# In Her Own Words: The Activism of Barbara Gittings, the Lesbian Who Pushed the APA to Remove Homosexuality from Its Classification of Mental Disorders - URL: https://alisanburak.com/en/wcp-2026-posterler/k2087 - Language: en - Last updated: not specified - Page title: In Her Own Words: The Activism of Barbara Gittings, the Lesbian Who Pushed the APA to Remove Homosexuality from Its Classification of Mental Disorders | WCP 2026 Summary > A rediscovered audio recording of the 1972 APA symposium brings to light Barbara Gittings's role as an organizer and her contribution in reading letters from c… This page was translated automatically from Turkish. [Read the original](https://alisanburak.com/wcp-2026-posterler/k2087) This page is an AI-assisted Turkish summary of the study presented at the 26th World Congress of Psychiatry. The study belongs to the presenting authors; please refer to the original source when citing it. Symposium PresentationStigma and RecoveryReview / Opinion # In Her Own Words: The Activism of Barbara Gittings, the Lesbian Who Pushed the APA to Remove Homosexuality from Its Classification of Mental Disorders N her own words: exploring the activism of barbara gittings, the lesbian who pushed the apa to de-pathologize homosexuality Presenter: Gene Nakajima Country: United States of America Session: 3330 - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE PERFECT: HISTORICAL AND CURRENT PERSPECTIVES ON THE LGBTQ+ AFFIRMATIVE PSYCHIATRY Date: Fri, 25.09.2026, 08:00 - 08:00 Room: Hall A6 A rediscovered audio recording of the 1972 APA symposium brings to light Barbara Gittings's role as an organizer and her contribution in reading letters from closeted psychiatrists, which were overshadowed by the masked psychiatrist's speech. The session continues to examine a recently rediscovered audio recording of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) 1972 symposium, "Psychiatry: Friend or Foe to the Homosexual, A Dialogue," and explores the symposium's significance for LGBTQ rights history, gay-affirmative psychiatry, and its participants. Although John Fryer spoke at the symposium as Dr. Anonymous, a masked gay psychiatrist, the driving force behind organizing the event was two lesbian and gay activists, Barbara Gittings and Frank Kameny. A year earlier, they had also organized a protest against an APA session on homosexuality, an action that led to collaboration with APA Vice President Judd Marmor and Robert Seidenberg. Gittings was an activist who had founded the New York chapter of Daughters of Bilitis, a national lesbian organization, in 1958. She was also the person who invited Fryer to speak and contacted other closeted psychiatrists who were reluctant to participate; although these psychiatrists declined to appear at the symposium, they shared their professional experiences with her. Her reading of these letters during her speech is regarded as a powerful contribution that was overshadowed by Fryer's dramatic and groundbreaking presentation. She also read a letter that gay psychiatrists had written to the APA's newspaper, Psychiatric News, but never sent; this letter reveals how forward-thinking gay psychiatrists were about the mental health of gay people in 1972. How to cite this study APA 7: Nakajima, G., et al. (2026, September 25). N her own words: exploring the activism of barbara gittings, the lesbian who pushed the apa to de-pathologize homosexuality [Symposium presentation]. 26th WPA World Congress of Psychiatry (WCP 2026), Stockholm, Sweden. Vancouver: Nakajima G, et al. N her own words: exploring the activism of barbara gittings, the lesbian who pushed the apa to de-pathologize homosexuality [symposium presentation]. 26th WPA World Congress of Psychiatry (WCP 2026); 2026 Sep 23-26; Stockholm, Sweden. Author names and title formatting were generated automatically from the congress system; please check them against the original poster before use. ## On the same topic - [Kendinizi yazın: dışavurumcu sanatlar ve kendi öykünüzü paylaşma yoluyla iyileşme](https://alisanburak.com/en/wcp-2026-posterler/ev0129) - [Akıl hastanesi arşivlerinden yaratıcı bir alana: art brut mirası ve toplumsal içerme, ARTESPIDA projesi](https://alisanburak.com/en/wcp-2026-posterler/ev0137) - [Sanat ile psikiyatri arasındaki ilişkinin incelenmesi: 19. yüzyıldan günümüze iki Portekiz psikiyatri hastanesi örneği](https://alisanburak.com/en/wcp-2026-posterler/ev0139) - [Bir hastadan bir sanatçıya](https://alisanburak.com/en/wcp-2026-posterler/ev0143) - [Şili'de otizmli yetişkinlerde kurumsal damgalanma ve sağlık hizmetlerine erişim](https://alisanburak.com/en/wcp-2026-posterler/ev0156) [All WCP 2026 summaries](https://alisanburak.com/en/wcp-2026-posterler) --- Kaynak / Source: https://alisanburak.com/en/wcp-2026-posterler/k2087 İletişim / Contact: Bağdat Caddesi, Veli Güneysu Apt. No:453 K:4 D:9, Suadiye / Kadıköy, İstanbul · +90 532 642 95 25 · info@alisanburak.com · https://alisanburak.com/bagdat-caddesi-psikoterapi-iletisim