European, Gays Barely.

Henry L. Minton's Departing from Deviance is an importantcontribution to queer studies generally and to the historiography of thelesbian and gay civil rights movement specifically. The book climaxes withthe American Psychiatric Association's 1973 removal of homosexualityfrom its list of mental illnesses. To get to that point, Minton traces afascinating history, beginning at the turn of the twentieth century, of thepioneering role that lesbian and gay activists and advocates played as theyinfluenced the production and publication of a number of significantpsychological and sexological studies. Prior to the 1960s it was, largelyspeaking, only through studies such as these that gay and lesbian activistscould find a voice. In a scornful and dismissive society, the medicalprofession provided the legitimating sponsorship for them to do so. Thesescientific studies, Minton persuasively argues, became emancipatory for thegays and lesbians who influenced, conducted, and participated in them.Additionally, the author explores the significant influence that moremainstream sexologists and psychologists, for example, Evelyn Hooker andAlfred C. Kinsey, had within the scientific fields on homosexual rights.Finally, Minton considers the immediate impact that lesbian and gay activistshad on the American Psychiatric Association in the early 1970s, when afteryears of groundwork by those noted above they helped to push thatorganization into reevaluating its position on homosexuality.

European, gays barely.

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