This is the longest paper I have written to date, and remains, in my opinion, one of the best pieces of work I have done for Academia. It is rather long, and written as a research paper, but I find the topic fascinating, and hope you do to! I post it here in hopes that people will better understand why I am both so vocal in support of furtherance of queer equality in America, and very grateful for how far we've come already.
Second Class: A History of Queer Oppression
Early in the morning on June 28, 1969, police in New York City raided Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village. These raids were not uncommon at the time, and usually saw no violence from patrons, but something made the patrons of Stonewall decide on that night that enough was enough. They fought back (Matzner). The police took refuge inside the bar, and fought all the rest of the night with the rioters. As the fight went on, neighbors and patrons of nearby bars heard of the riot, and joined in. This began three nights of violent rioting outside the Stonewall Inn (Matzner).
Stonewall, as these riots are commonly referred to, sparked the American gay rights movement into full swing (Matzner). At the time of Stonewall, there were really only two viable gay rights organizations in New York (Clendinen 23). The first was the Mattachine Society, founded by Harry Hay, the father on the American gay rights movement, in 1950, in L.A. (Hay 77). The second, the Daughters of Bilitis, formed in 1955, also in L.A., was the main lesbian advocacy organization (Katz 633). Both were New York chapters of loosely connected national organizations. After Stonewall, active viable organizations began to spring up around the country. Galvanized into action by the riots, they sought to make life easier for the American homosexual (Clendinen). Up to the time of the Stonewall riots, entrenched homophobia in the average American’s beliefs and actions, in the government’s policies and laws, in the police’s enforcement of the laws, and penal system’s implementation of those same laws prevented homosexuals from living openly and un-closeted in American society.
Much of the mistreatment homosexuals received in the times preceding Stonewall can be traced to one simple reason; homosexuality was considered a mental problem, first by society, then by medicine (Before Stonewall; Clendinen 200). After a long history in America of societal condemnation of homosexuality, the American Psychological Association officially classified it as a mental disease in 1952, in the first Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Mental Disorders. Reflecting society’s views on homosexuality, the APA diagnosis was purely social and non-medical, stemming from homosexuality’s deviance from the cultural norm (Clendinen 200). For the 21 years that homosexuality was in the DSM, these beliefs were made official. The standard psychological way to deal with gays and lesbians was to make them straight (Clendinen 200). That changed in 1973, when homosexuals were automatically cured with the removal of homosexuality from the DSM (Clendinen 199).
Up until the time of WWII, American society tried to completely ignore homosexuality’s existence. But during the war the government began to openly discriminate against homosexuals (“Before Stonewall”). Still, even once the government was openly taking stances against gays and lesbians, the general community often took a more blissfully ignorant attitude. For example, in the early 60’s one young gay man was brought to court after running away with an older man and the judge asked his father, in court, if he was aware his son was gay, and although the two had never discussed it, the father said yes (Richmond 51). His father knew, but was not willing to even mention it to his son, and never said anything until confronted with the judge’s question (Richmond 51). There was also a case, in the 50’s where, when being harassed by straight students at school, a gay teenager went to his principal to report the problem, and was turned away. The principal said, “’I don’t want to know, I don’t want to hear about it.’ With a pleading tone he added, ‘Please leave without saying another word’” (Richmond 81). The attitude of many Americans towards gays is best summed up in the following quote from the very conservative National Review.
“The homosexual who keeps his perversion a private matter should be dealt with compassionately, and allowed to live his life without undue legal interference; however, those who flaunt their perversion deserve that the full sanction of the law should fall upon them” (qtd. in Richmond 81).
Basically, if gays wouldn’t flaunt their homosexuality, they would be left alone. Even so, the rest of the world still thought they were perverted. The community at large was still more concerned with avoiding homosexuality than quelling it.
It’s hard for most people in modern times to imagine, but back then, even most gays and lesbians believed they were mentally ill (Katz 642). In fact, when Frank Kameny, a gay rights activist in the early 60’s, brought up the idea that maybe homosexuals weren’t sick, it caused great debate within the movement itself (Katz 642). At the root of this self-demeaning opinion was the fact that there were hardly any easily accessible sources of positive information on homosexuals. Plus, there was an abundance of misinformation, largely spread by ignorant adolescents, with no sex education (“Before Stonewall”). Many people, growing up in rural America, had no information about homosexuality other than brief dictionary or encyclopedia entries (“Before Stonewall”). One lesbian, Step May, didn’t know she was homosexual until a friend asked what the word meant, and she looked it up, and found a perfect description of herself (“Before Stonewall”).
As well as having no concept of their own right to live life their own way, many homosexuals were just too scared, and or apathetic to believe they could make their situation better. Their fear outweighed their sense of dignity, and their belief in their own right to live freely. In the 20’s, when Henry Gerber, a WWI vet, first tried to start a gay rights movement in America, he had to get straight friends to start the organization with him, because his gay friends thought he was a loony for trying (“Out of the Past”). Again in the 50’s, there was a mentality in the gay community that we have to live with what we’ve got, to the point that friends wouldn’t stand up to discrimination for each other, turning a blind eye instead (“Before Stonewall”).
One of the main problems of the movement and the community, before Stonewall, was invisibility (Clendinen 12). Because of social stigma, many gays and lesbians got married to appear to conform (“Before Stonewall”). In addition, there were no surefire methods of recognizing other members of the gay community (Clendinen 12). Because of this basic invisibility, gay people never really realized their own numbers, since only those already out to some extent would know of Kinsey’s report, which stated that 10% of American men were mainly gay (Hay 60). This directly affected the early attempts to organize, pre-Stonewall; very few people showed up to the demonstrations that were organized in those days (“Before Stonewall”). Also, in terms of ensuring one’s own survival, staying in the closet was a matter of whether or not you had a job. An employee whose homosexuality came to the attention of an employer would almost always be immediately fired (“Before Stonewall”).
In any country, although all the citizens have personal beliefs and morals, the government controls what is legally right and wrong. Unfortunately for the homosexual, before the movement started fighting the government, it was decidedly anti-homosexual. This was mainly because the people in the government were human, and homophobic, and couldn’t keep their personal biases out of their job. This is evident as early as 1924, when Henry Gerber, recently returned from Germany, and inspired by the gay rights movement building there, founded a gay rights organization in Chicago. He wrote a newsletter for his organization, and sent it out to friends through the mail. The next night he was arrested without a warrant, and held without charges for three days. As a result of the incident, he was fired from his job in the post office for “conduct unbecoming a postal worker” (“Out of the Past”). This was indicative of the government’s stand on homosexuality at the time, reflecting that of the public: they didn’t want to see it in public (“Out of the Past”).
Fast-forward 18 years, America is in WWII, and the government, in the form of the U.S. Army, is still homophobic, asking male recruits if they are homosexual (“Before Stonewall”). However, once someone was in the army, they often wouldn’t be discharged for being queer. Many femme men, some of them drag queens in civilian life, were put into a touring drag show to entertain the army men. The thing was, no one in the army would say that these performers were actually gay (“Before Stonewall”). In ’43 the army began the Women’s Army Corp, a unit of the army made up of all women members, including officers. According to an estimate by Sgt. Johnnie Phelps, a lesbian, approximately 95% of the women in the WAC battalion serving in Gen. Eisenhower’s headquarters were lesbians (“Before Stonewall”). Although some consider this estimate high, it is true that during her time of service Gen. Eisenhower requested Sgt. Phelps to provide a list of all the lesbians in her WAC battalion. She responded that she would provide the list, but her name would be at the top. Because of the large number of women who would be lost, he told her to forget the order (“Before Stonewall”). Once the war was over, the army began to enforce the policy of zero tolerance for gay and lesbian service members (“Before Stonewall”).
In the government itself, the “McCarthy era” came along not too long after the war. Although Sen. Joe McCarthy is most famous as an anti-communist zealot, he was also a fervent homophobe, using accusations of homosexuality to get people out of public office (“Before Stonewall”). During the height of the purge that he started, the State Department rid itself of suspected homosexuals at the rate of one a day. Communists were fired at less than half that rate (Johnson). Even before McCarthy raised a stink, the department had already fired 91 people on charges of homosexuality (Johnson).
In addition to these internal witch-hunts at the federal level, state governments almost all had laws outlawing homosexual behavior on the books. In the early part of the 20th century, it was illegal, in many states, for a man to even suggest sex, or romantic involvement to another man (“Out of the Past”). In 1968, Illinois was the only state in the union without a law prohibiting sodomy. These laws, usually referred to simply as sodomy laws, were vaguely worded, often using one or both of the terms, “sodomy with man or beast” and “the crime against nature with man or beast” (Hoffman 77). In addition, many states had laws against oral sex, which were separate laws (Hoffman 79). Since police weren’t generally raiding individual’s homes, and not many men were daft enough to have anal sex in public places, laws against oral sex, and general sex conduct laws were more commonly used to arrest homosexuals (Hoffman 95). In California, sex laws were so strict and restrictive that in one gay man’s description, anything other than marital, one man/one woman sex was illegal (Richmond 43). Any sexual act without its own law was covered under a law incriminating “Lewd and Lascivious Conduct,” making illegal almost any sexual behavior other than heterosexual intercourse (Richmond 48).
Just as there were humans, capable of bigotry and unjust discrimination, making the laws, there were humans enforcing the laws. In the 50’s and 60’s, homosexuality as a subject of public awareness was coming out of the closet, and the police forces of America were filled with homophobes, intent on making life harder for those brave enough to even try and connect in public. The police were very aggressive in their quest to arrest homosexuals. A popular tactic in both New York, and L.A. was to train young attractive males on the vice squad to portray gay men, and then use them to attract propositions from actual gay men, looking for sex (Clendinen 35; Hoffman 80). This generally occurred in public restrooms, often referred to as tearooms (Clendinen 35). Another tactic, used both separately, and in cooperation with the baiting technique described previously, was to have cops hide, often behind a ventilator grille, or in some other hidden place off the bathroom, to observe, and then to arrest people, when homosexual activity was observed (Clendinen 35). Although the latter method was perfectly legal, a UCLA Law Review Study, published in 1966, concluded that the baited entrapment didn’t have legal grounds to stand on, because if the cop was doing something to cause the solicitation of a homosexual, it was illegal, and it was problematic to have other cops witness arrests and determine if an arrest was conducted legally (Hoffman 84). Another problem with these arrests was the use of excess physical violence on the part of the police. In one case in the 50’s, where two teenage boys were caught and arrested by cops hiding in a movie theatre bathroom, one of the cops beat one kid up, calling him a filthy queer. That cop later became chief of police (Richmond 80).
Although legally speaking, sodomy was outlawed in most states; it was not commonly used to arrest gay men. More often, gays were arrested under laws like California’s Lewd and Lascivious Conduct law, which were targeted at what was thought to be indecent sexual encounters, gay or straight (Hoffman 95). Gay men were arrested in common bathroom meeting places, in parks, and in bars when they were raided (Hoffman 98).
Bar raids were a different matter though. Since in many states it was illegal to sell liquor to groups of known homosexuals, gay bars would operate without liquor licenses (Clendinen 18). Stonewall, a rather typical raid to begin with, was done on the pretense of the bar operating without a liquor license, as were many others (Matzner). Once the bar staff had been dealt with, the police then proceeded to empty the bar, and arrest anyone without proper I.D., or dressed in clothing of the opposite gender (Matzner). These were not arrests based on homosexual acts, but rather, on homosexual characteristics, or simply for being in a gay bar at the wrong time without I.D.
Once a person was arrested, they were dealt with by the courts, and likely sent either to jail, or to a state mental facility. For a long time, court cases involving homosexuality were rather hurried affairs, with both the judge and the defendant being rather uncomfortable with discussing the matter at hand (Hoffman 78, 87). In the UCLA Law Review study of homosexual legal proceedings, they found that out of 493 felony indictments for homosexual behavior, only 11 requested a jury trial, with the majority preferring a greater degree of anonymity, being more worried about life if they got off, than life in jail (Hoffman 87). Once found guilty, homosexuals were given unusually long sentences. In California, many sexual offenses had sentences with lengths up to a life sentence (Richmond 48). In addition, California had two state mental hospitals for gays, which were anything but pleasant.
Atascadero State Hospital, a state facility for the sexually and mentally deranged, which was the scarier of the two, was the convergence zone of all the homophobic elements of America mentioned thus far. The majority of the Atascadero population was your average homosexual male (Richmond 42). They were by and large committed under the “Mentally Disordered Sex Offenders Act”, which allowed for potential sex perverts to be admitted without trial for 90 days of observation. In this way the state deprived these men of due process of law, as they could be permanently admitted directly from that observation period (Richmond 43). The classification of homosexuality as a disease allowed for the laws to commit these people. The government provided those laws, and the police provided the people who were breaking them. Once committed, these men were unwillingly subjected to experiments in the name of science. Because they were mentally ill and incarcerated, they were considered by the state to have no rights, and in the word of Dr. Paul Braumwell, chief of research at Atascadero, “If we can learn something by using them [for medical and surgical experiments], then that is a small compensation for the trouble they have caused society” (qtd. in Richmond 43). Given that about 10% of the population was gay, multiple experiments were conducted regarding a cure for that particular “mental disorder.” Use of succinylcholine was one such experiment. The drug produces the sensation of dying (Richmond 44). The experiment was to administer the drug, usually forcibly, and then, once the sensation of near death hits the patient, tell them how bad homosexuality is. This process was intended to associate dying with the idea of homosexual behavior (Richmond 44). Former patient Leo Dallas, who was arrested for Lewd and Lascivious Conduct for kissing another man in public, related another attempted cure in an article in I Am, a SF gay liberation newspaper. He recounted the use of a technique known in the psychology world as aversion therapy (Richmond 45). Aversion therapy as practiced at Atascadero involved connecting an electric shocker to a gay man’s penis, showing him gay erotica, and shocking the penis whenever he got an erection. The intent was to prevent arousal as a reaction to homosexual ideas, or sexual intimacy (Richmond 45). Often, although it worked, it didn’t do anything to produce heterosexual feelings in a patient, rather rendering the person asexual. Proponents of aversion therapy counted these cases as successes in curing homosexuality (Chenier). Due to the APA’s definition of homosexuality as a disorder, a number of psychologists not working for the government were using similar techniques at the time.
In addition to using electric shock as a treatment for homosexuality, Atascadero also used it as a punishment for disobedience. The use as a punishment was applied to the brain, however, and the practice is and was highly frowned upon in the medical world, as it can easily cause brain damage (Richmond 45). According to a former patient of the facility, upon preparing to release someone, the hospital staff forced the departing patient to sign a form consenting to any procedures that had been performed with the threat of this brain shock treatment (Richmond 45). As far as the staff and the law were concerned, these people were capable of committing awful crimes and should be dealt with accordingly.
Up until the Stonewall riots, when the arrival of a gay rights movement informed the gay community of its own existence, all these elements conspired to allow homophobia to flourish in all areas of American life. They kept the average American wary in his or her relations with homosexuals, making them consistently uncomfortable in confronting the issue. In addition, the average homosexual was kept misinformed, unsure of his own self worth, and in the closet. The establishment told them they were sick, and as a consequence, had fewer civil rights than a heterosexual, and were unsuitable to serve their country. It took away their sanity, both through diagnoses and treatments. They were told that they needed curing, but the treatments offered caused real mental problems. Because of homophobia, gays and lesbians were treated as second-class citizens. Unable to live life on their own terms, they had to abide by the constrictive dictates of social normality, or be shunned.
It’s hard for most people in modern times to imagine, but back then, even most gays and lesbians believed they were mentally ill (Katz 642). In fact, when Frank Kameny, a gay rights activist in the early 60’s, brought up the idea that maybe homosexuals weren’t sick, it caused great debate within the movement itself (Katz 642). At the root of this self-demeaning opinion was the fact that there were hardly any easily accessible sources of positive information on homosexuals. Plus, there was an abundance of misinformation, largely spread by ignorant adolescents, with no sex education (“Before Stonewall”). Many people, growing up in rural America, had no information about homosexuality other than brief dictionary or encyclopedia entries (“Before Stonewall”). One lesbian, Step May, didn’t know she was homosexual until a friend asked what the word meant, and she looked it up, and found a perfect description of herself (“Before Stonewall”).
As well as having no concept of their own right to live life their own way, many homosexuals were just too scared, and or apathetic to believe they could make their situation better. Their fear outweighed their sense of dignity, and their belief in their own right to live freely. In the 20’s, when Henry Gerber, a WWI vet, first tried to start a gay rights movement in America, he had to get straight friends to start the organization with him, because his gay friends thought he was a loony for trying (“Out of the Past”). Again in the 50’s, there was a mentality in the gay community that we have to live with what we’ve got, to the point that friends wouldn’t stand up to discrimination for each other, turning a blind eye instead (“Before Stonewall”).
One of the main problems of the movement and the community, before Stonewall, was invisibility (Clendinen 12). Because of social stigma, many gays and lesbians got married to appear to conform (“Before Stonewall”). In addition, there were no surefire methods of recognizing other members of the gay community (Clendinen 12). Because of this basic invisibility, gay people never really realized their own numbers, since only those already out to some extent would know of Kinsey’s report, which stated that 10% of American men were mainly gay (Hay 60). This directly affected the early attempts to organize, pre-Stonewall; very few people showed up to the demonstrations that were organized in those days (“Before Stonewall”). Also, in terms of ensuring one’s own survival, staying in the closet was a matter of whether or not you had a job. An employee whose homosexuality came to the attention of an employer would almost always be immediately fired (“Before Stonewall”).
In any country, although all the citizens have personal beliefs and morals, the government controls what is legally right and wrong. Unfortunately for the homosexual, before the movement started fighting the government, it was decidedly anti-homosexual. This was mainly because the people in the government were human, and homophobic, and couldn’t keep their personal biases out of their job. This is evident as early as 1924, when Henry Gerber, recently returned from Germany, and inspired by the gay rights movement building there, founded a gay rights organization in Chicago. He wrote a newsletter for his organization, and sent it out to friends through the mail. The next night he was arrested without a warrant, and held without charges for three days. As a result of the incident, he was fired from his job in the post office for “conduct unbecoming a postal worker” (“Out of the Past”). This was indicative of the government’s stand on homosexuality at the time, reflecting that of the public: they didn’t want to see it in public (“Out of the Past”).
Fast-forward 18 years, America is in WWII, and the government, in the form of the U.S. Army, is still homophobic, asking male recruits if they are homosexual (“Before Stonewall”). However, once someone was in the army, they often wouldn’t be discharged for being queer. Many femme men, some of them drag queens in civilian life, were put into a touring drag show to entertain the army men. The thing was, no one in the army would say that these performers were actually gay (“Before Stonewall”). In ’43 the army began the Women’s Army Corp, a unit of the army made up of all women members, including officers. According to an estimate by Sgt. Johnnie Phelps, a lesbian, approximately 95% of the women in the WAC battalion serving in Gen. Eisenhower’s headquarters were lesbians (“Before Stonewall”). Although some consider this estimate high, it is true that during her time of service Gen. Eisenhower requested Sgt. Phelps to provide a list of all the lesbians in her WAC battalion. She responded that she would provide the list, but her name would be at the top. Because of the large number of women who would be lost, he told her to forget the order (“Before Stonewall”). Once the war was over, the army began to enforce the policy of zero tolerance for gay and lesbian service members (“Before Stonewall”).
In the government itself, the “McCarthy era” came along not too long after the war. Although Sen. Joe McCarthy is most famous as an anti-communist zealot, he was also a fervent homophobe, using accusations of homosexuality to get people out of public office (“Before Stonewall”). During the height of the purge that he started, the State Department rid itself of suspected homosexuals at the rate of one a day. Communists were fired at less than half that rate (Johnson). Even before McCarthy raised a stink, the department had already fired 91 people on charges of homosexuality (Johnson).
In addition to these internal witch-hunts at the federal level, state governments almost all had laws outlawing homosexual behavior on the books. In the early part of the 20th century, it was illegal, in many states, for a man to even suggest sex, or romantic involvement to another man (“Out of the Past”). In 1968, Illinois was the only state in the union without a law prohibiting sodomy. These laws, usually referred to simply as sodomy laws, were vaguely worded, often using one or both of the terms, “sodomy with man or beast” and “the crime against nature with man or beast” (Hoffman 77). In addition, many states had laws against oral sex, which were separate laws (Hoffman 79). Since police weren’t generally raiding individual’s homes, and not many men were daft enough to have anal sex in public places, laws against oral sex, and general sex conduct laws were more commonly used to arrest homosexuals (Hoffman 95). In California, sex laws were so strict and restrictive that in one gay man’s description, anything other than marital, one man/one woman sex was illegal (Richmond 43). Any sexual act without its own law was covered under a law incriminating “Lewd and Lascivious Conduct,” making illegal almost any sexual behavior other than heterosexual intercourse (Richmond 48).
Just as there were humans, capable of bigotry and unjust discrimination, making the laws, there were humans enforcing the laws. In the 50’s and 60’s, homosexuality as a subject of public awareness was coming out of the closet, and the police forces of America were filled with homophobes, intent on making life harder for those brave enough to even try and connect in public. The police were very aggressive in their quest to arrest homosexuals. A popular tactic in both New York, and L.A. was to train young attractive males on the vice squad to portray gay men, and then use them to attract propositions from actual gay men, looking for sex (Clendinen 35; Hoffman 80). This generally occurred in public restrooms, often referred to as tearooms (Clendinen 35). Another tactic, used both separately, and in cooperation with the baiting technique described previously, was to have cops hide, often behind a ventilator grille, or in some other hidden place off the bathroom, to observe, and then to arrest people, when homosexual activity was observed (Clendinen 35). Although the latter method was perfectly legal, a UCLA Law Review Study, published in 1966, concluded that the baited entrapment didn’t have legal grounds to stand on, because if the cop was doing something to cause the solicitation of a homosexual, it was illegal, and it was problematic to have other cops witness arrests and determine if an arrest was conducted legally (Hoffman 84). Another problem with these arrests was the use of excess physical violence on the part of the police. In one case in the 50’s, where two teenage boys were caught and arrested by cops hiding in a movie theatre bathroom, one of the cops beat one kid up, calling him a filthy queer. That cop later became chief of police (Richmond 80).
Although legally speaking, sodomy was outlawed in most states; it was not commonly used to arrest gay men. More often, gays were arrested under laws like California’s Lewd and Lascivious Conduct law, which were targeted at what was thought to be indecent sexual encounters, gay or straight (Hoffman 95). Gay men were arrested in common bathroom meeting places, in parks, and in bars when they were raided (Hoffman 98).
Bar raids were a different matter though. Since in many states it was illegal to sell liquor to groups of known homosexuals, gay bars would operate without liquor licenses (Clendinen 18). Stonewall, a rather typical raid to begin with, was done on the pretense of the bar operating without a liquor license, as were many others (Matzner). Once the bar staff had been dealt with, the police then proceeded to empty the bar, and arrest anyone without proper I.D., or dressed in clothing of the opposite gender (Matzner). These were not arrests based on homosexual acts, but rather, on homosexual characteristics, or simply for being in a gay bar at the wrong time without I.D.
Once a person was arrested, they were dealt with by the courts, and likely sent either to jail, or to a state mental facility. For a long time, court cases involving homosexuality were rather hurried affairs, with both the judge and the defendant being rather uncomfortable with discussing the matter at hand (Hoffman 78, 87). In the UCLA Law Review study of homosexual legal proceedings, they found that out of 493 felony indictments for homosexual behavior, only 11 requested a jury trial, with the majority preferring a greater degree of anonymity, being more worried about life if they got off, than life in jail (Hoffman 87). Once found guilty, homosexuals were given unusually long sentences. In California, many sexual offenses had sentences with lengths up to a life sentence (Richmond 48). In addition, California had two state mental hospitals for gays, which were anything but pleasant.
Atascadero State Hospital, a state facility for the sexually and mentally deranged, which was the scarier of the two, was the convergence zone of all the homophobic elements of America mentioned thus far. The majority of the Atascadero population was your average homosexual male (Richmond 42). They were by and large committed under the “Mentally Disordered Sex Offenders Act”, which allowed for potential sex perverts to be admitted without trial for 90 days of observation. In this way the state deprived these men of due process of law, as they could be permanently admitted directly from that observation period (Richmond 43). The classification of homosexuality as a disease allowed for the laws to commit these people. The government provided those laws, and the police provided the people who were breaking them. Once committed, these men were unwillingly subjected to experiments in the name of science. Because they were mentally ill and incarcerated, they were considered by the state to have no rights, and in the word of Dr. Paul Braumwell, chief of research at Atascadero, “If we can learn something by using them [for medical and surgical experiments], then that is a small compensation for the trouble they have caused society” (qtd. in Richmond 43). Given that about 10% of the population was gay, multiple experiments were conducted regarding a cure for that particular “mental disorder.” Use of succinylcholine was one such experiment. The drug produces the sensation of dying (Richmond 44). The experiment was to administer the drug, usually forcibly, and then, once the sensation of near death hits the patient, tell them how bad homosexuality is. This process was intended to associate dying with the idea of homosexual behavior (Richmond 44). Former patient Leo Dallas, who was arrested for Lewd and Lascivious Conduct for kissing another man in public, related another attempted cure in an article in I Am, a SF gay liberation newspaper. He recounted the use of a technique known in the psychology world as aversion therapy (Richmond 45). Aversion therapy as practiced at Atascadero involved connecting an electric shocker to a gay man’s penis, showing him gay erotica, and shocking the penis whenever he got an erection. The intent was to prevent arousal as a reaction to homosexual ideas, or sexual intimacy (Richmond 45). Often, although it worked, it didn’t do anything to produce heterosexual feelings in a patient, rather rendering the person asexual. Proponents of aversion therapy counted these cases as successes in curing homosexuality (Chenier). Due to the APA’s definition of homosexuality as a disorder, a number of psychologists not working for the government were using similar techniques at the time.
In addition to using electric shock as a treatment for homosexuality, Atascadero also used it as a punishment for disobedience. The use as a punishment was applied to the brain, however, and the practice is and was highly frowned upon in the medical world, as it can easily cause brain damage (Richmond 45). According to a former patient of the facility, upon preparing to release someone, the hospital staff forced the departing patient to sign a form consenting to any procedures that had been performed with the threat of this brain shock treatment (Richmond 45). As far as the staff and the law were concerned, these people were capable of committing awful crimes and should be dealt with accordingly.
Up until the Stonewall riots, when the arrival of a gay rights movement informed the gay community of its own existence, all these elements conspired to allow homophobia to flourish in all areas of American life. They kept the average American wary in his or her relations with homosexuals, making them consistently uncomfortable in confronting the issue. In addition, the average homosexual was kept misinformed, unsure of his own self worth, and in the closet. The establishment told them they were sick, and as a consequence, had fewer civil rights than a heterosexual, and were unsuitable to serve their country. It took away their sanity, both through diagnoses and treatments. They were told that they needed curing, but the treatments offered caused real mental problems. Because of homophobia, gays and lesbians were treated as second-class citizens. Unable to live life on their own terms, they had to abide by the constrictive dictates of social normality, or be shunned.
