Tuesday, October 12, 2021

Now Streaming: CURED, Award-winning LGBTQ+ Doc; Independent Lens Season Opener


The award-winning LGBTQ+ documentary Cured, which premiered on Independent Lens on National Coming Out Day (October 11), is now available to stream (through November 9) via PBS.org and the PBS Video app. 

From acclaimed filmmakers Bennett Singer and Patrick Sammon, Cured shines a light on the pioneering LGBTQ+ activists who fought to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1973. 

In 1973, the APA made the landmark decision to remove homosexuality from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which had classified same-sex attraction as a “sociopathic personality disturbance” in its first edition, published in 1952. The psychiatric establishment deemed homosexuality a condition to be “cured,” and—in addition to intensive talk therapy—members of the LGBTQ+ community were subjected to cruel treatments including electroconvulsive therapy, aversion therapy, and in extreme cases, castration and lobotomies. Facing these “cures” and widespread stigma, many gay people were afraid to come out, and the APA’s “scientific” diagnosis was often used to justify discrimination and persecution.



Cured offers viewers an inside look at the inspiring movement behind this momentous 1973 decision to remove the DSM classification and the pioneering activists who took on a formidable institution and, against the odds, emerged victorious. The activists’ mission was not only to overturn the official diagnosis, but to create a meaningful dialogue that would challenge deep-rooted prejudices and transform minds. During these discussions, activists pressed the APA to examine evidence and data, urging psychiatrists to move beyond what activist Dr. Frank Kameny called the “shabby, shoddy, sleazy pseudoscience masquerading as science” that underlay the sickness label for homosexuality.

Cured features rich, newly unearthed archival footage and incisive interviews with the people who experienced these events firsthand, including the pioneering LGBTQ+ activists Ron Gold, Dr. Lawrence Hartmann, Dr. Frank Kameny, Rev. Magora Kennedy, Kay Lahusen, and Dr. Charles Silverstein, among others, as well as allies and opponents within the APA. The filmmakers also interviewed Richard Socarides, an openly gay political commentator and advocate for LGBTQ equality who is the son of Dr. Charles Socarides, the leading proponent of the view that homosexuality is a curable mental illness.

Cured illuminates a pivotal moment in the Gay Liberation movement that transformed not only the LGBTQ+ community, but also the field of psychiatry and the social fabric of America—propelling a revolution that is still reverberating today.

Cured provides vital historical context for the ongoing debate about conversion therapy, a harmful practice that aims to “cure” gender identity or sexual orientation through psychological or faith-based interventions. Although conversion therapy has been discredited by the APA and other major medical organizations, it remains legal for minors in 30 states.