Hey, I'm Jeffrey Masters, and this is LGBTQ and A with Dr. Charles Silverstein,

a man who helped to achieve one of our community's most significant victories.

Back in 1973, he made the presentation before the American Psychiatric Association that led to the removal

of homosexuality from the official list of mental illnesses.

And for how much has changed for our community since then, I think it's easy to forget

what a crucial game changer was for the movement to have it officially declared that

the way we live and love is not a mental illness.

It's not something that needs or even can be quote-unquote cured.

Charles is of course also known for co-writing the 1977 landmark book, The Joy of Gay Sex.

That's a book that along with being banned and burned and

seized by custom agents around the world, it really did educate generations of gay men about

all aspects of gay life, sexual and not. Now, our show is on a break right now. We will be back

in a few months, but I wanted to re-shhare this interview with Charles that we did to help to honor and remember his life.

He died last week at the age of 87, and this is one of the last interviews that he did.

So without further ado, this is LGBTQ and A with Dr. Charles Silverstein.

I want to start off by talking about your role in helping to declassify homosexuality as a mental

disorder. But before we get to that, can you talk about

why originally it was classified as that, and any evidence or assume facts that backed that

up? Well, everything about sexuality is based upon the moral beliefs of a society,

and since homosexuality had been condemned as immoral,

it just automatically was assumed that it should go into the diagnostic and statistical manual

as a mental disorder.

...