From: The Body in Autobiography and Autobiographical Novels: The Importance of Being Normal, edited by Menotti Lerro (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018). 

PROLOGUE

I write these pages as I am meditating on the world and the men and women who inhabit it—including myself. I think that we too often seem to be at war with each other; too eager to show our physical or intellectual superiority to those around us; too scared that others enjoy life more than we do; too unable to raise our mentality and social status, and we are therefore ready to demean others’ status, perhaps so we can deceive ourselves into feeling better.

I believe that all wars come from these selfish attitudes that, unfortunately, characterize the human race. Therefore, we are ready to invade other people’s boundaries, to colonize, to steal, and to decrease what others possess and what we believe makes them happy (happier than us), to the point of so much envy that we will fight in order to deprive them of their supposed joys.

We are “different” when we are in what Immanuel Kant called a “minority state.” We have deceived ourselves, ever since the Enlightenment, into believing that we do not occupy this state. (It is, however, relevant to remember that one of the key characteristics of the Enlightenment is that some thinkers, albeit a tiny minority of the population as a whole, were beginning to feel less certain that the standards of the community in which they had been brought up were not only normal but perfect and that those who differed were somehow mentally, physically, or morally deficient). Sometimes, this “minority state” is confused with the “status of being a minority.” And now we are ready to rage against those who are exceptions to the “normal,” our perception of the norm. 

For Westerners, these false distinctions have led to war among “races” of different colours and shades, war among religions, etc. Among these groups not recognized as “similar” and worthy of common respect—albeit with a substantial difference—there were and are homosexuals. The main difference is that homosexuality, until recently, was not just considered abnormal but, by definition, a disease. Homosexuals were considered sick people in need of nursing and guidance.

It was only in 1973 that the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the handbook of mental disorders, followed in 1990—seventeen years later— by the World Health Organization, which removed homosexuality from its International Classification of Diseases. This event marked a revolution, especially concerning gay rights. This new equal vision soon initiated new struggles for equal rights and new victories, including the rights of gay couples to adopt children, a right recognized today by many countries around the world. Research suggests that the likelihood of these children being homosexual is the same as that of children adopted by heterosexual couples. Arguably, children raised by same-sex parents start from the most modern and flexible educational foundation possible, based on respect for others and rejection of racial and sexual prejudice (though scientific opinion is divided). In other words, the struggles of the last fifty years have achieved tremendous results in social equality and opportunity. Certainly there is still a lot to figure out in order to find an acceptable “truth” moving forward, but the chosen path seems to be the right one.

However, this work is more of a literary than a sychological or sociological study. It analyses the texts of selected authors and attempts to understand and outline the thinking and specific ideas within each. Through their works the authors express not only their personal beliefs but their personal experiences (that is what differentiates an autobiographical text, like autobiographies and autobiographical novels, from a novel tout court).

N.B. – It is also important to bear in mind that classifying homosexuality as a disease was also partially intended as a way of being kind to homosexuals. In other words, it was better than seeing it as a form of lust that people were free to choose or resist, so there could be no injustice in punishing it—and punishments were sometimes severe (of course, this varied from country to country). Medicalizing a state of mind may be bad, but criminalizing it is generally worse, especially in its consequences for the person under consideration.