9781422283776

14 ENGAG I NG WI TH POL I T I CS

illness. Young people who acted upon their homosexual feelings—or even just admitted to having them—were often placed in institutions and subjected to horrific medical treatments in an attempt to “cure” the so-called illness. But as time moved forward, experts began to speak out about these practices. In 1935, pioneering psychiatrist Sigmund Freud wrote in a letter that homosexuality “is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no deg- radation, it cannot be classified as an illness . . . it is a great injustice to persecute homosexuality as a crime.” This statement was reprinted in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 1951, but it would take another twenty-two years before the Board of Directors of the American Psychiatric Association removed “homosexuality” from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). And that wasn’t the end of the story: It was replaced with another variation on the diagno- sis, called “ego-dystonic homosexuality.” Homosexuality wasn’t removed entirely from the DSM until 1986. Regardless of definitions and medical terms, bigotry has con- tinued to touch the lives of LGBT people in the United States and around the globe. In their schools, churches, and even their homes, some young people still hear that being LGBT is wrong, a disease, and something of which to be ashamed. Numerous Christian organiza- tions exist to “cure” individuals of homosexuality, though most have now been discredited—including Exodus International, a nonprofit formed in the 1970s that claimed to offer freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ. It shut down in 2013. JONAH, a