'Curing Queers'

Drawing on a rich array of source materials including previously unseen, fascinating (and often quite moving) oral histories, archival and news media sources, 'Curing queers' examines the plight of men who were institutionalised in British mental hospitals to receive 'treatment' for homosexuality and transvestism, and the perceptions and actions of the men and women who nursed them. The book begins in 1935 with the first official report on the use of aversion therapy to combat homosexual desire and continues until 1974, when the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its…