The deletion of the term homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association's revised diagnostic and statistical manual was not simply arrived at after carefully considered judgment by a group of psychiatrists. It was the climax of a sociopolitical struggle involving what were deemed to be the rights of homosexuals.

It is my aim here to separate out the psychiatric and conceptual issues from the sociopolitical issues, to document my own theoretical and clinical position, and to describe the events that I participated in and observed – all of which I trust will bring into focus the elements that went into the American Psychiatric Association's decision of 1974.

The complexity of homosexuality as a category of human adaptation has stimulated argument and controversy among lawmakers, the clergy, and behavioral, social, and biological scientists. Is it a sin, a crime, a deviation? Is it a dislocation of sexual development or an illness? Is it a constitutional disorder, a genetic misprint, a habit? The question of whether homosexuality is or is not an illness played an important role in the APA decision. Coming from another direction was the influence of the gay activist groups who believed that prejudice against homosexuals could be extinguished only if, as homosexuals, they are accepted as normal. They claimed that homosexuality is a preference, an orientation, a propensity; that it is neither a defect, a disturbance, a sickness, nor a malfunction of any sort. Therefore, homophile leaders and their followers consistently impugned the motives and ridiculed the work of those psychiatrists who asserted that homosexuality is other than normal.