Brody's Scribbles... Gay Liberation Front: Manifesto. Have We Made Progress Since 1971? (Part 10)

By Tim Trent (Dartmouth, England) MAR 14 | This is a big deal. Today's article looks at the topic in the Gay Liberation Front 1971 Manifesto headed Psychiatry. Nowhere have homosexual, bisexual, lesbian and trans men and women been more put upon, more degraded and more abused than by people doing things to us 'for our own good'. I'm probably going to fail to use restraint in this article. The irony is that restraints were used against us and within vivid living memory.

I need to declare an interest. Psychiatry, the threat of it, was the thing that kept me in the closet when I most needed love and support. I cannot guarantee a neutral tone in this article. I am emotionally deeply involved. I may decide not even to try to maintain a neutral tone or stance.

On to the text:

PSYCHIATRY

One way of oppressing people and preventing them getting too angry about it, is to convince them, and everyone else, that they are sick. There has hence arisen a body of psychiatric 'theory' and 'therapy' to deal with the 'problems' and 'treatment' of homosexuality.

Bearing in mind what we have so far described, it is quite understandable that gay people get depressed and paranoid; but it is also, of course, part of the scheme that gay people should retreat to psychiatrists in times of troubles.

Operating as they do on the basis of social convention and prejudice, NOT scientific truth, mainstream psychiatrists accept society's prevailing view that the male and female sex roles are 'good' and 'normal', and try to adjust people to them. If that fails, patients are told to 'accept themselves' as 'deviant'. For the psychiatrist to state that homosexuality was perfectly valid and satisfying, and that the hang-up was society's inability to accept that fact, would result in the loss of a large proportion of his patients.

Psychiatric 'treatment' can take the form either of mindbending 'psychotherapy', or of aversion therapy which operates on the crude conditioning theory that if you hit a person hard enough, he'll do what you want. Another form of 'therapy' is chemically induced castration, and there is a further form of 'treatment' which consists in erasing part of the brain, with the intent (usually successful) of making the subject an asexual vegetable.

This 'therapy' is not the source of the psychiatrist's power, however. Their social power stems from the facile and dangerous arguments by which they contrive to justify the prejudice that homosexuality is bad or unfortunate, and to mount this fundamental attack upon our right to do as we think best. In this respect, there is little difference between the psychiatrist who says: 'From statistics we can show that homosexuality is connected with madness', and the one who says: 'Homosexuality is unfortunate because it is socially rejected'. The former is a dangerous idiot-he cannot see that it is society which drives gay people mad. The second is a pig because he does see this, but sides consciously with the oppressors.

That psychiatrists command such credence and such income is surprising if we remember the hysterical disagreements of theory and practice in their field, and the fact that in formulating their opinions, they rarely consult gay people. In fact, so far as is possible, they avoid talking to them at all, because they know that such confrontation would wreck their theories.

The terror of aversion therapy, of commitment to a mental institution, of being fried by well meaning men in white coats while being restrained forcibly was, for me, 'simply' a terror. It never happened. On my website, where I describe things that have changed at my old school, Epsom College, since those days, I describe what I found then in some detail. There is more than the extract below on the site:

Having defined homosexuality as a pathology, psychiatrists and other doctors made bold to "treat" it. James Harrison, a psychologist who produced the 1992 documentary film Changing Our Minds [first review], notes that the medical profession viewed homosexuality with such abhorrence that virtually any proposed treatment seemed defensible.

Lesbians were forced to submit to hysterectomies and estrogen injections, although it became clear that neither of these had any effect on their sexual orientation. Gay men were subjected to similar abuses.

Changing Our Minds [second review] incorporates a film clip from the late 1940s, now slightly muddy, of a young gay man undergoing a transorbital lobotomy. We see a small device like an ice pick inserted through the eye socket, above the eyeball and into the brain. The pick is moved back and forth, reducing the prefrontal lobe to a haemorrhaging pulp.

Harrison's documentary, directed by Richard Schmiechen, also includes a grainy black-and-white clip from a 1950s educational film produced by the U.S. Navy. A gay man lies in a hospital bed. Doctors strap him down and attach electrodes to his head. "We're going to help you get better," says a male voice in the background. When the power is turned on, the body of the gay man jerks violently, and he begins to scream.

Doctors also tried castration and various kinds of aversion therapy. None of these could be shown to change the sexual orientation of the people involved.

I found material similar to this when I researched my school library. It's hard not to picture this happening to you. I was in my early teens when I found this material. I suspect you can see why I am deeply emotionally involved in this topic. Like all sensible gay kids I hid. Others were not so lucky. Others didn't have this information.

For Alan Turing, this was an awful fact. He accepted treatment with oestrogen. He committed suicide. One cannot help but link one as the trigger of the other, true or not.

I have the privilege of having received tales from other ordinary gay men of the horrors they suffered at the hands of the medical profession.

In an earlier column I mentioned my friend Marc. He gave me this testimony. I reproduce it verbatim:

I grew up living in a suburban town about 45 minutes out of Boston. I come from a good family, and though my parents were busy with their own careers, they did manage for the most part to be there for me when I needed them. About the time I was 11 or so I began to realize I was *different* from the rest of my friends. They were starting to talk to girls and I just wasn't interested. At the time I really didn't think much about it. In the sixties, we did not learn about sexuality and its related issues in school, and such things were certainly not discussed in the home. It wasn't an issue my parents were willing to entertain.

As I progressed through Junior High and on to High School the feelings became stronger and as my friends began full fledged dating, my heart just wasn't in it. When changing for gym, I would find my self checking out the field, and I would struggle not to pop a boner. When the guys got together to compare notes about their (more than likely imaginary) sexual conquests, I never had any thing to add to the conversation. I would get kidded about it and as kids are, eventually my silence *to them at least* began to scream volumes.

After a time of sidelong glares and under-their-breath innuendo I became aware of out-and-out rumors. Things like "I've never seen HIM with a girl, he MUST be a queer," and notes pushed into my locker. That kind of stuff. Kids really can be so cruel.

At first I would just try to shrug it off, thinking to myself, what the hell do they know, its only talk. I would try and convince my self I'd start to like girls soon, or tell my self I was only shy. But I knew the truth and couldn't bring my self to just deny who I was. I felt I had to be true to my convictions, if not openly then at least to myself. I couldn't just turn my back on the feelings that made me who I was.

I had never had many friends; the only person I ever hung around regularly with was Tim from next door. We had been friends since we were little.

One day, after school some wise ass decided that if Timmy was my friend, then we just had to be *FRIENDS*, so to prove himself a big, shit for brains, macho jock, he and a couple of his idiot toadies beat Timmy up.

They hit him because he was my friend!

So now it wasn't only talk any longer! Timmy did not deserve to be hurt! What they had been saying hurt me, bad!!!!!! But now it went beyond talk!!!!!!!!

In those days there was no Internet where a person could go for answers or help. You could not even talk to the school counselors at that time. It just wasn't done; things such as this were not spoken about in polite society. I was on my own!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then the shit hit the fan, I went to my best friends house to pick him up, we were supposed to go somewhere, I don't remember where, His Mom INTERCEPTED me at the door, at which time she said that my best friend since I was five years old, of some ten years was not to be seen with me.

When I asked if I'd done something wrong the answer was, “DID SOMETHING WRONG!!!! YOU'RE A F----- QUEER AND I DON'T WANT TIM TO CATCH IT. I'M NOT GOING TO HAVE MY TIMMY BEATEN UP BECAUSE OF YOU!!!!! YOU WILL STAY AWAY FROM HIM, AND THAT'S FINAL!!!!!!!! And the door slammed shut.

To say the least I was devastated. What was I going to do? Does everybody know!?!? What am I going to do!?!?!?! Oh shit NOOO!!! WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?!?!?!?

I was feeling utterly despondent, I knew I was Gay, but other than getting an eyeful in the locker room, and a great deal of self satisfaction, (and never even having been caught at that). It was all rumors. Rumors that started at school, and now they were spreading all over town. I was feeling like I was being crushed, utterly destroyed.

To make a long story short, mostly because I don't remember it, I spent that Friday evening drinking a great deal of vodka and taking a great deal of my mom's sleeping pills.

I was rudely awakened in the hospital, to find out it was now Tuesday and to my despair I was still here to have to listen to who has heard the latest GOSSIP!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All I could was cry. I did not want to deal with any of this. Why me?!?!?!?

After a couple more days in the hospital (my only visitor was my Mom) I was released on Sunday.

The next day was Monday and I knew all too well what happens on Monday. School!!!!!!! I did not want to go to school! Not there! Not with those people! They all knew, and they had my attempted suicide as a total validation of their rumors. I did not want to go. I couldn't!

I Begged. I yelled! I screamed! I threatened to do it again, and this time I'd do it right!!!!!!! But when my father said, "You will go to school, and there will not be any more discussion of the subject" and he then turned away from me with a look of utter ....................I do not know what it was for sure, but I can tell you this one thing for sure, it was not admiration.

THAT'S, IT, NOT MY DAD TOO, NOOO! THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING.

So I went to school that Monday. My Father dropped me off at the door himself to make sure I got there. He said not one word to me all the way there. All that day not one person said one single word to me. Nothing, it was like I wasn't even there, I was exiled, a non person. I may as well have died that Friday night. In their eyes, in all their eyes, I was dead.

Now it was Tuesday evening again, and also again, I was rudely awakened in the hospital. Shit!!!!!!!!!!!!! God damn it!! Can't I get anything right?

After the judge ordered me to undergo thirty days *observation* and I was deemed, to be no longer a threat to myself, my Mom saw fit to enroll me into a private school, where I could start fresh *get put out of sight* and no one would have to deal with me and my *strange habits* ---------especially my father. After that the only time I ever went back home was for holidays, and I have never gone into town since.

I have to say this, this week it all flooded back into me, quite by accident, but I just have to get this out before I explode. When I was 14 years old and I was under a lot of stress (I tried to commit suicide two times in a week) a Judge, an esteemed champion of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, saw fit to expose me to the kind and caring ministrations of the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health. I was promptly strapped to a gurney, and hauled off to one of their many and varied pleasure palaces. Once there I was treated to all manners of comfort. All the Thorazine I could tolerate, Thorazine is a drug that destroys any effort to string together a coherent thought. It is like a living death..... And a nice comfortable bed, which I was strapped to... 24 hours a day. When it was time to eat it was done through a tube stuck up my nose and down my throat and they pumped it in. When it was time to go to the bathroom, I did right there, I was too drugged to talk to ask to go.

Now I think we should all praise Thomas Edison, after all without him we would not have such wonders such as electric lights, which was on all the time in my 6 foot by 10 foot cell ,,, or another wonderful byproduct *electro-shock therapy*, five times a week at no extra charge, "EST" As they loved to call it. I got strapped to a table, then electrodes are placed on my head, arms and legs, then they would pump enough juice thru me to throw me into convulsions. Then they would stop, wait 3 seconds and do pt over again, and again, and again, for 30 minutes every day, every fucking day. I would scream to be let go, I would beg for them to stop, and they would say take this faggot and push the button again. The smell of those electrodes singing skin and hair still haunts me... "AAAHHHHH!! America what a country, Gotta love it!!!!!!!!" And then the Doctors *if you could call them that* Thinking of nothing but ***MY WELL BEING***, such kindness, it is overwhelming...... They would tell me over and over that I was sick and it was for my own good, and if I would admit that I was a sexual deviant that was the first step toward a ***normal life***. They would strap me into a chair and with several of them there grill me for hours and hours, in shifts to get me to say what I could not say...Every day I cursed my parents for allowing this to go on *for my own good* and I hated them for it. And there wasn't a day I didn't pray to God to end it.....to just let me die.....

All in all I spent nearly A year there............They never broke me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the center for higher learning they chose to inflict upon me was little better. I was treated like I had the black plague, no body talked to me, teachers included, at meals I sat at a table alone, they would wait for me to finish and leave before they would sit at the table (the tables were for 16 people.......). I ate alone for 3 years. There was a sailing team at the school, and I bought an old boat and restored it from the keel to masthead. When it was finished I asked to join the team, and in front of the entire sailing team, told me to leave, he would not have a queer on his sailing team........

That afternoon I set fire to the boat.....

Psycho Psychiatry by Gus Papoutsis

If this seems a bit disorganized I'm sorry...

Marc doesn't describe all that befell him in his time in the institution. He says that was sexually assaulted by hospital staff in the nights, and has described in revolting detail the things they made this 14 year old boy do.

After he told me I phoned the institution in question to determine if there had been any allegations made. They would not speak to me. Even if there had not been, Marc was left so damaged by his time there that he is terrified of hospitals. He requires hospital treatment today for other matters and the effort of will it takes him to go there is akin to the braveryu shown by the bravest soldier in the hardest battle. He could not easily testify in any case brought against them.

If you can take it, and I believe that you should take it, there is a further tale, by a man who chose to remain anonymous when he told me of it. Again I reproduce it verbatim:

Looking back over the sixty years of my life I have realized that despite the pain and the terrible thing that have happened I would not change anything even if I could, as they have made me the person I am today.

I was born in the Midlands in the UK in 1941 during the war I had two elder brothers I found out just a few months ago that I was very much unplanned, but my parents loved my and only want the best for me, at the age of 10 in my junior school I found that I liked to look at the boys! And at night in bed I would get a hard on and play with myself thinking about boys it felt good to me but knew that I was supposed to like girls, what was wrong with me? So I just looked and wondered.

I was lucky and passed my 11 Plus exam and was to find myself going to a grammar school, this was an old bomb damaged building it had wooden supports in some classrooms and wooden buttresses outside in some places, outside toilets Ugh! Bad heating, Leaking roof what a dump! But it did have a good science lab!

During the first year I fell in love with a guy in one of my classes he was so good looking, I was a skinny bean pole much to tall for my age and not much into sport but had to play rugby football and ended up as a prop or lock in a scrum the love of my life (he did not know it!) often played as a hooker so we would have to get together in the scrum this was torture for me but I did not know what I could do about it, but at least I got to have him put his are around me and as lock got to hug a few nice backsides.

We soon learnt that our crumbling wreck of a grammar school was to be pulled down and that a new "comprehensive" school was being build and we were to form the basis of this "new" type of school, it was to have everything workshops lots of science, art, great playing fields everything you could want and supposedly you could opt in and out of some subject. Mmmm no comment! That never happened

The first day we moved into the school…. What can I say…. A huge very muddy building site! A couple of house blocks, sort of finished and not much else. It was horrible. Designed by and idiot I think, as it was so badly laid out built with cheap materials and we still had leaking roofs! (Made of compressed straw board!).

Within a few weeks we had an intake of new kids. This was to be a very difficult period in my life, one of the new guys and I started to hang about together both in school and out (I was 13 and so was he) our hormones were raging and we of course would talk about sex … and one thing lead to another and we started to "muck about" grin.

We both could not get enough of one another in school and out nothing heavy

But we did work out what a blowjob was and very much enjoyed that one day after school choir practice I went into the toilet block for a leak and my mate came in and dragged me into a cubicle he wanted to have a jerk of session fine by me!

We had just both reached our climax when there was a knock on the door.

Yes we had been caught in the act. And dragged of to the housemaster, parents were called. My mate was transferred to another school and I was sent to see a shrink, not good, I got very upset and very depressed about all of this but some how kept going.

A couple of months later I got involved with a guy a year older than me and this time we went a little further with our activities to me it all felt very normal I just loved guys! The way they looked and the way they felt.

My sessions with the shrink turned into a nightmare as I was being asked questions I did not and would not answer about my sexuality how could I say anything without dropping my mates and I into deep trouble, as at that time ANY homosexual activity was totally illegal! Regardless of age, and the punishments very severe.

I was so stressed out I started to skip classes and spend time in the city library I did try to find out as much as I could about my "affliction" and do a lot of walking I just could not think what to do for the best my parent did not know what to do and I could not talk to them about how I felt, I was told that I was perverted and nasty I did not have very good opinion of myself but my raging hormones would not leave me alone.

Then the fatal day I had skipped a class and when I got home I found my shrink sitting in the lounge with my parents … OH S**T … I was subject to a barrage of questions and just broke down in tears I could not tell anybody how I was feeling I just wanted everybody to go away, but this was not going to happen after an hour I was given my tea and sent to bed I don’t think I slept at all I was petrified of what was to happen and I found out next day.

My father informed me that I was going into Hospital for some help, which was a huge understatement! I was to be sent as a "voluntary patient" to a mental hospital so that I could be "cured" of my sickness, by this time I was a complete wreck I did not have any control of what was happening to me the Shrink turned up and gave me pills that zonked me out and my father drove me to the hospital I did not think things could get any worse.. Wrong! It turned out that the "Voluntary patient unit" was a Spartan huge mausoleum of a place in the grounds of one of the most notorious mental hospitals in the world Central Hospital Hatton near Warwick built in the 1800’s with many terrible locked wards padded rooms and a staff who seemed to enjoy inflicting pain and discomfort.

After a few days of "evaluation" it was decided that I, besides having zonko medicine to keep me quite should have "modified Insulin therapy" (REF-2) sounds not unpleasant, Mmm well if you consider

I did not want to be there

Did not agree to any treatment

Did not think that I was ill

Then being woken at 5am and given an injection of Insulin that caused you to have a high temperature, sweat like being in a shower, and feel sick and just had to lay on a mattress on the floor because you might fall out of bed for 3 hours then drink a pint of sugar solution like clear treacle for 5 days at a time and had to watch out in the afternoon that you did not collapse in a coma! You could not go outside the building without being accompanied by a nurse (jailer!) and that some of the patients in the unit were Very odd indeed. Sex offenders, (some who thought I was lovely but were to Zonked out to try anything) Alcoholics, Schizophrenics, depression, attempted suicides, you name it we had it!

After nearly 2 months of this crap I was beginning to realize that the only way out was to tell my Shrink what he wanted to hear to start to deny who I was to try to convince him I was turning straight but before that happened worse things were to occur, he had decided that we would get faster and better results with "Deep Insulin Therapy" this is much worse and almost as bad as ECT Electro Convulsive Therapy (Ref-3) which I was told would be the last resort, this was done twice a week to about 30 patients and we all had to endure part of the process this simple but very nasty treatment is totally barbaric the patient on the day of treatment has nothing to eat or drink and is given a pill to dry up there mouth at treatment time they are taken to the treatment room and lay down on a table and are given an injection of a relaxant so that you don’t break any bones and a simple thing that looks like a crud set of headphones is placed on there temples with a little jelly on there skin this is plugged into a box with a couple of controls and a push button after a few minuets the doctor adjusts the knobs and pushes the button and delivers a charge of electricity direct to the temples this huge charge completely screws up the brain.

The patient cannot scream because of a rubber gag in his mouth and thrashes about on the table in convulsions he cannot breath and every muscle in his body goes through agony,

As the convulsion dies down they administer oxygen after a period of about ten minuets the patient starts to relax and breath normally but his brain is temporally wiped blank he cannot speak, think, walk or do anything for himself and it takes hours before he can even remember his name, lovely treatment??

I regard this and "insulin therapy" as physical and mental assault as they both mentally rape you! Even today these treatments are used on mentally ill people in the western world and the Doctors still don’t know what they do (apart from frying part of the brain!)

The DIT is done upstairs in another closed locked unit only 12 beds… oh joy … here I am 14 going on 15 locked in a word with 12 guys from 20 to 55 not knowing what to expect the first treatment morning we are woken at 5.30am the beds are very uncomfortable as the thin sheet on the bottom has a thick rubber sheet under it we have to sleep in gowns you know the horrible backless things they use in hospital and no underwear Ugh!

One of the nurses comes around with a trolley with a pile of hypodermic’s and a couple a big bottles of Insulin he draws my dose (it looks huge!) and I roll over on my side a cold swab wipes over my buttock and the BLUNT needle is forced into the muscle and the insulin injected not only painful because of the condition of the well used needle but insulin feels hot as it rips between the fibers in the muscle, (some days I am lucky and get a nice sharp needle and "Sylvester" an Irish male nurse who’s technique is very different he swabs and slaps your butt with the back of his hand and as you relax he uses the syringe like a dart and does it very quickly) I am lying there very frightened and nobody cares… I know that I must try to sleep so I don’t feel the horrible feelings as the Insulin starts to take effect, I feel sick, I cannot get to sleep, I am getting hot sweating my gown is soaked my limbs feel like lead, I have a headache and its getting much worse I must have passed out at that point (about 7:15am I think) next thing I remember is flickering in to existence with a rubber tube up my nose with a glass funnel at the end and my nurse just finishing pouring 1 pint of sugar into my stomach I have bruises on my wrists, they tied me into bed, I have peed myself I feel cold and confused I have to get up all wobbly and my bed is changed and my gown and I get to lie down for about an hour at 11am we are served a rotten breakfast that was cooked at 7 am and kept warm for us till 11am, we have to drink more sugar with a little sour Lemon in it.

Oh joy after dressing we can do anything we like … Mmm cant go out, no TV at all, rotten radio that buzzes and crackles

(The buildings had mostly 220volts DC generated on site with a steam engines! This was still in use in 1983 as a back up when I went to repair an Electronic Organ there. Told you it was bad, the only A/C socket was for the ECT machine!)

At about 1 pm we get lunch, bad again but we have to eat as if you don’t eat and drink lots of sugar you will pass out about 2 pm! The insulin has a backlash. A short walk at about 3:30 pm to the main building Oh horror again odd unfortunate people with very severe mental impairment everywhere some scream, some incontinent some grab at you pass… I wonder what I did to deserve all this … I have a shilling so I buy some sweets, luxury and then back to the ward maybe I will get a visitor.

Even that’s bad as its all in a big empty dusty drafty hall with small wobbly tables and hard wobbly chairs and my mother turns up what can I say… she wants to know how I feel, well after this lot how would you! I cannot say much I cannot tell her I feel better cos I am being abuse and raped right down to my soul having my brain ripped out I just have to screw the lid down even tighter and tell her fine.

This goes on week after week some mornings I am so far out that the liquid sugar thru the tube won’t work to bring me out of the coma I am in and then I wake up with a huge syringe with large bore needle in my arm taped down and with a large rubber band pushing the thick solution into my bloodstream I still have few scars from this.

I see the shrink about twice a week and start to see which way he wants to go so I have to lie convincingly, "no I think I was very wrong Dr", "I don’t know why I liked to play with boys Dr", "yes I understand that I must not ever do anything like it again", no Dr I did not get any pleasure form it" on and on for weeks. The bloody silly Rorschach blot tests "what does this look like to you" to me it looks like something funny and rude but I must look closely at it and find an innocent version that I can describe to him, (Ref-1) I just hope he does not decide to use Sodium Pentothal on me (known as "the truth drug") as under its influence I know I could not maintain my story and I want out I want to stop this nightmare that goes on for weeks, after fourteen weeks I am told that I am cured!

And can go home, well I wanted out of Hatton fast but don’t want to be at home that’s for sure, as I feel that my parents have contributed to my pain and suffering

At home I am supposed to take X pills a day they make me feel like a vegetable, cant even think about sex! Mm well very soon they are being consigned to the toilet! And after about 14 days the drug haze of the last months starts to lift

I have lost weight and look even more like a beanpole I now have terrible dreams at night

I don’t know why, but I feel as though I have been robbed of a very important part of me but don’t quite know for sure just what it is, I am lucky I think as I can still look at a guy and think him nice! So it would seems that the cure had failed, thank god for that!

After a couple of terrible months back at school with all the whispering behind my back

"He’s mad you know, watch out for him he’s a Homo" I still felt like a outcast no friends I came to the conclusion that the only thing I could do was to do a runner leave my home my school, the town that I grew up in my parent my brothers and try to live on my own, and try to find out who the real me was.

I was lucky in that I had been interested in electronics since I was about 9 and as my father worked for a large electronics company had found myself a part time job with a small radio/TV dealer in the workshop (the boss had worked with my dad) and I found I was good! It was all very simple to me, not for me the paper round! I think this helped kept me together as I was treated well here no different from the apprentice "Brian" who’s college homework I some times did for him, I had some skills that might keep me in money, I managed to get hold of my saving book and got what cash I had together and what few things I could take and one morning left the house for school on my bike and never returned I cycled 20 miles to Birmingham and lost myself in the city.

Here I am not yet 16, no friends, little money and very frightened in a city I do not know,

Worrying that the police will be looking for me.

There is more to this tale, but that is enough. These were things done to kids in the name of helping them. Electroshock therapy, insulin therapy, aversion therapy were all performed on us because we were said to be ill.

A very few years before this we had liberated people from Nazi Concentration Camps and we had prosecuted people as war criminals for this type of treatment of human beings. But homosexuals have been and still are depersonalised. And, as depersonalised people, we are treated worse than cattle, yes even today when it is recognised that homosexuality is not an ailment.

You will notice that I am using stories to discuss the manifesto, that I have taken the decision in this article to let you form your own conclusions about its correctness at the time. I suspect, had the true horror been stated in it, that this horror would have devalued it as being 'unbelievable', and that the medical profession would have closed ranks to protect itself.

Today we have a sea change in how we are regarded. None of the states of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Trans are regarded as an illness or an ailment,. We know that things cannot be changed. Nonetheless quackery exists in all its forms. We have people who purport to convert homosexuals to heterosexuals. I've set up a Google search for you to check this out for yourself. In particular read Patrick Strudwick's article The Ex-Gay Files: The bizarre world of gay-to-straight conversion in The Independent.

So yes. Yes, we have made progress. We have made huge progress.

So why do I still feel afraid? Why do I feel sick after writing this article?