>The intent behind the medical practices you list is not to oppress, but to cure. It's misguided, horrific, tragic, etc., but persecution it is not.
That's wrong.
For one, the church also did legitimately believe that they were curing (saving the soul, etc) of those they persecuted. So the "good intentions" of those doing such acts is not the defining criterion.
Second, such science was used to promote political and moral agendas (there was nothing to cure in a homosexual, and even less in more blatant cases, e.g. putting people in favor of black civil rights or women's rights/suffrage in psychiatric asylums or shock treatment).
There are of course other places that used similar techniques (from USSR and Nazi Germany to Britain, nordic countries and beyond).
>Moreover, you seem to be confusing "the scientific community" with "the political community", the latter of which is largely responsible for the misuse of scientific discovery in cases of actual persecution.
The scientific community was (and still is in various cases) complicit in adopting the political ideas (or promoting them in the first place), assisting those in power with scientific (or "scientific") theories and diagnoses, and enforcing them in practice. It was actual doctors, with degrees et al, that did those things, not politicians...
That's wrong.
For one, the church also did legitimately believe that they were curing (saving the soul, etc) of those they persecuted. So the "good intentions" of those doing such acts is not the defining criterion.
Second, such science was used to promote political and moral agendas (there was nothing to cure in a homosexual, and even less in more blatant cases, e.g. putting people in favor of black civil rights or women's rights/suffrage in psychiatric asylums or shock treatment).
Here's but one example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protest_Psychosis
There are of course other places that used similar techniques (from USSR and Nazi Germany to Britain, nordic countries and beyond).
>Moreover, you seem to be confusing "the scientific community" with "the political community", the latter of which is largely responsible for the misuse of scientific discovery in cases of actual persecution.
The scientific community was (and still is in various cases) complicit in adopting the political ideas (or promoting them in the first place), assisting those in power with scientific (or "scientific") theories and diagnoses, and enforcing them in practice. It was actual doctors, with degrees et al, that did those things, not politicians...