Clipping claiming homosexuality can be cured

Shock Therapy

        The clipping demonstrates the mentality that homosexuality is something that can be cured like a disease and allow people to then be rid of it. Just like the story tells readers, the typical medicine that was given to people were shock therapy.

Page from 1969 Uncensored Magazine, photo from huffingtonpost.com, 2017

Executive Order
 BAM! The tavern door to Uncle John’s slammed open. My friends whipped around toward the commotion at the entrance. People began to shout. I couldn’t understand anything, and then I saw the badges. Police were storming in, grabbing people, and forcing them outside. Drinks were knocked to the ground and some men tried to run and fight their way out. The three of us, still in shock, looked around wide eyed, unsure of what to do. Before we could decide, our hands were pulled behind our back and we were pushed outside. “Get in there,” the cop said to me, thrusting me towards the cop car. “Wh- What did we do?” I asked, confused. “You’re getting what you deserve,” the police officer muttered under his breath. He pushed me into the backseat and I sit there with one other man that I didn’t know. I watched through the window as people were rushed out of Uncle John’s, which was now lit up blue and red. I watch the cop get inside and he starts reciting a string of numbers and letter into his radio that I don’t understand. We start driving towards the police station, I can’t believe what has happened. On the way there, the cop turns up the news on the radio. “In today’s headlines, President Eisenhower attempts to clean house, says that efforts to remove homosexuals from government jobs is necessary to prevent possible security risks . . . .” I look over to the man next to me in the car, we don’t say anything. I don’t know what to think. I can’t keep track of my emotions. Travis comes to mind. Could he have been right? No, I won’t give him that. What about my job? Will I be fired? What about my friends? I can barely see the station because I am too busy trying to calm my shaking hands, but I know we’re there. The police go inside leaving us in the back. “I shouldn’t be surprised,” mumbled the man next to me, “Haven’t you heard what they are doing to our type of people these days? A fifteen-year-old boy from my hometown got sent to a mental hospital by his parents.” “What are you talking about?” I asked. “They are calling it an illness, but they don’t use no medication to cure it. I hear they are trying to shock it out of them, turning boys into vegetables because they’re gay. It’s disgusting.” I can barely believe what I am hearing. First ostracized by my family and their religion, and now my country. I wonder if my parents support the government policy. I wonder if they wish they could’ve put me into a hospital before I left. The thought makes me shiver. As the police come back to the car for us, I look at myself in the rearview mirror and practice looking less terrified.

>

 

 

 

 

>

 

 

 

 

>

 

 

 

 

>

 

 

 

 

>

 

 

 

 

>

 

 

 

 

>

 

 

 

 

>

 

 

 

 

>

 

 

 

 

>

 

Executive Order 10450

       This is an excerpt from Executive Order 10450, which was signed by President Eisenhower on April 27, 1953. The executive order declared that being homosexual was a national security risk to the government because they could be easily swayed in their views, so any government worker could be legally fired if they were found to be a homosexual. Around the same time that this was occurring, the second Red Scare was at its end. Due to the nature of targeting homosexuals during this time period, this came to be known as the Lavender Scare.

"Sec. 8. (a) The investigations conducted pursuant to this order shall be designed to develop information as to whether the employment or retention in employment in Federal service of the person being investigated is clearly consistent with the interests of the national security. Such information shall relate, but shall not be limited, to the following:

 

(1) Depending on the relation of the Government employment to the national security:

 . . .

 

(iii) Any criminal, infamous, dishonest, immoral, or notoriously disgraceful conduct, habitual use of intoxicants to excess, drug addiction, sexual perversion."

Mental Therapy

        The fellow bookie in the story talks about how a young man from his hometown was taken by their parents to a mental hospital. This was a common occurrence among people who found out someone in their family is a homosexual and wanted to use whatever they could to treat and “cure.” The excerpts describe the type of treatments that people like the young man in the story would have experienced while in therapy. As mentioned by the source, people could be involuntarily admitted to mental hospitals by their families. The types of treatments that the homosexuals endured are ones that today have found not scientific grounds in being able to “cure” homosexuality.

        "In the more brutal therapy sessions, the shock was delivered directly to the male patient’s genitals every time the patient experienced any form of positive response to the slides being shown to him. The following excerpt from a Farrall Instrument catalogue advertising electroshock therapy products details how the therapies worked:

. . .

        Aversive conditioning has proven an effective aid in the treatment of child molesters, transvestites, exhibitionists, alcoholics, shop lifters, and other people with similar problems. Stimulus slides are shown to the patient intermixed with neutral slides. Shock is delivered with stimulus scenes but not with neutral scenes. In reinforcing heterosexual preference in latent male homosexuals, male slides give a shock while the stimulus relief slides of females do not give shock. The patient is given a “slide change” hand button which enables him to escape or avoid a shock by rejecting a shock cue scene.

. . .

        In the 1940s, homosexuals were also involuntarily committed to psychiatric facilities by their families, with the hospitals promising that the patient would eventually leave the facility cured of their “sexual illness.” Not only were they not allowed to leave, but they were often subjected to cruel and inhumane treatments, including castrations, torture drugs, shock therapy, and lobotomies."

 

 

Executive Order
 BAM! The tavern door to Uncle John’s slammed open. My friends whipped around toward the commotion at the entrance. People began to shout. I couldn’t understand anything, and then I saw the badges. Police were storming in, grabbing people, and forcing them outside. Drinks were knocked to the ground and some men tried to run and fight their way out. The three of us, still in shock, looked around wide eyed, unsure of what to do. Before we could decide, our hands were pulled behind our back and we were pushed outside. “Get in there,” the cop said to me, thrusting me towards the cop car. “Wh- What did we do?” I asked, confused. “You’re getting what you deserve,” the police officer muttered under his breath. He pushed me into the backseat and I sit there with one other man that I didn’t know. I watched through the window as people were rushed out of Uncle John’s, which was now lit up blue and red. I watch the cop get inside and he starts reciting a string of numbers and letter into his radio that I don’t understand. We start driving towards the police station, I can’t believe what has happened. On the way there, the cop turns up the news on the radio. “In today’s headlines, President Eisenhower attempts to clean house, says that efforts to remove homosexuals from government jobs is necessary to prevent possible security risks . . . .” I look over to the man next to me in the car, we don’t say anything. I don’t know what to think. I can’t keep track of my emotions. Travis comes to mind. Could he have been right? No, I won’t give him that. What about my job? Will I be fired? What about my friends? I can barely see the station because I am too busy trying to calm my shaking hands, but I know we’re there. The police go inside leaving us in the back. “I shouldn’t be surprised,” mumbled the man next to me, “Haven’t you heard what they are doing to our type of people these days? A fifteen-year-old boy from my hometown got sent to a mental hospital by his parents.” “What are you talking about?” I asked. “They are calling it an illness, but they don’t use no medication to cure it. I hear they are trying to shock it out of them, turning boys into vegetables because they’re gay. It’s disgusting.” I can barely believe what I am hearing. First ostracized by my family and their religion, and now my country. I wonder if my parents support the government policy. I wonder if they wish they could’ve put me into a hospital before I left. The thought makes me shiver. As the police come back to the car for us, I look at myself in the rearview mirror and practice looking less terrified.
Executive Order
 BAM! The tavern door to Uncle John’s slammed open. My friends whipped around toward the commotion at the entrance. People began to shout. I couldn’t understand anything, and then I saw the badges. Police were storming in, grabbing people, and forcing them outside. Drinks were knocked to the ground and some men tried to run and fight their way out. The three of us, still in shock, looked around wide eyed, unsure of what to do. Before we could decide, our hands were pulled behind our back and we were pushed outside. “Get in there,” the cop said to me, thrusting me towards the cop car. “Wh- What did we do?” I asked, confused. “You’re getting what you deserve,” the police officer muttered under his breath. He pushed me into the backseat and I sit there with one other man that I didn’t know. I watched through the window as people were rushed out of Uncle John’s, which was now lit up blue and red. I watch the cop get inside and he starts reciting a string of numbers and letter into his radio that I don’t understand. We start driving towards the police station, I can’t believe what has happened. On the way there, the cop turns up the news on the radio. “In today’s headlines, President Eisenhower attempts to clean house, says that efforts to remove homosexuals from government jobs is necessary to prevent possible security risks . . . .” I look over to the man next to me in the car, we don’t say anything. I don’t know what to think. I can’t keep track of my emotions. Travis comes to mind. Could he have been right? No, I won’t give him that. What about my job? Will I be fired? What about my friends? I can barely see the station because I am too busy trying to calm my shaking hands, but I know we’re there. The police go inside leaving us in the back. “I shouldn’t be surprised,” mumbled the man next to me, “Haven’t you heard what they are doing to our type of people these days? A fifteen-year-old boy from my hometown got sent to a mental hospital by his parents.” “What are you talking about?” I asked. “They are calling it an illness, but they don’t use no medication to cure it. I hear they are trying to shock it out of them, turning boys into vegetables because they’re gay. It’s disgusting.” I can barely believe what I am hearing. First ostracized by my family and their religion, and now my country. I wonder if my parents support the government policy. I wonder if they wish they could’ve put me into a hospital before I left. The thought makes me shiver. As the police come back to the car for us, I look at myself in the rearview mirror and practice looking less terrified.