Do you have any information on how homosexuality was eliminated from the DSM-IV vs DSM-III?
Is there an established revision procedure whereby disorders are either included or excluded in new editions? If so, is there a way to determine whether that procedure was followed in the revision work that excluded homosexuality in the current fourth edition? A. The issue of whether homosexuality is a disease has been one of the more controversial matters that has faced the framers of the various DSMs over the last few decades. The very first edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-I) classified homosexuality as a sexual deviation, as did DSM-II in 1968. However, in December of 1973, the DSM-II was modified by the Board of Trustees of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), who voted to eliminate the general category of homosexuality, and replace it with sexual orientation disturbance. As Dr. Jon Meyer notes (see Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, 4th ed., eds. Kaplan & Sadock), “…this change reflected the point of view that homosexuality was
