Treatment of homosexuality during apartheid

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7480.1415

BMJ 2004;329:1415-1416 (18 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7480.1415

Editorial

Treatment of homosexuality during apartheid

More investigation is needed into the shameful way homosexualitywas treated

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing tobe ashamed of, no vice, no degradation, it cannot be classifiedas an illness; we consider it to be a variation of the sexualfunction, produced by a certain arrest of the sexual development.It is a great injustice to persecute homosexuality as a crime—anda cruelty too.¹

Sigmund Freud

In the 20th century, doctors were repeatedly accomplices instate repression, brutality, and genocide. The most notoriousexamples of medical complicity in state abuse are the Nazi doctorswho participated in genocide and the Japanese doctors who practisedbiological warfare.² Included among the former were psychiatrists,who in carrying out Hitler's euthanasia programme on their patientsseem to have been in a state of complete moral disarray.

Involvement of psychiatrists in state repression has if anythingescalated since 1945, the most extensive example being the useof psychiatric treatment . . . [Full text of this article]

Robert M Kaplan, forensic psychiatrist

Liaison Clinic, 310 Crown Street, Wollongong, New South Wales 2500, Australia (liaison3@bigpond.com)

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Rapid Responses:

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Stop this sort of thing with explanation of homosexuality...: James M. Howard
bmj.com, 17 Dec 2004 [Full text]
Ban the South AFrican Medical Assocliation from WMA: V.M. VERMA
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Treatment of homosexuality during apartheid: research recommendations need to be implemented: Simon A Lewin, et al.
bmj.com, 7 Jan 2005 [Full text]