By Nicole Rutherford

Some people compare love to a sickness, but once it was literally considered a disease. That’s because before May 17, 1990 the World Health Organization held homosexuality on its list of mental and behavioural disorders.

While May 17 is now annually celebrated as the International Day Against Homophobia most people in the West don’t regard it as a day of significance.

“I’ve never even heard of that day,” Jason Gilbert said with a laugh. Gilbert has been engaged to his partner for 17 years and is active in the gay community of Victoria, B.C.

Canadian Pride associations, campus clubs, gay-straight alliances and gay-rights movement boards across Canada had no comments on this day either.

Dr. Aaron H. Devor, a sociology professor specializing in gender, sexuality and transgender studies at the University of Victoria says that for western society this is likely due to an earlier validation of homosexual mental clarity from the American Psychological Association.

“More significant in my memory was when homosexuality was removed from the [The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders] DSM in 1974.” Said Devor via email, “Gay people throughout North America were tremendously relieved and saw this as a huge step forward. It did not mean that rights were guaranteed, or that abuse would stop right away. But it did mean that a lot more progress suddenly became possible.”

However, this progress has been slow. It was not until 2003 that gay marriage was legal in Ontario, and until 2005 that it was legal nation-wide in Canada.

For the rest of the globe, the World Health Organization’s 1990 announcement was as notable as it was in The West.

In 2014 Uganda tried to pass a stronger anti-homosexuality law that would make being gay punishable by death. The bill was annulled by the Ugandan constitutional court due to incorrect technical procedures surrounding its passing though homosexuality is still illegal and can lead to imprisonment.

According to a 2013 report there are seven countries globally where homosexuality is punishable by death, and 76 countries where it is clearly illegal.

A more publically noted law was passed surrounding the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games. In June 2013 President Vladimir Putin passed a law banning the “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations to minors.” Any protests against this were also punishable.This law received protests globally and throughout the Olympics from athletes, politicians and citizens.

However Josh Bernal, a Demi Chef de Partie at the Athlete’s Village for the Sochi Olympic Games said that the media was blowing things out of proportion.

“I didn’t witness anything regarding protests or activists,” he said via email, “ I was even surprised to know there were a few gay bars, you would think they would be banned. I also saw a few gay couples walking around holding hands. Not a lot, maybe one or two. It didn’t seem to bother anyone.”

This could have been due to the fact that technically homosexuality itself isn’t illegal in Russia, just the blatant promotion of it.

However there is progress to be noted. The same 2013 report states that there are 114 countries where homosexuality is legal, and same-sex marriage is legal in 14 countries. Every year the rainbow pride flag is raised a little higher and the Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Trans-Queer/Question acronym seems to get a bit longer in an attempt to include more people.

Regardless of this umbrella grouping, according to World Health Organization’s 2015 report anything to do with gender identity including cross-dressing—which is practiced by some gay men and women—to a full transsexual hormone therapy and corrective surgery is still considered a mental disorder.

“I don’t think it’s necessarily a scientific disorder,” said transsexual woman Brae Carnes, “More-so I think it’s a societal disorder and not being able to think outside the box of defining ‘this is boy, this is girl, these are gender norms.”

In the end it seems inclusivity isn’t the problem, but simply acceptance—regardless of whether accepting gender or sexuality.

“I think in the future when gender roles are eventually abolished people will be able to express their personalities in full,” said Carnes, “They would not be forced to change their bodies by society.”

All About the Embedded Documents:

1) Document 1: World Health Organization’s ICD-10
What is it? The World Health Organization’s annual list of diseases and disorders
How did you find it? This was actually a bit tricky; I had been going through topic ideas and came across the idea of homosexuality being removed from a list of mental disorders relating to WHO, but the list itself was not named. Anytime I tried to look up list of disease or WHO I just came up with their vague, user-friendly web site. It wasn’t until I found a New York Times article that specifically used the phrase “list of mental and behavioural disorders” and I googled that the the ICD-10 list came up and I could go through the categories of that.
Why was it helpful? While I could not access as far back as 1989 or 1990, the 2015 once still has Gender Identity Disorder, transsexualism, and transvestitism noted as a mental disorder which I found very interesting and as a good comparison point to the different times.

2) Document 2: ILGA State-Sponsered Homophobia 2013 Report
What is it? The International Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans and Intersex Association Annual Report of Global Rights
How did you find it?  I was trying to look up which countries had the death penalty for homosexual practices. The Washington Post had a great article with a colour-coded map for different kinds of law, and cited a report as their source of information. I clicked on it and it led to this report.
Why was it helpful? This report  illuminated human rights of the present time numerically alongside with some of the specific stories I have highlighted in my article.