BELCHERTOWN — Bonnie Strickland grew up in Alabama at a time when homosexuality was considered a mental illness.

As a self-described tomboy, Strickland recalls her mother trying to feminize her and find boys for her to date all the while, she continued to feel different. It all became clear when in her early teens she was playing on an all-girls softball team and received a kiss from a member of the same sex. She was attracted to women.

“It was like the heavy locks on my heart opened,” Strickland recalled.

Despite that spark of change, she remained largely closeted in college and graduate school and well into her career as being gay continued to carry large consequences, such as jail time.

However, last Thursday night, at 86 years old, Strickland was publicly recognized with a standing ovation for her trailblazing efforts in the LGBTQ community at a Pride event in Belchertown.

“Who would have thought I’d be recognized for being a lesbian?” Strickland said with a chuckle before a packed Town Hall audience. “If I had been identified as a ‘homosexual’ in my early adult life, I would have lost my job, I could have been jailed, referred to a mental hospital, and shunned by my family and friends. So much has changed for LGBTQ+ people in my lifetime.”

Strickland, who holds a doctorate in clinical psychology from The Ohio State University, was previously on faculty at Emory University in Atlanta and the University of Massachusetts Amherst as an administrator, clinician, consultant, researcher and professor, and is the former national president of the American Psychological Association.

She has also authored “Leaving the Confederate Closet: A Southern Lesbian’s Journey,” a National Indie Excellence Award finalist.

Nearly 50 years ago, homosexuality was classified by the American Psychiatric Association as a “mental disorder” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

As a member of the American Psychological Association, Strickland lobbied and advocated for removing that definition from the manual.

Through psychological assessments comparing the mental health of homosexual women to heterosexual women, Strickland and colleagues at Emory University found that the well-being of homosexual women to be comparable to their heterosexual cohorts. Thus, helping to quash the classification in 1973.

“That was a broad opening for the consideration of gay and lesbian people as emotionally stable and mentally fit as straight people,” said Strickland. “And so this basically freed me as a therapist and my client — it sort of lifted our shoulders and sort of lifted us out to not be classified or categorized anymore as ‘crazy.’”

In addition to recognizing Strickland, the ceremony also included the raising of the Pride flag and reading of the proclamation in recognition of National Pride Month. The Belchertown Select Board unanimously voted this year to recognize and celebrate Pride Month by raising the Pride flag.

Last year was the first time the town raised the rainbow-colored flag at Town Hall.

“I hope that flying the Progress Pride Flag sends the message that no matter who you are or who you love, you are welcome, you are safe and you are respected as a resident or visitor in Belchertown,” said Lesa Lessard, who is Belchertown’s first openly gay Select Board member.

The community flag-raising event came a few months after the Pride flag was called into question at the high school after a parent complained about it being on display. After hearing from dozens of parents and students in favor of keeping the flag, the School Committee approved a policy that allowed the flag, and any other flag of approved student groups, to remain on display.

Ori Sussman, a 17-year-old student from the high school and president of the school’s Social Justice Book Club, was among those who helped raise the Pride flag last week. The flag, Sussman says, means a lot to everyone in the queer community in Belchertown, as there is a portion of the community that does not accept LGBTQIA people.

“It stands for the fight we’ve been having for 100 years at this point, and the fight that we need to keep fighting for the next 100 years if we need to keep fighting for that long. I hope we don’t,” he said.

Sussman, who was outed as gay by classmates in middle school in Arizona and faced physical and verbal harassment, said that he feels a “million times” more welcome and safe in Belchertown. 

“I’ve never once felt physically unsafe in this district. I can’t say the same for Arizona,” he said.

Belchertown Police Chief Kevin Pacunas said he hopes that the flag-raising will help foster inclusiveness so that all members of the community feel safe.

“I think it’s important for our community to know that the Belchertown Police Department supports equality for everyone. Hate is not acceptable. It is not tolerable,” Pacunas said. “We want everyone to feel safe.”

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