Richard Isay first had to overcome his own ignorance of homosexuality and embrace the fact that he was gay before forcing the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA) to do the same. And neither was easy. The Oedipus complex was the dominant paradigm of psychoanalytic theory when he had trained. Homosexuality was seen as a form of so called “arrested development”; an immature and inferior status. This theory propped up much of the then commonplace legal and social discrimination against homosexual people. Isay bought into the construct and underwent a decade of analysis both as part of his training and to “cure” himself of homosexuality. He married Jane Franzblau and had two sons.⇑