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“Curing” the Sissy: Anderson Cooper Tonight

Tonight, Anderson Cooper 360 is doing a show on the reparative therapy offered one male child to “cure” him of his effeminate behavior.

Box Turtle Bulletin has a complete breakdown of the events of Kirk’s life as well as information on the doctors who were responsible for this “therapy”.

Activist Abigail Jensen adds that she is upset “about the erasure, at least in the headlines of this & Anderson Cooper’s upcoming special report, of the fact that this story is as much about treating children who may be transsexual, as it is about children who may be gay.”

His brother Mark says the therapy “turned his light switch off”.

I fully expect more and more families will step forward about this kind of therapy as a result of this documentary, and I’m thankful to Anderson Cooper and team for doing it. This is NOT a historical issue; reparative therapy is still “offered” to gender variant children. For a more recent take, do read D. Scholinkski’s The Last Time I Wore a Dress

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Some Lovaas Lost

I was sent the link to a cool little blog called Killing the Buddha, and specifically to this post about “The Feminine Boy Project” which attempted to rid young boys of their femininity, and of course, their homosexuality. The blog’s author specifically calls out the NYT for leaving out Lovaas’ involvement in the project:

Well, George “Rentboy-renter” Rekers is no gay activist . . . Just last year, Rekers described Lovaas as not only critical for the funding and oversight of the study, but also for its planning. In fact, the way Rekers tells it, Ivar Lovaas came up with the idea in the first place.

…which is just a smidge more than being tangentially involved, no?

So if anyone out there has more information on Rekers’ statement, let me know.

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There Is No Ex Gay

The NYT is reporting that the APA has officially decided that therapists

should not tell gay clients they can become straight through therapy or other treatments.


More interestingly:

Instead of seeking such change, the association urged therapists to consider multiple options, which could include celibacy and switching churches, for helping clients live spiritually rewarding lives in instances where their sexual orientation and religious faith conflict.


which is something that sometimes is glossed over otherwise.

Still, let’s all welcome the APA to the 21st Century, shall we? Hopefully it won’t be another 100 years before they realize that gender variant people are just gender variant, too.