Some of us really are crazy, it’s true—Cookie too, on a bad day—but it wasn’t so long ago that being gay was considered an actual mental illness, like, in the textbooks, including the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association (AMA).
It wasn’t until after a 1973 speech to the AMA by pioneering gay activist and clinical psychologist Dr. Charles Silverstein—may he rest in peace—that the association declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder.
Oh, and talk about a hero, he co-authored the much enjoyed/banned/reprinted/burned The Joy of Gay Sex with Edmund White.
Dr. Silverstein died on January 30 at the age of 87. Read his obituary in the Washington Post and, for more, check out this piece by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
Who is this Cookie that the posts on this site have been referencing lately? I don’t get it.