Health research on same-sex sexuality faces a double-bind. On the one hand, this work seeks to counter an invisibility — or what is perceived as a heterosexist refusal to recognize the specificity of LGB experience. On the other hand, when researchers find that LGB people are at increased risk for substance use, depression and suicide, they end up confirming the very stereotypes they sought to resist. In this course we will explore the history of empirical health sciences research on same-sex sexuality beginning at mid-century with the consolidation of substance abuse and mental health diagnoses in the DSM-III and moving through the depathologization debates of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The first half of the course will provide a context through which to move into primary epidemiological literature of the last decades and the manipulation and misuse of this work by anti-gay organizations. Readings will include Jennifer Terry's An American Obsession: Science, Medicine and Homosexuality in Modern Society, Henry Minton's Departing From Deviance, and empirical studies from epidemiology, nursing, social work, public health and psychology.