Gay Rights: built over lobotomy, castration, and torture

Northside Storm · Nov 17, 2013

Even up until 1971, simply being a homosexual could result in a life sentence. Twenty states had laws stating that the mere fact you were a homosexual was reason for imprisonment. In California (of all places) and Pennsylvania, we could be put away for life in a mental hospital. In seven states castration was permitted as a way to stop homosexual 'deviants.'

At Atascadero State Hospital, doctors (I use that term loosely) were permitted under an obscure California law to commit those who practiced sodomy into the hospital. Once admitted, normal men and women were rendered mentally disabled through the torture of castration, lobotomies, forced chemical treatments and experimental treatments. The horrors experienced by hundreds are almost too hard to comprehend in America.

The most notorious was a Dr. Walter J. Freeman who perfected the ice pick lobotomy. He jammed an ice pick through a homosexual's eyes into the brain and performed a primitive lobotomy. According to records, he treated over 4,000 patients this way around America and it is estimated that nearly 30% to 40% were homosexuals. He believed deeply this was the only way to cure homosexuality.

A caller into an NPR Radio talk show about lobotomies recalled a cousin who was a homosexual. She said,

"PAT (Caller): Yes, I'm Pat from Naples, Florida. I just wanted to tell you about a cousin of mine who, in her late 30s or early 40s, was forced into a lobotomy by an uncle of hers who had some control over her finances. And she was forced into a lobotomy because they said she was a homosexual. And she lived after that in somewhat sheltered situations, like a boarding house, but she never could hold a job and she certainly is not as lucid as your guest. She was eccentric. She had no emotion, only showed emotion as she learned it. But it was only because she was a homosexual that they gave her a lobotomy. ........ And she herself told me how and why she had had the lobotomy. And at that point in her life, she was in her 70s and she said, `Oh, well, that was the right thing to do because they told me I was homosexual.' "
Click to expand...

http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/07/...f-lobotomies-castration-and-institutions.html

just to put things into perspective about how historic recent victories are. I was getting a little tired of people doing the whole line about how gay rights are frivolous, so I wanted to frame it for their perspective, might as well do it here as I've encountered the same attitude. 40 years from castration and lobotomies to marriage. It does lend a lot of perspective, and also helps frame past, present, and future victories into something more significant for those that argue that gay rights are some sort of lesser struggle.

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Gay Rights: built over lobotomy, castration, and torture

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