Sullivan

“Sullivan recommended rejecting homosexual men without a direct reference to their homosexuality. He seemed to be saying that examiners must reject homosexuals because it was required, but that a psychiatric examination is not at all dependable in detecting an examinee’s sexual preference. This contradicted his 1940 statement on the possibility that the screening would increase psychiatry’s ‘prestige.’ He hoped to show the usefulness of psychiatry in the national defense. When it came to the issue of homosexuality, however, he had to say that the screening itself was not dependable. He was in a double bind” (Wake, 483). Sullivan’s screening work in 1940-41 “was perhaps the first major failure in Sullivan’s professional life as a psychiatrist. . . . Not only had the screening process he advocated failed, but it also accentuated the preconception that homosexuals were unfit to serve. . . . The failure was, in part, a consequence of the gap between clinical practice and the making of public policy. Sullivan’s screening work illuminates how the tentativeness of public discussions about homosexuality circumscribed the possibility of creating non-homophobic policies during the war. What was missing from the psychiatric community before the war was a full-fledged public determination to accept or at least protect homosexuals. This was an important factor contributing to the discriminatory screening” (493).