In 2020, I gave a presentation at my alma mater, the University of Arizona. The presentation was part of a speaker series with the university’s Institute for LGBT Studies.

I began the presentation by playing George Michael’s song “Faith.” The group was about half students and half faculty and guests, so I asked whether they had ever heard of the song. Most of the audience raised their hands.

I then challenged them to tell me what year the song came out. No one raised their hand, so I gave them a few hints: it was the same year the shows "21 Jump Street," "Married With Children," and "Full House" (the original season) first aired, as well as the year both Kesha and Kendrick Lamar were born, two people popular among a lot of the youth I used to teach.

Someone from the front row raised a hand and yelled “1987!” I said, “Yes!”

Then I continued, “Which was also the same year homosexuality (a sometimes offensive term because of its clinical history used to denigrate gay and lesbian people) completely fell out of the DSM.”

For those not familiar, the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) is a book used by health care professionals in the United States to diagnose mental disorders.

While most people familiar with the DSM and its history of misdiagnosing gay and lesbian people recognize 1973 as the year the American Psychiatric Association (APA) voted to have it removed, homosexuality wasn’t completely taken out of the DSM until 1987.

Between 1973 and 1987, it was still considered an ego-dystonic sexual........

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