BMJ  2004;328:955 (17 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7445.955

Letter

Treating homosexuality as a sickness

Transvestites might be the new outcasts

EDITOR—Smith et al's article on patients' experiences of treatments for homosexuality since the 1950s should be seen as part of a reconciliation process between society and medicine and lesbian, gay, and bisexual people.¹ The charity Mind has produced an outstanding resource, Lesbians, Gay Men and Bisexuals and Mental Health, which provides invaluable information—as well as detailing recent abusive counselling and psychotherapy.²

In the early 1990s I used to volunteer on the Aberdeen Lesbian and Gay Switchboard, and I recall receiving three calls from people who had undergone electroshock therapy in the recent past and from one young man who was undergoing it at the time. I was totally horrified at the extent to which family and religious pressure was seemingly the main driver in trying to cure healthy people by the application of totally inappropriate "medical" treatments.

The United Kingdom has changed for the better, and now some degree of legal protection is afforded to gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. However, I wonder whether people who cross dress (transvestites) are the new outcasts, with a range of treatments applied designed to "cure" them of something that society disapproves of.

I hope that lessons learnt from the recent past of how "medicine" inappropriately treated "homosexuals" will better inform how we treat people whose only disease is not to conform to society's norms.

South West Kent Primary Care Trust, Sevenoaks, Kent TN13 3PG chris.lovitt{at}nhs.net

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Competing interests: None declared.

References

1. Smith G, Bartlett A, King M. Treatments of homosexuality in Britain since the 1950s—an oral history: the experience of patients. BMJ 2004;328: 427-0. (21 February.)[Abstract/Free Full Text]
2. Mind. Lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and mental health. London: Mind, 2004. www.mind.org.uk/Information/Factsheets/Diversity/Factsheetlgb.htm (accessed 29 Mar 2004).

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