Honoring LGBTQ Rights Trailblazer Charles Silverstein
Charles Silverstein, a prominent literary author largely responsible for ending homosexuality’s classification as a mental illness in the study of psychology, is dead at age 87. His death was announced by Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCTNOW).
Today we mourn Dr. Charles Silverstein, who passed away on January 30. 23. A hero, an activist, a leader, and a friend. His contributions to psychology and the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals have been felt around the world. pic.twitter.com/pDGpmy7wSq
— Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (@ABCTNOW) January 31, 2023
His book, The Joy of Gay Sex, which he coauthored with American essayist Edmund White, is celebrated for the way it helped to destigmatize homosexuality in the 1970s. Silverstein writes in his memoir that he wanted the book to “have a wider focus than just sex, that it should also advice the reader about life in the gay community.”
After Silverstein earned his Ph.D. in psychology in the 1970s, he began pursuing the APA to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and erase its classification as a mental illness. He was also involved with the Gay Activists Alliance, otherwise known as “zaps,” famous for their public protests. Silverstein was the founding editor-in-chief for the Journal of Homosexuality, an academic journal examining the cultural, historical, and interpersonal contexts of sexual practices and gender roles.
He received the Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement from the APA in 2011 for his “40-year career challenging the criteria of social morality as the basis for diagnosing sexual disorders,” and in 2022, he received the Lifetime Achievement Social Justice Award from the ABCT (Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies).
He was also the author of A Family Matter: A Parents’ Guide to Homosexuality (1977), Man to Man: Gay Couples in America (1982), and Gays, Lesbians, and Their Therapists: Studies in Psychotherapy (1991). Silverstein set many of the precedents for psychotherapists treating LGBTQ patients. He also founded the Institute for Human Identity, an organization which provides LGBTQ-affirming mental health care.
Silverstein had been diagnosed with lung cancer and died in his Manhattan home at age 87.
(Photo Credit: @NPR on Twitter)
