George Rekers and the Sissy Boy Experiement

[Carolynn]

http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/wi ... 6/08/21551

This link takes you to a series of articles on the "Sissy Boy Experiement", the basis of groups that believe that reparative therapy can turn a gay (or trans) person straight. An author named Jim Burroway wrote about George Reker's role in the movement. You might recall that Mr. Rekers was caught with a gay man he had hired from Craigs List towho claims to be a male escort to accompany him on a trip to Europe "to carry the luggage", yet when photographed, it was Rekers carrying the luggage.

This account talks about the "fradulent" research that earned Rekers his Phd in Psychology and his reputation that led to him being on the board of NARTH.

It appears that this past week, CNN Anderson Cooper has had a three part series on the Sissy Boy Experiement, the flawed research and the groups such as NARTH that claim to convert Gays to Straight people. I did not see any of it myself. Have any of you?

Ken Zucker is a contemporary of Rekers and shares in his ideas of avoidance therapy as a "cure" for being trans. Of course, Zucker is the person the APA selected to lead the rewrite of the sections of the DSM-v on gay and trans.

Carolynn

[Absaroka]

I've paid very little attention to these groups. My one thought is that if someone is bisexual maybe if they participate in one of these groups that they might tend to accentuate their heterosexual feelings for a while and repress their homosexual feelings. I guess they'd call that "cured" Or maybe they just become celibate altogether, which they would probably also consider a "cure"

A lot of folks tend to think of gay/ straight as either or, but that is not always the case. I've known bisexual men who have had long and happy intimate relationships with women while not pretending to no longer be attracted to men as well.

I wouldn't discount the possibility that some people do sometimes change. After all some folks transition and then change orientation. Some folks tranistion yet retain the focus of orientation (Straight male becoming a lesbian) some would say they did not change their orientation (lesbian trapped in mans body becoming female lesbian) some change orientation (straight male becoming straight female) and some become sort of asexual. Obviously all the same possibilities apply to the FTM folks. Plus all the possibilities in between. It seems reasonable that some people some times might make such internal changes without changing their gender. I don't happen to know anyone who's done that but if someone says it did, who am I to object? If they want to support others attempting to do this, fine, as long as they don't try to proselytize to the uninterested or unwilling.

[Susan]

Hipocracy rules in some circles. Stories like this make me feel glad I am who I am, no lies to anyone take me as you find me.

Why does it seem these voluble holy joes are as human as the rest of us.

[Carolynn]

What I find interesting, is that Rekkers, who is at least bi if not gay, has made his reputation and his living as an anti-gay therapist. He is not alone in being this way. J.Edgar Hoover is one of the higher ups in the govenment that was both gay and a CD and he would persecute anyone else he found that was gay. There have been more than a fewanti gay, very conservative religious leaders that have been labled gay or gender queer when they were caught out soliciting gay prostitutes, and others after drugs too.

The old Shakespearean saw, "Methinks thou doest protest too much" seems to continue to hold true often. Wonder how many of the people involved in the anti-gay movement are but in denial? In order for them to care so much rather than allowing people to live their lives, there has to be a reason behind the bigotry, whether it is acted upon or not. There are people who react badly to fears within themselves that they might be gay, maybe due to atttraction or due to some buried experiment when younger...... or in the case of some to deeply repressed child abuse by faimily or others.

Carolynn

[Anthony Simon]

Rekkers could fit in an (updated) version of a Shakespearian (or maybe a Greek) tragedy alright. Imagine, the boy who thinks he's conquered sissyness in himself and wants to go out and give the world the benefit of his wisdom. He builds a whole career out of it, is lauded and becomes a poster-boy for a certain kind of moral conservatism. Then it all comes tumbling down. It turns out he's just repressed his homosexuality and all his interactions with the "sissy" boys he's been trying to cure have themselves been a pure expression of it.

And at the end the stage is littered with the damaged, the destroyed and the dead.