Get Used to It: Ep. 35, "Psychology of Being Gay"

(typewriter clicks) (upbeat pop music) - Hi, welcome to Get Used To It. I'm Sheila James Kuehl, your erstwhile host and today, we have a wonderful show for you. You know there's been a lot of talk over the past several decades about mental health in our community, much of it not terribly positive, but all of that has changed or is changing and I'm very pleased to have three guests today to talk to us about that history, about the present and about the future of mental health in our community. First, Dr. Linda Garnets, who is a lecturer in Psychology at UCLA, who delivered the master lecture at the American Psychological Association Convention on sexual orientation as one aspect of diversity and who is the co-editor of a 1993 publication, Psychological Perspectives on Lesbian and Gay Male Experiences, which is a compilation of research about our community. Welcome, Linda. - Thank you, Sheila. - Glad you're here. - Me too. Next, Dr. Terry Gock, who's the associate director of Pacific Clinic's Asian-Pacific Family Center and is a past chair on the Committee of Lesbian and Gay Concerns of the American Psychological Association. Welcome, Terry. - Thank you. - And finally, as we say, last but not least (chuckles) Dr. Jim Babl, who is a staff psychologist at the UCLA Student Psychological Services and who is also in private practice. Welcome, Jim. - Thank you. - Very glad you're all here today. This is a subject that I don't think has been much discussed out, sort of in the public airwaves. We've heard a lot of kind of political psycho-babble about our community, most of it now turning kind of negative again, but I think we've made great strides in the past several years in our community. I'm kind of interested in why. Linda, I know we were talking earlier about kind of the ancient history about our community. Wasn't very good to start with, huh? - Not good news initially, but the reason that we have the pleasure of being here today is 'cause that's really changed. For so many years, the model that psychology used to really control us was an illness model, and unfortunately, many people really felt the negative effects of that because in that model, the only healthy homosexual was a heterosexual one. There was no such thing as being healthy and being a gay or lesbian person. - But it was sort of a step up from where we had been before which was, you know, demons who need to be burned at the stake. - This is true. But now, instead of being burned at the stake, you could have yourself shocked out of, with aversive approaches to try to make people be straight. In other words, the methods still were used. You may not be burned at the stake, but there was still very aversive and cohersive and dangerous ways that people were using to try to convert us from being homosexual to being heterosexual. - [Sheila] You mean, like you'd be taken away to a hospital and-- - You could be taken away to a hospital, you could be shown photographs that might be a scene with two gay people being romantic and literally receive shock treatment to try to make you want to not have that association. Things like that. Many people were dragged by their parents or went themselves to get changed because the real message was if you are a gay person, you are sick. The only cure is to try to become heterosexual and if you couldn't become that, then you really were flawed and somehow inferior. - And the message from the mental health professions, from psychology, was very powerful. I was talking to my sister the other day about the fact that our parents' generation was not very psychological. They did what they did. They didn't think about motivation. It didn't occur to them that, you know, there was sort of cause and effect and about behavior and how much that has completely gone 180 degrees so that in our generation, we think of everything in terms of psychology, kind of what causes this? Or why am I doing this? Probably too much, in a sense. And so the power. Do you see that the power of the profession played a part in our definition out in the larger society? - Absolutely. It played a part in how gay people themselves define themselves because for many years, until the 70s, most people didn't feel same to be out. Literally, they could be thrown in jail or they could be dragged to a hospital or to a psychologists or a psychiatrist, so that for many people, it really, the psychology did define us and it made people really think that they were sick, they were problems. I'll give you a classic example in my own experience. I was in graduate school, had just recently come out, and my professor brings in two gay men and two lesbians to come to the class. They come and tell their personal stories about their lives. I'm already sitting there shaking just because, you know, we, I feel this connection. They leave the room and he takes person by person and points out to us their psychopathology and how it's tied to their gayness. So for me, clearly, it was a powerful message. This is sick, this is something to hide, and for so many people, like myself, we hid and we were in enormous pain. - And were there studies then along, about the same time, that were used a way to prove that we were sick-- - You know, that's actually one of the pieces of good news because for many years, there were studies that were trying to prove that homosexuality in and of itself was mental illness, but those studies relies, they were very small samples, and they relied on people in hospitals or in prisons and so on. It was one of these opportunities where, actually, research was on our side because beginning in the 50s, with work such as Evelyn Hooker's and many others, there began to be research that began to study our community and what was important was that it coincided with the Homophile Rights Movement which was a social movement in which lesbian and gay men began to talk to each other. Started right here in LA. Mattachine Society, Daughters of Bilitis. So for the first time, there were samples of people who were not going to hospitals or going to psychiatrists. They were just regular folk who happened to be gay or lesbian, they studied these people, and study after study showed that we weren't any less well-adjusted than people that were straight. And so, it was sort of that combination of that kind of research on the one hand, and having our community really begin pull together and feel a little safer to be out that finally turned around in 1973 when the American Psychiatric Association finally said, homosexuality in and of itself is not a mental disorder. I must tell you the funniest thing for me. I went to bed sick, I woke up healthy. It was the best cure I've ever had. - So, '73 was a good year for all of us. - [Linda] Good year for all of us. - Now, that doesn't happen overnight. I wanted to ask you before we get to sort of the change agent part of it. Everybody knows about the Kinsey Report. Hardly anyone knows what it was exactly. They think it was a study that showed that 10% of all people are probably gay, which isn't exactly what it shows, but it was also, it had another interesting effect which was, I think a lot of people said gosh, I didn't know it was that many people. Does that affect the way the profession would look on health as well? - Yes, the Kinsey was, I think, one of the moments, one of the beginning of the watershed moments that... You know, he conducted that in the late 40s and it was published in the early 50s and what was so surprising to people was that so many people reported that some time in their life, they had had a homosexual encounter. I mean, there was only about 10% that said they pretty much exclusively had those experiences but almost 50% of men and women said, yes, some time in my life I felt, I had a fantasy or I had this experience and so on, and it really turned around a notion that homosexuality was unusual. Just a few people over there. It was much more widespread and that had a very important impact and people started to think about it. - Is this a connection between normalcy, sort of numerical example and health, in a way? I mean, to some extent, although I'm sure in your profession, you don't describe healthy by what most people do, still, this notion of normalcy really much more goes to what most people are like. Not sort of the oppression of it, but also, isn't it part of the definition? So it makes us look more healthy as more of us come out, or at least more normal, because there's just so many, in a way. Is that, that's what I thought Kinsey helped kind of to move it along. But there's a difference that's not about health, really. Just about prevalence. - But it was a step. There were several studies and his being the first, his really said hey, it's not unusual, and there were several other studies that really looked at cross-cultural and said hey, it's really not unnatural. We find it in many cultures in many different animal species. And then we had people, beginning with Evelyn Hooker, in the mental health field who said hey, it's normal. You can find... So there was a progression, but Kinsey was critical in opening up that notion about it more widespread, and that was very important. - Well, the cross-cultural aspect is interesting too. I know, Terry, you've worked with a number of different cultures and I know your work at a center at an Asian-Pacific, with Asian-Pacific population. Is our experience as a community the same, different, and also how, the experience of people in their own communities about whether they feel healthy and how the mental health profession deals with them? - Well, in a way, there's a parallel. I was listening to your comments earlier about how, about the changes, and how powerful sometimes mental health professionals and what they say could be used. In many of the People of Color communities, it is still considered abnormal to be gay or lesbian and the argument is very much the same thing that we have been talking about. It is abnormal, the doctors say they are abnormal and because this has not been discussed a lot, it is very easy for many of the, I think, presses to pull, to continue and to perpetuate that kind of a notion and in our multi-cultural society these days, the boundaries sometimes are still very thick. Many people, because of language, because of cultures, they subscribe to very different cable channels and therefore, what we say today may not even get over to those airwaves and the notion continued to be perpetuated in that kind of ways that being gay or lesbian is abnormal and it is a powerful tool. - So when you work with, do you work with families in terms of what the experiences of gay or lesbian, say Asian-Pacific or Asian-American clients, do you work with their families as well or do you help their families sort of see how their experience isn't so incredibly abnormal? - That depends. It depends on... Sometimes I work only with the gay and lesbian clients. Other times, working with their families. A lot of times, it's very hard to work with both. One side would usually say you're on the other side. (all laugh) But what I see are some of the changes with the young generation is, give you an example, is I was at a parents and friends conference not too long ago and we were, there were a few Asian parents there with their children and the kids were very well-adjusted in many ways. They just came out to their parents just two months ago and since I could speak the language of the parents, I was talking to the parents and I think it was a great progress for these parents to come to this function, but for the kids, they're so like, how come they're moving so slowly? Tell them that I'm okay and I've told them so. So I could see the changes that is going on also. - Now, do you also see changes in the youth themselves? I mean, I've been to several conferences of, you know, young people, and it seems like they're much more, I'll use the word easily, you may disagree, I guess this is what the question is, incorporating sexual orientation as an aspect of diversity, where, you know, our previous youthful generation was very hip about doing racial, interracial work, and considering that that was diversity. Do you see that among young people? - Well, especially, well the college group, definitely much more so in terms of even with many of the ethnic diverse students in Los Angeles, for example. It is very hard not to get some of those notions and get sort of influenced by some of the researchers that we know by their campus environment that may be very different than what their parents get through the ethnic cable channels. - Well, you probably see that too, Jim, being at UCLA. It's a much more diverse student body than when I was there. I mean, coming to your class even to guest-teach. Look around and go wow, it's really different than when I was here and the fact that there is a gay and lesbian student organization, of course it's an old organization now and, I guess 10%. The newspapers been going for must be 20 years now, or I don't know what. Sort of amazing. But I wanted to ask you the same thing. Do you see a difference, first of all, in the students and their attitude about sexual orientation? - I think so. I think it's good news and bad news. I think students are certainly seeming more open to including sexual orientation as something that they value, a variation in sexual orientation as something they value, but incoming freshman throughout the country are pulled every year and still, a sizeable percentage of all incoming freshmen are fairly homophobic in their attitudes. It was running about 25, 30% endorsement of fairly homophobic statements in Anglo populations and in students of color, it went up, so it certainly is that cultural factor going on. - But it must be interesting working at the student counseling center, because I mean, you are a psychologist, you are a counselor. I'm assuming you're not even alone there as an out gay man. Must have been... What is the staff like and the training at the-- - Well, it's an interesting microcosm of the changes. I came to Student Psychological Services at UCLA at my first job right out of my internship. I had similar experiences that you had. My training director, not my training director, my director at my internship talking about how queers weren't sick anymore but he was sick because he was a smoker and being very angry about that. When I came to UCLA, I just, I did not present myself as a gay man but that came out fairly shortly thereafter. Over the years, it's really changed a lot. It certainly didn't feel like there was a lot of pathologizing of gay and lesbian, bisexual students back then. Although there certainly was some, it kind of moved toward kind of a careful tolerance, I think, in their interactions with me. Checking out who is this guy and is he gonna be strident, you know, what's his story? But over the years, we've had more gay and lesbian, bisexual staff hired and the whole issue of sexual orientation has become one not of something tolerate but something to actively embrace and bring in. Increasingly when we select our interns, we want a diverse group of interns. We want students of color, we want men and women. We want sexual orientation variations among our interning group. I read a lot of letters of recommendation for past interns and a lot of universities in the counseling centers are not actively soliciting people gay and lesbian, bisexual experience which is a way of saying they want someone queer coming in (laughs). It's gratifying to write those letters. And I'm seeing lots of requests for those kind of letters. - Well, it is certainly being considered as an aspect of diversity and I know their sensitivity training, you know, it's considered multi-cultural work, but what do you think, Linda, why this change? So we have a new set of research and the research says they're not ill, but it's gonna be more than that. - Well, the other reason that I think is that it really coincided with a social movement, which is the Homophile Rights Movement. It started after World War II, got many more people going to the cities, got gay and lesbian people talking to each other and over those years, you know, organizations like I mentioned before, you know, Mattachine Society, Bilitis, and so on, and I think what began to happen is people began to feel group identity as a minority. And it's really switched from seeing us as something as individually deviant. That's what we were being told, that's what psychology was telling us, but then people started talking to each other. Even if in private, even if they're guarding the door because they're still afraid. I know, people, you know, wanna come through and take them away, but they started talking to each other and my sense of interest of the people as well is that what that did was gave us a sense of coming together as a community. Gave us also, the same time, I guess the other key factor not mentioning which is an obvious one, is McCarthyism, and a period of time in the 50s in which we were also being labeled as dangerous and actually gave us minority status by virtue of being discriminated against and I think that helped us organize in ways in the 50s and 60s so that by '69, we have Stone Wall and there's no accident in my mind that in the early 70s, psychology and psychiatry was one of the groups we targeted because they were mislabeling us, they were ruining their lives, they were getting people to kill themselves and we weren't gonna take it anymore. And so I think that, I really do believe that it was the spirit of get used to it. I think it was that combination of political activism that got stimulated among mental health professionals who were gay and closeted who also came together and said, and really put pressure. And also, I guess, one other thing, I think there were straight allies. Important allies within the mental health field who really knew us and knew this didn't fit. I mean, that's my sense. I don't know if other people might-- - Well, let's put a comma in there, take a very brief break. Don't go away, we've got a lot more. - Hi, I'm Greg Louganis and I wanna tell you about an organization called PAWS/LA, that's Pets Are Wonderful Support. They help people living with AIDS or HIV keep and care for their pets. PAWS/LA needs your help. If you'd like to ensure someone else's quality of life, please call 213-876-PAWS. - Hi, welcome back to Get Used To It. I'm Sheila Kuehl and today we're talking about mental health in our community. You thought you were crazy, you found out you weren't crazy and now we're okay and you're okay and the right wing is really the one who's crazy. That's kind of what the show is about. I'd like to welcome back our guests, Dr. Linda Garnets, Dr. Terry Gock, Dr. Jim Bably. Lots of doctors here. I'm just a lawyer, nothing to worry about. So, good. (all laugh) We were talking about, actually, not about a funny issue but right before the break, Linda, you were talking about how the mental health profession had, in essence, made us feel so sick and many of us had decided we were so hopeless that we would simply end our lives and I think one of the things that we've heard a lot about in the past year or so is that in terms of teen or youth suicide, that young gay and lesbian people have a much higher propensity for suicide than their straight counterparts. Is that true and if so, I guess that must be an aspect of what you're talking about. - It is an aspect of what I'm talking about. I think each of us probably know a little bit about this. It's a couple of reasons. The good news is that kids are coming out at earlier ages and not taking as long, so there is more, in this generation, that you would talk about different cohorts and groups at younger ages that are coming out. It's tough to be coming out as an adolescent. The pressures are really tough and the social pressures and homophobia can be really high and so there's a number of studies that have been finding a high incidence of kids really struggling with suicide, so. - And, go ahead, Terry. - Yeah, I was gonna say, that has been documented. A lot of times, it's that kind of additional pressure one has to go through, a younger kid would have to go through these days coming out and dealing with the peers. You know, and, from day one, they hear about queers and being sissies and homos and dykes and so on, and then finally realizing that that means them. It makes it very difficult. But thing I have to, want to add on is this is not, also, this is not something new. I remember even in the early 80s, we know that there had been a number of studies that says that gay and lesbian have a high rate of suicide, suicide attempts than their straight counterparts. Now, some of the... It has been used in the old days to say that, see, they are sick. You know, they kill themselves more and so on. But when you really look at those data, it really is quite clear that... And one of the studies by the Kinsey Institute that looked into it, really what they're saying is that it's very hard to come out as being gay and lesbians and when they break up in a relationship, nobody is there compared to the whole society is behind a straight couple breaking up and the lack of support and those kind of things are what made the suicide rate higher. Not because we're sicker. - Right, I mean they would tend, they would drive you crazy, they would label you as crazy, you would kill yourself because they made no room for you in the world, and then they say, you see, I told you. Which is really, I think that we women also have had experienced the same thing. I mean, society drives you nuts, you go nuts, and they say see? I told you they couldn't stand it. Well, you work with young people all the time. What kind of issues do they present to you coming in to talk in the counseling center? - Well, certainly we see our share of depression and suicidal crises and you know, I think, by the way that the suicide statistics for gay and lesbian youth are underreported because frequently, the young person who's very tortured over sexual identity is not talking about sexual identity so when they kill themself and everybody wonders why or when they drive their car in such a way as to have an accident in order to kill themselves, no one really knows why, but I think very frequently, there is a sexual orientation conflict underneath that. At the counseling center, we see a lot of students coming in and dealing with early-stage coming out issues, kind of developmental crises around coming out. - Coming out to themselves? - Coming out to themselves and to a very hostile environment, family, peers, that kind of thing. Beyond that, I think a couple of the biggest things I see and maybe the two of you in your practice as well, self esteem issues, very low self esteem and difficulties with relationship. It's hard to come through a family that rejects you, an oppressive environment, and not feel not as good about yourself. - Yeah, the way we also frame it, 'cause we talked earlier about the illness model, is in terms of this discussion, really has been the shift is in the old say, we would, as everyone's saying, we'd say it's because of the gay person, something inherent in the person and one of the major shifts is realizing how much we are as well-adjusted as heterosexuals, but the reason we have adjustment problems, by and large, is what people are saying, is having to deal with minority stress and status. Having to deal with all this social oppression that says we're not okay. And I think the one other thing to point out and I really agree that the suicide is serious and there are problems, but I also, being an optimist and knowing truthfully, there's a positive side, our community, and I'm so impressed working as a clinician and working in the community organizationally, very resilient. I mean, it's amazing that we're as well-adjusted as heterosexuals, given all this additional pressure. I always feel this with other minority, you know. And also one of the gifts I think that psychologists who really fought hard, us, among and for, most important, for us fought so hard to change the misperception that we were sick has allowed people the freedom to be out. I just know the difference and there's generations of people who've had to hide their entire life, you know, maybe came out 10 years ago. I met somebody who got 'til about they were 70, you know, 'cause finally they could and the freedom, at least, with people who are younger who are able to come out sooner, have support from other people. I mean, I think that other dimension, just didn't want lose that part, particularly in urban communities. Think it's much tougher in suburban and rural areas where you get more of this really being isolated but I think there's so many ways that are being out and visible and psychology saying it's okay, you know, it's a natural part of who you are, has been also a powerful different message. - There's a couple of threads too. I mean, as a politician but also as a community organizer, it seems to me that that's what community organizing is about. It's not only about making it an institution do what you want them to do, which is part of it, but just making sure that people get together, you know, where you say I'm not alone. I'm not isolated. I actually seem to be okay. Perhaps there's something wrong with the way they're talking about us. And then of course, activism takes the next step which is to say you have to do something about this. I mean, isn't in... In the American Psychological Association, aren't you activists within that association? I mean, wouldn't you define it that way? - I would. - I would like to believe so. - We define ourselves that way, I don't know. - I don't think there's any question. Because you changed that organization. Isn't that the case? - That is the case. Well, we've been part of a movement of people. - We have to recognize those people that are before us that have laid a lot of the groundwork. - But there's no question. You know, having a resolution that says we have to remove the stigma of mental illness that has affected gay people. You know, resolution after resolution from the American Psychological Association that says we're okay really makes a difference. - But that work isn't finished. There are still psychologists and other mental health professionals who are treating homosexuality. In fact, we were talking over lunch, I just saw in the Californian Psychologist today an ad for a conference in Beverly Hills in May headed by Nicolosi and some other people all about reparative therapy for gay and lesbian people. These are the people that have been doing all the damage for years and years. They're still out there and they're still kind of banging on the door trying to get into an influence, APA, and American Psychiatric Association, things like that. - The difference, though, is that now they are the minority. They are not-- - Fringe. - They're on the fringe. When you say, explain more about reparative therapy. Sounds awful. - Well, the old reparative therapy was you know, you would give them electric shock or a medic, things that would make them vomit on pictures of same-sex attraction. That was more old-fashioned kind of approaches. Nowadays, it's looking at the... Yes, this happened in the past too, but now the big thrust is looking at the faulty identification with parent so I think Nicolosi talks a lot about essentially reestablishing a strong sense of masculinity in these pathetic gay men, getting them to bond with other men in a non-sexual kind of way and they will then be repaired and then go on to lead-- - So they could join the NRA or something really male. - Interestingly too is that in many of these psychological studies that these people talk about and the treatment approaches, lesbians are seldom talked about. - In these negative approaches, is that what you're saying? - [Jim] These reparative therapies. - The reparative therapies is usually changing males. - The model, I didn't talk about it earlier, but the model has always been studying a few gay men and generalizing it, a few white middle-class gay men and generalizing to everybody and that's-- - I think it's white middle-class gay men who are really tormented. - Uh-huh. You mean tormented by others. - Internally by their own sexual identities and generalizing it to everybody. Women, men. - Well also, if they are tormented, of course, they're the only ones to be important anyway because women and people of color always had their torments but we didn't identify them as being really serious issue. But also, there's something, well, there's always been something sort of strange in the heterosexual community about lesbians in the way we were thought of, we were either invisible or erotic and that was, whatever is erotic, of course, is defined by men, generally, out in society, or it was, anyway-- - Erotic foreplay. - That was fine, lesbians could do that because that was interesting and exciting and kind of kinky, but oh my God, gay men, we certainly couldn't deal with that. What other issues do people present from our community in terms of their own concerns about their own mental health? - One of the things I'm impressed with these days are the diversity of issues of everyday living. Parenting. Who would have thought about it five, 10 years ago? Gay and lesbian parents and dealing with issues of parenting. You know, relationships. It is sort of like that I have a right to be in a relationship. Help me in this relationship. Rather than seeing how tormented I am. And those are two thoughts that I've just come to think about. - Well, it seems as though, though you started to talk, when you were talking about reparative therapy, I know that we are in the midst at this moment of a political backlash against the community as a whole and I would imagine, I mean, I brought a bill to the bar, discrimination against students on the basis of sexual orientation in schools, and one of the people who came to testify against the bill was a psychologist who talked about how dangerous it was to have any kind of positive... See, non-discrimination was seen, from his point of view, as being an affirmation of the homosexual lifestyle and how that was a bad thing to affirm that lifestyle for these young people, essentially because they would be unhappy for the rest of their lives. That was his testimony as a psychologist and so one of my colleagues said, Karen Mesoni who represents Marin said, "Excuse me, can I ask you a question? "Are you saying that calling a boy a faggot at school "is good for his mental health "because it will kind of divert him back into a good path?" And this guys said, "Well, kind of." - Wow. - Wow. - So talk about reparative therapy. Do you see, in younger people, younger and, really, college people, that in terms of the counseling that they get at school, if any, that this is positive or negative as you see it? - I don't know a whole lot about what's going on in grade school and high school except a little bit indirectly. I know Virginia Uribe's Project 10 was going into the schools and providing positive role models and the Gay and Lesbian Association at UCLA was trained to go in as mentors for them. So a couple of UCLA students would go to some of the schools that were more embracing, were identified as Project 10 schools and they were getting some mentoring, role-modeling that way. - I think also, Terry and I were involved in a project with the American Psychological Association along these lines 'cause what we did is really tried to develop guidelines of positive ways, of appropriate ways to work with gay men and lesbians and what is important, in terms of the power of psychology, is there really is a whole theory and now research and approach of working with our community that we call affirmative therapy as opposed to reparative therapy or an illness model. And it just has a whole different premise. And one that we're really starting to talk about now. - It must be difficult to get it out into the world, isn't it? I mean, I don't know how the professionals organize. My impression is it's not. I mean, that everyone is sort of, I know you need to be licensed and whatever, but it's tantamount to sort of the legal profession as well. You hang up a shingle, you do whatever you want. You think whatever you want, you talk to your clients however you want. It must be very difficult to kind of infiltrate. That's not the right word. - There's been an increase in graduate programs, American Psychological Association-approved internship sites are mandated to be more culturally sensitive. So, you know, when we are training our interns before they go out into the world and get licensed, we're training them in being more sensitive and affirming. I lectured them on affirmative psychotherapy with our gay and lesbian, bisexual clients and other people are lecturing them and supervising them on their work with clients of cultures different than their own. So there is some way of getting it out there and I think it is mandated by the profession. - And the report that has been prepared in terms of those guidelines is a readily-available document that has been used. In fact, I think there are some states that have adopted it as the, sort of the appropriate way of working with lesbian and gay clients. - So when you say the state, you mean the state psychological association? - Like Arizona, for example, had taken these guidelines we developed and made them part of the state association's way to work with lesbian and gay people. So we have a done a lot, there's a been a lot of attempts, the local, we have a lot of state associations to get this material out and I think a lot of people wanted to know it. A lot of people knew, they didn't even know they knew gay people, or they really didn't know how to operate and really see many people welcome it. There is a minority group, there is a backlash, but I still agree. My perspective is that many more people have wanted to get trained, have wanted to understand about our community and the other reason is that I don't think our community has stopped being activist in itself, as I said, it wasn't just the Homophile Rights Movement. We've had continued efforts to make sure that we're protecting these rights and I think it's really important. - Yeah, to sort of support your point, last year at the American Psychological Association convention in New York, we prepared a workshop on those guidelines, on those way of working with lesbian and gay clients in an affirming way and we really expected something like 20, 30 people. You have to appreciate that at any one time, one time slot during the convention there may be 50 other things going on and we suddenly had, in this room, packed with over 150 people that we weren't ready for and we had to change the form totally. I mean, the thirst for wanting to know and wanting to understand is there. - So, I always define the profession for myself as a helping profession, but you know, it's always different to know how professional's own personal attitudes sort of cut against this. And I know this is work that you've done. Let me ask you a slightly loaded question. Is there a difference between the approach of the psychiatrist and the psychologist to our community as you have experienced it or as you know it? - Go for it, Terry (laughs). - In a liberal way, I would say the good psychiatrist and the good psychologist approach it the same way. That's essentially it. I think our colleagues in the psychiatric profession, that understanding of research and focus would be the same. Sometimes we do different things. I mean, psychologists in many ways, as a general rule, have more time in training, in therapy and assessment and psychiatrists are trained much more in psychotropic medications, but the general approach, the good ones approach it very similarly. - And has the American Psychiatric Association also prepared and presented guidelines that you're aware of? - Well, it's interesting. Most of the professions, psychiatry, social work, psychology, there's been the same pattern. More people have, first they passed resolutions saying we weren't sick. Then they began to develop some kind of guidelines to ensure non-heterosexist practice. So I think there have been parallels and there's caucuses within each of the professions to make sure that is actually implemented. - We're gonna take a short break. We're gonna take a short break. Yes, I did say that twice. Don't go away, there's more to come. - [Narrator] Billy wants to work on airplanes someday. Maybe one that you fly in. Now, would you like to call for this free booklet of simple ways to improve his education? - Hi, I'm Sheila Kuehl, welcome back to Get Used To It. As I hope you already know, today, we're talking about mental health in our community. We've been talking about our community as a kind of monolith in a way. We have the gay/lesbian community or you know, the homosexual community and everybody else. But within our community, as we talked a little bit, there's quite an aspect of diversity and I would imagine that that also has an affect on the way the profession works with the community. I know, Terry, as we talked about, you've done work with communities of color. Is there a difference in terms of how the profession views them or kind of what the issues are? - Not so much in how a profession views them but there is, in general, an extra step, so to speak, in trying to integrate identities of someone who's from people and color and also lesbian and gay have to go through that extra step of trying to integrate everything together in order to feel okay about themselves. And it's a different process than identifying when self is gay and lesbian or as person of color. One of the things that is most difficult in this process is trying to find that niche of where one would be. There's a lot of pressure sometimes, pushing and pulling. Are you forsaking our community when you are lesbian or gay and vice versa. And those are things that, they're not just from the outside. Emotionally, internally, I have experienced it. Many people have gone through the same process of coming to terms with who we are as a total person. And there are those wonderful times, too, especially nowadays it's much more, it comes much easier. Those wonderful times when they all sort of pull together, even from the external, like one of the hot topics these days with gay and lesbian marriages, one of the organizations, one of the earliest organizations that supported this is the Japanese-American Citizens League that passed the resolution. That's one of those times where it pulled together for many of lesbians and gays who are Asian and Pacific Islanders. - Well, I know-- I'm sorry. - Just to piggyback on that. When I've done coming out groups for gay men at UCLA, frequently 75 or more percent of them are men of color. So clearly, they are having much more difficulty coming out. But I think one way that the profession is dealing with that is really utilizing community-based organizations as resources and continually pushing, go out there and get that support. Go to this group or that group and get more support. So we're certainly using-- - Well, I know Phil Wilson who was one of the founders of the Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Conference said on his show that one of the difficulties for him was, you grow up Black, you know you're in a minority status, but you're in your family. The family has that experience. They understand your experience. You go out in the world, you have that bad experience, you come back, you're in family. They've had it too, they get it. Now, all of a sudden, you're gay. No one in your family is gay, so far as you know. They don't understand that experience. They don't like. You don't have a home to go back to that's a safe place from the world. - And you know for many of us, that's a true statement, in terms of our families 'cause for so many of us, our families, you know, are heterosexual, most of us. So we have that dilemma. Additionally, for lesbians and gay men of color, it's not just the family, but it's the ethnic community. It's that foundation against discrimination that I'm sure Phil felt from the beginning. So that pull between an ethnic foundation on the one hand and yet being true to one's sexual and emotional intimacy on the other creates enormous tensions. - And that's where some of the organizations like that forum, or many of the people of color, lesbian/gay organizations serve that vital role where people can feel at home. - Oh, and also the movement not only being in terms of the racism of the movement, but the sexism of it. I mean, we know, in the early days, at the gay community services center, the day that the little band of lesbians went and painted a lavender carat, "& lesbian" on the sign. It was kind of like a hit on the center. And weren't really welcomed there and I think women and men have very different experiences within our community and probably that creates different issues as well, or concerns. - You can imagine I'd wanna speak to that. - [Sheila] Yeah, please. - 'Cause it's really true. I mean, it's such a... I always tease when I teach my Psychology of Lesbian Experiences class, and I always tease the first day, you know, the one thing gay men and lesbians have in common is social oppression of being gay. Pass that, forget it (laughs). And you know, it's actually, in my class, when the class starts, the gay and lesbians are always traditionally aligned, but as the class goes on and people hear the material, you see the lesbians and heterosexual women kind of organization and heterosex... Because really, the thing we haven't talked about so much is that you know, it's the status of women versus men and being socialized as men and women. At least, we have found, that psychology has had an enormous impact on lesbians and gay mean and bisexuals as well as those in the straight community. - Sexual socialization is a much more powerful shaper than sexual orientation. We really are men first, women first, and gay and lesbian second. I think the other thing that's unique about the gay and lesbian community is gay men who are socialized to be men then go out and hang out, sometimes exclusively, with other men, so it's all about being male and masculine and all of that socialization is kind of untampered by any women. And the same with the women's community. There's gonna be some isolation so you really see kind of the pure forms whereas heterosexuals will be married and kind of have to cooperate and compromise, you know, and work out some of those communication differences and those different stylistic differences and then we can kind of heighten ours. And I think that's where the problems that gay men have in forming a relationship. They just haven't picked up those skills because there is no relationship-building skill in the male trait community. - And women, on the other hand, care too much. We have no boundaries. - Well, that certainly can happen. I think you find... Actually, one other thing that we didn't get to talk about so much yet is for so long, we've been talking about how we've been stigmatized and been sick and then maybe we're different from the norm but we're still kind of strange, but when you really start to look at our relationships, you know, gay men and lesbians, where we don't have the same rules where one's the husband and one's the wife, although that's the myth, we end up kind of creating some very interesting innovations because we're finding, in psychology, that gay men and lesbians tend to create relationships more based on a model like as friends, which is more egalitarian. We're not so specialized in, you know, you take out the garbage and you do the dishes and you know, there's other criteria so at least among lesbians has been some interesting findings that we create more egalitarian relationships, where we strive for that. - [Jim] I think it's moved towards androgyny. - And a move towards, yes. - An incorporation of both a male and a female within each person. - Well, it's an interesting question 'cause for the future, I mean, one of the things I always wonder is you know, we've always been teachers, we've always been sort of the witches and the shamans and poets and even when nobody was coming out, we always knew that those were special spirits or whatever and I have a feeling that we have, the next step is kind of, we actually have something we can teach. I mean, this is an aspect of it. It's not like we're more healthy, obviously. We don't wanna step up a different dichotomy, but there are aspects of our development out of oppression or out of our own ethos, whatever it is, and especially in these days when men and women in the activist communities are working so much together, have seen the connection. You know, men who were apolitical having to deal with lesbians who were organizing every political movement since the 1920s, you know, and looking at each other across this vast chasm. Now, discrimination because of AIDS has brought them into activism. Women who essentially not very funny and didn't have a very good time and hadn't discovered the gay gene for fun, (Linda laughs) you know, getting to know more gay men and really, I think, lightening up enormously so that we really are a community. Though I think that's not happening just with people living their regular lives, as you've said, but I think it must be the case that we do have something, really, to bring to this and to teach in terms of our own health which we have yet to discover, maybe. - And I think, you know, some of these psychological studies nowadays are looking at those kind of things. Coming out from a very different focus or approach and paradigm than in the past where, you know, is when you're considered sick. Everything that comes out of that kind of approach is what kind of sickness and how is it manifested. Now we're talking about the diversity in relationships and the strengths in the relationship and the strengths we can provide and all that is very positive. I mean, it cannot but make society as a whole perhaps a better one. - But we still stigmatize some of the diversity in our community. I mean, I know gay and lesbian people are still wary of bisexual people. - [Linda] I was just gonna speak to that. - Yes, please. - I was just gonna say, we can talk about diversity. You know, the other aspect that we haven't touched on so much are people who are bisexual. And for so long, in psychology and our community said these people, they're not real, you know. We said, you now, just give yourself long enough and you'll be one of us. - [Sheila] You'll find out you're gay. - And the heterosexuals said step away from us 'cause you have a drop of homosexuality in you so we don't want you. And psychology said, you're nothing. You're just a transitionary thing. You don't exist. And I think that... I was thinking of putting the lavender L in. Well, now we're putting the rainbow B in because now what's happening are people really recognizing that there really are groups of people who don't use biological sex as the determinant of who they're drawn to. There's other factors. - That kind of complexity and fluidity of human sexuality hopefully would help in even diluting this whole abnormal stuff that, you know-- - Even for heterosexual people and what's defined as abnormal 'cause it's been very limited. What about our transgendered community? I mean now there's... It's an interesting thing because every time you move along a spectrum of, now we say to straight people, no, no, no, we're fine. We're really healthy. You have to just get to know us. We're lovely people. And then we say, but we're not so sure about the bisexuals and the bisexuals say oh, no, no, we're fine, we're lovely people. You just have to get to know us. And then everyone looks at the transgendered community, kind of scratches their head and say, I'm not sure I still understand that. - I think one issue here is that we as a community are unsure of our identity. What makes up our community? Sexual orientation is a fluid process, as you were saying, and these categories are very difficult to define and which groups are in and which groups are out. I think some people, though, are seeing our community as one of more of a political movement and a human rights movement, and in that sense, I think there's a tendency to wanna include transsexuals because it's a movement of inclusion and acceptance and embracing difference. - I think... The other thing that I could think of is that, he said it, is that we don't know and that has been one of the things that sort of separate people is that we don't know who they are and that has also been the way that the other side has been, or capitalized on that fear, of pushing, putting everything, everyone that is different together for political gains, in a way. - Well, let's talk about that. 'Cause what I've heard really very recently and of course, in my work, I hear it a lot is a kind of backlash against these gains and of course, psychology is not the only profession where we see it, we wanna roll back the laws, we wanna roll back everything. Civil rights, particularly. But you must, I guess, see the same thing in your own profession where there are other people trying to gain ascendance again in re-sickifying, as it were, the community. I think that's what you were just talking about before but I'd like to hear more about it. - Yeah, I think... There's no question that's what's happening that... I was sharing something relevant and by mistake, Christian Coalition material landed in my mailbox and in reading through it, in what was the political agenda, one message read as follows, "Recognize homosexuality is abnormal." Now that was going to, this was going to my neighbor and so that political climate is feeling that it's important to re-label us as sick as a vehicle to promote their agenda. They haven't been able, successful, unfortunately to find a set of psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers who have either always thought we were sick and always thought this was just advocacy nonsense or begetting other political gain from bringing back really outmoded information. The good news, which always is appealing to me, is that we now, unlike the 30s and the 40s, and maybe the early 50s, have an enormous set of information and organizations in our community and among our allies which absolutely refutes us. We have data on our side. We have, I mean, you gotta admit, watching us, we seem pretty okay. You know, you got the reality of people's lives. What I mean by that is more of us are out and people can't say anymore, I don't know any gay people, you know. So if we're only symbols of what they represent, of course they're gonna believe the propaganda. But if they meet us, it's really hard for them not to like us 'cause you know, we're just much more vanilla than they thought, you know. So I think the strategies of us being out, the strategies of our information, and I think that's what's happening in psychology is making this a very different confrontation. You know, Terry could talk, even last weekend, we watched this fight at the American Psychological Association. And we're kind of watching this come up again. - The tenants now are very, very different for perhaps... Very different from our past is that we are not, we don't have to prove it. Is that somehow reparative therapy, the abnormalcy has to prove it, which has been, it's very different. And I see how much that is not the mainstream of the profession anymore and that's the positive part, that it is a powerful force. Especially when there are few, even if it is a fringe and it is a small movement, combined with a larger social political context, it could be used. My concern is, you know, the younger people as well as people, anyone who is just coming out and being traumatized by these kind of propaganda again. - Well, it seems as though part of our great weaponry are people like the three of you and I want to encourage everyone, if you are seeking any kind of mental health help and you feel as though you're not being treated positively, go somewhere else because the profession clearly has made great strides in this. I also want to mention again, Dr. Garnets, the book that you wrote, if you have a copy to show to our audience because I know, often they call and say, you mentioned that book at the beginning of the show, I don't know what it is, Psychological Perspectives on Lesbian and Gay Male Experiences. Linda Garnets. And I know it's available 'cause I've seen it in the bookstores. I'm very, very happy you're all here. Thank you very much for being here. Remember, we're okay, you're okay. Get used to it. (upbeat music)