Is Homosexuality A Disorder?

(Note: While in this section we make the case that homosexuality should never have been removed from the officially approved list of psychological disorders, we need to stress that we are NOT saying homosexuals should necessarily be in therapy. We are all born imperfect. We all have our little imperfections. We are basically sophisticated animals. We share about 98% of our genes with monkeys, orangutans, gorillas, etc. We probably have genes which predispose us to violence, stealing, promiscuity, bullying, etc. These behaviors occur naturally in the animal kingdom. So, in a way, we are all born "disordered." But that does NOT mean we all need therapy. Most of us function just fine, imperfections and all. Yes, we maintain homosexuals have an imperfection heterosexuals don't have. But it's a relatively minor one that shouldn't need therapy. If, however, homosexuals let their orientations depress them, for example, then therapy is advisable.

(Now, we need to control our animalistic natures and say NO to any immoral desires we have, natural or not, genetically based or not. If homosexual genes exist, if homosexual desire naturally exists, we should just say no to homosexuality. It may not be easy for some, but it should be done nonetheless.)

For decades the American Psychiatric Association considered homosexuality a disorder (until it was taken over by pro-homosexual ideologues who are now letting sexual politics trump science and logic). Just like a female mind in a male body is a sure sign that something went wrong somewhere (in nature and/or nurture), so a homosexual mind in a heterosexual body is likewise a disorder. Elementary logic leads us to the conclusion that in both cases, the mind is in conflict or disharmony with the body. And just like we view transsexuality as a problem-it-is-okay-to-try-to-fix (sex reassignment surgery is one controversial but legal treatment), so we should view homosexuality as a problem-or-disorder-it-is-okay-to-try-to-fix.

To treat a disorder as if it's not a disorder is flat-out malpractice. For example, if you went to a doctor because you weren't feeling well, and the doctor did some tests, found you had heart disease, AND DIDN'T TELL YOU, rational people would say the doctor was malpracticing. That, basically, is what the APA is doing regarding homosexuality. It is not telling homosexuals they have a disorder.

To help illustrate how illogical the APA's reversal of its position on homosexuality was and is, all you have to do is consider how the APA violated or ignored one of its own criteria when it did so. One of its criteria for determining whether a condition is a disorder is whether the condition results in a significant impairment of social functioning. The fact that homosexuals do not have the desire to engage in perfectly natural phallic/vaginal, procreative sex; the fact that homosexuals have no desire to engage in that sex which animal species require for their very survival and existence---the fact that homosexuals are essentially impotent with the opposite gender---is clearly a significant impairment of social functioning and persuasive evidence of a disorder (which disorder, like so many other disorders, may have a genetic component). The APA has little credibility nowadays. It's been compromised.

Homosexual activity is so physiologically unnatural and disordered that homosexuals actually have to rely on heterosexuals (or artificial means) to create more homosexuals, since true homosexuals by definition do not engage in reproductive sex.

A book written by Dr. Ronald Bayer, a pro-homosexual psychiatrist, titled Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis, explains how the decision to remove homosexuality from the officially approved list of psychological disorders was based on power politics and intimidation by homosexual groups, NOT science. In the book Bayer wrote about "confrontations organized by gay demonstrators at psychiatric conventions"1 and said that that decision "was not a conclusion based on an approximation of the scientific truth as dictated by reason."2

And there is evidence that the APA has been corrupted, not only by sexual politics, but by money. From "Who's Behind the Bible of Mental Illness" by Kent Garber, which was in the Dec. 31, 2007/Jan. 7, 2008 issue of U.S. News & World Report (page 25): The "American Psychiatric Association will spend the next five years producing a new edition of...The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders....[It] is hugely influential because it determines what is and is not a mental disorder....The most recent edition of the DSM, published in 1994, drew controversy because it turned what had once been a thin guidebook into an 886-page tome that significantly expanded the definition of mental illness. Traits once associated with shyness, for example, became symptoms of 'social anxiety disorder.' And drug companies went on to spend millions promoting medicines for those problems. Eyebrows were further raised in 2006 when a study showed that more than half of the researchers who worked on the manual had at least one financial tie to the drug industry."

And regarding that new edition of the DSM, the fifth, which was released in May 2013: it's so flawed that it "has been slammed by prominent psychiatrists---including Dr. Allen Frances, head of the task force that wrote the fourth edition, who warned doctors to use it 'cautiously, if at all'" (Alice Park, "Head Case," Time, June 3, 2013, p. 16).

One of the biggest knocks of the latest DSM is that it labels things as disorders that are in fact NOT disorders. For example, according to Dr. Allen Frances: "We are turning childhood into a disease....Perfectly appropriate developmental immaturity is being mislabeled as a mental disorder and treated with unnecessary, expensive, and potentially harmful pills....[T]he field [of psychiatry] has lost its rationality" (from an article in Psychology Today titled "No Child Left Undiagnosed," Sept./Oct. 2014, p. 50).

We shouldn't rely on the seriously compromised APA to tell us what is and is not a disorder. (And any psychiatrists who financially support the APA should have their heads examined.)

There also is evidence provided by homosexuals themselves that many of them are heterophobic. For examples, from homosexual author Dennis Altman: "Undoubtedly for many homosexuals there is something threatening in the idea of intimacy with the other sex."3 And one well-known homosexual, David Geffen, has admitted that he "was afraid of the opposite sex," according to biographer Tom King, a fellow homosexual.4 This provides even more grounds to take the position that homosexuality is a disorder.

To close this section, from a report in early 2019: "The American Psychological Association (APA) is now implicated in a Title IX complaint after the organization released [sexually or 'genderly' biased] guidelines alleging that 'traditional masculinity' is 'psychologically harmful' to young men and boys." According to the APA guidelines, "socialization for conforming to traditional masculinity ideology has been shown to...negatively influence mental health."

Footnotes

1. Dr. Ronald Bayer, Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), p. 3.

2. Ibid., pp. 3-4.

3. Dennis Altman, The Homosexualization of America, the Americanization of the Homosexual (NY: St. Martin's Press, 1982), p. 222.

4. Tom King, "I am in love with Cher," Chicago Sun-Times, March 15, 2000, p. 50.