July 22nd, 2011
As time went on, George Rekers and his colleagues at UCLA began to investigate other forms of treatment for the gender-variant children that were being brought in to the Neuropsychiatric Institute’s Gender Identity Clinic. One of the things they discovered with Kirk Murphy, “Carl,” and “Wayne,” was that coercing a change in young boys’ outward behaviors in one setting didn’t necessarily translate into changes in other settings. And when the changes occurred, they depended upon other adults meting out demerits and punishments in order to coax the kind of outward behavior they were seeking, while driving the child’s natural personality underground.
There were other challenges as well. Rekers and his colleagues at UCLA had come under intense criticism in the professional literature and in student protest on campus over their use of punitive treatments for “Kraig,” their pseudonym for Kirk. Even Rolling Stone got in on the act with a 1975 investigative article shining a bright spotlight on UCLA and on “Kraig’s” treatment in particular. And so they not only had a practical challenge — how do you get a child to behave the way you want without an adult hovering and watching? — but a public relations one: how do you get a child to behave the way you want without punishing him?
What they needed was a self-monitoring and self-enforcement mechanism so that the child could police himself, rather than having adults policing him. And, they needed a system that involved only rewards and not punishments. That’s where four-year-old “Nathan” comes in:
Nathan was referred at the age of four years, and lived in an intact family with two sisters, aged five years and eleven years. Of etiological significance, Nathan had a chronic blood disorder which required that he remain indoors under very protective circumstances to avoid even mild physical injury. As a consequence. his peer play had been almost exclusively with his two sisters. There was limited interaction between Nathan and his father or any other male figure. He frequently verbalized his wish to be a girl, and identified himself predominantly with female roles, occasionally displaying pronounced feminine voice inflections. Even though both boys’ and girls’ dress-up clothes were available at pre-school. Nathan dressed exclusively in girls’ clothing. His stereotypic feminine gender-role behaviors elicited comments from other children, such as “You can’t be a little girl.” This concerned Nathan’s teacher and parents, and ultimately led to referral for treatment.
Nathan’s case study appeared in the December 1977 issue of the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry. According to Rekers, Nathan was evaluated and found to be extremely effeminate in some ways, but when it came to his choice of games, he was almost equally masculine and feminine in the choices he made — insofar as how Rekers and his colleagues defined “masculine” and “feminine.” The finally settled on a diagnosis of “confused gender identity and moderate cross-gender behavior disturbance,” which didn’t appear in any diagnostic manual anywhere, let alone the APA’s.
For Nathan’s treatment, they decided to try to teach him how to “count” the number of times he played with “boys” toys. The treatment began in the playroom at UCLA, but instead of the mother or another adult wearing an earpiece in order to follow directions from another room, “Nathan” was the one receiving instructions:
The boy wore a wrist counter and was told that although he could play with any toy. he should press the counter only when playing with “boys’ toys.” Each toy was labeled as a “boys’ toy” or a “girls’ toy” for him. Initially the boy was cued with the “bug-in-the-ear” from another room to press the wrist counter after one minute of masculine play. This behavioral cue was gradually faded out by increasing the interval to 2 min. then 6 min. and 8 min. The “bug-in-the ear” device was then removed to increase the feasibility of replicating the procedure at school without the instrumentation.
“Nathan” was given the wrist counter and instructed it to use it when he was in nursery school during play time. He was told that he could play with any toy that he wished, but he couldn’t add points on the wrist counter when he was playing with the girls’ dress-up clothes. Points on the counter meant candy from a dish. After about thirty sessions in the school (Rekers doesn’t say over what period of time this covered), “Nathan” was graduated to “normalcy.” Rekers had another success on his hands. “The present study suggests that self-regulation strategies are effective in producing the same kind of gender role behavior changes previously obtained by social contingency management alone.”
“Social contingency management” is psycho-speak for “the systematic scheduling of consequences of behaviors” — in other words, rewards and punishments. According to this paper, there were no punishments involved, just rewards. But there was still something else involved as well: the stifling of a child’s curiosity and freedom of exploration while playing — even though they found that “Nathan’s” play was well balanced between “feminine” and “masculine.” Success was achieved, according to Rekers, when “Nathan” ceased all “cross-dress-up play” and “feminine role play.” Fortunately, the third goal of the treatment — to get him to stop playing with girls — was abandoned. “The decision was made to allow his frequency of play with girls to continue since it was within the same frequency range as his same-aged peers.”
Reports of follow-ups for “Nathan” were as sparse as they were for Kirk Murphy, “Carl”, “Paul,” and “Wayne.” At a 1979 conference at the Université du Québec in Montréal, Rekers reported, “Response maintenance of these therapeutic gains was demonstrated by a one-year follow-up evaluation.” In the original paper, Rekers reported interviewing “Nathan’s” parents two years after the treatment ended, and found “gender behaviors within the normal limits.”
Robert Stoller, founder of UCLA’s Gender Identity Clinic, at one point challenged his colleagues to allow their patients to participate in the process of writing and publishing professional papers. It’s a challenge that none of his colleagues took up, leaving us only with the doctor’s word for how things went. There is much about “Nathan’s” case that we don’t know. He was trained to value “masculine” play at the expense of other forms of play, but it’s hard to know how “Nathan” would have internalized those lessons. It’s also hard to say how “Nathan” played when he wasn’t wearing the wrist counter. It appears that Rekers stopped following “Nathan” after the age of seven — or at least stopped reporting on him. This makes “Nathan’s” case an unfinished story, regardless of its ultimate outcome. And so if you remember wearing a wrist counter while you were in nursery school — that can’t be a common memory — we’d really like to hear from you so you can tell us your story.
See Also:
“Carl,” age 8½
“Joan,” age 14
“Nathan,” age 4
“Paul,” age 8
“Wayne,” age 7
And, of course, “Kraig” (Kirk Murphy), age 4
Latest Posts
Featured Reports
In this original BTB Investigation, we unveil the tragic story of Kirk Murphy, a four-year-old boy who was treated for “cross-gender disturbance” in 1970 by a young grad student by the name of George Rekers. This story is a stark reminder that there are severe and damaging consequences when therapists try to ensure that boys will be boys.
When we first reported on three American anti-gay activists traveling to Kampala for a three-day conference, we had no idea that it would be the first report of a long string of events leading to a proposal to institute the death penalty for LGBT people. But that is exactly what happened. In this report, we review our collection of more than 500 posts to tell the story of one nation’s embrace of hatred toward gay people. This report will be updated continuously as events continue to unfold. Check here for the latest updates.
In 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that “[Paul] Cameron’s ‘science’ echoes Nazi Germany.” What the SPLC didn”t know was Cameron doesn’t just “echo” Nazi Germany. He quoted extensively from one of the Final Solution’s architects. This puts his fascination with quarantines, mandatory tattoos, and extermination being a “plausible idea” in a whole new and deeply disturbing light.
On February 10, I attended an all-day “Love Won Out” ex-gay conference in Phoenix, put on by Focus on the Family and Exodus International. In this series of reports, I talk about what I learned there: the people who go to these conferences, the things that they hear, and what this all means for them, their families and for the rest of us.
Prologue: Why I Went To “Love Won Out”
Part 1: What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Part 2: Parents Struggle With “No Exceptions”
Part 3: A Whole New Dialect
Part 4: It Depends On How The Meaning of the Word "Change" Changes
Part 5: A Candid Explanation For "Change"
At last, the truth can now be told.
Using the same research methods employed by most anti-gay political pressure groups, we examine the statistics and the case studies that dispel many of the myths about heterosexuality. Download your copy today!
And don‘t miss our companion report, How To Write An Anti-Gay Tract In Fifteen Easy Steps.
Anti-gay activists often charge that gay men and women pose a threat to children. In this report, we explore the supposed connection between homosexuality and child sexual abuse, the conclusions reached by the most knowledgeable professionals in the field, and how anti-gay activists continue to ignore their findings. This has tremendous consequences, not just for gay men and women, but more importantly for the safety of all our children.
Anti-gay activists often cite the “Dutch Study” to claim that gay unions last only about 1½ years and that the these men have an average of eight additional partners per year outside of their steady relationship. In this report, we will take you step by step into the study to see whether the claims are true.
Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council submitted an Amicus Brief to the Maryland Court of Appeals as that court prepared to consider the issue of gay marriage. We examine just one small section of that brief to reveal the junk science and fraudulent claims of the Family “Research” Council.
The FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics aren’t as complete as they ought to be, and their report for 2004 was no exception. In fact, their most recent report has quite a few glaring holes. Holes big enough for Daniel Fetty to fall through.
Timothy Kincaid
July 22nd, 2011
Perhaps they realized associating “girls” with “no candy” just might not lend itself well to the encouragement of heterosexuality.
Darina
July 22nd, 2011
Oh, Timothy, I know it’s not a funny story, but I couldn’t help laughing at your comment.
Leave A Comment