Dr. Anonymous is important to LGBTQ history

Two weeks ago I wrote about nuclear fusion as a source of energy, a source that’s quite clean in contrast to highly dangerous nuclear fission. I wrote about it because Lawrence Livermore National Lab announced they had achieved more energy from the fusion than needed to fire that lasers that made the fusion happen – if one ignores the hundred times that energy needed to get the lasers ready to fire. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos wrote a good explanation of what fusion is and what was actually achieved at the lab this month. He reviewed the history of the research, including the different ways that fusion could be triggered. Then he discussed the progress being made by other methods of achieving fusion. He included a few videos for more information. Sumner concluded that the constant refrain of fusion always being “20 to 30 years away” is probably no longer accurate. Clean commercially available fusion energy might happen sooner than that. Joan McCarter of Kos wrote that Republicans seemed determined to continue imposing far right policies even though such policies are quite unpopular. One would think the issue of abortion contributing to their November losses would prompt them to rethink their plans. But no. This discussion was brought on by a South Carolina legislator who proposed an amendment to the state constitution to define gender “without regard to an individual’s psychological, chosen or subjective experience of gender.” Take that you pesky trans people! Wrote McCarter:

Both the midterm results and exit polling from November’s ballot demonstrate just how much the general public doesn’t want lawmakers to be obsessing over anti-LGBTQ+ crap. Just 5% of voters said transgender health care and participation in sports mattered to them in this election. The majority were electing a record number of LGBTQ+ candidates, with 1,065 openly LGBTQ+ people running, and 340 winning.

Trans people aren’t the only ones being hit. There are copycat “Don’t Say Gay” bills and a “Women’s Bill of Rights” (and we know how fake that will be because the right to an abortion isn’t included). It is all part of an effort to be seen as the “protector” of women and children when women and children need protection from them. So why are they doing all this unpopular stuff? Because all of these far right issues will be challenged in court. And many will go all the way to the Supreme Court, which is now stacked in their favor. Adam Zyglis has an appropriate cartoon. It shows an elephant cramming a cork in a teacher’s mouth. As a way of understanding the war in Ukraine Sumner reviewed the TV series Andor. It’s part of the Star Wars universe and Sumner says it is quite good – much better than the usual story in the franchise. I won’t attempt to discuss the story. Instead, I’ll mention some of the things that Sumner says contribute to a Fascist regime. The first is the relationship between capitalism and fascism:

The authoritarian government is happy to tolerate both the corporate structure and the corporate police so long as capitalism is sufficient to keep the people distracted from concerns about the empire. Keeping those workers at the ragged edge, where they worry more about feeding their families is the goal. But the fascists don’t hesitate to directly take the reins when they believe the corporate rulers aren’t being adequately oppressive.

Keeping workers so poor that they’re focused on feeding their families means they’re not focused on the brutality of the regime. The next topic is colonialism.

Notably, the indigenous population hasn’t been killed directly. Instead, they’ve been driven off their land, directed into “enterprise zones” where they can engage in labor that serves the empire. ... The world on which this act takes place is one in which the government has demonstrated it’s ability to erase the local culture. Not only have the indigenous people been removed from their land, their cultural practices have been undercut by limits on important ceremonies. There has also been active cultural appropriation, in which the empire has replaced portions of the rituals of these “simple” local people. ... If all this sounds like what the United States did (and does) to Native Americas, it’s meant to. The forcing of people that were spread thinly across large areas into small industrial zones is also spot on to how colonialism was practiced in Africa and elsewhere. Colonialism serves those in power. Fascism maintains itself by removing any competitors. If religion or cultural traditions can be warped to serve the authoritarian regime, they’re supported. If not, they’re removed.

And there is the prison system.

Once in the prison, Andor learns that even the pretense of his sentence is not maintained. For both those who resist their captivity, and those who cooperate, the end result is the same — a lifetime of doing free labor for the empire; a crushing, mind-numbing, never ending production line in which they are all engaged in building what, pointedly, turn out to be fresh tools of oppression. It’s only here, in this final arc, that Andor steps back from his personal needs to realize that it’s not enough to hate the system. He has to take steps to end that system.

I saw a tweet by Mary Doherty a couple weeks ago mentioning an event important to LGBTQ history that happened 50 years ago. It’s an event I knew about, though it is good to get the background story and be reminded of its importance. The tweet linked to a news article. I decided to read the full article and was surprised it was dated May 2, 2022. The article is on NBC News and is by Jillian Eugenios. That historical event 50 years ago was when Dr. Henry Anonymous spoke to the American Psychiatric Association while wearing a Nixon mask, a wig, and a too big tux and using a microphone that disguised his voice. He began his speech by saying “I am a homosexual, I am a psychiatrist.” The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is a guidebook for psychiatrists. When the first edition of the DSM was published in 1952 homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder. Acceptable cures included chemical castration, electroconvulsive therapy and lobotomy – yeah, severe treatments. A homosexual could be denied a mortgage and insurance, fired from a job, and institutionalized. Same-sex activities were criminialized. Activists were pressuring the APA to change – their refrain was “Stop talking about us and start talking to us!” They had stormed the APA conference in 1970 and 1971. So a panel was created for the 1972 conference. I had heard elsewhere that psychiatrists based their diagnosis on the number of gay men they saw who were in a bad mental place – not catching on the men didn’t want to be gay because of the extreme social pressure placed on them. Psychiatrists didn’t see the gay men who were content and well-adjusted and functioning just fine. That’s why they wanted the APA to talk to them. The organizers thought a gay psychiatrist would be appropriate for the panel. Only one member of the underground Gay-P-A agreed to participate, but only if disguised because he could lose his job. So Dr. John Fryer became Dr. Anonymous. His speech prompted homosexuality to be removed from the DSM in 1973. Declaring homosexuality was not a mental disorder, but just another variation in the spectrum of humanity, the rationalization for discrimination was removed. Bigotry couldn’t hide behind psychiatry. LGBTQ people felt freer in coming out. Anti sodomy laws began to be overturned. The speech by Dr. Anonymous is as important to LGBTQ history as the Stonewall riots.