Homosexuality And Gender Identity Not Mental Disorders; Science Wishes The World Would Listen
We all need to officially stop referring to homosexuality and gender dysphoria as a mental condition. According to the most recent report from the World Health Organization: “It is not justifiable." If you don’t agree with the latest ruling, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re bad, but it does mean you’re wrong — from a scientific standpoint, at least.
Headed by Dr. Susan D. Cochran, a psychologist and epidemiologist at UCLA, the report recommends to do away with disease categorization related to sexual orientation. Cochran and her fellow researchers sought to break the restrictive association between homosexuality, gender identity, and mental health conditions. According to the report, the classification of such preferences does not rest on any empirical evidence, and therefore can no longer be upheld as scientific truth.
“[It] doesn’t make sense to put something in a book and say, 'This is a disease,' when there’s no proof that it is a disease,” explained Cochran to Take Part. However, just because science says something isn’t true doesn’t exactly mean that people will believe it. Some minds just can’t be changed. and according to GLADD, Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni is planning to assemble his own group to disprove WHO’s findings.
Throughout time, homosexuality and gender dysphoria have been viewed as “illnesses” that could be cured with the right combination of treatment and therapy. Before the declassification of homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1973, conversion therapies were both popular and horrific. Shock therapy was one of the most used treatment options and practiced on a variety of deviants, ranging from alcoholics, common thieves, to even child molesters, The Huffington Post reported. In the case of homosexuals, the shock treatment consisted of showing the “deviant” slides consisting of men and women, administering a shock to individuals whenever the image of a person from the same sex appeared. Other more heinous procedures included castrations, torture drugs, shock therapy, and even lobotomies.
Though today conversation therapy is all but a memory for most Western countries, the practice of diagnosing homosexuality and gender identity persists, Jezebel reported. Hopefully, this WHO announcement, which is the standard diagnostic tool used by doctors and hospitals in countries throughout the world, will be the beginning of the end for medical prejudice of sexual minorities. For now, the WHO recommendation will be voted on by a panel of health representatives from nations all over the world and, if approved, will appear in 2017’s newest version of the International Classification of Diseases, Take Part reported.