Meet the Last 'Respectable' Reparative Therapist | The Bilerico Project

At this stage in the debate, you would think that reparative therapy would be dead as a kipper on a cracker.

It has been denounced by all the major psychological, psychiatric, and medical organizations in the U.S. California, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C. have passed laws forbidding its use on minors, and they have held up in court. Exodus international has folded, and the "ex-gay" movement is a pathetic and little-noticed side show.

However, there's one Ph.D.-level psychologist out there pushing a brand of reparative therapy that skirts the ethical guidelines of all the professional organizations that have come out against it. He is still cited as an "expert" in the media, and especially by those with an anti-LGBT ideology.

It would be easy to dismiss this person if he were some crackpot that no one listened to or was poorly regarded by his peers. Unfortunately, he isn't. In fact, he's one of the most influential psychologists in the field.

Meet Dr. Kenneth Zucker. He's a professor at the University of Toronto; editor-in-chief of Archives of Sexual Behavior for the last 12 years; a member of the American Psychological Association Task Force on Gender Identity, Gender Variance, and Intersex Conditions; and chairman of the American Psychiatric Association working group on "Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders" for the 2013 edition of the DSM-5.

He's also one of the leading proponents of a school of thought which describes the vast majority children who exhibit gender non-conforming behaviors as just juvenile gay men and lesbians who need to be prevented from growing up to be transgender. He even hints to their parents his methods might prevent them from being gay, too.

The treatment these children receive should be familiar; it is nearly indistinguishable from the methods used by George "Rent Boy" Rekers in the 1970's.

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Someone might wonder how Dr. Zucker escapes the label of sexual orientation change effort (SOCE) with his "Drop the doll!" methodologies, when his techniques and goals seem so similar. There is one semantic difference: Zucker does not claim to be trying to make gender non-conforming kids straight, he just claims to make them straight-acting. Somehow this nuance has mostly inured him from mainstream criticism.

image: http://cdn.bilerico.net/assets_c/2015/01/blue-pink-baby-shoes-thumb-250xauto-41627.jpg
blue-pink-baby-shoes.jpgIt hasn't gone completely unnoticed, though: a 2003 report in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry called his techniques "something disturbingly close to reparative therapy for homosexuals."

Dr. Zucker attributes gender non-conformance (what he calls "pre-homosexuality") to the same things "ex-gay" activists say cause homosexuality:

"[Zucker] urges parents to steer their children toward gender-typical toys, clothes and playmates and advises them to prohibit behaviors associated with the other sex. Zucker's academic articles assert that while biology may predispose some children to gender nonconformity, other factors -- like trauma and emotional disorders -- often play a role. Other contributing causes he cites include overprotective mothers, emotionally absent fathers or mothers who are hostile toward men." [Emphasis in original.]

Meet the Last 'Respectable' Reparative Therapist | The Bilerico Project

The Failings of Reparative Therapy | Great Plains Skeptic

Concise and well presented. Some good counter points to the NARTH position that we all face in our battle with religionist,,,

Homosexuality is neither a mental illness nor is it a psychological issue which requires repair. This is the current crux of the issue between the vast majority of the scientific community and a very minor few who insist that further research is necessary. The current champion of Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE) is The NARTH Institute. Groups such as NARTH attempt to associate themselves with solid scientific rigor insomuch as they can use this association to further legitimize their cause, all the while bemoaning the fact that the vast majority of their field of study stands in stark opposition to them not because of the current scientific data, but because of the absence of sufficient evidence. NARTH columnist Matt Barbers calls them “Gay-Activist Science Deniers,” but NARTH (or anyone else) has yet to produce scientific evidence for anyone to deny. Anecdotal evidence, data derived from poor to abysmal methodology, and a total lack of statistically significant results carry no weight in the scientific community. Admittedly, aspects of SOCE treatments are grounded in legitimate science and psychology, but, elements of behavior therapy techniques that have been known to be successful in some therapeutic treatments are inappropriate in seeking to alter sexual orientation. Aversion therapy and sensitization/desensitization processes may have usefulness in other situations, but the literature indicates that it is simply unsuccessful in SOCE.

The Failings of Reparative Therapy | Great Plains Skeptic

ADDENDUM::How A Former Advocate Of Ex-Gay Therapy Is Working To Protect Others From Harm | ThinkProgress

Earlier this year, a group of former ex-gay leaders — individuals who made a career at some point in their lives promoting or administering ex-gay therapy — published an open letter decrying all forms of sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE). “It is our firm belief,” they wrote, “that it is much more productive to support, counsel, and mentor LGBT individuals to embrace who they are in order to live happy, well-adjusted lives.” The letter helped launch the National Center for Lesbian Rights’ #BornPerfect campaign, which calls for more laws protecting people from the harms of reparative therapy.

Among the signatories was Tim Rymel, who at one point in his life was an evangelical Christian minister and a vocal advocate for ex-gay therapy, offering his own personal testimony to support his cause. From 1991 to 1996, Rymel served as Outreach Director for Love in Action (LIA), a residential facility for ex-gay therapy based in Memphis, Tennessee. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because after Rymel’s time there, LIA began a youth program called Refuge that in 2005 became the center of a big controversy after a young man named Zach Stark blogged on MySpace about how he was treated in the facility, which he was forced to attend by his parents. Love In Action eventually closed its youth program, but still serves adults under the new name “Restoration Path.”

Rymel now identifies as gay and is working against the harms of ex-gay therapy. He details his journey of self-acceptance in a new book called Going Gay, and he spoke with ThinkProgress about what he learned along the way and what he’s now trying to teach others about homosexuality and Christianity.

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Rymel is now connecting with people who attended Love In Action while he worked there to tell “Ex-Gay 25 Years Later” stories. Of the 15 he’s reached out to, only three of them still identify as ex-gay, and only one of those three has been willing to talk to him on the record. What he’s already found is that those who now identify as gay are doing well, while those who still identify as ex-gay continue to struggle with their identities. He’s combining their stories with a meta-analysis of the available research to try to paint a picture of what the ex-gay movement actually looks like and debunk the myth that there are thousands of ex-gays out there. “The thousands do not exist,” he told ThinkProgress.

How A Former Advocate Of Ex-Gay Therapy Is Working To Protect Others From Harm | ThinkProgress

FRC Blog » Robin Williams, Rehab, and Reorientation

There is just so much wrong with this I dont even know where to start,,,

"Then just last month, news broke that Williams had again returned to rehab, this time at a Hazelden center in Minnesota. A spokesman for Williams said that he had not relapsed into substance abuse, but was “simply taking the opportunity to fine-tune and focus on his continued commitment [to sobriety], of which he remains extremely proud.” That was on July 1 — but six weeks later, he was dead."

First Sprigg, in a backhanded way, is stating the Williams' death is due to his return to drug/alcohol rehab; a mental health service that is for the most part a generally accepted (by consensus) form of treatment. He then continues to equate rehab to reparative therapy. Notice his choice of words, "sexual orientation change efforts."

"In light of this history, I have only one question for socially liberal political activists — why aren’t you trying to outlaw rehab?

"I ask the question because such activists are trying to ban a form of mental health treatment — not drug and alcohol rehabilitation, but “sexual orientation change efforts” (“SOCE”), also known as “sexual reorientation therapy.” Such therapy involves assisting people with unwanted same-sex attractions to overcome them."

What Spriggs leaves out, homosexuality has not been consider a mental disorder since 1973; and, reparative therapy as a whole has been debunked. (Seriously, do not even think for a moment that the Regnerus study lends any credibility to the FRC's stance.) Not only by ex ex-gay bigwigs but as Anderson Cooper points out in  his response to the Texas GOP's adoption of support for reparative therapy.

“It’s really just not accurate to say that doctors are evenly divided,” Cooper told state Rep. Bryan Hughes (R). “I could give you a list: the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Counseling Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the American School Counselors’ Association, the National Association of School Psychologists, National Association of Social Workers. They represent half a million mental health professionals, [and] they all say this is not a mental disorder. It’s not something that needs to be cured.”

Personally I think Spriggs is a pissed off little man because their golden girl of the movement, Yvette Cantu Schneider told FRC to go fuck off

My snark aside, J. Bryan Lowder over at Slate sums up the reality of what Spriggs misses:

"The reason addicts seek or are referred to rehab for substance abuse is because addiction is clearly inhibiting their ability to live their lives. Meanwhile, the only thing inhibiting gay people from living openly and happily is people like Sprigg, people who suggest that homosexuality is anything other than a natural, perfectly healthy variation of human sexual expression. When critics of ex-gay therapy—including the large majority of the medical establishment—advocate for its elimination, it is not because we, as Sprigg puts it, are “holding such therapies to a standard of ‘effectiveness’ and ‘safety’ that is impossible for any mental health treatment to meet.” Rather, it is because we recognize that being gay is not a mental health issue in the first place.

This isn't the FRC stooping low, this is the FRC standing proud. This is what they are, and they're proud of it.

FRC Blog » Robin Williams, Rehab, and Reorientation