Sophie Mei

Article: By Centre for HIV and Sexual Health Sheffield
Locals ‘Outaloud’ against homophobia

May 17th marked International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO), marking the anniversary of the day in 1990 when the World Health Organisation removed homosexuality from its list of mental diseases. Campaigns take place across the world around this date to combat prejudice against lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and trans communities. Local Burngreave residents helped Sheffield mark the event on Monday 18 May, with speeches, a choir performance and a minute’s ‘noise’.

“gay men and lesbians to conform to society’s heterosexual ‘norms’ still exists in the UK. Homophobia is alive and kicking, literally.” Steve Slack, Director of Centre for HIV and Sexual health, Sheffield.

Notes to Eds:

On the Couch or in the Confessional – when will being Gay be Guilt-free?

Paolo, a third generation Italian, was twenty three when he was first given the news that he was HIV positive. He had recently left university and was establishing a career in the media. He received the news with a mixture of horror and disbelief but his greatest fear was his family finding out.

Paolo had left his home in the Midlands to attend university where he had enjoyed the freedoms of student life, away from the confines of a close-knit, extended and loving catholic family. Paolo insisted he was not gay, although he revealed eventually that he had sex exclusively with men and never with women. He still hoped one day to meet the right woman and marry. He explained that he never used condoms because his religious thinking lead him to believe their use, for him at least, were wrong, although he did not have a problem with other people using them.
Furthermore, he believed that only gay men were at risk from acquiring HIV and, since he was strictly speaking not gay, he was probably at low risk.

Paulo’s rational for his sexual decision making may seem to some naïve and illogical, but he is not alone. Many of us undertake gymnastic-style twists and turns in our thinking to rationalise behaviour that we feel guilty about.

When it comes to sex and sexual orientation there are still great sanctions and pressures from family, institutions and society which can have negative and damaging outcomes.

Families continue to reject their gay sons and daughters and institutions such as the church, and in particular church leaders, persist in peddling homophobic bigotry.

Speaking recently, the new Archbishop of Westminster appointed by the Pope, Reverend Vincent Nichols, reasserted the Papal view that homosexuals were not themselves to be condemned but it was their relationships, their sexual acts and their parenting desires which should be censured.

In other words he was falling back on that old chestnut: ‘love the sinner not the sin’ – a line which is quite frankly now wearing as thin as a Holy Communion wafer.

Loving homosexuals, but denying their sexual acts and loving relationships, is disingenuous and as realistic as declaring love for human beings whilst denying them air and water.

Even former Prime minister, Tony Blair, interviewed in the gay magazine Attitude, questioned the Pope’s attitude to homosexuality and suggested that the congregations in many churches were more liberal minded than their leaders.

Many of us now turn to psychiatry or psychology as way of self actualisation and an opportunity for non-judgemental exploration. It can be argued that psychiatry has replaced the confessional when we want someone to help us understand ourselves.

So, when in 1990 The World Health Organisation removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses, the hope was that psychiatric and psychological approaches to the ‘treatment’ of homosexuality were consigned to the scrap heap.

Apparently not.

According to research published in the Journal BMC Psychiatry in March 2009, a significant minority of mental health professionals continue to offer treatments for homosexuality despite there being no evidence that such methods work. One therapist interviewed told researchers: “The physical act for male homosexuality is physically damaging and is the main reason in this country for AIDS/HIV. It is also perverse.”

According to this research, the prevalence of interventions to ‘treat’ homosexuality is still in practice. Of the 1400 therapists who responded, 4% said they would attempt to change a client’s sexual orientation and 17% reported having assisted at least one client or patient to change his or her homosexual feelings.

That gay men and lesbians still seek psychological treatments for their sexual orientation, in spite of all the social changes and legislative measures to protect their rights and promote equality, suggests that some gay men and lesbians still feel significantly unhappy with their sexual orientation.

Undoubtedly, protection in this country and social attitudes are far more liberal than some of the other 75 countries worldwide where homosexuality is still criminalised.

But pressure on gay men and lesbians to conform to society’s heterosexual ‘norms’ still exists in the UK. Homophobia is alive and kicking, literally. Reporting on homophobic hate crime in 2008, the campaign group Stonewall suggested that one in five gay men and lesbians in Britain had been a victim of one or more homophobic hate crimes or incidents in the previous three years. As many as three in four of these crimes were not reported to the police, although the incidents ranged from verbal abuse through to more serious physical and sexual assaults. (Homophobic Hate Crime. The Gay British Crime Survey 2008. Stonewall).

Neither psychiatry nor religion provides ‘answers’ to homosexuality. There are no cures and there is no divine intervention which can alter sexual orientation. Freedom, self acceptance and equality are the ways forward and it is in these areas that both psychiatry and religion can offer support, guidance and leadership, ultimately enhancing emotional health and, where appropriate, spiritual health.

There are no answers to homosexuality because homosexuality should not be in question. We should no more be asking why someone is homosexual than we should ask why someone is heterosexual.

Perhaps only then will we stop looking for cures and religious intervention; accepting that all human beings have a sexuality and seeing this sexuality as a source of pleasure, happiness and fulfilment; something to be celebrated – not a source of shame, fear and anxiety.

These views are the personal views of Steve Slack who is the Director of the Centre for HIV and Sexual Health. He has also worked as an HIV counsellor and social worker in Sheffield.