ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the constructions of homosexuality while touching upon the connected constructions of gender nonconforming femininity, critiquing rather than condoning the language, treatments, and theories that have been put forward by psychiatry and psychology. The declassification of homosexuality as a mental illness should have been cause for celebration, the success of the campaign was hindered by the research and clinical interest in 'pre-homosexual' children, particularly effeminate or 'feminine boys'. Sodomy was considered immoral but more in keeping with expectations of masculine sexuality, due to, what was perceived to be, the active role during sex. While psychoanalysts used psychotherapy, 'behaviourists' methods employed a variety of cruel punishments including electric shocks and the ingestion of apomorphine to induce vomiting when 'patients' were presented with homosexual stimuli in an attempt to create an association between homosexuality and displeasure. However, at this time it was the neo-Freudian perspective that influenced psychiatry, and ultimately the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).
