Wary for Claim Photo Shows James Peterson, Man Lobotomized For Being Gay in 1948
In early 2026, an image circulated online that supposedly showed a man named James Peterson after doctors lobotomized him for being gay.
The claim: An image authentically shows a real person named James Peterson, who doctors lobotomized in 1948 for being gay.
The claim spread on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Many fans ask whether Peterson’s story was real. Here’s how one popular Facebook post described Peterson’s life:
In 1948, James Peterson was lobotomized for being gay. His parents committed him after discovering his love for another man. The asylum labeled it “sexual perversion” and “treated” him with a transorbital lobotomy—ice picks hammered above his eye sockets into his frontal lobe. It took just 15 minutes, but it erased his vibrant, artistic spirit forever. The doctor assured his parents: “Your son’s perversion is corrected.”What returned was an empty shell—no desires, no passions, not even for life.
However, many of these posts of the image included a watermark in the bottom right corner indicating that someone created the picture using Grok, the generative artificial intelligence tool on X. As such, we have rated this image as fake.
Take a closer look at the James Peterson image revealed that it was generated using Grok, X’s artificial intelligence tool. (Facebook user Yesterday’s Wisdom/Wikimedia Commons)
There’s no evidence that Peterson, specifically, ever existed. However, doctors did use lobotomies to “treat” homosexuality in the 20th century as a form of “conversion therapy,” a widely discredited practice that attempted to change a person’s sexuality or gender identity.
The earliest version of the image appeared to be posted on Dec. 27, 2025, by a Facebook account called Yesterday’s Wisdom, which frequently publishes fake historical images and videos generated by artificial intelligence. It was not possible to reach out to the account’s manager because the page listed no contact information.
Many of the posts circulating online claimed that Peterson’s supposed partner donated the photograph and medical documents to an LGBTQ+ archive, which makes it especially suspicious that no credible records of Peterson show up online.
A reverse image search for the picture of Peterson determined that the image did not appear to be inspired by or an enhanced version of any legitimate photo of a real person with lobotomy scars.
Posts claimed that Peterson underwent a “transorbital lobotomy.” However, real transorbital lobotomies did not involve creating incisions because cuts happened through the eye sockets. That means no visible scarring occurred — as shown in credible images of patients after transorbital lobotomies — unlike the circular scars in the image of Peterson.
A physician named Walter J. Freeman II developed the now-obsolete transorbital lobotomy in the mid-20th century to treat all kinds of mental illnesses — whether real or perceived. At the time, psychiatrists believed homosexuality was a mental disorder; the American Psychiatric Association stopped considering it as such in 1973.
One Smithsonian Channel documentary reported that roughly 40% of Freeman’s patients were gay men.