On 13.08.2013, SITEL published an article on its website, titled ”For American doctors, homosexuality is a disease with a code 302.0″. However, when the LGBTI Support Centre attempted to locate the source of this article, we found something very surprising – not only that we did not find the article in that format, but also all other news we found, give out entirely different facts, far from those which SITEL presented. Further in their article, SITEL omits many facts which put the entire event in an entirely different connotation, and which unambiguously state the position of the medical institutions in the United States that homosexuality is not a disease and that they do not support, nor approve the use of code 302.2 for diagnosing “homosexual behavior”.
With this, SITEL once again fueled and escalated the already high level of homophobia in Macedonia, without thinking about the possible encouragement of new cases of hate crimes and hate speech.
The LGBTI Support Centre contacted SITEL, requesting a correction of the published article.
Below you will find the article published on http://sitel.com.mk, as well as the translated text of one of the articles published in the United States. You will also find several links of other articles regarding the same event.
A patient said a Southern California doctor diagnosed him with “homosexual behavior” during his first visit to the office for a check-up.
Earlier this year, Matthew Moore started seeing a new doctor who suggested he undergo a complete physical. The tests revealed he was B-12 deficient, and had high blood pressure and high cholesterol — conditions that he called “normal for me.”
When Moore, who is openly gay, went back to the doctor’s Manhattan Beach, Calif., office to discuss the findings, the nurse gave him the results of his physical.
Among other diagnoses, the doctor listed “Homosexual behavior (302.0),” according to medical records obtained by NBC4. “Homosexual behavior” was also listed as a chronic condition on Moore’s patient plan.
“When I look up code 302.0 and its sexual deviancy or mental illness, and that code has been removed or suggested heavily not to be used since 1973,” Moore said.
“My jaw was on the floor. At first, I kind of laughed, I thought, ‘Here’s another way that gay people are lessened and made to feel less-than,’ and then as I thought about it and as I dealt with it, it angered me,” Moore said.
He later returned to the office, at the suggestion of an attorney and friends, to let the doctor explain her decision. He said when asked, the doctor defended her position.
“I was dumbfounded,” Moore said.
Asked how one could treat homosexuality, the doctor said that “is still up to debate” and that the sexual orientation is “still being thought of as a disease,” Moore said.
Moore said he does not take issue with his sexual orientation being noted on his medical chart, but he does have a problem with it listed under chronic conditions.
“Government tells us, oftentimes, that we’re not equal,” Moore said. “Many churches tell us that we’re sinners, and now here’s a medical professional telling us that we are sick. And it’s gotta stop.”
Unsatisfied with his doctor’s response, Moore wrote a letter to the Torrance Memorial Physician Network and received an apologetic note in return.
Moore asked for – and received – his $30 copay back.
“We fully appreciate your frustration and anger related to your experience and are committed to ensuring that such events are not repeated,” Heidi Assigal, senior director of Torrance Health Association, Inc., wrote, in part.
“We would like to unequivocally state that the Torrance Memorial Physician Network does not view homosexuality as a disease or a chronic condition and we do not endorse or approve of the use of Code 302.0 as a diagnosis for homosexuality.”
Moore said he does not plan to file a lawsuit against the doctor, who he asked remain anonymous to protect her reputation. He said he was inspired to tell his story to let others know that if something like this happens, “you have to speak up.”
“If I was a 14-year-old in a small town in Indiana, where I’m from, and I had a doctor tell me or my parents that I was sick because they thought I was gay, it would’ve been very damaging,” he said.
Source: nbc news
We would like to clarify that in the United States’ health system, code 302 covers sexual deviations and disorders, while the suffix .0 regards хомосексуалноста as a sexual deviation. This was so until 1975, when the meaning of .0 was changed from homosexuality to egodystonic homosexuality (a disorder characterized by the incapability of the person to accept their homosexual orientation).
Furthermore, below this text there is an excerpt from ICD-10-CM, the International Classification of Diseases, based on which the United States prepares its classification of diseases, according to which, it is unambiguously stated that sexual orientation, by itself, should not be considered a disease.
Information was taken from the website of the World Health Organization.
Other links with articles about the same news:
