Psychology’s role in queer history is shameful. The eugenicist movement of the late 19th and early-mid 20th century created baseless ‘science’ to subjugate and dehumanise people of colour in order to protect white supremacy, benefitting from the work of people like Robert Yerkes, who utilised aptitude testing to categorise ‘cognitive capacity and moral standing’. Queerness was a threat from within, an unacceptable abhorration that weakened the bloodline of the ruling race (yes, homophobia is racist). Designated a psychiatric disorder, conversion practises were designed that included distressing and traumatic aversion techniques (these practises remain legal, despite many promises) Yet still, courageous people forced change.
Frank Kameny’s relentless activism in the ‘60s and ‘70s against the American Psychological Association’s stance that homosexuality was an illness. Charles Silverstein’s campaign for an end to conversion practises and pioneering identity-affirming psychotherapy. Evelyn Hooker’s use of Psychological research to debunk beliefs that gay and straight men were innately different. Homosexuality was only removed from the DSM in 1987, the year I started school, and from the ICD in 1990, amidst the sorrow and fear of the AIDS epidemic (if you’re younger than 30, take a look at the National Archive), and Section 28, which was finally repealed in 2003 following significant pressure from Stonewall amongst others.
It’s quite a time to be writing about queer history, and in so few words. Renee Good has not long been shot dead in her car by ICE. In 2025, Burkina Faso made homosexuality an imprisonable crime and Hungary banned Pride marches. I could go on. The UK Supreme Court ruling on who is included under the legal definition of ‘woman’ led both the Women’s Institute and Girl Guides to exclude trans women and girls from becoming members. We stand in solidarity with our trans siblings as the world deliberates the legitimacy of their existence and we look again for those courageous enough to force change. Psychology is uniquely placed to speak to the experience of being human, and the conditions that can make our short time on this earth peaceful and enjoyable.
If like me you can feel quite overwhelmed by the state of the world, be reassured that there are still courageous folk about - grassroots groups like black-led mental health CIC Partisan, practitioner-activists like Dr Yvon Guest, Ban Conversion Therapy and Psychologists for Social Change. We hold both pain and hope in the same breath. We honour the past and the harms still present, so that we can be part of something different - a Psychology fit for purpose, that alleviates suffering rather than creating it. ‘Equity is the best therapy’.
Meg Naylor is a member of DClinQ, a grassroots LGBTQIA+ network for current trainees on the Doctorate of Clinical Psychology here at the University of Exeter. For more information about the network, get in touch – mn541@exeter.ac.uk