This is Matthew Moore, a normal man living in Southern California.
What you can't tell by looking at him, though, is that he was diagnosed with the chronic condition "Homosexual Behavior."
When Moore got a complete physical following his doctor's suggestion, the results came back listing "homosexual behavior" as both a diagnosis and a chronic illness.
Moore, an out gay man, was shocked and angered:
My jaw was on the floor. At first, I kind of laughed, I thought, 'Here's another way that gay people are lessened and made to feel less-than,' and then as I thought about it and as I dealt with it, it angered me.
When he asked his doctor to explain her decision, she replied that the diagnosis (code 302.0) is "still up to debate" and "still being thought of as a disease."
This diagnosis hasn't actually been in use since 1973.
In part, we can thank this man for that. In 1972, a psychiatrist called Dr. Fryer anonymously met with a panel on homosexuality at an American Psychiatric Association meeting. The next year, Homosexuality was eradicated as a legitimate mental-health diagnosis.
Moore wrote a letter to the Torrance Memorial Physician Network about this experience. They responded with an apology:
We fully appreciate your frustration and anger related to your experience and are committed to ensuring that such events are not repeated.
We would like to unequivocally state that the Torrance Memorial Physician Network does not view homosexuality as a disease or a chronic condition and we do not endorse or approve of the use of Code 302.0 as a diagnosis for homosexuality.
Yeah, this is happening in 2013, everyone.
