Homosexuality Is Not an Illness

1957

Evelyn Hooker (1907–1996)

Evelyn Gentry Hooker has been hailed as the psychologist who was the forerunner of the gay liberation movement. Conducted almost fifteen years before the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City ignited the movement in the United States, her study showing that homosexual men were indistinguishable from heterosexual men in terms of psychological adjustment would prove pivotal in changing both social and scientific attitudes about the “pathology” of homosexuality.

Self-described as “hopelessly heterosexual,” Hooker was an instructor at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the early 1950s when she was approached by one of her students, Sam From. Sensing he could trust her, Sam confided that he and many of his friends were homosexual, and he implored her to do a scientific study to prove that they were not abnormal. She agreed, procured a research grant, and through contacts with homophile organizations, she was able to recruit a sample of thirty homosexual men. She administered interviews and tests, including the Rorschach and the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), both of which clinicians used widely at the time. She then recruited a matched sample of heterosexual men and administered the same tests. The test protocols for both groups were coded blindly and presented to a group of distinguished clinicians. Each clinician was presented with thirty matched pairs and asked to determine which was the protocol from the homosexual participant. The experts were unable to distinguish the protocols from one another.

Hooker made a presentation of her results at the 1955 meeting of the American Psychological Association and published them shortly thereafter, in 1957. Her work was instrumental in removing homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in the 1970s, and she remained an active participant in the gay rights movement throughout her life.

SEE ALSO Projective Tests (1921), DSM-III (1980)

A rainbow banner is reflected onto the pavement during the Athens gay pride parade in 2009.