Today is the International Day Against Homophobia, held on May 17 every year. It is a rallying event offering an opportunity for people to get together and reach out to one another.
Each year has a theme and 2008's is "Healthcare and Homosexuality." From the IDAH website:
Homosexuality is not a sickness. However, specialists haven't always thought so. For a long time, mental health professionals considered sexual activity between same-sex partners an illness. Unfortunately, prejudice is deep-rooted. Some people continue to think that homosexuality is a mental disorder while others mistakenly believe that it can be cured. Transgender people experience the same prejudice as well.
I am encouraged to see the important focus on reaching out to the healthcare community on LGBT issues. From conversion therapy to simply how to treat LGBT patients with respect, healthcare is often the forgotten battle in the LGBT community.
Seeing this focus of the International Day Against Homophobia, reaching out around the world to educate on various healthcare issues, is heartening. Equality in healthcare is a basic right that our community cannot afford to overlook.
Comment on this entry
I'm surprised Alex isn't all over this one; the focus is health care! :)
Bil Browning | May 17, 2008 9:12 AM
In 1972-3 I addressed classes in psychology at Purdue, Ball State and University of Illinois as part of my GLF activities. There was a network of liberal psychology profs who were happy to have a "living example" to show their students. As I prepared my own opening statement I saved the notes, I'll try and make it brief:
"Good Morning,...I cannot help thinking about all the good advice I received from well meaning friends...who told me what could happen to me if I came here today...I seek, and all Gay people seek, what each of you seek. I seek love, companionship, trust, truth and to be utterly consumed by rapture for someone I never want to be without. My right to that happiness is equal to that of anyone else in the room.
Question:
The American psychiatric Association still categorizes you as having a disease. If you are not afflicted with a disorder, why do you suppose that persons better educated than you in the field are wrong?
Answer:
Show me the data on healthy, stable, employed Gay people. This is the most perfect example of cooking data imaginable. Who did these doctors have to study? Mental hospital inmates who have been driven mad by societal prejudice, or happen to have some other disorder, and be gay at the same time. When your only source of data are those who are mentally ill, it is hardly an argument that makes sense...if you happened to be a Gay psychiatrist, would you make yourself available to your colleagues, under the present APA categories, and risk losing your career?...it will be changed.
And when it was that was my California.
Robert Ganshorn | May 17, 2008 10:22 AM
Anyone else weirded out that most of the IDAHO activities took place in Canada?
Alex Blaze | May 18, 2008 6:33 AM
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