title: The diagnostic status of homosexuality in DSM-III: a reformulation of the issues.
abstract: In 1973 homosexuality per se was removed from the DSM-II classification of mental disorders and replaced by the category Sexual Orientation Disturbance. This represented a compromise between the view that preferential homosexuality is invariably a mental disorder and the view that it is merely a normal sexual variant. While the 1973 DSM-II controversy was highly public, more recently a related but less public controversy involved what became the DSM-III category of Ego-dystonic Homosexuality. The author presents the DSM-III controversy and a reformulation of the issues involved in the diagnostic status of homosexuality. He argues that what is at issue is a value judgment about heterosexuality, rather than a factual dispute about homosexuality.
mesh_terms: D001143:Arousal; D006716:Homosexuality / Q000175:diagnosis; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008370:Manuals as Topic; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000145:classification*