I keep harping on and calling out the obvious nature of truisms. But collective memory makes viewers forget and remember those truisms in some cycle. Today’s truism is that gay people have always existed, which is something that Cured reminds us of. It does this through archive photos and contemporary interviews with gay social activists who fight for everyone under the umbrella. One of these activists is Lawrence Hartmann. As the film shows his younger self, the older one narrates his suicidal ideation. It’s difficult to want to be alive in a homophobic society, especially in wanting to enter psychiatry. Homophobes infiltrated psychiatry during the 20th century to institutionalize homophobia in North American society. Gay people like Hartmann, then, fought for a more accepting society. And one of the many fronts in that good fight is to remove homosexuality in the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM.

Cured is comprehensive, showing both the levity and the tragedy in the lives of psychiatrists who happen to be gay. One of the pivotal moments here is who was then an anonymous psychiatrist. He showed up at an academic meeting wearing a Halloween mask. The film shows that mask and superimposed that image with his notes. Archive audio has him speaking about how his supervisors can force him into a leave of absence if they discovered his sexuality. Showing up in a disguise to fight for gay rights seems like a baby step. But the film convinces us that that’s a radical step. That speech happened in 1972, a year before the APA ruled to remove homosexuality in its list of diseases. The film depicts four years in the fight between gay people and psychiatrists. But it’s aware that the fight isn’t over, that the LGBT+ community still has struggles.