Image: BTB
Conservative Christian psychologist Dr Warren Throckmorton says that the story of Kirk Murphy, aka “Kraig,” should provoke “a serious re-examination” of gay-to-straight therapy.
Yesterday, Box Turtle Bulletin and CNN broke the true story behind the “Sissy Boy” experiment, during which Kirk, then five, underwent psychiatric treatment intended to turn an effeminate, “gender-confused” homosexual-in-waiting into a masculine, heterosexual boy. That was in 1970. In 2003, aged 38 and gay, Kirk committed suicide. The experiment — which George Rekers hailed throughout his career as an “ex-gay” success — was a failure.
Now Throckmorton, a former advocate of reparative therapy, says the revelation calls all ex-gay therapy into question. He found that the “classic” reparative therapy volume A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality, by Joseph Nicolosi, refers to Rekers over 20 times and cites the 1974 paper about Kirk — renamed “Kraig” — as evidence that such therapy can change children with “Gender Identity Disorder,” or GID. Nicolosi writes:
GID Children Can Change
In fact, experts have reported that GID children who were assumed to have a biological problem may in fact respond surprisingly well to therapeutic intervention. Researchers Reker, Lovaas, and Low describe one of their young clients:
When we first saw him, the extent of his feminine identification was so profound (his mannerisms, gestures, fantasies, flirtations, etc., as shown in his “swishing” around the home and clinic, fully dressed as a woman with long dress, wig, nail polish, high screechy voice, slovenly seductive eyes) that it suggested irreversible neurological and biochemical determinants. At the 26-month follow-up he looked and acted like any other boy. People who view the videotaped recordings of him before and after treatment talk of him as “two different boys.”
Interestingly, a look at NARTH’s 2009 literature review, which purported to represent a century’s worth of research into reparative therapy, makes no mention of the 1974 paper. Yet the Journal of Human Sexuality — the discredited NARTH created this and published the literature review in the first edition so it could claim to have published this “significant milestone” in a “peer-reviewed journal” — lists George A Rekers as an associate editor.
Could it be that Rekers and his colleagues, knowing by now that Kirk had committed suicide and was a failed experiment, ensured the paper went uncited? The omission may be telling.
Part 2 of the CNN investigation “The Sissy Boy Experiment: Uncovering the Truth,” will air tonight (Wednesday, June 8th) at 10pm ET on Anderson Cooper 360. According to yesterday’s preview, George Rekers will appear in the segment.
See also Jim Burroway’s online project about Kirk: What Are Little Boys Made Of?
I am suprised these same people do not question hetrosexuals sexual posistions and correct them to the missionary posistion.
“slovenly seductive eyes” ? get a grip Mr. Rekers, he’s only 5.
While the story is tragic, one incident proves absolutely nothing and can hardly qualify as true science. There will be other elements left out of the story to push the gay agenda here. As a pastor I have personally ministered to those who came out of the gay movement and without any therapy, just friendship and counsel, they went on to get married and lead a normal life. New life in Christ. when genuine, can accomplish what no shrink ever can!
@emma
To that perverted hater Rekers, they probably DID seem “slovenly seductive”!
I don’t believe in hell, but for someone like Rekers, I want to make an exception…
To me, it was absolutely DISGUSTING what these people were allowed to do under the watchful eye of our government.
“Liberty and justice for all???????????????????????????????”
God help me, I was watching America’s Got Talent last night. We are stuck with a plethora of bad talent competition shows aren’t we?
Whatever.
This bi-racial fellow (age 19), had sugar in his shoes and was ever so proud of it. His musical icons were all girls, and he pulled that snap queen business almost too much for comfort…
However, he was good looking, and had a big smile….of course, announced he was doing a song by Lady Gaga and accompany himself.
But then…
He was a sensational singer. He was so truly talented and gave a wonderful performance.
What this has to do with the discussion?
That spectrum of gender variation, sissy boys, and tomboys is a part of life, of all humanity.
But WHAT ELSE is there to give the world OTHER than being a butch little boy, and a mincing little girl?
This preoccupation with artificially proscribed gender roles is way past old and done.
Gender has nothing to do with becoming a great teacher, or computer geek, dancer, baker, candlestick maker….or gifted singer.
These variations are flavors and spice. I want to see all these variations, it’s what keeps life from getting boring and people being all too much the same.
I loved that kid’s rendition of “Bad Romance” and all my gender variant friends.
And I could choke the people responsible for this research and therapy on such little, little children.
As Pink would say….you’re FUCKING PERFECT!!!
@Regan DuCasse
I saw that guy, made me smile. The way he purred some of the lyrics reminded me of Eartha Kitt.
Something just occurred to me about that show. There was a tiny little guy named Tanner that hip hop danced. All of six years old.
Inevitable pelvic thrusts aside that go with that kind of dancing to I think it was the Black Eyed Peas.
Howie Mandel asked the kid if he had a girlfriend. Which Tanner affirmed and her name was Abbie. After he’d passed on for Las Vegas, he was shown calling her on the phone.
Pee wee weddings, children being used as ring bearers, flower girls and so on….for heteros to deny that they aren’t pushing marriage on children practically from the cradle is an obvious contradiction of reality.
I can’t imagine Tanner being asked if he had a boyfriend. But what if he’d responded that he had a boyfriend and his name was Jared?
Somebody from the IFI, FRC, AFA, AFTAH would have had a shit fit, and complained that the kid had been sexualized inappropriately and added to the prurient interests of pedophiles.
Again, completely contradicting reality and hell bent on making an innocent little boy’s life hell.
@Regan DuCasse
Totally agree. That was foremost on my mind the minute Howie started with the line of questioning — how the entire scenario revealed a heterosexual bias that the Christian Right would never admit because it would provoke utter outrage if the situation were reversed to reflect a gay bias.
And the pelvic thrusting, too — wowzers. Ironic that conservatives like Rekers can get all upset over five-year-old boys “swishing” around, yet a six-year-old does pelvic thrusting on primetime TV and no one even bats a slovenly seductive eyelid.
Growing up I always walked the line between the genders. I’ve mentioned this before, in discussions regarding the term “Transgender” (which is quite broad).
I knew (and know) that I was (am) a female, but felt most natural running around with the boys. I was a tomboy to the T, with short hair and boyish clothes. I hated pink and dolls, loved transformers and watching superhero cartoons. I loved building things, whittling with my pocket knife, studying martial arts, climbing trees, and drawing knights and fire-breathing dragons.
But I also loved kittens and puppies, and sewing, and cross-stitching. I liked wearing jewelry, like necklaces and rings. I cried “like a girl” as well (that is, I expressed sensitivity that a gender-conforming boy would have been ostracized for).
My gender variance was awkward and, since there wasn’t really a true place for kids like me, I was constantly uncomfortable buying clothes – boys clothes felt better than girls clothes, but I was aware of the social taboo against dressing too much “like a boy.” Oftentimes there didn’t seem to be a happy middle ground.
And that’s exactly where I felt I was – in the middle ground of the genders, some kind of alternate sex, who was female but embodied the gender qualities of both a boy and a girl (though mostly a boy). After maturing I feel I’m somewhat in the middle – My clothes remain baggy and boyish, but my hair is long.
My parents never dissuaded me from being who I was. In fact, my mom says she always admired me for it.
If you are born with everything matching the current ruling majority and status-quo, it takes a little effort to understand people who were not. I was lucky enough to have friends of other races in my neighborhood, and a gay uncle. Others are not so lucky and have to educate themselves. This idea that people who do not fit the ruling majority’s status quo have something wrong with them is only a case of sheer ignorance. Using religion as an excuse for prejudice is disgusting. God help us, to turn the minds of so many ignorant and lazy people in this country, to at the very least leave everyone else alone and create no more harm on others.
The last line of your post Emily, I’m very touched. My step mom never was like that towards me. My mom and dad died when I was young, so I don’t know what they would have thought. I was tall, lean and very athletic. I was good at track and volleyball, but loved ballet too. As you see on my Facebook page, I shave my head and pretty much am not the girly girl and never was.
In fact, I was so strong as a teen, I HAD to play with boys to have a challenge. Because of developing a kind of curvy figure that got me all kinds of harassed by boys at school, I wore loose clothing to hide it a bit. And, I got in trouble all the time and suspended from school when those boys found out the hard way I didn’t hit like a girl, so to speak. I would get punished for self defense. I often got told “young ladies shouldn’t behave that way…” referring to being able to scrap and hard and putting a hurt on boys that didn’t keep their hands to themselves.
It’s almost a damned if you do or don’t situation. You can be oneself that threatens no one, nor has anything to do with talent, or kindness or intellect. Gender is used as a weapon, with no respect for INDIVIDUAL attributes or moral character.
To the anti gay, or just people who have been trained in stereotypes, gender IS one’s character. Homosexuality IS one’s character.
What a person actually does with anything else, even if it contributes to society doesn’t matter. And a lot of adults give lip service that it does. But we know to what extent they really mean it.
It is unlikely that the reparative therapy made any positive contribution to the adjustment of the deceased individual. But this cannot be examined due to the lack of systematic evidence.
Rekers seemed genuinely upset when learning about the suicide. From his distorted perspective, we need to appreciate that he believes that he is doing good. He doesn’t wake up in the morning with a desire to make gays miserable. Yes, his entire life work probably reflects his self-loathing for his latent gay sensibilities. But he has nevertheless employed robust psychological principles in his behavioural therapy.
To suggest that the “reparative” therapy had a CAUSAL effect on the suicide of the individual – and this IS the underlying implication in the report – is quite unfounded, and to be honest, borderline libellous.
The guy committed suicide while living in Delhi. What about factors such as social isolation, cultural conflict, lack of support network, breakdown of family relationships, etc? If I were his parent/sibling, I would certainly want to absolve myself of any guilt by completely directing blame at a so-called charlatan.
As a piece of journalism, it is disappointing that the report wasn’t more balanced. But given the TV anchor involved, perhaps this was inevitable.
You pretty much lost me there, Shane.
I don’t absolve the parents completely as seems to be the consensus. I have too many questions. The dad seemed very eager to provide a violent consequence to the “feminoid” (what an awful word) behavior, that I wonder if the mother wasn’t looking for a solution to his anger and disgust when she heard the doctor on the TV. And, blind respect for doctors aside, I don’t see how a mother could not know that her child is being harmed having been present during some of those episodes.
That said, an entire ideology masquerades as science, largely on the back of faulty, if not fraudulent, research results. Kirk Murphy’s life does not reflect the outcome Rekers, et al, presented to the world. It does not appear that it ever did. Whether those hideous experiments were the cause of his suicide I don’t think one can say for certain. But I think we can say that they never should have happened, represented a trauma to Kirk’s life, and do not support the results they are so often used to validate.
“From his distorted perspective (meaning Rekers), we need to appreciate he believes he’s doing good.”
We don’t have to appreciate any such thing!
Oh, HELL no!
Why? Because this hypocrite was tapped by a Florida governor to speak against adoption of children by gay parents in that state. Because he’s been participating in political actions that discriminate and perpetuate bigotry against the entire gay community, at the expense of children. The harm he’s caused, went WAY beyond any compassionate intentions to ‘help’ gay people as individuals.
He went out of his way to paint the entire of the community as too bent, or without enough spiritual or mental and moral capacity to enjoy the same rights and freedoms as others.
When someone knows the results of such systemic issues, and the stakes to the lives of who he’s supposed to be ‘concerned’ about, they don’t engage in MORE of what causes all the problems in the first place!
For example: there are plenty of people whose ethnic features become difficult for them to accept because all around them, people without them benefit the most, and those with them, suffer more financial and social hardships.
It would be wrong for a credentialed person to say that the impossible standards of beauty the individual is trying to meet are right to embrace, and hatred of their natural attribute is right to feel.
The impossible standards of gender and sexual orientation are costing lives, and Rekers chose to ignore it because, acceptance…would put him out of work.
A person of intellectual and moral honesty WOULD look at the negative results of his work, and CHANGE his beliefs, or not have them to begin with. Believing you’re doing good, while BAD happens, and you ignore it, doesn’t make you a good person for still WANTING to believe you’re doing good.
It makes you a pompous, hypocritical ass.
And so NO, there is no reason to appreciate someone like that. Not ever.
I do agree that saying the treatment was THE CAUSE of Kirk’s suicide is going a bit far, but it does seem from what I’ve read and heard (I did read Jim Burroway’s account, too) that the treatment combined with the attitude his parents had toward his sexual identity contributed to his dangerously low self-esteem, which later combined with his isolation and lack of a support system while he was in India, which led to an intense depression, which led to his suicide. And even there, I’m still speculating, which I don’t like to do.
But I don’t really think that’s the point anyway. Rekers’s experimental hypothesis that he could cure a young boy’s “gender identity disorder” has been disproven by the very fact that, despite the therapy, Kirk still grew up to be a gay man. That alone should make him reconsider his position, though I doubt it will.
I concur with the other Emily. 😉
There is no scientific evidence that sexual orientation can be changed. Reparative therapy has as much validity as pen1s enlarger pills. Notice how only religious groups claim to “change sexual orientation”. Sorry, but religion is not valid science. Also, most of those groups that claim to “suppress sexual orientation” merely means the gay person represses their sex, not change their sexual attractions. Most studies in fact have disproven reparative therapy, including Spitzers study which was debunked by scientists long ago.
More on Spitzers Reparative Therapy
Spitzer’s study was peer-reviewed, and these were the conclusions “Two years later, the paper was peer reviewed and published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior. The publication decision sparked controversy and one sponsoring member resigned in protest. The paper has been criticized for using non-random sampling and poor criteria for success.”
https://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_spit.htm