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. 1981 Feb;138(2):210-5.
doi: 10.1176/ajp.138.2.210.

The diagnostic status of homosexuality in DSM-III: a reformulation of the issues

R L Spitzer

The diagnostic status of homosexuality in DSM-III: a reformulation of the issues

R L Spitzer. Am J Psychiatry. 1981 Feb.

Abstract

In 1973 homosexuality per se was removed from the DSM-II classification of mental disorders and replaced by the category Sexual Orientation Disturbance. This represented a compromise between the view that preferential homosexuality is invariably a mental disorder and the view that it is merely a normal sexual variant. While the 1973 DSM-II controversy was highly public, more recently a related but less public controversy involved what became the DSM-III category of Ego-dystonic Homosexuality. The author presents the DSM-III controversy and a reformulation of the issues involved in the diagnostic status of homosexuality. He argues that what is at issue is a value judgment about heterosexuality, rather than a factual dispute about homosexuality.

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