2nd September: Evelyn Hooker, Psychologist

b. Sep 2, 1907. 

d. Nov 18, 1996

Dr Hooker was not herself lesbian, but is notable for her groundbreaking research that overturned the existing psychology orthodoxy of her day that homosexuals were by definition mentally ill, and that in time led the American Psychiatric Association would finally remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.

Dr. Hooker, the psychologist who is widely credited for establishing that gay people are not inherently mentally ill, knew what it meant to overcome long odds. Born the sixth of nine children in North Platte, Nebraska, she had to overcome uncountable barriers to women in academia and psychology throughout the first half of the 20th century. In 1942 while a teacher at UCLA, one of her students introduced her to other members of the gay community and challenged her to study “people like him” — homosexuals who were neither troubled by their homosexuality and who had none of the features commonly associated with mental illness. Among those she came to know was noted author Christopher Isherwood, would rented a guest house from her. “She never treated us like some strange tribe,” he recalled later, “so we told her things we never told anyone before. Hooker quickly became convinced that not only were most gay men socially well-adjusted, and by 1953 — at the peak of the McCarthy period — she decided that this could be proven through psychological testing."

-Read the full article at Box Turtle Bulletin