In the “should have been blindingly obvious” department, a group of researchers at the University of Minneapolis have discovered that being gay has no obvious effect on your mental or physical health, but having negative feelings about yourself because you are gay makes you ill. To sum up:
In particular, the old advice to gay men to fight, deny, or minimize their homosexuality likely only increases depression, greater isolation, and poorer sexual health. In short, viewing homosexuality as a disorder is not only inaccurate, it may be harmful as well.
One might, of course, say the same thing about other gender-related issues, some of which are still classified as mental illnesses by the American Psychiatric Association.
It’s hard to resist the temptation to point out that we’ve been saying that since 1979 (we call it “stigmatic guilt”. But, thank you for finding this. I’ve forwarded it to the other Sisters.
Sigh. You wonder just how obvious something has to be before you arrive at a state where researchers don’t think it they have to study it. (I have long since given up wondering how obvious something has to be before 95% of the public accept it as a truth.)
I’m not sure I’d blame the researchers here. This sort of work is necessary to counter the large number of people who still think that being gay or trans or whatever can be “cured” by bullying and shaming people.