New book covers period from 1950s to 1970s, but its author highlights continuing lack of full ban
shows that 13% of trans respondents had undergone or been offered so-called conversion therapy, nearly double the overall average for other respondents. “Behind these numbers are countless lives that have been damaged,” said a spokesperson for the charity Stonewall.
Odd Men Out, the result of 15 years of research and interviews with many men who have since died, is a history of gay men between the appointment of the Wolfenden committee in 1954, which examined the laws around homosexuality, to the emergence of the Gay Liberation Front in 1970. Joyce says the lack of a complete ban on conversion practices is a reminder of the importance of knowing about history.
Joyce’s exploration of gay men in the postwar period exposes the “treatments” many were subjected to, including “psychotherapeutic cures” with gay men given LSD and forced to talk about the “conflicts” in their life that may have caused them to become homosexuals. Other men went through “chemical aversion” – in which patients were injected with vomit-inducing drugs before they were told to look at pictures or films of men.
“I think younger generations would be surprised both how repressive it was, but also how some people – depending on where they lived and what background they were from – managed to live relatively openly, even if they were living under a law that could have turned nasty at any time,” says Joyce. Looking back at the “therapy” he had, Bill, now 74, says he wishes it had included the chance to talk. “I think it was mad. It was absolutely bonkers,” he says. “They should have just talked things over with you, help you to come to terms with it, not try and change you. Because you don’t know whether that has had some sort of effect on your mind, you can’t know.”
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