Homosexuality in the DSM

Homosexuality is not classified as a mental disorder in the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM); it was removed in the 1970s after activism and research showing it to be a normal variation of human sexuality rather than a pathology. The current DSM does not include any category diagnosing homosexuality, reflecting a broad scientific consensus that non-heterosexuality is not a disorder.

Homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder in the first edition of the DSM, published in 1952 by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). This classification was challenged by gay rights activists during the gay liberation movement especially following the 1969 Stonewall riots, and rendered problematic by research especially by Alfred Kinsey and Evelyn Hooker suggesting homosexuality is normal and non-pathological. In December 1973, the APA board of trustees voted to declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder, and in 1974, the full APA membership voted to confirm this. The DSM was thus updated: in the 1974 seventh printing of the second edition (DSM-II), homosexuality was replaced with a new diagnostic code for individuals distressed by their homosexuality, termed ego-dystonic sexual orientation. Distress over one's sexual orientation remained in the manual, under different names, until the DSM-5 in 2013.