Is homosexuality a disorder?

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Homosexuality is a disorder

Pro

• Pro In so far as homosexuality impacts reproductive activity in its reproductive function, it can reasonably be likened to a somatic disorder of infertility, although homosexuality is not somatic but rather psychological.
  • Objection Using this reasoning, one would argue that the use of contraception is a contraceptive use disorder, leading to loss of reproductive function. And that is implausible.
    • Objection The use of technology does not relate to human biology – other than being a potential factor in evolutionary processes – which is the subject here.
• Pro Homosexual sex is not normal human behavior. Therefore, it is abnormal.
  • Objection “Normal” as a concept is highly subjective and differs greatly depending on culture and geographic location. Therefore the concept of “Abnormal” is also derived from a fabricated and subjective human concept.
  • Objection Behavior deviating from cultural norms or customs is not automatically disordered.
• Pro WHO's definition of health includes (among other things) a state of social wellbeing. Homosexuality evolves in social groups with rather harsh conflicts (i.e. in unhealthy social environment). Thus it is a disorder.
  • Objection Homosexuality here serves as a remedy for mitigating conflicts, not a disorder itself.
    • Objection Analogically, inflammation is a response of the body that is called to mitigate cell damage. But it has negative effects such as hay fever, periodontal disease, atherosclerosis, and osteoarthritis. Homosexuality does have negative effects like anxiety and depression.
      • Objection Anxiety and depression come out of discrimination, not from homosexuality itself.
• Pro Homosexuality is a disorder of the evolved sexual neurological wiring that is key to the sexual reproductive functioning of humans and the species' survival. Not all cases of disorders are treatable or a problem to the people affected which does not change that it is an evolutionarily-contradictive disorder of the evolved human physiology.
• Pro Homosexuality was widely classified as a disorder in authoritative publications like the DSM from which it was removed due to social activist outcries and/or misinterpretations without robust rational reasons. Studies find major medical associations "arbitrarily [started to] label homosexuality as normal".
  • Objection It was removed from these (add explanation here)
• Pro That which evolutionarily caused homosexuality (HS) conferred reproductive advantages. However, these advantages are now gone. Due to contraception, the evolutionarily disadvantage of homosexuality would, if only natural forces are at play and HS is dependent on HS-related genes, out-evolve homosexuality in the future.

Con

• Con Homosexuality is no longer recognized as a disorder in the West. Inconclusive yet suggestive.
• Con Homosexuality does not harm normal human functioning in a way in which disorders typically do.
  • Objection Classification as a disorder may not require it to be harmful. Illnesses may be defined as disorders that are harmful but disorders don't necessarily have to be harmful. There may be other disorders that are not necessarily harmful.^[which?]
    • Objection No other disorder that is not harmful or not necessarily harmful could be named so far. This suggests 'being harmful' is a characteristic that is a requirement for the classification as 'disorder' especially since the common understanding of the word "disorder" can and likely should be taken into account. In the List of disorders, no listed disorder appears to be not harmful.
  • Objection It does harm sexual reproductive functioning.
    • Objection Many people don't want to reproduce and as of 2025, lower reproductive rates would be beneficial in many countries like Chad and Niger that drive the too-high global fertility rate. As such, if broadens the scope from the individual to the collective, it is not a disorder of functioning and may be beneficial to the species.
• Con There is no such thing as a psychiatric disorder/mental illness. Therefore, neither is homosexuality a disorder. See also Is there such a thing as mental illness?
  • Objection Arguments from the linked debate supporting the existence of mental illness apply.
• Con Several intelligent animals engage in homosexual behavior not as an exception but as the predominant default behavior, most notably bonobos.
  • Objection Only few animals engage in this as normal behavior. In those that engage in it as an exceptional behavior, it is also a disorder.
  • Objection Humans are not bonobos or any of those other animals.

Further reading

• Homosexuality, wikipedia.org
• When Homosexuality Stopped Being a Mental Disorder, 2024, psychologytoday.com
• Is homosexuality a mental illness?, quora.com
• Out of DSM: Depathologizing Homosexuality by Jack Drescher, 2015
• Royal College of Psychiatrists' statement on sexual orientation, Mar 2014