The Concept of Gay Panic

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The idea of gay panic has roots in a theory about latent homosexuality as a mental disorder. In 1920, a psychiatrist named Dr. Edward Komph observed that some of his patients who identified as heterosexual became anxious when they were around others of the same sex. This was caused by tension between their feelings of attraction to members of the samesex and their belief that they should be attracted toMembers of the opposite sex.

In 1995, two men filmed an episode of the daytime talk show, The Jenny Jones Show. A few days later, one of the men was dead. The shooter later claimed he’d committed the murder “in a panic that he was being falsely accused or identified as a gay person.”

We speak with Cynthia Lee, Carsten Andresen, and Paul Howard about so-called “gay panic” and “trans panic” defenses, and we discuss the murders of Scott Amedure, Islan Nettles, Larry King, Ahmed Dabarran, and Matthew Shepard.

Thanks to Thomas Curry, who helped co-produce this episode.

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