Gay parties were raided by the police, particularly in election years when a crackdown on “sexual perversion” was seen as a positive step in the fight on crime. A variety of medical and psychological treatments to “cure” homosexuality were employed, including ice pick lobotomies, electroshock, chemical castration with hormonal treatment or aversive conditioning. Joseph McCarthy was seeking out communists wherever he suspected they might be lurking homosexual acts were a crime bomb shelters were springing up in backyards and the term “normal” homosexual was thought to be an oxymoron. In 1953, Evelyn Hooker, PhD, applied for a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) grant to conduct research on “normal homosexuals.” During this period of American history, Sen.
