[Tässä blogisarjassa kerron Setan varhaishistoriasta siltä osin kuin olen itse henkiiökohtaisesti ollut mukana tapahtumissa. Tämä liittyy vuoden 2010 alussa julkaistavaan Setan varhaishistoriaan, jota viimeistelee Anssi Pirttijärvi].
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Tässä on Mike Rossin 1.7.2009 Journal of Homosexualityssa ilmestyneen artikkelin abstrakti. Suomennan artikkelin kokonaisuudessaan FinnQueeriin lähiviikoina.
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The Last Book-Burning Trial of the Twentieth
Century: The Stålström Dissertation and
the Challenge of Homophobic Authority
M. W. Ross
MICHAEL W. ROSS, PhD DrMedSc MPH
School of Public Health, University of Texas, Houston, Texas, USA
Anti-homosexual (also known as homophobic) values, attitudes,
and beliefs thrive, in part, on misinformation and by restricting
discussion that might challenge such views. While this was more
typical of academic environments in the 1950s, partly because the
study of homosexuality was largely based on clinical or correc-
tional populations, academic environments have usually been in
the forefront of empirical and social discussion of sexuality. Pre-
venting such discussion (which maintains outdated pathological
or criminal theories of homosexuality), thus becomes a significant
agenda of those attempting to maintain anti-homosexual
attitudes. Further, when anti-homosexual attitudes have character-
ized a particular professional group, prevention of any discussion
that may reveal that the position of that group was without empiri-
cal foundation also serves the function of maintaining their
authority as “experts” and allows restrictions on the human rights
of homosexual or bisexual individuals to go unchallenged. Rarely,
however, has this resulted in a direct attempt to silence academic
discussion, through the invocation of legal sanctions. This article
looks at the history of such an attempt in Finland, where an
adherent of classical psychoanalysis fought to challenge progress
and reverse the tide of scientific and clinical evidence that judged
homosexuality to be non-pathological.
