CHICAGO, ILL.
By Michael Oboza, Special to GoPride.com
The University of Illinois Chicago Gender and Sexuality Center honored the 50th anniversary of the campus Latino Cultural Center by screening the experimental documentary "LuLu en el Jardín" during its "Queer and Trans Latine Liberation" event.
UIC alumnus and professor Jose Luis Benavides attended the screening of his debut experimental film in person. Benavides is a published bilingual journalist, editor, filmmaker and art teacher, as well as the award-winning founder of the Sin Cinta Previa: Latinx and Queer Archive Video Series.
Leaders from the Gender and Sexuality Center highlighted the historic partnership between the two campus organizations.
"Last year, the UIC Gender and Sexuality Center celebrated 30 years, and the Latino Cultural Center, currently celebrating their 50th year, collaborated on the event," said Billy Huff, director of the Gender and Sexuality Center.
Moisés Villada, associate director of the Gender and Sexuality Center, noted that the Latino Cultural Center houses "The Awakening of the Americas," the largest indoor contemporary mural in Chicago.
"LuLu en el Jardín" details the lived experiences of Benavides' mother, tracing her journey from Mexico City to the West Side of Chicago. The film explores her forced institutionalization by her family at Chicago-Read Mental Health Center after she came out as a lesbian in 1970.
"When I came out to my mother, she upstaged me," Benavides said. "She said she already lived the story of 'Girl, Interrupted.' I didn't know about my mother's lesbian past. I didn't know about her institutionalization."
Benavides began developing the project as a graduate student after returning to the United States from Mexico.
"I came back to the States after falling in love with visual arts in Mexico," Benavides said. "I came here to the UIC art department for my master's and began working on this experimental documentary, which inspired a second part involving a visit to the Gerber/Hart Library and Archives to look through the Amigas Latinas archives from the 1990s."
During a question-and-answer session following the presentation, a university student asked if Benavides' mother had watched the film and what she thought of it.
"Yes, my mother saw my experimental documentary," Benavides replied. "Afterwards, she said she felt seen."
History of psychiatric classifications
The institutionalization of Benavides' mother occurred before homosexuality was declassified as a mental disorder in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
In 1952, the first edition of the manual, DSM-I, classified homosexuality as a "sociopathic personality disturbance." The DSM-II reworded that diagnosis to "sexual deviation" in 1968.
Decades of research and direct action by scientists, physicians and LGBTQ advocates gradually dismantled those clinical definitions. Sexologist and biologist Alfred Kinsey introduced the Kinsey Scale in 1948, concluding from his research that same-sex behavior was far more prevalent than previously acknowledged. In 1957, psychologist Evelyn Hooker published her groundbreaking study, "The Adjustment of the Male Overt Homosexual," establishing that homosexuality is not a clinical pathology.
Grassroots civil rights efforts followed in the 1960s and 1970s. Advocates Barbara Gittings and Frank Kameny led the Annual Reminder pickets outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia beginning in 1965. In 1972, they organized a pivotal panel at the APA annual meeting titled "Psychiatry: Friend or Foe to Homosexuals: A Dialogue." The panel featured Dr. John Fryer, a closeted psychiatrist who testified while wearing an oversized tuxedo and a rubber mask under the pseudonym Dr. Henry Anonymous, delivering the historic declaration, "I am a homosexual. I am a psychiatrist."
The persistent pressure culminated in late 1973, when the APA board voted to remove homosexuality as a mental disorder from the DSM. Modified classifications lingered in subsequent editions. In 1974, the APA introduced the category of "sexual orientation disturbance" for individuals experiencing distress over their attractions, which the DSM-III renamed "ego-dystonic homosexuality" in 1980. Homosexuality was entirely eliminated from the diagnostic manual with the publication of the DSM-III-R in 1987.
The University of Illinois Chicago Gender and Sexuality Center honored the 50th anniversary of the campus Latino Cultural Center by screening the experimental documentary "LuLu en el Jardín" during its "Queer and Trans Latine Liberation" event.
UIC alumnus and professor Jose Luis Benavides attended the screening of his debut experimental film in person. Benavides is a published bilingual journalist, editor, filmmaker and art teacher, as well as the award-winning founder of the Sin Cinta Previa: Latinx and Queer Archive Video Series.
Leaders from the Gender and Sexuality Center highlighted the historic partnership between the two campus organizations.
"Last year, the UIC Gender and Sexuality Center celebrated 30 years, and the Latino Cultural Center, currently celebrating their 50th year, collaborated on the event," said Billy Huff, director of the Gender and Sexuality Center.
Moisés Villada, associate director of the Gender and Sexuality Center, noted that the Latino Cultural Center houses "The Awakening of the Americas," the largest indoor contemporary mural in Chicago.
"LuLu en el Jardín" details the lived experiences of Benavides' mother, tracing her journey from Mexico City to the West Side of Chicago. The film explores her forced institutionalization by her family at Chicago-Read Mental Health Center after she came out as a lesbian in 1970.
"When I came out to my mother, she upstaged me," Benavides said. "She said she already lived the story of 'Girl, Interrupted.' I didn't know about my mother's lesbian past. I didn't know about her institutionalization."
Benavides began developing the project as a graduate student after returning to the United States from Mexico.
"I came back to the States after falling in love with visual arts in Mexico," Benavides said. "I came here to the UIC art department for my master's and began working on this experimental documentary, which inspired a second part involving a visit to the Gerber/Hart Library and Archives to look through the Amigas Latinas archives from the 1990s."
During a question-and-answer session following the presentation, a university student asked if Benavides' mother had watched the film and what she thought of it.
"Yes, my mother saw my experimental documentary," Benavides replied. "Afterwards, she said she felt seen."
History of psychiatric classifications
The institutionalization of Benavides' mother occurred before homosexuality was declassified as a mental disorder in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
In 1952, the first edition of the manual, DSM-I, classified homosexuality as a "sociopathic personality disturbance." The DSM-II reworded that diagnosis to "sexual deviation" in 1968.
Decades of research and direct action by scientists, physicians and LGBTQ advocates gradually dismantled those clinical definitions. Sexologist and biologist Alfred Kinsey introduced the Kinsey Scale in 1948, concluding from his research that same-sex behavior was far more prevalent than previously acknowledged. In 1957, psychologist Evelyn Hooker published her groundbreaking study, "The Adjustment of the Male Overt Homosexual," establishing that homosexuality is not a clinical pathology.
Grassroots civil rights efforts followed in the 1960s and 1970s. Advocates Barbara Gittings and Frank Kameny led the Annual Reminder pickets outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia beginning in 1965. In 1972, they organized a pivotal panel at the APA annual meeting titled "Psychiatry: Friend or Foe to Homosexuals: A Dialogue." The panel featured Dr. John Fryer, a closeted psychiatrist who testified while wearing an oversized tuxedo and a rubber mask under the pseudonym Dr. Henry Anonymous, delivering the historic declaration, "I am a homosexual. I am a psychiatrist."
The persistent pressure culminated in late 1973, when the APA board voted to remove homosexuality as a mental disorder from the DSM. Modified classifications lingered in subsequent editions. In 1974, the APA introduced the category of "sexual orientation disturbance" for individuals experiencing distress over their attractions, which the DSM-III renamed "ego-dystonic homosexuality" in 1980. Homosexuality was entirely eliminated from the diagnostic manual with the publication of the DSM-III-R in 1987.
