking and feeling

on the basis
of slips of the tongue

or things that they say

that don't have
any obvious relevance

to their
psychological condition?

And I found this really,

really interesting, but I also--

Not understanding
what his reasoning was,

I attributed, really,
more to myself than to him.

I thought,
"Well, I'm not really cut out

for studying
clinical psychology."

But still, it was, uh,
fascinating and it helped me.

I think it played a role
in my going to that

first introductory course

quite by accident in the fall
of my sophomore year.

Interestingly, at Harvard,

there was very little discussion

of behavior therapy at all.

The emphasis there
was really on Freud

and variants of Freud.

By the time Freud
visited Clark University

in Massachusetts
during the fall of 1909,

he had written
almost 40 publications,

most notably
The Interpretation of Dreams

and Three Essays on
the Theory of Sexuality.

Before reaching the States,

he wrote to his close friend

and fellow psychologist,
Carl Jung, stating,

"When Americans discover
the sexual core

of our psychological theories,
they will drop us."

Instead, his words
and theories intrigued

the people in the audience,
and psychoanalysis

would become a regular
practice in the United States

through the 1970s.

Before Freud, um...

there wasn't as much attention
to, uh, psychopathology

and what made people do
the things they did

and how to help them.

He did not invent that,

but he developed it
more fully than anybody else.

He really gave
a tremendous impetus

to this and generated
an intellectual whirlwind

of interest in Western Europe
and then in this country.

The essence of Freud,
in my view,

is the unconscious
and repression.

The notion that we unconsciously

push out of our awareness

things that are really
troubling to us.

And you may want to say, ironically,

these are the things
of most importance

to the development of--
Of the human being.

Before then, psychology was
primarily a laboratory science.

It started in the 19th century
in, uh, Germany,

or, in Leipzig and Poland.

There wasn't a-- really wasn't
a field called

clinical psychology, actually,
until after World War Two.

People were beginning
to criticize Freud

in the '50s and the '60s

o-- on the basis
that his explanations

could not
be experimentally validated,

that psychoanalysis
is not a very good science,

and the structure and content

of psychoanalytic theory
and related theories

makes it very hard
to make clear predictions.

Sometimes up is down
and sometimes up is up.

What you say you're afraid of

is not really
what you're afraid of.

This is what began
to bother people a great deal.

In particular,
Hans Eysenck in England

and Joseph Wolpe
in South Africa.

They were developing this field
called behavior therapy,

later it became called
cognitive behavior therapy,

where the emphasis was not to
infer unconscious motivation,

but to try to deal
with things more or less

at the conscious level.

When I went to
graduate school at Stanford,

this is what I encountered.

In the, uh, fall
of my second year, 1963,

Arnold Lazarus from South Africa

happened to come to Stanford,

and he was perhaps the most
famous practicing

behavior therapist in the world.

I spent most of my second year

sitting in with him
while he was seeing patients

and watching what we call
a master clinician

deal with patients
and work with patients,

seeing things in action.

Let's assume that I said to you,

you could just use one word

to describe
whatever is bothering you.

What would that word be?

Take your time to think,

but you're just
allowed one word.

What would that be?

Thought of it already.

Closed.

Closed?
- Yeah.

To say that that enriched
my perspective

is an understatement.

I suddenly saw the challenges

of applying behavior therapy

or experimental principles

to trying to deal with
a-- a suffering human being.

Can you give me one sentence
with "closed" in it

that will really reflect
the feelings?

I have chosen
to lead a closed-off life.

The kind of
people Lazarus was treating

were really the kind
that I began treating

when I began as
a licensed psychologist myself.

Namely, the folks
who are anxious and depressed.

These are people who are

coping with life but
are really unhappy about it.

These people
who are-- are are beyond sad.

They're really sad.

They're very unhappy.

They see no hope for the future.

They are sometimes suicidal.

Their functioning
is-- is very marginal.

Lazarus taught
me desensitization,

taught me other ways of helping
people expose themselves

to things that
they are very much afraid of.

But the emphasis
was really on the,

"What can we do right now

to help the people move
forward?" Rather than doing

an historical,
archeological dig,

which was a-- a way
to think about what

Freud and the Freudians,
uh, have been

preoccupied with, and still are
to a very large degree.

In the late '40s
and early '50s,

experimental methods
such as ice pick lobotomies,

hormonal injections

and the use of psychedelics

gained popularity as methods

to influence sexual orientation.

By the late 1960s,

the best known treatment
was electroshock therapy.

Professionals believed

they could decrease
homosexual desires

by administering
an electric shock to a patient

when shown a pornographic
image of the same sex.

Homosexual women also suffered

the full range
of conversion efforts,

from hormonal shock therapy
to genital mutilation.

But since more
societal importance was placed

on fixing gay men's
so-called lack of masculinity,

women's sexual desires and needs

were largely ignored.

Aversion therapy

you can think of as attaching

negative feelings

to things that have
positive value for people

and they don't want it to.

Sometimes the aversion
is induced by electrodes.

Sometimes it's induced
by very disgusting imagery

and a technique called
covert sensitization.

And sometimes it's induced

by actually injecting
a nausea-inducing medication.

I think it was called apomorphine.

M.P. Feldman wrote a book
sometime in the early '60s

on aversion therapy,
and he and a man named

McCulloch were very well-known.

And he came to show a 16 mm film

showing gay men being shot

while they're looking
at pictures of men.

I was in the audience
and I was kind of his host.

In fact, I have a vivid memory.

The-- The-- We couldn't find
a good place

to put the movie projector.

I remember literally holding

the 16 mm
movie projector in my lap

so I could show it
on the screen.

And I watched this film.

And I thought,
"Gosh, that's really awful.

Those poor patients."

He genuinely believed

that this was the best way
to help people get better.

I never criticized him as
a person or his motivations,

but what he did,
I certainly took issue with.

For one thing,
I should make clear

I've never shocked a patient.

I've never
literally applied electrodes

or shocked them.

And this happened,
I would say, in the late '60s,

and it began helping me
to rethink,

"Is this really the route
that we should be going?"

I had also been reading
in the literature

on the development
human sexuality

and reading, among other
things, the Kinsey Reports.

Homosexuality was thought to be

a comparatively rare phenomenon

until Kinsey came along

and provided very good evidence

that actually there were,
of course, roughly,

20 million gay men and women.

And that was important.

They, for the first time,

realized that they were not
a tiny minority,

but actually a very sizable
proportion of the population.

In the Kinsey Reports,
they talked a lot

about the pairing
of sexual arousal

with certain kinds of stimuli,
if you will,

to endow these stimuli with,
uh, positive sexual properties.

This helped me move towards
the so-called Playboy therapy

or orgasmic
reorientation treatment,

sometimes it's called.

The story
of orgasmic reorientation

has a lot to do
with the Playboy Forum.

By the time
Jerry arrived at Stony Brook,

Playboy had
established itself as

one of the most progressive
magazines in the country.

Hugh Hefner was amazed
by Kinsey's report

describing men's sexuality

and the finding that 35% of men

had experienced orgasm
from a homosexual encounter.

From that,

Hefner wanted to question
the thinking of old morality.

He began writing monthly essays

on issues including capitalism,

religion and the history of sex.

These essays eventually
became known as

The Playboy Forum.

In the forum,

some of the first open
discussions of homosexuality

occurred in America.

While the photos of naked women

were the main selling point,

the majority of pages
were filled with articles

and advertisements,

allowing the American public
to both observe

and interact with
new perspectives and ideas.

A perfect place for Jerry
to introduce his therapy.

In The Playboy Forum was
sort of letters to the editor.

People were writing in,

seeking help
for their homosexuality

other sexual problems they had,

and they were not being given
very encouraging information

as to how these things
could be changed.

I wrote a letter
to The Playboy Forum

and told them that there's
this new-- the new development

that can be very effective
in helping gay people change.

It created a heated,
rather lively exchanges

among readers
in The Playboy Forum.

"Many of the letters published
in your forum

relate to sexual deviations.

Judging from the advice
usually given,

it is probable that
your staff is unaware

of new therapeutic methods."

I began to kind of tie
it together in thinking that,

since I didn't want to do
the aversion thing,

I would use Playboy photographs
as material, if you will,

that gay men could use at home
to focus on

while they were getting aroused
by their "deviant" stimuli,

and then moving--
Literally moving their eyes

towards the scantily clad women.

And that came to be
called Playboy Therapy.

It was a good try.

But the most important factor

for my change of heart
was Charles Silverstein.

I'm Dr. Charles Silverstein.

I'm a psychologist in practice

in New York City.

Born and raised in Brooklyn.

It was more or less
the average childhood

of a kid growing up in
a working class family.

My father drove
a truck for a living.

He worked delivering
newspapers at night.

I was intrigued with, uh, the--

A kind of mystic aura
that existed

about being a therapist.

At the time, uh,
psychoanalysis was

the predominant field
in psychotherapy.

We studied Freud Talmudicly,

going from paper to paper,

arguing about
word after word, and...

I concluded
after doing all of that,

that this was
a bunch of horseshit.

We chose the person
to demonstrate against

based upon deadlines
of newspapers.

So, you have to be
very smart about this.

No one knows that
the demonstration went on

if it doesn't
get into the media.

We were very good about that.

I think it was in
the October of '72 or so...

...at the Hilton.

And Chuck had attended
a meeting of the Association

for Advancement
of Behavior Therapy.

I had suggested to the Gay
Activist Alliance in New York,

a radical gay organization,

that we "zap" --

That was the term we'd use
for a demonstration.

That we zap the convention,

because psychologists

and psychiatrists
were making presentations

about their use of aversion
therapy to cure gay men.

We thought that
a rather heinous thing to do.

I looked at it
as sadomasochistic behavior.

The-- The results always showed
that there were no cures.

But that didn't stop people from

publishing more papers about it.

There were a number
of presentations that day.

There was a fellow
by the name of Dr. Quinn

who had just come from Ireland.

And I introduced myself

as both a psychologist
and a gay liberationist.

And I said, "Look,

there are bunch of us
in the audience,

and we're here to
demonstrate against you.

And we hope that you will
not interfere with our doing it

because it's going to happen.

So, don't make a fuss.

There's not gonna be
any violence.

We're just going to talk."

I said,
"Well, you have ten minutes

and at the end of the
ten minutes we're going to..."

I put it in that way because

I have found that when
you put it in that context

and you don't threaten violence,

the professionals fold
up instantly,

and he did. He said, "Okay."

And so he talked
and at ten minutes,

uh, one of our officers,
Ron Gold, got up and--

And said,
"Now we're taking over."

While
Silverstein's demonstrations

remained peaceful,

the growing tension would
soon reach a tipping point.

In Los Angeles
on New Year's Day, 1967,

police officers beat
and arrested

14 patrons over same sex kissing

at a bar called The Black Cat.

On June 28th, 1969,

police raided the Stonewall Inn,

a gay club
located in New York City.

Resistance to the police
brutality erupted into

a full blown riot,

led in large part by members

of the trans community.

For the next six days,

thousands of protesters
gathered in solidarity

to fight for their rights.

The Stonewall uprising
brought national attention

to the gay liberation movement.

Around the same time,
activist Frank Kameny,

who had been fired from
the U.S. Army Map Service

for his sexual orientation,

coined the slogan,
"Gay is good,"

shining a light on workplace

and housing discrimination
across the country.

But still, gay men
continued to volunteer

for therapy in large numbers,

thankful for the opportunity

to be made what society
deemed... normal.

During the early '70s,
it was absolutely mainstream

to help gays change.

Absolutely mainstream.

And Chuck came to a workshop
that I was giving one morning

on what I regarded as new ways

and more humane ways
to help gays change.

I remember he sat down front,

I-- to my left. I remember--
I can visualize it.

A very pleasant fellow,
smiled a lot, very polite.

At the time, I was, um,

graduate student in psychology
at Rutgers University.

I was also a member of AABT.

I had had helped to organize
this demonstration,

but I also wanted
to meet Jerry Davison,

because Jerry
had been doing some work.

He had his Playboy Therapy

in trying to cure someone of,
uh, sadomasochistic fantasies.

I think if Jerry wanted
to write-- write that up today,

he would write it up
differently than-- than he did.

He says, "Who the hell cares?"

I was one of the good guys.

I was the non-aversion
sexual reorientation

behavior therapist.

It was a different approach.

It was not punishing people.

Uh, which is what
the aversion therapists did.

And I thought that
he understood that punishment

was not... a good way of
helping people with anything.

In that sense, he-- he was--
He had broken from the pack.

And so, this was someone
I could talk to.

And I did. And he listened.

And we started talking.

We haven't stopped talking.

Jerry made his presentation
to a group of people.

And afterwards,
I went up to him.

Uh, to meet him and...

want to engage him
in some schmoozing.

And as I walked up,
he immediately said to me,

"I know who you are."

He had some fliers.

And the fliers advertised

a symposium that he was
gonna chair on Sunday,

the last day of the convention.

And he said, "Would you mind
if I handed this out to

the workshop participants?

They might be interested
in this symposium,

and maybe
you take one for yourself.

Maybe you'd like to come."
And I looked at the flier.

My reaction was, "Oh,

it's gonna be one
of these radical gays

that give us trouble.
They're gonna zap us."

Literally, people standing up

and yelling at you
while you're talking.

Swearing at you.

Calling you a Nazi, a fascist,

a terrible person.

Happened to me a fair amount.

That's what zapping was.

And it was very much in the air.

Remember,
this was the early '70s,

people taking political action,

but they were doing
it very much so

in professional settings.

So, when Chuck
showed me this brochure,

I said, "Of course
you can hand it out."

Frankly, I didn't think
I had much choice.

I thought he was
gonna do it anyway.

But he was such a polite,
pleasant guy,

I figured, "Oh, what the hell?"

And I stuffed one in my pocket.

And on Sunday
I had packed up my stuff

and was on my way
to leave the hotel--

It was the--
The New York Hilton,

to go down to Penn Station,

catch the Long Island Railroad,

back out to Stony Brook and
Port Jefferson, where I live.

Knowing a lot of people
in the association,

I kept running into
old friends and chatting,

and before I knew it,

I looked at my watch and I said,

"I'll never make
it to Penn Station.

I think I'll just
hang around the hotel."

And this, I think,
a very fateful event.

I'm not a believer
in fate too much, but...

I reached into my pocket
and I found this brochure.

"Oh, Silverstein
gave me this brochure.

I'll go to his symposium."

Which I did.

And what it was, it was
a large lecture hall ballroom.

There were probably
a few hundred people there.

And it was very ruckus,
a big ruckus.

And there was Chuck,
who was chairing the symposium.

And he was being zapped

by his brothers and sisters
in the movement, if you will.

And I thought,
"Wow, if they're zapping him,

God knows what
they'd do to me."

And what he was saying was
that these behavior therapists,

they need to stop
what they're doing.

Uh, they need to modify
what they're doing

because what they're doing
is really not good.

To suggest that a person

comes voluntarily to change
his sexual orientation

is to ignore the powerful
environmental stress--

Oppression, if you will,

that has been
telling him for years

that he should change.

To grow up in the family

where the word "homosexual"
was whispered,

to play in the playgrounds

and hear the words
"faggot" and "queer,"

to go to church and hear of sin

and then to college
and hear of illness.

And finally,
to the counseling center

that promises to cure

is hardly to create
an environment of freedom

and voluntary choice.

What brings them into
the counseling center

is guilt, shame

and the loneliness
that comes from their secret.

If you really wish
to help them freely choose,

I suggest you first

desensitize them to their guilt.

After that, let them choose.

But not before.

I don't know any more than you
what would happen,

but I think their choice
would be more voluntary

and free than it is at present.

Yes, those are my words.

Can you tell me
what your feelings are

about homosexuality?

They-- They should be shot,
if you ask me.

When you're up in the front
trying to do your job

and you find you get
a fruit beside you,

it's not the greatest.

Do you know
any people who are homosexual?

No, thank heavens.

Gay people were taught
that they were horrible,

that they were shameful.

That they belonged in jail.

And when you teach people that,

they want to change and they...

go to the psychoanalyst
to be changed.

And the psychoanalysts
were making money off...

people feeling shame
about their sexual behavior.

I was stunned.

I literally do not remember
the rest of the symposium.

I left soon after that
to get down to Penn Station.

I remember getting on the train

and I remember sitting,
looking out the window

and just thinking.

To grow up in a family where

the word "homosexual"
is whispered.

To play in the playgrounds
and hear the words

"faggot" and "queer"...

If there's such a thing
an-- an-- an intellectual,

emotional em-- epiphany,

that's what I had.

The following day,
I went to school.

And I just sought people out.

I had to tell people about this.

Most of them were very upset
by my change of heart.

"How can you say you're wrong?"

"You've made
important contributions."

"You've helped so many people."
I said, "I don't think so."

And I found, in general,
the graduate students

were much more open

to, we shouldn't
try to change them,

than my faculty friends.

So, I began teaching on this
and I began to develop

an argument that I believe

moved a little bit further,
even, than Chuck's.

But when he talked about,

"We should desensitize
gay people to their guilt

that's been inf--
Inflicted on them,

and then they'll
be more free to choose,"

I took the position that,

"No, their negative reactions

are function
of the-- of society,

and I will not help them change.

I will not desensitize them
to their guilt."

But that's separate from
whether I should be doing it.

And I could hearken back

to my readings earlier

of the Ki--
The two Kinsey Reports.

Kinsey was very liberal
in his view

of the development
of human sexuality.

And he saw that conditioning
had a lot to do with it.

He took a non-judgmental view
of human sexuality,

uh, and this was
in the '40s and '50s.

So, I began to think more
and more about

"No, because
of the social context,

that's where our efforts
should be directed.

Now, how can
I best help my colleagues,

starting with them first,

begin to think about the social

and psychological implications
are of what they're doing?"

Well, the way to do it

is to cut off
that avenue of intervention.

We're not gonna do that anymore.

And that's what
caught people's attention.

Freudians
were not allowed to, uh...

consider contributions
from other areas of science

and even history.

And they remained
narrow-minded about all issues.

Here in the United States,

we got what was called

the phobic theory
of homosexuality.

That was-- It would be
in the '30s, the 1930s.

Uh, an analyst by the name
of Rado at Columbia.

And he had some students--
Of the most famous students,

Socarides, Hatterer and Bieber.

They continued this theory
of homosexuality being

a reaction to the-- what was
called the vagina dentata,

a man who's gay
is gay because...

he's afraid of the teeth
in the vagina of a woman.

Gobbled him up. Now, of course,

every gay man sas, "Why do
I always want a blowjob?"

I-- It didn't make any sense.

But the point is, it was
theory that drove all practice,

instead of learning
about the behavior

of people like gay men.

They knew nothing about
the behavior of gay men.

It came to the point when
whenever some radio program,

or television program,
would, um...

have one of these debates about
whether homosexuality is...

normal or abnormal

the only psychiatrist
they could get

to argue
that the homosexuals were sick

was Socarides.
He was the only one left

because he was sort
of a bull in a china shop.

Doctor,
according to this book,

the American Psychiatric
Association Manual

of Mental Disorder,

homosexuality is a-- a mental illness,

a mental disorder.
Is that justified?

Yes, I-- I think so.
You notice in that--

In the manual, um,
we talk about, uh, disorders,

and disorders are much more
than, uh, strict illnesses,

but they're illnesses just
as much because they involve

a failure of functioning.

I've had many debates
with that asshole.

Charles Socarides was
a well-known

psychiatrist, psychoanalyst,

who took the usual Freudian

view that by definition,

homosexuality is sick

and they have to be changed.

Homosexuality is,
in fact, a mental illness

which has reached
epidemiological proportions.

Homosexuality, it
militates against the family,

and it produces individuals
who care very little

about their role
in a particular family.

A man is either--
First is a male or female

or-- or he's an intersex.

And most-- We're ta-- not
talking about intersexes.

A man must be a man
and a woman must be a woman.

One of the things he didn't say

that-- that he-- he usually
does say is homosexuals are so

damaged that they
cannot get into

long-lasting love relationships.

Most homosexuals
must seek and strive

and look for numerous partners

in order to try
and find themselves

or replicas of themselves.

I was on the program
where he repeated that.

And I said,
"Well, tell me, Dr. Socarides,

how many wives have you had?"

I knew the answer.

And he said, "That is personal

and I don't discuss that here."

And I said,
"You've had three wives

and I've only had one lover.

How do you explain that?"

And wouldn't touch it.

Wouldn't touch it.
- The homosexual

that is,
an exclusive homosexual--

And there are various types
of homosexual:

the homosexual behavior,

which is not true homosexuality,

is a person who,
out of inner necessity,

must engage
in homosexual relations,

other-- otherwise,
he experiences a great deal

of anxiety. He's a product,
really, of a process of very,

very bad child-rearing
practices, which have--

Which have caused
certain difficulties

in his own sense of identity.

Certain types of anxieties

and certain other inner
conflicts which make him,

on many occasions,

have an equilibrium
which is quite unstable.

Socarides was only one example

of a psychiatrist
pushing a false narrative

void of any reputable
scientific proof.

Other damning publications
arose from authors

such as Edmund Bergler,
Lawrence Hatterer

and Irving Bieber,

who believed that homosexuality

was undoubtedly tied
to a mother's

overbearing relationship
with her son.

In response to these
theorists, Evelyn Hooker,

a scientist and psychologist,

sought to prove
that there was, in fact,

no pathological difference

between homosexuals
and heterosexuals

by using the Rorschach test,

among other psychological exams.

She enrolled
60 anonymous individuals,

30 straight men and 30 gay men

who were similar in age and IQ.

After removing herself
from the study,

she employed several
of the best Rorschach readers

to blindly calculate
the results.

Not only were
the findings between

the two groups
extremely similar,

the judges were unable
to distinguish the gay men

from the straight men.

Hooker concluded
that homosexuality

as a clinical entity
simply does not exist,

as its forms are
as varied just as much

as those of heterosexuality.

Although Hooker's
findings were crucial,

the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual

still listed homosexuality
as a mental disorder

for years to come.

The Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual

allowed mental health professionals

to diagnose gay people as sick.

It was listed as a perversion,
sexual deviation, paraphilia.

You didn't want to be viewed
as having--

Having a paraphilia.

It's not a normal thing to have.

There was the whole idea that--
That-- that lust created,

um, a deterioration
of the brain.

There was an interaction,
they said.

And certainly, uh, if you're
going to, uh, be lustful

or have intercourse,

it should only be for
the purpose of reproduction.

Having sexual intercourse
with your wife,

uh, was a-- acceptable
once a month.

That-- That wouldn't
be dangerous.

But if you did it a lot...

um, you would--
You would get crazy.

You'd end up in an institution.

And certainly,
something like homosexuality,

where you waste your seed--

And these were called
vital fluids

that, you know, you masturbate
and you ejaculate--

Then your vital fluids
would be spent.

And that would...

cause the brain to deteriorate.

So, it had a medical
contribution as well.

And a lot more that
I would bore you to death

if I talked to you about.

Masturbation, per se,

it was listed as a disorder,
I think, until 1942.

If you let these guys
have their way,

sex would be a mental disorder.

Sex has a bad reputation.

The practitioners
of, um, psychotherapy

are ill-trained, uh, about sex.

They don't know
anything about it.

They go through
doctoral programs.

They don't take
a course, one course,

not one in human sexuality.

So, they get their PHDs

and come out with no more
knowledge than their own

limited experiences.

What would be the effect

of changing the nomenclature

and simply saying
that homosexuality

is another form
of normal behavior?

In the first place,

if you do "normalize it,"
in quotes,

you will produce a situation
in which men and women

will fly away from each other
even more than now.

And we know that's
already a difficult problem.

The one hurt the most.

So, when the psychiatrists

were going to eliminate homosexuality,

they were
hurting the pocketbooks

of the analysts
who were out to...

keep gay people in therapy
because it enriched them.

And when
we in gay liberation fought

to eliminate homosexuality
as a mental disorder,

we had in mind the pocketbooks
of all these people

making money off others
feeling shameful

and horrible about their lives.

Now, Chuck,
we became good friends

in the, uh, early '70s,

and as I was developing

what would be my presidential
address for AABT,

we had dinner out
at Port Jefferson,

and I told him what
I was thinking of saying,

based very heavily
on what he had said

a couple years earlier.

And he said, "That's terrific."

He liked it.
But then he cautioned me...

- as a friend.
- I said, "Jerry...

it's a great idea

and I'd be very proud
for you to say those things

because they're true.

But you're going to pay a price.

You're going to
find colleagues who say,

'Hmm, I wonder why
he's on their side.

Maybe he's
a closeted one of them.'

And people are going to...
whisper to each other."

So, I said, "Well, number one,
I don't happen to be gay,

but it wouldn't bother me
if people thought I was."

I said, "You'll lose friends,

so be prepared
to pay the price."

"I'll take my chances.

I think I can develop
a good enough

logical argument

that will be steeped
in philosophy

and sociology and politics.

People will see me
not as a kook,

but as someone who's thought
carefully about this."

So, he-- he listened to me
and he said, "I don't care.

This is the right thing to do."

I continued to develop
my presidential address,

which I ended up giving
in November of 1974.

He knew more than

that it was
the right thing to do.

He had the balls to do it.

There were
lots of people in AABT

who knew it was
the right thing to do.

But they wouldn't do it.

I wish
today to voice some concerns

I have been wrestling with
for some years

concerning the way
behavior therapists,

and for that matter,
all other therapists,

have been approaching
homosexuality.

As Silverstein put it

at the AABT Convention
two years ago,

in a discussion
of male homosexuality,

and let me quote,

"To suggest that
a person comes voluntarily

to change his sexual orientation

is to ignore the powerful
environmental stress,

oppression, if you will,

that has been
telling him for years

that he should change."

I was...

in a way, felt embarrassed
that he used my--

My words, and also prideful
at the same time.

I remember writing those words
sitting at my desk,

in my old typewriter--
Clunky typewriter,

my lover, William,
just a few feet away from me.

And I remember
thinking to myself,

"This is a good paragraph."

Uh, that it had the emotional
appeal I wanted it to.

And to hear Jerry, um...

say those words out loud, I...

was em-- embarrassed because...

they were so good.

And he read it so well.

And he showed
that respect in me...

to speak them in f-- in front
of the whole convention.

Continuing the quote

from Silverstein,
"What brings them

into the counseling center
is guilt,

shame and the loneliness
that comes from their secret."

In other words, Silverstein
suggests that we must go back

into the causal network

and ask ourselves,
as determinants,

what are the determinants
the client asserting to you

that he or she wants to change?

When I got to the point, said,

"So, therefore
we should stop offering

change orientation,
even people request it,"

my recollection is that
the room got really quiet.

The room was about
a thousand people.

Even if we could

effect certain changes,

there is still
the more important question

of whether we should.

I believe we should not.

You have to understand,
I was very nervous at the time.

I tape-recorded
the speech mostly

because I wanted to be able
to hear it afterwards

and hear what I said,
even though I had--

Did have a script.

When the speech got over
and people applauded--

I don't know how enthusiastic,

but they were polite--

A number of people
came down to the front.

And-- both men and women.

And what I remember is,

uh, them tearfully saying
something to the effect,

"I don't believe
what I just heard.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I hope this makes a difference.
Thank you, thank you."

When I left the room,

there was a reception area
outside of a-- the ballroom.

And I remember walking into
the reception area,

people drinking
and having canapés or whatever.

And what I remember was
that I kind of--

As I walked in,
people backed away.

Sort of like Moses
parting the Red Sea.

That's a little grandiose,

but people backed away and
they-- they seemed embarrassed.

And then one--
One-- one person came over.

One of my colleagues,
who I won't name,

he came over
and he kissed me on the cheek.

And I knew exactly
what he was doing.

And I basically uttered
a profanity to him.

And, um-- And I remember
that pretty vividly.

And, uh, then people talked

and I don't remember exactly
what happened after that.

I was naturally
emotionally drained

because I had been
working up to this

for the better part of a year.

And my vindication
for this, of course,

is that 45 years later,

a number of states
have passed laws

against doing
conversion therapy.

On March 2nd, 2020,

Virginia became
the 20th state in America

to ban conversion therapy
for minors.

The majority of
the country, however,

still allows for children
to receive the therapy,

mainly in the form
of religious counseling

and Christian sleepaway camps

intended to save children
from their same sex desires.

Although Title VII
had prohibited discrimination

based on race, color, religion,

sex or national origin
since 1964,

it did not prohibit
discrimination

based on gender or sexuality

until June 15th, 2020.

The aftermath
of Jerry's speech in 1974

prompted support and backlash,

both of which contributed
to the positive change

that would follow.

My efforts to publish my speech
were really interesting.

I made some revisions

and I sent it into
the American Psychologist,

which is one of the publications

that every member of APA gets.

I got a letter back
from the editor saying,

"I'm-- I'm not sending
this out for review.

I'm rejecting it
because it's not of enough

general interest
to the membership."

And my reaction was,

"Of not general enough
interest? I don't think so."

But I didn't appeal it.
I didn't make a fuss.

I sent it to
the leading clinical journal

that was edited
by a man named Brendan Moore,

and he said, "Jerry, uh...

I'm-- I'm not gonna send it
out for review."

And I thought to myself,
"Oh, not again."

He said, "Because
I think it's so important

that I'm gonna accept it."

And I th--
I was just very happy.

Then he said, "But I'd like
to invite three critiques.

Would you be okay with that?"

And of course, my reaction was,

"Okay, I'd love that."

'Cause there's nothing better

than having your paper critiqued

because it's a signal
that it's-- it's important.

One of the people
who critiqued it was--

In my recollection,
I believe it was Socarides.

And it's predictably
very damning,

and I think
even calling it dangerous,

what I was saying. I mean,
it was extremely negative.

And I wasn't surprised by it.

Brendan Moore
got another manuscript

from a couple
of colleagues of mine

at University of Georgia
who critiqued the paper,

and the basis
of their critique was,

"There are ways
to change orientation,

and would you write
a critique of their critique?"

And I said, "Sure."

The title of the article was,

"Not Can, But Ought."

"It is one thing to say

that one should not
treat homosexuality.

It is quite another thing
to suggest

that one should
not treat homosexuals."

My colleagues were arguing,

you really can do it
if you just try harder.

And I was saying,
"No, that's beside the point.

There are a lot of things we
can do that we shouldn't do."

Even that general halfway
measure of, "You're not sick,"

that is not widely accepted.

We like to think that it is.

But I don't believe
in most parts of the country

that it is widely accepted.

It's accepted on the Northeast
and on the West Coast.

The people in the city are

a little more accepting to

the gay life in San Francisco.

There's not
as much, um, police patrol.

They don't pick people up
on the street.

They don't raid the bars
as frequently in San Francisco

as they do in other areas
of the United States.

Things for gay people
in places like L.A., New York,

Chicago, Miami--

Things are pretty good.

The fact of the matter is, uh,

homosexuality
is, uh, still dangerous

in many places
of the United States.

One of the effects,
I believe, that...

this getting away from
sexual orientation treatment

when you're consulted by

an openly gay person,

is that there are
a whole host of other problems

that you can work on.

It's not as if being gay

means you're paragon
of mental health any way--

Any more than being straight.

You have people
who have problems.

And when the salient
characteristic is

people who happen to be gay
have these problems

or people have these problems,

footnote, "They may be gay
or may not be gay,"

becomes less of an issue.

And why did the psychiatrists

eliminate homosexuality?

Most of them had nothing
against gay people.

Professional associations
are basically political groups.

And they change according to

the waves of politics
that go on.

And they change the same way
our society changes.

And that's because
something about the old way

no longer works.

And they came to the conclusion

that damning homosexuality
no longer works.

We had-- at that point,
had a women's movement.

We had a Black movement.

And only lastly did we have
the gay movement.

And they had to go along with
the politics of the time.

And that's why
they eliminated homosexuality.

I believe that,
for the most part,

this, if you will, battle,

that gays have been waging

and we've made
a great deal of progress--

I believe
we're way far from the goal.

This is ingrained in
all orthodox religions.

All of them.

Scientific communities
were accepting homosexuality

and they were saying that
it's not a disorder anymore.

Christians have
to fight the battle.

Christians have to fight
this battle of homosexual sin

because the professional
counseling community

won't do it anymore.

I remember when I was on
a book tour many years ago,

for a book of mine,

and happened
to be there on a Sunday.

And all the television programs
were church services.

All of them--
for the whole day.

Homosexuality is one of those
that could be coupled

with, uh, murder and other sins,

but it would be
the government who would be

executing the homosexual.

The-- These are, I think,

live issues still
for our society.

And I always caution people
about that.

We are saying,
"Okay, we are gay and..."

We're-- we're telling everyone
about it.

We're making ourselves known,

we're "coming out
of the closet," quote-unquote,

and, uh, we're not
hiding anymore.

It's a very complex thing
and a very powerful thing,

just being honest and--
And open around your friends.

I want to be accepted
as a human being.

I want-- say, if I want

to walk down the street
with my arm around my lover,

I do it, still feeling that
maybe people are looking at me

and thinking,
"Oh, look at that queer."

Today, gay people
in big centers are out,

they're open, uh,
their families know.

But in those days,

if you were exposed
as a homosexual,

all sorts of things
could happen.

Some who were caught
committed suicide.

I have a friend who,
at the age of 16,

uh, he came out to his parents

and his father
threw him out of the house

right then and there with only
the clothes on his back.

That story was repeated
a number of times--

- by a number of, uh, gay men
and lesbians.

What is a homosexual?

Is he or she a person
who has simply chosen

an alternate sexual life,

or a sick-- a mentally sick
person who, like any other,

should be treated
by whatever resources

the psychiatric profession has?

That question,
that debate, has generated

a small civil war in
the psychiatric establishment.

60 Minutes did a program
on nomenclature change

and wanted to interview me.

Now, we're talking...

December, January of '73, '74.

And they were coming over

the same day that my mother
was coming up from Florida.

She arrived. And being
the Jewish mother she was,

she insisted
on doing my laundry,

which, of course,
I didn't want her to do

because I had something
to talk to her about.

Finally, when she did my laundry

and she came back
and settled down,

I told her that 6-- uh,
60 Minutes crew was coming

over and she asked why,

and I told her it's about
doing this program

on homosexuality.
And she said,

"Well, why are they gonna
interview you?"

She still didn't have a clue.

And I said, "Because I'm gay,
I'm a homosexual."

And she got all upset.

And then the door opens

and the camera crew
arrived early,

and they brought in cameras,
which are bigger--

In those days they were bigger
than cameras we have now--

And giant cables
and lights and all,

while she's sitting there.
And she went bonkers.

And she said,
"Well, if-- if that's the case,

I'm going-- I'm leaving here

and going to visit
your brother instead."

Uh, much to the chagrin
of my brother.

Uh, and that's how
I came out to my mother.

Charles
Silverstein led the fight

to remove homosexuality
from the Diagnostic Manual.

He appeared before
the association's

nomenclature committee

to argue that, inherently,

homosexuals are no more
disturbed than heterosexuals.

We spoke with Silverstein
and with Ronald Gold,

the spokesman for the Gay
Activist Alliance of New York.

If you want to call me
a deviant, you can.

If you want to say
I'm immoral, you can.

But there's a very important
difference

between saying I'm immoral
and saying I'm sick.

We both had
some choice things to say about

some figures and about
psychoanalysis, I think that--

I think, by and large, has been
a very destructive force

in a lot of ways, uh,
in our field,

but particularly with regard
to, uh, issues of sexuality.

Not-- Not just homosexuality,

but all-- issues
of all sorts of sexuality.

I had argued
of-- some years ago that...

eliminating homosexuality
as a mental disorder

should bring down
the whole house of cards

of using societal morality

as the basis of diagnosis.

And I said that, um, the para--

All of the paraphilias
should also be eliminated.

The paraphilias are kinky sex.

And in the last, uh,
edition of DSM,

what they did,
they-- they said that-- that...

if you have a paraphilia,
you're into feet,

let's say,
or leather or, you know,

you do-- want to do strange
things with another person,

it could only be diagnosed
if you were unhappy about it.

But if you were
pleased about it,

it couldn't be diagnosed.

While that's a stupid solution,

it does represent
an advance because...

professional organizations move
at a snail's pace, you see.

And so, I would expect that,

uh, a later addition
will be eliminated completely.

Since 1979,

Jerry has been
a professor of psychology

at the University
of Southern California.

Through his research, teaching
and scholarly publications,

he has continued to argue
against conversion therapies.

His arguments have emphasized

the often unexamined
values and biases

that therapists
inevitably impose

on all of their patients,

not just those
who happen to be gay.

To use the phrase of one
of his mentors, Perry London,

"Therapists, whether
they like it or not,

are society's secular priests.

They play a significant role

in guiding patients
to a life worth living."

As for Charles, he founded
two LGBTQ counseling centers,

The Journal of Homosexuality,

and published eight books
about LGBTQ people

and the treatment of their
problems without prejudice.

He now gives workshops
on human sexuality

for the New York State
Psychological Association

and has a small private
practice in New York City.

He is a frequent commentator

on the medical
and psychological bias

against people
who practice kinky sex,

but is most well-known

for his contribution
of eliminating homosexuality

as a mental disorder.

"To suggest that a person

comes voluntarily to change
his sexual orientation

is to ignore the powerful
environmental stress--

Oppression, if you will--

That has been telling him
for years

that he should change."

"Even if we could
effect certain changes,

there is still
the more important question

of whether we should.

I believe we should not."