Late 12th Centrury – public denouncement and hostility toward homosexuality began
17th Century Colonial America – homosexuality was illegal and punishable by death
1897 – Dr. Havelock Ellis (British physician) published
Sexual Inversion, an article demonstrating that same-sex desires are a natural expression of sexual instinct and is a common biological manifestation in humans and animals alike
1899 – German psychiatrist, Albert von Schrenck-Notzing claims to have used hypnosis and “a few trips to a brothel” to convert a gay man straight, starting the idea of “conversion therapy”
1935 – Sigmund Freud writes famous
letter to an American mother seeking support stating that “it is a great injustice to persecute homosexuality as a crime”
1948 and 1953 – Alfred Kinsey, zoologist, publishes
studies,
Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and
Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, proving that homosexuality is far more complex and common than previously assumed
1952 – DSM-I listed homosexuality as a “sociopathic personality disturbance”
1960s-70s – Dr. Samuel B. Hadden begins publishing his conversion therapy “
research“
1968 – DSM-II continues to list it as a disorder
1974 – DSM-II no longer lists homosexuality as a “disorder” but as a “sexual orientation disturbance”
1980 – DSM-III lists “ego-dystonic homosexuality” replacing “sexual orientation disturbance” and introduces gender identity disorder
1987 – DSM-III-R lists “sexual disorder not otherwise specified” (which includes “persistent and marked distress about one’s sexual orientation,” replacing “ego-dystonic homosexuality”
2013 – DSM-V lists gender dysphoria, a separate non-mental disorder diagnosis