Charles Silverstein, helped remove homosexuality as mental illness, dies
13.02.2023 - 19:04
/ qvoicenews.com
Charles Silverstein, who helped remove homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association’s list of mental illnesses and coauthored “The Joy of Gay Sex,” has died at age 87.
Charles Silverstein, who helped remove homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association’s list of mental illnesses and coauthored “The Joy of Gay Sex,” has died at age 87.
“Today we mourn Dr. Charles Silverstein, who passed away on January 30. 23,” the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, which announced Silverstein’s death, said in a tweet. “A hero, an activist, a leader, and a friend. His contributions to psychology and the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals have been felt around the world.”
Charles Silverstein’s first career was as an elementary school teacher, but in the 1970s he earned a Ph.D. in psychology and opened a private psychotherapy practice, according to Outwords.
It was a pivotal decade for him in many ways. In 1973, his presentation helped persuade the APA to remove homosexuality from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a landmark decision for gays and lesbians.
“Since I was a psychologist, or at least working on my Ph.D. in psychology, it was decided that I should make the professional presentation, meaning the presentation, all the research and clinical work that suggested that homosexuality was not a mental disorder,” he told The Advocate’s LGBTQ&A podcast in 2021, in one of his last interviews. “And then Jean O’Leary, who had been a nun but was no longer a nun. She left the church. She would make the presentation from the point of view of ordinary people, about discrimination in the city of New York. So it was a very well-organized presentation. We knew what everybody was going to do.”