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Saturday, April 23, 2011

OBIT: Psychiatrist Who Helped Remove Homosexuality as an illness Dies at 94!

Dr. Alfred Freedman, who was president of the American Psychiatric Association when it declared that homosexuality was not a mental disorder in 1973, has died at the age of 94, details in Boston Globe. The ruling subsequently led to the removal of homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

"Dr. Freedman, much to his surprise, won what may have been the first contested election in the organization’s history, by three votes out of more than 9,000 cast. Immediately on taking office, he threw his support behind a resolution, drafted by Robert L. Spitzer of Columbia University, to remove homosexuality from the list of mental disorders."

"On Dec. 15, 1973, the board of trustees, many of them newly elected younger psychiatrists, voted 13 to 0, with two abstentions, in favor of the resolution, which stated that 'by itself, homosexuality does not meet the criteria for being a psychiatric disorder.' It went on: 'We will no longer insist on a label of sickness for individuals who insist that they are well and demonstrate no generalized impairment in social effectiveness.’'

The True Hero of the Gay Movement!

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