You may or may not have seen the two episodes of "The "Sissy Boy" Experiment" on "Anderson Cooper 360", the nightly news show on CNN, about the young boy, Kirk Murphy, who was not quite five years old when he was taken to UCLA for early intervention treatment in an experimental program for young boys who showed evidence of excessive femininity. Yes, that is UCLA. The purpose of the treatment was to change the excessively effeminate behavior and prevent the young boys from possibly growing up gay.
The story is heartbreaking. If you'd like to watch the two episodes which have already aired, here are the links:
The "Sissy Boy" Experiment Part One
The "Sissy Boy" Experiment Part Two
Jim Burroway, who blogs at Box Turtle Bulletin, investigated the story, and he will be seen on another episode on CNN sometime next week. Jim published the results of his separate, in-depth investigation, which gives a much fuller and more detailed report on Kirk's story, at Box Turtle Bulletin under the title What Are Little Boys Made Of?. Jim's report is long, in seven parts, but I plead with you to take the time to read it. I read it in two intervals because the report is so very tragic and emotionally wrenching that I had to stop at Part 5 and resume the next day.
Kirk's main counselor seems to have been George Rekers, a young graduate student at the time. Yes, the anti-gay activist George Rekers, the co-founder of the Family Research Council, who was caught recently at the Miami Airport traveling with a young male escort.
Rekers, who is also a professor emeritus of neuropsychiatry at the University of South Carolina and a Baptist minister, recently testifed against gay adoption in Florida, where he resides.
No doubt Rekers testified as an expert against gay adoption. If you made up the story, no one would believe you, but, tragically, the story is all too true. Kirk's picture at the head of the post shows him at about the age that the therapy began.
As Jim Burroway says:
In this original BTB investigation, we speak with his family and friend who knew the real “Kraig” to uncover the truth behind Reker’s greatest success story. Their stories reveals the tragedy of a terrible experiment on a very young boy which would haunt him for the rest of his life. It is not only an indictment of a man who built his anti-gay career on Kirk’s suffering, but a rebuke to others — those in the mental health profession then and in the contemporary ex-gay movement today — who would place their careers and agendas ahead of the well-being of this young boy and countless others like him.
Kirk Murphy committed suicide in 2003 at the age of 38.
Thanks to Jim Burroway for his hard work in investigating and telling Kirk's story.
Photo from Box Turtle Bulletin.
I read it in two intervals because the report is so very tragic and emotionally wrenching that I had to stop at Part 5 and resume the next day.
ReplyDeleteGood Lord, you're reading way faster than I am! (Just started P3, on Day...4, maybe?)
Then again, because gender dysphoria is so much closer to home for me---from the other side---maybe that's why I can only endure it in small bits at a time. It's not just that it could be me...in some ways, I think it IS me (except, thank God, I'm still here. Alive&kicking, more-or-less.)
I've written extensively about Rekers, including the Kirk/Kraig story which Frank Rich, the Miami New Times, and Good-As-You told us about over a year ago.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad the big guys have finally caught up to blogs no one reads. (Yeah, okay, I'm entitled. ;-)
Regardless. It's revolting. And his mother still at some level seems nothing wrong with what she did.
GM, I am still close to tears after reading this and discussing with the hubs. My heart bleeds for Kirk and his family and my thoughts are with two dear lifelong friends who grew up gay in roughly the same era. Thanks be to God that they were spared the insanity that poor Kirk endured. I suppose they benefited from both growing up in a less sophisticated psychiatric market than LA and with supportive and understanding (for the most part) families.
ReplyDeleteLet us also be clear that UCLA doesn't do this anymore, and indeed houses the Williams Institute and other gay-friendly studies.
ReplyDeleteConcerning Reckers' opposition to gay adoption, curious link here regarding his adoption of a sixteen-year-old male about six years ago.
ReplyDeleteThe big networks like CNN may be late picking up on this story, but better late than never. Kudos to Anderson Cooper for putting it out there in the mainstream. Rekers is a monster.
ReplyDeleteJCF, hugs to you. I can't even imagine what it must be like for you to read the account.
ReplyDeleteannski, I know how you feel. I was wiped out. I couldn't write the story for days, until I recovered my emotional equilibrium.
My children are roughly the same age as Kirk would be now. I remember the trust most of us put in the medical professions at the time. What they recommended must be done, with no questions asked.
IT, credit due, indeed. And you have a right.
I am only one person. I don't have a staff of reporters, and I can't write about every significant story. What caught my interest at this time was Jim Burroway's compelling account of Kirk's story.
I've had it happen to me, when I've written a post and months later the media or the big bloggers finally pay attention. It's the nature of the small blogger's beast.
I believe we all know or should know that UCLA doesn't do this sort of thing any longer. Perhaps the work at the Williams Institute makes up some for what was inflicted on Kirk and his family and other boys and their families. Has UCLA apologized or taken responsibility for their part in Kirk's "therapy"?
Lapin, Rekers' story has many strange twists and turns, including the fact that he worked for a respectable institution of higher learning until fairly recently.
Counterlight, yes. In Jim Burroway's defense, in my defense, and in Anderson Cooper's defense, better late than never.
No worries, Mimi!
ReplyDeleteUntil he was caught with his rent-boy, REkers made a lucrative business testifying in court against LGBT people. In fact, in Florida, his testimony against adoption by gay couples was SO over the top that the judge threw it out. (He was paid hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars for it because the then-Attorney General didn't like gay adoptions and wanted to prevent them. He called Rekers as an "expert witness.") After the rent-boy incident, the anti-gay people who touted him scrubbed their websites to render him invisible.
The man is a piece of work. You might say he "reeks".
IT, Rekers "reeks", indeed. He's also quick to threaten to sue, so folks need to have their facts right.
ReplyDeleteEach time I think of Rekers using Kirk, named "Kraig" in his books, as an example of a success story, smoke comes out of my ears.
This is just . . . chilling. I see an almost perfect alternate-universe version of myself in that story. It's really, really affected me.
ReplyDeleteI've blogged on it, but I can't get out what I'm feeling, because I'm still numb with shock.
Mark, hugs to you. The story is horrifying. You can see the lingering effects of the nightmare Kirk went through on his two surviving siblings. As his sister said, the wonder is that Kirk survived until he was 38.
ReplyDeleteYou take care of yourself. I'll read what you wrote as soon as I can.