Overview

Homosexuality It was the most successful event in public health history. Four million Americans were cured of the same illness, all at once. In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association agreed (with some of us) that homosexuality was not a mental illness. Our battle was won, but the war for gay rights continued. In a landmark 1974 court case, I testified for a woman living as a lesbian who fought for child custiody after divorce. Our victory was dampened by subsequent losses. When I advocated same-sex marriage on a US television debate in 1974, few viewers thought they would see that as reality. It took three decades. I challenged the face on the Florida orange, evangelist singer Anita Bryant in her anti-gay crusade of 1977. She championed a referendum to deny equal rights for gays in Miami. The discriminatory law was approved 2-1. It would be two decades before this was repealed. My twenty-five page legal document in 1987 on behalf of a gay man trying to serve in the US miltary was unsuccessful. It would be two decades before this ban was reversed. When I challenged the Boy Scouts (in my first trial as an attorney in 1990) for refusing to apppoint a gay teenager as a scout leader we lost. It would be two decades before a change in Scout policy. When Colorado passed a law denying gays and lesbians equal protection in 1992, I testified for its repeal. That time we won at the US Supreme Court. Transsexualism I wrote letteers for American patients to foreign surgeons recommending what was then called sex-change surgery in 1965 because no US medical center was helping the transsexual. The strength of resistance from American doctors to transsexual treatment was demonstrated by my questionnaire sent to hundreds of physicians. The majority of pychiatrists and surgeons would condemn a transsexual to likely suicide rather than enable sex reassignment. The breakthrough occurred in 1966 when a handful of us referred transsexual patients to The Johns Hopkins Hospital. When this prestigious medical center performed their surgery, transsexual treatment wss legitimized. As treatment became increasingly available, I testified in court from the 1970s to enable transsexuals to progress in their new life. As with gays and lesbians, they were challenged in employment and parenting. A commercial airline pilot with many years' flight experience as a man took medical leave and tried to return to pilot as a woman. The airline refused. A school teacher wanted to return to work after completing transition from a man to a woman. The school refused. During gender transition to live a s a woman, the divorcing father of a four year old daughter sought continued parental contact. The mother insisted that the father must appear as a man. A man, born female, married a woman and the couple adopted childtren. For years they had sexual intercourse, always while the man wore a prosthetic penis. When the relationship failed, the wife insisted that she never knew that the penis was artificial, or that the the man had been born a woman. The marriage was invalid becaue, at the time, two persons born female could not marry. She demanded that he have no further contact with the children as he was neither their legal nor their biological father. I argued psychological parenthood. This was the only father the children had known. These court cases were often bitter. As with gays and lesbians, sometimes we won.

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Reviews

REVIEWS If there is anybody on earth qualified to discuss the peculiar and to my mind intractable mysteries of trans-sexualism, it is Richard Green, who has for more than a half-century, in America as in Europe, grappled with the subject learnedly, open-mindedly, and always humanely. JAN MORRIS, CBE. Author and historian. Reported the first successful ascent of Mt. Everest in 1953 for The TIMES, writing as James Morris. For too long LGBT people were considered deviant from somebody else's norm. Now, psychiatrist and lawyer Richard Green recalls his role in the fascinating fight against the mind-doctors' demeaning, discriminating, soul-destroying deployment of psychology. JONATHAN NED KATZ. Author, historian and founder of OutHistory.org In the early 1970s, a young psychiatrist, Richard Green, challenged his profession to delist homosexuality as a mental disorder. His advocacy of same-sex marriage 40 years ago and his simultaneous support of divorcing lesbian and gay parents fighting for child custody, is a must read for the younger generation of LGBT+ people. In today's egalitarian climate, when the gains of sexual and gender minorities are often taken for granted, it is important to know and salute the people and movements that challenged heterosexist supremacism. PETER TATCHELL. LGBT and human rights campaigner. Richard Green was one of the first modern doctors to study the subject of transgender. I met him in the 1960s and knew soon that his insight and understanding would become important to generations in this mysterious field. This book deserves to be required reading. It is more than a memoir. DR. RENEE RICHARDS. Eye surgeon, tennis player, transgender pioneer. Portrayed by Vanessa Redgrave in Second Serve as Dr. Richard Raskind and Dr. Renee Richards. Richard Green has drawn on his unique experience at the epicenter of the struggles for dignity and rights of homosexuals and transsexuals to write a fascinating book. The story is brought to life through the portraits of the often eccentric characters who over 50 years shaped the psychological, surgical, legal and political aspects of our changing attitudes and the ongoing evolution and understanding of normal. CHRISTIE HEFNER. Former Chairman, CEO Playboy Enterprises and Board Member, Masters and Johnson Institute.

If there is anybody on earth qualified to discuss the peculiar and to my mind intractable mysteries of trans-sexualism, it is Richard Green, who has for more than a half-century, in America as in Europe, grappled with the subject learnedly, open-mindedly, and always humanely. - (JAN MORRIS, CBE. Author and historian. Reported the first successful ascent of Mt. Everest in 1953 for The TIMES, writing as James Morris.) For too long LGBT people were considered deviant from somebody else's norm. Now, psychiatrist and lawyer Richard Green recalls his role in the fascinating fight against the mind-doctors' demeaning, discriminating, soul-destroying deployment of psychology. - (JONATHAN NED KATZ. Author, historian and founder of OutHistory.org) In the early 1970s, a young psychiatrist, Richard Green, challenged his profession to delist homosexuality as a mental disorder. His advocacy of same-sex marriage 40 years ago and his simultaneous support of divorcing lesbian and gay parents fighting for child custody, is a must read for the younger generation of LGBT+ people. In today's egalitarian climate, when the gains of sexual and gender minorities are often taken for granted, it is important to know and salute the people and movements that challenged heterosexist supremacism. - (PETER TATCHELL. LGBT and human rights campaigner.) Richard Green was one of the first modern doctors to study the subject of transgender. I met him in the 1960s and knew soon that his insight and understanding would become important to generations in this mysterious field. This book deserves to be required reading. It is more than a memoir. - (DR. RENEE RICHARDS. Eye surgeon, tennis player, transgender pioneer. Portrayed by Vanessa Redgrave in Second Serve as Dr. Richard Raskind and Dr. Renee Richards.) Richard Green has drawn on his unique experience at the epicenter of the struggles for dignity and rights of homosexuals and transsexuals to write a fascinating book. The story is brought to life through the portraits of the often eccentric characters who over 50 years shaped the psychological, surgical, legal and political aspects of our changing attitudes and the ongoing evolution and understanding of normal. - ( CHRISTIE HEFNER. Former Chairman, CEO Playboy Enterprises and Board Member, Masters and Johnson Institute.)

Author Information

A graduate of The Johns Hopkins Medical School and The Yale Law School, Richard Green has been professor of psychiatry in the US (UCLA, Stony Brook) and England (Imperial) and has taught in law schools in the US (UCLA) and England (Cambridge University). As a psychiatric witness he testified for gay men, lesbian women, and transsexuals in American and English courts. As an attorney, he represented a gay rights client in a California court. Here, he reflects on his 50 years battling for gay rights and trans rights. From the time when homosexuality was a crime and a mental illness to same-sex marriage. From when transsexuals were unable to obtain life-saving medical and surgical treatment to confirm their true identity to public acceptance and understanding. These were battles in the sex and gender revolution.

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