Zapping: The protest tactic that ignited early LGBT activism

Singer-evangelist Anita Bryant covers her face after being hit with a pie by a man posing as a reporter during a news conference in Des Moines, Iowa, October 1977. (Photo: BETTMANN / GETTY IMAGES)

Charles Silverstein was a university student in psychology when he attended a workshop at a behavioural therapy convention in October 1972. The topic was aversion therapy, a form of pseudoscientific conversion therapy in which gay men were administered electric shocks and other…