GSCENE 51 witness. Nurse Benedict Henry: “I remember the first time I witnessed it [electrical aversion therapy]. I thought it was barbaric, I mean I remember thinking ‘where was the treatment?’ The young lad nearly jumped out of his skin with the jolt of the first shock. You could see it was almost mental torture waiting for the next one!”
HOW TO CURE A QUEER Dr Tommy Dickinson talks to Craig Hanlon-Smith about his new book Curing Queers. ) Since the repeal of Section 28 in November 2003 (June 2000 in Scotland), there has been much progressive social change for the LGBT community of these islands to celebrate. The rights of same-sex couples to adopt, the introduction of sexual orientation as a protected characteristic in the workplace, Civil Partnership, and of course most recently SameSex Marriage. Hard to imagine then, that less than half a century ago, the medical profession in Britain was a strong advocate of the kind of sexual deviance curing therapies we now consider reserved for the developing world or the extreme conservatives in the United States. In his illuminating book, Curing Queers, Doctor Tommy Dickinson explores just that. “The full title,” he tells me, “is Curing Queers: Mental Nurses and their Patients, 1935–74. In 1935 Louis Max published the first report on aversion therapy being used to ‘cure’ homosexuals, and it wasn’t until 1974 that homosexuality was removed by the Americans from a recognised list of mental illnesses.” What is fascinating about the book is that it focuses on the actions of the nurse practitioners and the relationships they had to both their patients, and the aversion therapy role they were expected to fulfil. The result transcends the historically accurate account. It is deeply personal and profoundly moving. The research took three years and is predominantly centred around the collation of oral history from patients who had survived the therapies, and their nurses. Consequently at the time of interview, participants were aged between 65 and 97. Probably one of the better known stories of reparative therapies is that of Alan Turing. The Second World War code breaker, Turing, was arrested after his relationship with another man was exposed and prosecuted. Turing himself opted for Oestrogen rather than a prison sentence and whilst the injections lowered Turing’s libido they also led to the
growth of breasts and depression. Although following his death in 1953 the coroner recorded an open verdict, it has been widely argued since that he committed suicide. I asked Dr Dickinson if any such stories stood out form his own interviews and research. “The majority of the participants in my study received chemical aversion therapy such as that administered to Alan Turing, but this was by no means standard.” Reparative therapies at this time could just as easily be electrical aversion therapy as across the country there were no general protocols or medical guidelines for such treatment. “One of my interviewees, Percival Thatcher, described his experiences as totally depersonalising and was one of many to recall his treatments in macabre detail: ‘I can still taste the vile taste of stale sick in my mouth. All I wanted was to wash my mouth out with fresh water but I wasn’t even allowed that. I was not allowed out for three days. I had to lie in my own faeces, urine and vomit. It was like a torture scene by the Gestapo in Nazi Germany – I thought I was going to die.‘” Curing Queers does not only address the aversion therapies associated with homosexuality but also transsexualism. One of Dickinson’s subjects, Greta Gold, reflects: ‘I remember sitting in a room on a wooden chair ‘dressed’ [wearing womens’ clothes], but I had to be barefoot as my feet had to touch the metal electric grid. My penis was wired up to something to measure if I got an erection. I felt totally violated. I remember the excruciating pain of the initial shock. Nothing could have prepared me for it. Tears began running down my face and the nurse said: ‘What are you crying for? We have only just started’.’ The patients in Dickinson’s research are only a part of the study, examining the role of nurses is a central feature. Some of the nurses clearly found the therapies equally distressing to
It’s suggested in his study. but even clearer when we meet, that Dickinson holds the subversive nurses whom whilst in their roles rebelled against their instructions for the benefit of the patients, in high esteem. Nurses such as Benedict Henry again who remembers ‘Even though we were not really supposed to, I tried to sit down with the patient and offer them support’. Dickinson states: “I was impressed with their independent will and although these therapies were part of the medical status quo at that time, the so-called subversive nurses put the humanity of their patients first. I found that fascinating.” Whilst these therapies in the UK are recorded here as part of an historical past, the chemical and electrical aversion therapies have been replaced across the world with psychoanalytical alternatives and herbal ‘gay’ remedies. As recently as 2015, President Obama spoke out against the rise of conversion and reparative therapies for transgender, gay, lesbian, bisexual and queer youth in America. And whilst there are few official records of such therapies succeeding, Ugandan Presidential candidates actively campaigned in this year’s elections on the need to ‘correct’ homosexuals through the setting up of reparative centres. In the UK, MP Stephen Crabb, the newly appointed Work & Pensions Secretary recently told The Telegraph that he neither supports nor endorses ‘gay cure’ therapies, after he was found to hold close links with Christian Action Research & Education (CARE) who have held events seeking to ‘cure’ LGBT people. As recently as 2012, Mr. Crabb, a serving politician, was accepting paid interns from the organisation. Dr Tommy Dickinson: “The rhetoric regarding sexual deviants during the 1950s and 1960s created a favourable social and political context for the chemical and electrical treatments. This resulted in a set of actions that, on reflection, were ethically unjustified, brutal and harmful to the patients receiving them.” As the World Health Organisation removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders almost 26 years ago, it is time for international governments to publically oppose the rise of 21st Century reparative therapies and ‘gay-cures’, and to do so in law.
INFO ) Curing Queers: Mental Nurses and Their Patients, 1935–74 by Tommy Dickinson is published by Manchester University Press and now available in paperback.