Dr. Richard C. Friedman Died - Showed Gay is Not Mental Disorder

[OneFinger]

Those of us who are older remember when being gay was considered a mental disorder. It was a horrible time in the medical world when all types of doctors were telling us (and our families) that we could be "cured". According to the article:

 

Richard C. Friedman was a psychiatrist whose groundbreaking 1988 book, “Male Homosexuality: A Contemporary Psychoanalytic Perspective,” showed that homosexuality was largely biological, rather than a perversion that needed to be cured...

 

Friedman built his work on scientific study of LGBTQ people, using studies of identical twins to investigate sexual orientation as a biological phenomenon. His conclusion was supported by the American Psychiatric Association, which had stopped referring to homosexuality as a disorder more than a decade before Friedman’s study. But in everyday practice, many psychiatrists still held the Freudian view that homosexuality was a pathology. Friedman’s book changed the world for the LGBTQ community, leading to a sea change in the way psychiatrists worked with their LGBTQ patients.

 

https://www.legacy.com/news/celebrity-deaths/richard-c-friedman-1941-2020-doctor-who-showed-homosexuality-was-biological/

 

RIP Dr. Friedman. Your research, analysis and writing has changed so many lives.

[RealAvalon]

Those of us who are older remember when being gay was considered a mental disorder. It was a horrible time in the medical world when all types of doctors were telling us (and our families) that we could be "cured". According to the article:

 

Richard C. Friedman was a psychiatrist whose groundbreaking 1988 book, “Male Homosexuality: A Contemporary Psychoanalytic Perspective,” showed that homosexuality was largely biological, rather than a perversion that needed to be cured...

 

Friedman built his work on scientific study of LGBTQ people, using studies of identical twins to investigate sexual orientation as a biological phenomenon. His conclusion was supported by the American Psychiatric Association, which had stopped referring to homosexuality as a disorder more than a decade before Friedman’s study. But in everyday practice, many psychiatrists still held the Freudian view that homosexuality was a pathology. Friedman’s book changed the world for the LGBTQ community, leading to a sea change in the way psychiatrists worked with their LGBTQ patients.

 

https://www.legacy.com/news/celebrity-deaths/richard-c-friedman-1941-2020-doctor-who-showed-homosexuality-was-biological/

 

RIP Dr. Friedman. Your research, analysis and writing has changed so many lives.

Thanks for posting that. It's a needed reminder how scientists have often had to have the courage of their convictions, in the face of ignorance. Today, more than ever, it's important to remember those convictions, given the anti-science days we are in.