27. Am I Sick?

[00:00:00] Today, we're going to delve into a topic that has been a source of controversy and misunderstanding for decades.

[00:00:10] Is Same Sex Attraction a mental illness? We'll explore the ground-breaking research of a UCLA professor named Evelyn Hooker

[00:00:21] who challenged the notion that Same Sex Attraction was a mental illness.

[00:00:30] When I was born in the 1950s, priests, teachers and doctors almost universally believed that homosexuality was a mental illness.

[00:00:58] Many, perhaps most, also believed it was a sin. And a danger to society if there were even whispers about your homosexuality, tickerly if you were a man.

[00:01:12] You could be thrown out of the military, you could be fired from your job or sent to jail.

[00:01:20] Anti-perversion laws, destroyed careers, destroyed lives, destroyed marriages and destroyed families.

[00:01:30] Unfortunately, in many parts of the world this still happens. And almost all pastors, priests and theologians in the 1950s believed that homosexuality was a grave sin.

[00:01:46] The Catholic Church's official catacism still teaches this today that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered and acts of grave depravity, a tragedy.

[00:02:02] In 2013, Pope Francis softened this a bit, saying if someone is gay and seeks the Lord with good will, who am I to judge?

[00:02:14] And in another instance, Pope Francis said to a gay man, God made you like this and loves you as you are. But still, the official teaching uses the wording intrinsically disordered and acts of grave depravity.

[00:02:31] So tragic, so sad.

[00:02:36] Evelyn Hooker, a UCLA professor, came to challenge this belief and her research would eventually change much of the world. Her journey began when a gay male grad student named Sam From, challenged her to conduct research on the same thing as the first time she was born.

[00:02:59] She challenged her to conduct research on homosexuality, despite the difficulty of funding such research she forged ahead.

[00:03:09] The DSM of 1952 classified homosexuality as a sociopathic personality disturbance, a sociopathic personality disturbance.

[00:03:24] This led many in the 1950s and 60s to believe that homosexuals were psychopaths, and a danger particularly to women and children. Some people still believe this falsehood.

[00:03:38] The DSM, the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders is published by the American Psychiatric Association, commonly known as the APA.

[00:03:52] The APA first published the DSM in 1952 and it classified homosexuality as a sociopathic personality disturbance, as a mental illness.

[00:04:07] But was this true? There were strong opinions but very little research. Enter Professor Hooker.

[00:04:16] She designed a very clever study, really an experiment. She gave 30 straight men with no history of mental illness and 30 homosexual men.

[00:04:30] She gave each man three standardized tests designed to identify mental illness. The belief at the time was that these tests would easily be able to identify the supposedly mentally ill homosexuals.

[00:04:47] You see the logic here, if homosexuals were mentally ill this would show up on standard tests for mental illness. So she recruited three world famous experts to evaluate the tests from these 60 men.

[00:05:03] The evaluators were not told who was straight and who was gay. The expert evaluators just got the test results, and were asked to simply sort the tests into two piles, the mentally ill homosexuals in one pile and the mentally healthy straight men in the other pile.

[00:05:26] Simple, right? But no. All three experts failed. These famous psychiatrists who evaluated the results, they all assumed they would be able to identify most if not all of the homosexual men.

[00:05:44] But they could not. Contrary to the prevailing belief at the time, her study found no psychological differences between gay men and straight men. This was a significant and dramatic finding.

[00:06:03] The challenged the categorization of homosexuality has a mental illness.

[00:06:09] One of the authors of one of the tests was so annoyed by this result that he asked to have a second go at it, but he still failed. Why? Because the 30 gay men were not mentally ill.

[00:06:26] Let me digress for a moment. This is not to say that sexual minorities are immune from mental illness. They are not, particularly if they attend to church or school or live in a community that attacks them, or they have a family that doesn't support who they are.

[00:06:45] If they grow up hearing over and over again, that they're sinful. That can leave one pretty scarred. So if you are somewhere in the rainbow and struggling, you should seek help.

[00:06:58] But you must look for an affirming pastor or an affirming psychologist. There are now many LGBT support centers around the world and their websites can point you to helpful resources.

[00:07:12] And the Psychology Today website maintains a searchable list of affirming counselors. I will put links to both in the notes.

[00:07:23] If you are anywhere in the rainbow and seeking assistance, the first question you should ask a counselor or spiritual advisor is if they believe in same sex marriage.

[00:07:36] And if they say anything other than yes, you should look elsewhere for counseling.

[00:07:45] Back to our story. So Professor Hooker discovered that standardized tests for mental illness could find no difference between straight men and homosexual men.

[00:07:59] Gay men appeared no better or no worse adjusted than straight men. Professor Hooker then presented her results to the annual meeting of the APA, the American Psychiatric Association in 1955.

[00:08:17] Many immediately recognized the implications of Professor Hooker's research. But it would take the APA almost 20 years until 1973 to remove homosexuality from the DSM and stop categorizing it as a mental illness.

[00:08:41] The APA would go on to state. Same sex attraction, whether expressed in action, fantasy or identity implies no impairment per se in judgment, stability, reliability or general social or vocational capabilities.

[00:08:56] Same sex attraction implies no impairment of judgment, stability or reliability.

[00:09:05] Let me say that again. Same sex attraction implies no impairment, in judgment, stability or reliability.

[00:09:16] So if you have a recording stuck in your mind that says homosexual acts are intrinsically disorder or grave acts of depravity, cancel that record, cancel cancel, erase it. It's a lie, it is a false teaching.

[00:09:39] The APA also states, no credible evidence exists that any mental health intervention can reliably and safely change sexual orientation nor from a mental health perspective does sexual orientation need to be changed.

[00:09:56] No credible evidence exists that any mental health intervention can reliably and safely change sexual orientation nor does sexual orientation need to be changed.

[00:10:15] Some young people agonize when they have a dream or a fantasy about same sex attraction. They should know. The American Psychiatric Association says,

[00:10:27] same sex attraction, whether expressed in action or fantasy implies no impairment in judgment, stability or reliability.

[00:10:39] Evelyn Hooker's work was eventually recognized with numerous awards in 1992. She received the APA's highest honor, the Lifetime Achievement Award.

[00:10:52] 37 years after she presented her groundbreaking research to the same body. Now the APA says,

[00:11:02] the idea that homosexuality is a mental disorder or that the emergence of same sex attraction among some adolescents is in any way abnormal or mentally unhealthy has no support among any mainstream health and mental health professional organizations.

[00:11:47] So, if you are gay, are you sick? Are you mentally ill? The answer, backed by decades of research and scientific consensus is a resounding no.

[00:12:06] Same sex attraction is not a mental illness and this misconception has been debunked. Evelyn Hooker and Sam Fraugh, and their ground breaking research, started a change that was to eventually sweep through America and much of the world,

[00:12:26] first changing the views of medical professionals on same sex attraction, and then changing the views of an increasing number of theologians and pastors.

[00:12:38] Helping them see that same sex attraction is part of God's creation, part of God's multi-colored rainbow.

[00:12:48] This awareness has been slow to come to conservative churches, but even in more liberal and tolerant parts of the world many parents are unable to celebrate their rainbow children as cherished gifts from God.

[00:13:06] So if you have a rainbow child or a friend somewhere in the rainbow, I urge you to see them as some Native American tribes do, as endowed with two spirits, as created intentionally by God and uniquely blessed by God.

[00:13:25] I believe that God created people of the rainbow with unique gifts and they are uniquely blessed by God, and I believe that scripture points us in this direction.

[00:13:41] If you are in the rainbow or might be but live in a community where people of the rainbow are attacked or are not cherished, be careful, stay safe and God bless.

[00:13:55] This is Elton Sherwin.