The "Sissy Boy Experiment"

[OnceModestTwiceShy]

This story broke my heart this morning. It is a vivid example of how the loudest anti-gay voices are often the most closeted: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blo ... _blog.html

"Kirk Murphy liked to play with “girls’ toys†when he was 5 years old. His mother thought a psychologist could change this.

“Well, I was becoming a little concerned, I guess, when he was playing with dolls and stuff,†Kaytee Murphy told Anderson Cooper on CNN. “It just bothered me that maybe he was picking up maybe too many feminine traits.â€

Murphy’s mother enrolled him in a government-funded experiment at UCLA in the 1970s, where he was treated by doctoral student George A. Rekers. After 10 months of formal treatment, which included physical punishment, Rekers said Murphy no longer exhibited feminine behavior and had been successfully treated.

But in a special report on “Anderson Cooper 360,†Murphy’s family claimed this treatment led to his suicide at age."

Does the name of Dr. Rekers sound familiar? That's because, in addition to his claim to fame as one of the pioneers of "reparative therapy", he was caught last year with a male escort (found on rentboy.com) while traveling to Europe, claiming that he had hired said escort to carry his luggage.

[nimerha]

This is fucking nauseating.

George "whatever lifts your luggage" Rekers would be laughable, wasn't he responsible for tragedies like this. Well, partly responsible. The mother who enrolled a preschoolers in experimental behavioral "therapy" for playing with dolls? Who allowed her child to be beaten because she was "a little concerned" about his toy preferences? Does not get to shift the blame onto anyone else. She was a knowing and wilfull accomplice in her son's abuse, right along with the father and Rekers himself.

Much as I would like to see Rekers pay for the pain and abuse he inflicted, I hope that family doesn't get a cent from him.

[fuglyexfundy]

Repeat after me : A CHILD IS NOT A SOCIAL EXPERIMENT!

Friggen disgusting. GBLT people world wide are owed an apology.

DANG!!!!

[fundifugee]

I saw the documentary and it was heartbreaking. The guy's siblings sobbed, recounting how they would get red plastic chips for each effeminate behaviour and then at the end of the day were beaten based on how many red chips they had. His brother talked about taking some of Kirk's red chips and putting them in his stack because they were so tired of watching their brother get beaten.

I hope Rekers gets constantly reminded for the rest of his life that this suicide is BECAUSE OF HIM.

Disgusting old lecher. I wonder what else he has done with his 'research subjects'.

Other venerable organizations with which he's been associated:

NARTH http://narth.com/

Family Research Council http://www.frc.org/

American College of Pediatricians (group formed to resist LGBT adoption)

Boy Scouts of America

Southern Baptist church (he's an ordained minister)

Facts About Youth http://factsaboutyouth.com/

And get this....he argues in his various 'expert witness' cases about how gay people shouldn't adopt, that the reason gay people shouldn't be parents is that they suffer from more depression, emotional instability, and substance abuse.

Yep, thanks to you, Pastor! And you're obviously hard at work (pun intended) to keep it that way!!

[Koala]

This is fucking nauseating.

George "whatever lifts your luggage" Rekers would be laughable, wasn't he responsible for tragedies like this. Well, partly responsible. The mother who enrolled a preschoolers in experimental behavioral "therapy" for playing with dolls? Who allowed her child to be beaten because she was "a little concerned" about his toy preferences? Does not get to shift the blame onto anyone else. She was a knowing and wilfull accomplice in her son's abuse, right along with the father and Rekers himself.

Much as I would like to see Rekers pay for the pain and abuse he inflicted, I hope that family doesn't get a cent from him.

I totally agree.

[Koala]

I totally agree.

And Rekers should be in jail.

[Patsy]

Good coverage here: http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/what-a ... de-of-main

[LynnKaboom]

This is so sad.

How difficult is it for people to understand that most five-year-olds don't really have a concept of gender, other than that boys and girls are different from each other in some way (and have cooties!), and that the toys they play with don't really have an effect on things like that (granted, I'm probably a unique case because I had stuffed animals and video games, and that was pretty much it)?

If there's a hell, Rekers is going there.

[booksnbeats]

And get this....he argues in his various 'expert witness' cases about how gay people shouldn't adopt, that the reason gay people shouldn't be parents is that they suffer from more depression, emotional instability, and substance abuse.

Yep, thanks to you, Pastor! And you're obviously hard at work (pun intended) to keep it that way!!

This is the saddest and most ironic truth of all. People make the same criticisms of Dan Savage's It Gets Better Project. "It won't get better for these kids! Drugs, depression and suicide!" Yeah, I wonder why?

[Rosa]

This is awful, but it's not shocking or unique. It's not like it's uncommon for boys to get whipped for being "effeminate". My boy is pretty stereotypically boyish, right down to the guns, legos, and competitiveness - but he likes sparkly pink and purple. It makes my dad visibly uncomfortable, and whenever we're out shopping random strangers (often kids) go out of their way to police my kids' color choices.

It's just that middle-class parents have access to professionals to sanction their abuse. I had a trans friend who was given electroshock therapy for gender deviance - by middle-class, educated, liberal professionals, at a real licensed psychotherapy facility.

It's not different than the fundies shipping their kids off to abusive "homes" for smoking, swearing, or having sex. They "mean well" but it's easier to hurt the kid than rethink their assumptions about right behavior.

I do think things have gotten a lot better very recently (maybe because the real effects of cases like this have been getting publicity the last few decades? Maybe just the advance of feminism.) First girls got expanded choices, now boys are - I love this clip from What Would You Do?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dao7h6Xh ... re=related

[Burris]

In an effort to exorcise what he believed to be his own demons, George "Rentboy" Reckers participated in harmful experiments on vulnerable populations.

One would think, given Kirk's suicide and Reckers' own backdoor shenanigans, that the latter would finally admit homosexuality is not a choice - but no: Reckers still maintains his stupid theories, and so he's still a monstrous hypocrite.

[lilwriter85]

I was disgusted reading that article. I felt bad for Kirk and his family.

[Patsy]

I was more surprised by the number of lies and faults in the studies that the boxturtlebulletin reported on. And yet the study is still held (as is, to my knowledge) as valid.