Stonewall

Last week the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA) apologized for its part in formerly pathologizing homosexuality and for the “discrimination and trauma” doing so had inflicted on those who sought help from psychoanalysts. In 1991 homosexuality, under threat of an anti-discrimination lawsuit, was no longer classified as a mental disorder. The APsaA now stands against conversion therapy and supports LGBTQ civil rights.

Earlier this month NYC’s Police Commissioner apologized for the raid, fifty years ago today, on Stonewall Inn, a popular bar-nightclub for gay men and women. A riot ensued when patrons fought back by throwing bottles at police officers, and, days later, demonstrations for the civil rights of LGB Americans took place. Stonewall sparked the Gay Pride movement. President Bill Clinton was the first president to acknowledge Pride month in 2000.

Virginia Goldner said:

[I]n considering the history of gender-variant subjects, I am more struck by the trauma of stigma, which, along with the isolation of being/feeling different, and of coping with the unrelenting, embodied self-alienation of gender dysphoria, takes a far greater toll on the soul than I had initially understood. I still think it is these experiences of self-alienation, combined with an estrangement from one’s very own breathing body, that constitute the foundational trauma of gender variance.

Corbett, K. Dimen, M. Goldner, V. Harris, A. (2014). Talking Sex, Talking Gender—A Roundtable. Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 15(4):295-317.