Warning: Labels Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

1977: Val D. MacMurray, “Warning: Labels Can Be Hazardous to Your Health,” Dialogue 10.4 (Fall 1977): 130–132.

MacMurray cautioned against people labelling themselves or others “homosexuals.” He argued that it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy and that it was an impediment to a cure. This would become a major theory of Elder Boyd K. Packer and others who instituted a cultural taboo on the term that lasted until the early 2000s when self-labelling became somewhat more tolerated. This doctrine has its roots in reparative therapy theories.