Psychology of gay people
Jayden Burroughs
Jayden Burroughs
In this, I will be talking about the psychology of homosexuality and how being gay is psychologically no different than being straight. Now I know there are a lot of people who think that being gay is a disease and a mental illness but what is so different between being straight and being gay other than the gender of who we love? Well I will be talking about what doesn't .make us different at all
Now, to start most people think that there is a big difference between gay people and straight people because of who they like. But what most people don’t know is that psychologically speaking there isn't as big of a difference as people thought. Now, because we are going to talk about the psychology of gay people then let's go to where it just about started which would be in the 1940s when a psychologist unknowingly became friends with a gay man. That psychologist's name was Evelyn Hooker and during the time her study started when being gay was considered a mental illness.
Now the reason why Evelyn wanted to conduct the tests was that she became friends with a gay man and she couldn't see the difference between her husband's actions and her friend's actions. Now, this sparked her curiosity, which is why she did her test and this test is still used until this day this test was an inkblot test. So she had the same amount of straight and gay men take the test and she showed it to a top psychologist and he couldn't tell the difference between the two results because they were that close showing there wasn't a difference.
Even though it was proven that being gay was no different than being straight not much was done until some Activision was done and Evelyn was giving them the ammunition that the activists needed. so the activists would show up to psychiatric association meetings and use signs to send a message and some psychologists would let some of the activists in and tell their side for themselves. And would let the activist try and convince people in the meeting that they were no different than anyone else at that meeting.
And after 30 years of hard work in 1973 the American psychiatric association took being gay off the list of mental illnesses and after that was done homosexual people were also in the middle of fitting for their rights which started in 1965. But because the American psychiatric association took being gay off the list of mental illnesses, it made it easier for homosexuality to become more accepted and less discriminated against even if there are still some who still believe being gay is a disease. Even after all that happened, it took until 2003 for texas to strike down the state's anti-sodomy law starting a chain reaction that decriminalized homosexual relations nationwide.
Also, some people say that being gay is genetic sorry to say it but it's not it's actually based on your environmental psychology while you are in your developing age. And this was proven in a study back in 1953 where they took note of both biological twins, adopted brothers and sisters, and separated twins who grew up in different families. The study showed that in twins who were separated one developed as gay and the other as straight same goes for the adopted sibling with the gay twin the adopted sibling also developed as gay. which proved that being gay was not a genetic gene but that it was based on the environment that the person grew up in or was a part of.
So to conclude the fact is that being gay is no different than being straight other than the fact of who likes who in the situation. But physiologically being gay is no different than being straight so people should stop acting as if there is a difference that psychologically isn't there. And people should also not say that there is a gay gene because there isn't so stop saying that it's entirely the parent's fault because they had the gay gene. No, It's not based on genes but on what has happened around them while growing up whether it is their parents, friends, or whoever made an impact on that person's life that changed them psychologically. Now there will always be people who think otherwise but I hope that after you are done reading this that I have changed some of your minds on if being gay or straight is all that different.
Cited sources
Aeonmag. “The Pioneering Psychologist Who Proved That Being Gay Isn't a Mental Illness: Aeon Videos.” Aeon, https://aeon.co/videos/the-pioneering-psychologist-who-proved-that-being-gay-isnt-a-mental-illness.
van den Aardweg, Gerard J M. “On the Psychogenesis of Homosexuality.” The Linacre Quarterly, SAGE Publications, Aug. 2011, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6026959/.
Kinney, Robert L. “Homosexuality and Scientific Evidence: On Suspect Anecdotes, Antiquated Data, and Broad Generalizations.” The Linacre Quarterly, Maney Publishing, Nov. 2015, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4771012/.