It was Evelyn Hooker who began the task of directly attacking, using the same tools of her profession, the theory of mental illness.
Hooker knew several homosexuals who asked her to conduct a study on the subject. Based on her knowledge of homosexuals who were not in therapy, the psychiatrist decided to conduct a study among these individuals and a similar heterosexual group.
The 60 people who were part of the two groups were asked to take three classic tests used as diagnos-tic tools for mental illness: the Tat, Rorschach, and Maps. Among these, the Rorschach - a test that asks the person to interpret inkblots - is considered one of the best for evaluating personality and diagnosing homosexuality.
The results of this work were conclusive. None of the participating judges could predict the sexual orientation of the individuals significantly and the homosexuals came out as more well-adapted than the heterosexuals.
After several years of negotiations between the Nomenclature Committee of the Association, conservative psychiatrists, rebellious psychiatrists, and the organized gay movement, in 1973, at its convention in Honolulu, the Association - in an unprecedented historical step - chose to exclude homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses.