Gay Panic Narratives, circa 1957
the legacy of Dr. Harold Shryock
I n his 2005 book, On Becoming Shryock: A Life of Surprise and Inspiration, Richard A. Schaefer, Chief Historian for Loma Linda University Medical Canter, said of his long time colleague and good friend …
“In a life that spanned nearly a century, Dr. Harold Shryock influenced a world.”
Well, I suppose he did.
Then again, I suppose you could say so did the late Fred Phelps, the evangelical wing nut minister from Topeka, Kansas who coined the phrase “God Hates Fags”, and features an animated image of gay bashed murder victim Matthew Shepard burning in hell on his website landing page. Joseph Friedlander and Ralph Banay, two US medical researchers who carried out an extensive study on the use of ice pick through-the-eye-lobotomies as a treatment for male homosexuality, could be called “influencers” too. As could scores of other professionals responsible for the forced institutionalization and gross human rights abuses of literally thousands of gay and lesbian Americans before 1981.
Considering the context of the above, and considering Shryock’s outspoken views on the evils of homosexuality, I find the specific phrasing of the decidedly value neutral quote above an amusing exercise in wilful avoidance. Because, in a revelation that should surprise absolutely no one who read my previous piece on Shryock (below), the man was not exactly a gay liberation ally.
The historical record would seem to indicate that this antithesis of progressiveness, the man who falls decidedly on the side of espousing female circumcision as treatment for masturbation, Dr. Harold Shryock, also managed to pen his unscientific, regressive, and increasingly paranoid theories on the other topic close to his heart.
The homosexuality affliction.
For whatever reason and by who’s oversight, he managed to somehow be academically published in not one, but two textbooks for medical and nursing staff. A fan of literal titles, Shryock’s second book, a companion edition to Becoming A Woman, Becoming A Man was marketed as an introductory overview to the concepts inherent to male sexuality. It is actually nothing of the sort. Instead, the majority of the books 184 pages talk about one thing, and one thing only.
The evils of all things homosexual.
From his introduction to the topic:
“There is a freakish manifestation of human friendship regarding which I shall take this occasion to warn you. I refer to those relationships between members of the same sex that are included in the term homosexuality."
The reason to treat sexual orientation was successfully sold as fear over the threat that sexual perversions caused to children, specifically boys. The following video, released in 1961, was actually a public service announcement partially funded by the California Board Of Health. Notice the language used: sickness, dangerous, contagious etc. Throughout the video there is a direct message that homosexuality = pedophilia. There is also the subtle implication that if that isn’t bad enough, it’s contagious as well. Keep your children far away.
In the fifties world of Dr. Shryock, the theory of medically managing male homosexuality was not particularly complex. The first line treatments, anyway. Otherwise known as “gender crisis”, or the less disturbing and mildly palatable “negatively acting out”, this was often seen as a successfully treatable condition, as it was not the result of a complex, innate orientation, it was “negative behavior”, and of course behavior is modifiable. The remedy? In Shyrocks words.
“give the boy some old fashioned rough and tough masculine engagement!”
I coin it the old “common sense approach that’s sure to never work 100% of the time.” If you think the kid might be a big old queer, well, just toss him into sports! That will set him right. In the good doctors Beaver Clever world, it was completely fine, as well as medically effective, to toss the sissy boy a ball, offer a stern, “learn to catch it”, and then encourage Dad to show the little fairy what it is “to be a man”. It didn’t seem to matter that the instructions were, at best, intentionally vague. The implication being that a real man would just know what that was. Easy as pie.
If all went okay, well, before you know it, Junior would be frequenting Mexican bordellos, sharing his exploits with Dad over a cold one as they swap stories about the best treatment for those pesky crabs. That kid will be straight as an arrow in no time.
Of course things get a little more serious when that homegrown remedy failed to stick. That’s the time when Shryock would suggest hospitalization with a strict regiment of conversion therapy. A lovely little practice where subjects outfitted with sensors on their genitals were shown homoerotic images on a video screen. If aroused, they would be given “negative re-enforcement” as either electric shocks to their penis or clitoris, or nausea inducing injections via a pre-established IV. Of course this therapy would have been augmented by a form of talk therapy which was heavily influenced by early Freudian theory, suggesting that an overprotective, dominant mother, combined with an absent, cold father were the source for this perversion of nature.
If treatment proved unsuccessful at that level, well, there was always ECT, or electro-convulsive therapy. My mother, who began nursing in mental health when Shryock’s methods were in their prime, could never sit through the following scene from the film One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest. She said it was like being back there, and it was all too real.
In the early 1960’s, if ECT proved to be refractory to all treatment, the male homosexual could have been lucky enough to be enrolled in a new study, the frontal lobotomy as treatment for sexual perversion. The efficacy of an ice pick directly through the eye and into the frontal lobe of the brain was never proven, due to the difficulty in assessing someone who has been reduced to moans and drools, though if altering behavior was the goal, I imagine it worked. *
Let’s leave male homosexuality strapped in and drooling in its wheelchair while we take a look at how the women faired.
This is where Shryock really shines, in his concern for the sweet, American virgin. Because without proper guidance, he was convinced these wholesome young women, the future homemakers of America, would fall prey to the evil clutches of mysterious and vaguely threatening “manly appearing” women. Lesbians, of course. They would strike when the poor girl was most vulnerable, as often they were the harsh, stone faced gym teacher, or even the dower librarian with comfortable shoes. According to Shryock, the lesbian menace was growing like a cancer in the dormitories of America.
We may laugh at the overblown drama in his colourful descriptions, and even though I have taken some creative license in constructing this piece, it’s not all that far from the reality of the medical opinions of the day. The clinical descriptions seriously parallel narratives of late 1950’s lesbian pulp fiction novels. Faithful to the genre, Shryock takes us on the rather seedy tour.
Here, Shryock introduces us to the underbelly of lesbian life with a stern warning …
“Beware. This is a freakish trick of human nature.”
Of course further reinforced by the idea that in the case of female same gender attraction, orientation is a sort of spell, cast on to the younger ones by the old and wretched.
He goes on to relate a story, a personal example even, when he and his wife were staying in an all female dorm (for what reason we are never told), when
…for some reason a dark fear took hold, gripping the all girls campus. It was rumored there may be two lesbians living among them. So devastating are the consequence of lesbianism, that “mass panic” ensued, and the girls had to be assured that “no tragedy was about to occur” …
Of course Shyrock is quick to invoke the unstable, hysterical female. There, there dear, it’s your nerves. You mustn't get so excited. Is it me, or is anyone else sensing that the good doctor was one big old drama queen?
The book continues at a grudgingly slow pace, often repeating his less than complicated central themes. Finally we move on to Dr. Shryock invoking the old caged women narratives.
Of course the events this time take place at yet another boarding school. The evil lesbian archetype has changed, slightly. In this version it’s the obsessive stalker who is manifesting the dangerously deceptive traits of the “love that dare not speak its name”. And after scaring the hoop skirts right off these young girls, Shryock moves into a dryly clinical overview of the pathology of socialization that inflicts the homosexual. Since the behavior, (notice we never reference it as an orientation) is a maladaptive and manipulative reaction to life and relationships.
But, unlike the easy early course of treatment for the boys, a girl is given no such free ride. The chance of recovery is grave, and while treatment at an institution may, in theory, work, the fact that very few women were actually hospitalized, may suggest the level of regard for women held at the time was minimal at best.
They were simply viewed as damaged goods.
Disordered.
Not even worth trying.
When treatment was offered, in most cases it was thought of as “compassionate.” Defined as learning how to live with, and suppress the shameful affliction. Suitable employment away from impressionable young women was the common, though devastatingly damaging prescription. Since, once again, there is the unsaid, tacit suggestion that conflates homosexuality with pedophilia. Or, at the very best, it is a condition that may be contagious. The net effect? The inference for gay people was clear, they were unwelcome in polite company. This was also the time when, not surprisingly, the modern gay ghetto was born in several major American cities.
Now I admit, his ludicrous positions and the piss elegant tone taken throughout his writings can be viewed as somewhat comical. Though it’s also equally conflicting, as there exists a large group of people for whom that mildly humorous clinical positioning is very accurately describing their lives. Lives that were more than likely ruined. Or at the very least, denied the opportunity at self discovery.
The following is a clip from The Celluloid Closet, a documentary about gay and lesbian Hollywood. The quote from sex writer Susie Bright at the end, discussing the film The Children’s Hour is powerfully poignant, and is a nod to the subtle implications of internalized homophobia. I can relate to what she says. For as out, comfortable, and otherwise well adjusted as I may be, sometimes there is still a part of me that every once in a while, questions my own legitimacy. I suppose I have Shryock and his ilk to thank, at least in part, for that.
Harold Shyrock died on March 3 / 2004. He was 97. Below is a brief excerpt from his eulogy.
He was a respected medical educator, college administrator, author, counselor, public speaker, and family patriarch. He served as dean of the Loma Linda University School of Medicine from 1951–54 and chaired the Department of Anatomy from 1957–71. In the pivotal work, Becoming A Woman, Dr. Harold Shyrock has been largely credited with sending a generation of women from youth to mother, wife, and caregiver almost seamlessly. Americas women owe this great man many thanks, and a lifetime of reverence.
The speaker is unattributed, though the gender was said to be male, and I am guessing straight. I am also guessing that is not a shock to anyone.
- * The version of ECT described above refers to a time when the use of it was to treat what was thought to be sexual perversion. Today, ECT is still used, though voluntarily by mental health out patients as a treatment for refractory depression. It has proven widely successful and is performed at voltages far lower than was the case in the 1950's.
Part I of this piece can be found below.
Allan Rae is a qualitative researcher exploring the intersections of HIV, stigma and PTSD through the use of personal and community narrative. In 2006 he left a career as a flight paramedic to obtain his MFA in creative nonfiction. Stray dogs, satire, and Starbucks do not displease this ENFP.
