1. History.com Editors. “The American Psychiatric Association Removes Homosexuality from Its List of Mental Illnesses.” History.Com, A&E Television Networks, www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-american-psychiatric-association.... Accessed 17 Mar. 2024. 

December 15, 1973 was a memorable day as this is the day when the American Psychology Association announced that they have removed homosexuality as a mental illness from the DSM. Such declaration had finally removed a humiliating and pathologizing tag that has been put on people of the LGBTQ population for centuries. And such accomplishment would be impossible for the countless work people had put into. The photographs of Diane Arbus, though she personally had not counted herself as an acitive supporter of the LGBTQ community, has indirectly pushed this problem into the publics’ view. That is, though her photographs were not taken on purposely as a sign of protest against discriminations on the LGBTQ community, her appreciation and empathy that was shown through the photographs she took on such people of transgender and homosexualness has no doubt increased the exposure on these “borderline people” to the main streams’ view. Simply by putting portraits of these people on public exhibitions without the purpose of objectfying/humiliating them would already be a great contribution towards depathologizing their identities.

The reason that I offered that background concerning those three events is because it helps me to explain what A Naked Man Being a Woman was doing socially when Daine Arbus created it. That is, when this photo was taken in 1968, it was right at the time when homosexuality was an extremely sensitive and controversial topic. We can see this from the Riot in Compton’s Cafeteria in 1966, in which this popular queer-gathering place was purposely harrassed by polices until one of them decided to fight back. Events like this were happening very frequently at that time, since the societal perception of homosexuality at that time was still that it is an abnormal and degenerating illness, even a shameful crime.

Yet as controversial and risky as it may be, Diane Arbus still filmed minorities like them and presented her works in 1967 in the New Documents exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art. In this exhibition we are not only able to see these societal-borderline people being put into the spotlight, but we can also see her unique way of presenting them—She almost took the pictures as if they were screenshots from a documentary. That is, she never tries to manipulate the settings or environment of her photos. Instead, she likes taking pictures of her subjects in their homes, presenting them in the most natural and realistic manner. Such presentation is not only original but it is also incredibly powerful, as it gives the audience no place to interpret or hide away from the picture—they are who they are, just being there. This successful exhibition not only end up making her one of the most influential photographers on modern photography, but it also brought the attention that was needed for the LGBTQ community.

Her path never stopped after the exhibition, just one year after in 1968, A Naked Man Being a Woman was taken and added to her masterworks. This blantant depiction of a naked transgender man staring at the audience, the oppositional gaze, and the confidence has made this picture so provoking, confronting and yet such a great representation of Arbus’ works. By simply documenting photographies of such controversial individuals, she was able to create an obtrusive voice of the LGBTQ community that is loud enough to disturb every audience. Then, five years after in December, 1973 comes the historical moment of homosexuality being removed from the DSM as being a mental illness. Is this profound change caused by her work? It can’t be determined. However, there is definitely a correlation between aritists like her who presented works of the LGBTQ community to the public, to the success of recognizing them as being normal. That is, intentionally or not, simply the frequent presentation of LGBTQ people to the public itself had normalized their very existence, almost like a desensitization process in behavioral psychology.

1. Levin, Sam. “Compton’s Cafeteria Riot: A Historic Act of Trans Resistance, Three Years before Stonewall.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 21 June 2019, www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jun/21/stonewall-san-francisco-rio... 17 Mar. 2024.
2. Aesthetics of Photography. “New Documents, Moma, 1967: The Exhibition That Transformed Photography.” Aesthetics of Photography, 28 Feb. 2024, aestheticsofphotography.com/1967-new-documents/. Accessed 17 Mar. 2024.
3. History.com Editors. “The American Psychiatric Association Removes Homosexuality from Its List of Mental Illnesses.” History.Com, A&E Television Networks, www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-american-psychiatric-association.... Accessed 17 Mar. 2024.