Today in Labor History December 15, 1973: The American Psychiatric Association voted to remove homosexuality from its official list of psychiatric disorders, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In the 1950s and 1960s, some therapists used aversion therapy to "cure" male homosexuality. Like in Anthony Burgess’s, “A Clockwork Orange,” they would show patients pictures of naked men while giving them electric shocks or drugs to make them puke. In the 1973 vote, 5,854 members voted to remove homosexuality from the DSM, while 3,810 voted to retain it. In a compromise, they agreed to remove homosexuality from the DSM, but replaced it with "sexual orientation disturbance" for people "in conflict with" their sexual orientation. They did not completely remove homosexuality from the DSM until 1987.
@MikeDunnAuthor@bookstadon
What an insane world that 5,000 PhDs got to 'debate' and determine what's 'curable' and what's not; but I guess letting a bunch of elected Libertarian wallies make regressive choices is just as nuts
In the Aotearoa New Zealand the people who voted for 'parental choice' and against removing conversion therapy as a 'treatment' are part of NZ's Coalition of Chaos #nzpol#conversiontherapy#mentalhealth
#WritingCommunity: Have you ever pondered the legality of using trademarked brand names in your fiction? Well, check out this helpful article via Sidebar Saturdays for the expert opinion of an intellectual property lawyer. @bookstodon
@writers I reckon it could be 3 or 4 weeks at most for her to realise, she might hide it for another couple of months... hasty wedding on the quiet another two weeks after that perhaps, if they slip the priest a bribe. So maybe the pregnancy is not quite halfway through by the time she's at the altar? And that's approaching mid to late December?
@NickEast@writers@writingcommunity@writing@humour There’s a story that when Cristiano de André, son of the Italian singer-songwriter Fabrizio de André, was asked in school to write an essay about “What does your dad do as a job?” he wrote a one-word answer: “Sleeps.”
Welcome to the inaugural #FediBookFair. #authors and #publishers are invited to post about their #books, offer signed copies, etc, using the #FediBookFair hashtag.
#Readers can watch or follow the hashtag to find books to buy, and interesting authors to follow.