ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the content of 20th century medical ideologies regarding lesbians and describes the strategic collective actions lesbians have taken to change stigmatizing diagnostic and treatment situations. Significant numbers of physicians and nurses still consider lesbianism a pathological condition, make attributions of immorality, perversion, and danger to lesbian women, are uncomfortable providing care for lesbian clients, and regularly refuse service to women who are lesbian. An excavation of historical data about medical conceptualizations of lesbianism is undertaken to demonstrate how cultural and medical ideologies throughout the century have reinforced each other to shape lesbians' health care experiences and influence public policies. Studies throughout the century have attempted to counter normative assumptions about women's sexual and relational lives by documenting the prevalence of lesbianism. The medical passion for classification and elaborate description of various forms of deviant sexual behavior served the purposes of making homosexual behavior more recognizable to society and the sanction of lesbians and gays more efficient.
