Box Turtle Bulletin

From NOM to NOME

Louis Marinelli, the former coordinator for National Organization for Marriage’s “Summer for Marriage Tour” who has since left NOM and announced his support for marriage equality, has launched a new group. He’s calling it the National Organization for Marriage Equality, and his web site indicates that NOME “is registering as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.”Marinelli will be hitting the road once again, just like old times.

This summer we plan to travel the country from California to Maine to talk about my change of heart on the issue of marriage equality and talk with conservatives and republicans about why they should support the freedom to marry.

This tour, which is modeled in part after the Summer for Marriage Tour I helped organize last summer for the National Organization for Marriage to oppose same-sex marriage, aims to revisit many of the places NOM visited last year to spread its discriminatory and bigoted message against gay and lesbian citizens.

I am personally responsible for that tour. It was my idea and I proposed it to Brian Brown, NOM’s President, who agreed to endorse and sponsor the project. As a result, I feel compelled to revisit the cities of last year’s marriage tour to meet the thousands of people who came out to meet discrimination and bigotry head on in the streets of their hometowns.

LGBT people turned out in droves when NOM’s tour was winding its way in 2010, often outnumbering NOM supporters at many stops. I think it would be good to turn out again. Marinelli writes that this time, “I look forward to seeing many of the same faces and families I saw last year so that this year I can stand with them, not against them.”

Anoka-Hennepin School District sued. Finally!

The Anoka-Hennepin School District in Minnesota has a “neutrality” policy on the subject of homosexuality.

Teaching about sexual orientation is not a part of the District adopted curriculum; rather, such matters are best addressed within individual family homes, churches, or community organizations. Anoka-Hennepin staff, in the course of their professional duties, shall remain neutral on matters regarding sexual orientation including but not limited to student led discussions.

But while “neutrality” may sound like a fair and balanced approach, in this school district it is little more than implicit permission to torture. Because in addition to neutrality on student led discussions, the district is neutral about anti-gay bullying.

That’s not “neutrality”.

Neutrality presumes that rather than takes sides, one stays out of conflicts that really aren’t one’s business. It implies that there is no real victim and oppressor, just a difference of opinion. And neutrality is only ever a virtue when there is no clear moral imperative to act.

But when there is an open environment of consistent bullying of gay kids, you have a moral imperative. I don’t care what faith or code of ethics you live by, all good and decent people agree that adults have an obligation to protect children in their care from torture. There is no “neutral” position on that.

But when it comes to anti-gay bullying in the Anoka-Hennepin School District, the teachers are afraid to act. They know that anything that suggests an opinion on matters “best addressed” by the local preacher can result in reprimand. And it is common understanding that even acknowledging that gay people exist is a violation of policy.

And lest there be any uncertainty, until overwhelming pressure forced a change, the anti-bullying policy excluded any mention of sexual orientation. So there’s little for a teacher to gain by saying, for example, “stop picking on gay kids, they are no different than you” and there are no words that discourage using slurs that don’t also take a non-neutral position on whether gay people deserve public contempt and humiliation.

So teachers ask themselves if it’s worth it. And wouldn’t it just make it worse if the bullies saw that the teacher was punished for trying to stop bullying? So those teachers who want to care are paralyzed and do nothing.

And the student being tormented can’t complain because while there is no policy to punish anti-gay bullies, if you report being picked on for being gay, you get sent to a psychiatrist. Lucky you, now in the hallways not only are you a “fag” but “crazy” one as well.

And this culture of homophobia didn’t just serve to restrict support or protection. Two teachers decided that not only would they not restrict anti-gay bullying, but they would join in. They mocked a student they thought was gay and “joked” that he dressed in women’s clothes and had a thing for older men. (And when they got a soft slap on the wrist, they sued claiming they had been maligned and their reputation tarnished.)

By now, those who are not familiar with this story may be starting to be suspicious. Surely it isn’t that bad; this has to by hyperbole, right?

No. The Anoka-Hennepin School District really is that bad.

And they must know it. How could they not?

But they are determined to ignore the problem.

The Minnesota State Department of Human Rights stepped in over the abusive teacher issue and did an investigation. But although they rebuked the School Board, this did not seem to influence their position.

And after nine suicides in one year, they still saw no evidence of a problem. It wasn’t until one student’s death caught national attention that the School Board felt a need to respond and the response illustrated their determination to do nothing to stop the bullying of gay students.

“None of the suicides were connected to incidents of bullying,” said Supt. Dennis Carlson

“As we all try to heal from the pain of these deaths the continuation of inaccurate information is not helpful,” he said. “Once again we have no evidence that bullying played a role in any of our students deaths. In a few instances, people told the school board and district leaders that employees stood by while a student was bullied. These statements are also not true. We have no evidence of that occurring.”

And as for the distraught parents, the horrified friends, and the concerned teachers who reported that their these kids had been subjected to abuse until it became unbearable? Oh, they “weren’t truthful.”

Even an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights can’t persuade this school board to adopt the homosexual agenda. (You know, the one which says that public school should not be a place of officially sanctioned torture for gay kids.)

So finally the Southern Poverty Law Center has had enough. (SPLC)

The Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) today sued the Anoka-Hennepin School District in Minnesota, challenging the pervasive anti-gay harassment in the district’s schools as well as a “gag policy” that prevents teachers from discussing issues related to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of five students who have faced severe anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in school. It charges that the district’s gag policy perpetuates the abuses suffered by these students and others.

I think that a positive outcome is almost a foregone conclusion. Considering the death count, the testimony, and the evidence that the policy and attitude of this School Board contributes to a culture of abuse, I can’t imagine that even a socially conservative judge would side with this school board. It’s hard to convince a judge that things are just fine when you have nine teenage suicides on your watch.

So I’m pretty confident that the district will be forced to change its policy. And some teachers will feel free to step in and protect bullied gay kids, knowing that the federal judicial system can protect them if they suffer reprisal. It will get better.

But it will be a long long time before things are good for gay kids in the Anoka-Hennepin School District.

Vermont Inn No Longer Hosting Weddings

The Wildflower Inn, which is being sued for violations to Vermont’s equal accommodations law after refusing to host a wedding reception for a lesbian couple, has updated their web page. Right after the banner advertising that “The beautiful Northeast Kingdom is the perfectly place to host your meeting, conference, wedding or special event,” they add, “We are no longer hosting weddings and special events.”

Colbert Reports “It Gets Better”

Steven Colbert slowly sheds his character to tell teens that “it gets better”:

The Alliance Defense Fund and Special Rights

The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) is an anti-gay legal group disguised as protectors religious liberty. They believe government employees should be able to pick and choose which laws to follow based on their religious beliefs (as long as those beliefs are Christian).

Naturally, they think it’s perfectly reasonable for Town Clerks in New York to hold on to their jobs while refusing  marriage licenses to qualified, law-abiding citizens (as long as those citizens are gay).

The ADF even offers up a legal rationale for this, based on New York state law.

Thus, as explained below, municipal clerks who have a sincerely held belief that prevents them from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples have the right to request an accommodation from their governing bodies.

…

New York law requires an employer to accommodate an employee’s religious observance or practice, “unless, after engaging in a bona fide effort, the employer demonstrates that it is unable to reasonably accommodate the employee’s or prospective employee’s sincerely held religious observance or practice…without undue hardship.” Executive Law § 296(10)(a). This law “represents a legislative expression of the high value that our State places on supporting and protecting [religious diversity] and in prohibiting invidious discrimination based on religious choice The statute ensures that no citizen will be required to choose between piety and gainful employment, unless the pragmatic realities of the work place accommodation impossible.” New York City Transit Auth. v. State, Exec. Dept., Div. of Human Rights , 89 N.Y.2d 79, 88 (N.Y. 1996).

Well, the law’s the law. Except…is that the law? Or a reasonable interpretation of it?

The law is about “religious observance or practice.” What does that mean? Check the law’s wording, which refers to: Read the rest of this entry »

Study Author Says Franken Is Right

In response to yesterday’s takedown of Focus On the Family’s Tom Minnery by Sen. Al Franken over a study that Minnery misrepresented, Politico spoke to the study’s author to see who got it right:

“Sen. Franken is right,” the lead author of the study told POLITICO. The survey did not exclude same-sex couples, said Debra L. Blackwell, Ph.D., nor did it exclude them from the “nuclear family” category provided their family met the study’s definition.

The study’s definition of nuclear family is: “one or more children living with two parents who are married to one another and are each biological or adoptive parents of all the children in the family.”

U.S. Health and Human Services study in 2010 found better health outcomes for children in “nuclear families,” which Minnery claimed included only children with heterosexually married parents.

A George Rekers Case History: Where Is “Wayne”?

George Rekers described treating three children in his 1972 doctoral these while a grad student at UCLA. Two of them we’ve already discussed. The first, of course, was Kirk Andrew Murphy, who was just shy of five years old when he began therapy at the Gender Identity Clinic at UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute under the direction of behavioral therapist O. Ivar Lovaas, Rekers’s mentor. It was this 1974 paper by Rekers and Lovaas describing Kirk under the pseudonym of “Kriag” became one of the more widely cited papers in the 1970s, and it launched Rekers’s career.

The second case described in detail in Rekers’s dissertation was that of 8½-year-old “Carl.” His case appeared in the professional literature at the same time as Kirk’s in 1974. His case didn’t achieve the same level of notice as Kirk’s, but because “Carl’s” treatment extended to the home, he case gained some measure of attention in the educational and guidance counseling literature.

Today’s case is the third child that Rekers described in his dissertation, that of seven-year-old “Wayne,” who was probably treated sometime in 1970 or 1971, at about the same time as Kirk. Here is how Rekers described “Wayne”:

Wayne was seven years old, from a black welfare family. His mother was separated from two former husbands. Wayne, his mother and one-year-old sister lived in the maternal grandmother I s home. The grandmother lived with a “boyfriend,” so there was a man in the house. As reported by the mother, Wayne regularly exhibited feminine arm and hand mannerisms, body gestures and gait. He modeled in front of a mirror in a feminine way, and habitually remarked, “I’m cute,” etc. Wayne had a history of secretly playing with his mother’s cosmetics in the bathroom. (His mother frequently found her cosmetics messed up and occasionally caught Wayne in the act of using them.)

Wayne played with dolls, whenever they were available. His peer preference was girls both at school and at his home neighborhood. He avoided play with boys his age. He frequently engaged in “play-acting.” While he exhibited no feminine voice inflection, he would dwell on feminine content in his speech. In the home he played daily with k1tchen articles.

Wayne was overly obsessive about the neatness of his own clothing. He had a number of “nervous” behaviors such as nail-b1ting. He was a chronic bed-wetter. The mother characterized him as unhappy, and reported frequent crying. Mother complains that Wayne demands an excessive amount of her attention, but that he is emotionally aloof.

“Wayne’s” treatment program in the clinic was similar to that of Kirk and “Carl.” But unlike the other two, the treatment didn’t extend into the home with the red chip/blue chip program, nor was it extended into “Wayne’s” school as it was with “Carl.” Rekers wrote, “Wayne could not be treated in the home and school settings because his mother could not cooperate with the investigator …Over several month’s time, the mother became more overtly uncooperative. Therefore we terminated Wayne as a client.” But before “Wayne’s” treatment was terminated, Rekers reported to his doctoral committee that he was able to coerce a change in “Wayne’s” play preferences and mannerisms in the clinic when other adults were around, but those changes didn’t hold up when “Wayne” played alone. In the last two sessions when “Wayne” was observed playing alone, he “played exclusively feminine.”

Since “Wayne” wasn’t one of Rekers’s greater success stories, he missed the kind of fame that “Kraig” and “Carl” achieved in the professional literature. But that didn’t mean that “Wayne” faded into obscurity. In 1975, Rekers published a paper in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology with data from “Wayne’s” play sessions at UCLA, along with data from Kirk and three others. The purpose of the paper was to demonstrate the methods for recording and assessing “masculine” and “feminine” play behaviors under certain settings, and to show how the presence of other people in the room can affect children’s play behaviors. Since the paper didn’t discuss treatment programs, it was safe to present “Wayne’s” case along with the others.

But in 1978, Rekers would go back and claim success with Wayne after all. In a non-peer reviewed chapter published in the clinical text book Handbook of Treatment of Mental Disorders In Childhood and Adolescence (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1978), Rekers described “Wayne’s” treatment much as he did in his dissertation, but with this addition:

Recently, a 3-year follow-up of this boy in his natural environment found predominantly masculine play behavior, and an independent clinical psychological evaluation of the boy and an interview with the mother yielded no evidence for a gender disturbance.

Again, as with all the other claims of follow-ups with Kirk, this claim is a single sentence with description of the evaluation, no details, no test results, and no peer review.

Rekers presented “Wayne’s” case again in 1979, in a paper published in the Journal of Psychology, which is a very low ranked and rarely-cited journal. Here, Rekers presented new information that wasn’t present in his dissertation. “Athletic games,” he wrote, “appeared to present an aversive and threatening situation for him. Consequently, the boys in his neighborhood and at school teased him and called him such names as “sissy” and “queer.” And so while the playroom experiment was underway, Rekers decided to launch a second set of experiments to try to teach “Wayne” athletic skills in order to “build gender-appropriate behaviors.” A token reinforcement system was used to encourage “Wayne’s” participation and improvement, with tokens being exchangeable for candy. Rekers reported that “Wayne” achieved the skill levels established for “sockball” and kickball. The question of how this was supposed to make him straight however remained unanswered.

This 1979 paper made no mention of a three-year follow-up. Instead, there is a cursory mention of one at fifteen months:

At 15-month follow-up, the mother reported that Wayne “looks just like any other boy now.” According to her reports, there has been no reoccurrence of his previous feminine behaviors, and he has developed positive peer relationships both in the neighborhood and at school.

This report description of a follow-up managed to reach to a record-tying pace of two whole sentences. But again, there are no details: no test descriptions, no data, no independent evaluation. All we have is Rekers’s word for it. Nevertheless, he concluded this report by saying, “This study contributes to the accumulating evidence this study contributes to the accumulating evidence that behavioral intervention procedures are effective in treating boyhood gender disturbances.”

“Wayne,” if you think you recognize yourself in these reports, please let us know how you’re doing.

See Also:
“Carl,” age 8½
“Joan,” age 14
“Paul,” age 8
“Wayne,” age 7
And, of course, “Kraig” (Kirk Murphy), age 4

The Daily Agenda for Thursday, July 21

TODAY’S AGENDA:
LCR to File Response to Government Petition To Keep DADT Stay: Pasadena, CA. Last week, the Justice Department belatedly decided that they would continue to uphold the constitutionality of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” after all, even though the discriminatory policy is (supposedly) on its way out the door toward repeal. In response, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which had already lifted its stay of a lower court ruling declaring DADT unconstitutional, reinstated part of that stay: the military could still refuse to enroll LGBT servicemenbers, but they couldn’t drum anyone out of the service for being gay. The court also demanded that government lawyers work the weekend to meet a Monday deadline to file a brief explaining their position.

On Monday, the government filed its brief, asking the appeals court to reinstate in DADT in its entirety for now, and to delay hearing the case, currently scheduled for September 1, in order to allow an “orderly process for repealing” the law. Log Cabin Republicans, plaintiffs in the thus-far successful lawsuit, has until 5:00 today to file a response. The government will have until the close of business tomorrow to file a counter-argument to LCR. Oral arguments remain set for September 1.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Burlington, VT; Detroit, MI (Black Pride); Ft. Wayne, IN; Halifax, NS; Harrisonvillle, VA (PDF) and Tampere, Finland.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

Sen. Al Franken Is My New Favorite Senator

During today’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on repealing the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) eviscerated the testimony of Thomas Minnery, Senior Vice President for Public Policy at Focus on the Family. Minnery was caught red-handed what anti-gay activists reflexively do: they lie about the research:

Franken: Mr Minnery, on page eight of your written testimony, you write, quote “Children living with… their own married, adoptive or biological mothers and fathers were generally healthier and happier, had better access to health care, were less likely to suffer mild or severe emotional problems, did better in school, were protected from physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, and almost never live in poverty compared to children in any other family form.”

You cite a Department of Health and Human Services Study, that I have right here, from December 2010, to support this conclusion. I checked this study out. (Laughter) And I would like to enter it into the record, if I may. And it actually doesn’t say what you said it says. It says that “nuclear families,” not “opposite sex married families” are associated with those positive outcomes. Isn’t it true, Mr Minnery, that a married same-sex couple that has had or adopted kids would fall under the definition of a nuclear family in the study that you cite?

Minnery: I would think that the study, when it cites “nuclear families,” would mean a family headed by a husband and a wife.

Franken: It doesn’t. [Laughter] The study defines a nuclear family as “one or more children living with two parents who are married to one another and are each biological or adoptive parents to all the children in the family.” And I frankly don’t really know how we can trust the rest of your testimony if you are reading studies these ways.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) comes in at a photo-finish second in the race for my new favorite Senator:

Leahy: Are those children benefited by saying that in that family, they will not have the same financial benefits that another family, a maried couple of opposite sex would have? Are those children not put at a disadvantaved by denying those same benefits to them, and I’m talking about now a legal marriage under the state laws of the state they live in?

Minnery: No. Without question, those children are certainly better off than having no parents. But…

Leahy: Wait a minute. I don’t understand.  They’d be better off if they had no parents?

Minnery: No, they’re certainly better of than if they had no home headed by parents. But same-sex marriage is a whole lot more than that, Senator.

Leahy: But I’m trying to go specifically to the financial. Are they not disadvantaged by not having the same financial benefits that in a…. an opposite sex family would have?

Minnery: Well, as I say, not knowing the details of which families you are speaking off, certainly those families are better off… children are better off with parents in the home. But what I’m saying…

Leahy: But, I’m talking about… Yes or no, it’s not a trick question. I’m just asking. [Laughter] Please. If you have parents legally married under the laws of the state. One set of parents are entitled to certain financial benefits for their children, the other set of parents are denied those same financial benefits for their children. Are not those children, at least in that aspect of finances, are not those  children of the second family, are they not at a disadvantage, yes or no?

Minnery: That would be yes, as you asked the question narrowly, Senator.

Leahy: Thank you. I was asking it narrowly. I used to have a career where I had to ask questions all the time.

Bishop demands that gays get married

The new marriage equality law in New York not only changed the ability of gay people to marry, it also introduced a requirement for some of them to do so. (Christian Post)

In the wake of gay marriage soon becoming a legal institution in the state of New York, the Episcopal Bishop of Long Island, has ordered that homosexual priests wed their partners.

Long Island Episcopal Bishop Lawrence Provenzano has put his foot down against gay clergy who residing in homosexual relationships, and has given a nine month deadline for them to either get married or stop living together, according to the News Observer.

“I need to be mindful that the church has always asked people to live in committed monogamous, faithful relationships. I won’t allow heterosexual clergy to live in a rectory or church housing without the benefit of marriage. When one puts it in that context, then you see how it all begins to make sense,” said Provenzano.

Sounds fair to me.

The entirely bogus “religious convictions” objection

One of the whiny complaints made by anti-gay activists about New York’s new marriage equality bill is that it is not sensitive to the religious convictions of public employees. The Catholic League’s Bill Donohue (who appears to waging a PR campaign to equal Catholicism with pigheaded bigotry) is all wounded and martyry about it in a commentary today:

Indeed, under New York State law, the onus is on the employer to show that it would cause “undue hardship” if an employee were to exercise his “sincerely held” religious beliefs.

Now it is fatuous to say that it would cause an “undue hardship” in the workplace if clerks, and deputy clerks, who do not have an issue with giving marriage licenses to homosexuals handled these matters for those who do. It cannot be said too strongly: Bullying those who have religious objections is despicable.

There is an obvious hole in New York’s gay marriage law: religious exemptions need to be extended to lay people, not just the clergy.

Well, I’m all for respecting sincerely held religious beliefs. But I’m failing to find one here.

Sure there are people who sincerely believe that I should not marry a person of the same sex. And due to those beliefs, they would not attend my wedding, conduct the vows, offer a blessing, or even congratulate me. And I wouldn’t expect them to.

But while I’m familiar with the Bible and pretty up on how religion is practiced in America, I am unaware of any doctrine of any sect that forbids its followers to hand me a piece of paper . That’s what we’re talking about, issuing a form, typing responses in a database. And there are no doctrinal assessments I know of which assign responsibility or any presumption of participation – not even those of the Catholic Church – from the issuance or filing of forms.

Some Christians read in the verse portion from Habakkuk “woe to him who gives drink to his neighbors, pouring it from the wineskin till they are drunk…” a prohibition on working in a bar or liquor store. Some are even troubled at serving alcoholic beverages as a waitress or grocery clerk. But I’ve never heard even the most conservative of Christians argue that they have some obligation not to hand out the form to request a liquor license.

And it goes without saying that many churches, the Catholic Church in particular, oppose the very existence of medical clinics which offer abortion services. Yet they do not suggest that the County Building Inspector refuse to issue a building license or that the city Clerk refuse to process a Business License. None of this administrative process is considered to be a part of, or the administrators culpable for, the abortions that will be conducted at the site.

There simply are no religious beliefs held by any of these public employees, sincerely or otherwise, which forbid them to administer the paperwork involved with any other businesses, marriages, divorces, or other vital statistics which they find morally objectionable. And if there were, their argument is a bit specious considering that they’ve been violating those beliefs with regularity for years.

Now I have less of a problem with Rosemary Centi, the city clerk in upstate Guilderland, who resigned from her position as marriage officer out of her religious conviction that she should not conduct gay marriages. But she will continue to remain the elected town clerk and issue marriage licenses to all eligible applicants, including gay couples. While I think it a rather peculiar belief that allows you to officiate at marriage between divorcees or people of mixed faith but not gay people, I don’t doubt that her decision is sincere. And I have to respect that Rosemary was able to distinguish between her own personal involvement as officiant and the processing of paperwork.

And I think that this distinction is perfectly obvious to any who think about it.

Why is it that some people would rather quit their jobs than treat gay couples with the same bureaucratic procedure as anyone else standing in line at the clerk’s counter? What is behind the peculiar notion that a public employee can deny civil services to a member of the public if they don’t pass their personal religious test? It certainly isn’t Scripture or doctrine or consistent moral character.

So perhaps Bill Donohue should consider whether he’s doing his church a favor by making this a big deal. His efforts to make Catholics look like victims may result in making them look like something else entirely.

Do I have to pass some bureaucrat’s religious test?

Occasionally Jon Stewart compiles a montage of far-right-wingers using some little phrase to push the party line (death panels, or shoving it down our throats). These phrases are obviously contrived and distributed. They’re usually empty or false. And they sometimes “work” — sort of.

But the tactic isn’t always dishonorable. A good talking point can have a great and lasting impact and still be true. We could use one like that now, when a few New York state Town Clerks are refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses while our opponents hail them as heroes of religious freedom.

I’ve come up with something. How does it sound?

In New York, you’ve got state employees demanding you pass their personal religious test before they’ll help you. That’s not religious freedom. In fact, it’s the opposite.

It’s quick, to the point, and true. If I were to point out a key phrase, it would be pass their personal religious test, as in:

• Should you have to pass some bureaucrat’s personal religious test before you get the services your tax dollars paid for?

• Where in the Constitution does it say a government employee can make you pass their personal religious test before getting service?

• Government officials aren’t gods, they’re public servants — they can’t force me to pass their personal religious test before doing their job. 

And if you want to take the conversation further, offer hypotheticals that have nothing to do with gays.

• Do you want a Town Clerk refusing a marriage license to an interfaith couple because they don’t pass his personal religious test?

• Do you want a city official turning down your permit for a public gathering because you’ll have dancing and that doesn’t pass her personal religious test?

• Do you want the zoning committee to turn down your church’s building permit because your faith doesn’t pass their personal religious test?

If you like this approach it, take it. Post it. Share it. Pass it on.

Vermont Hotel Owners Sued Over Violations Of Public Accommodations Law

A lesbian couple is suing a Vermont hotel owner after the hotel refused to host their wedding reception. Kate Baker and Ming Linsley say that the Wildflower Inn in Lyndonville, VT, abruptly turned them away after learning they are lesbians, an act which violates Vermont’s Fair Housing and Accommodations Act. That law prohibits inn, hotels, motels, and other establishments with five or more rooms from turning away patrons on the basis of race, religion, and sexual orientations, among other reasons. The ACLU, which is handling the lawsuit, claims that at least two other couples have been turned away as well.

A George Rekers Case Study: Where Is “Paul”?

Our next case history from the Rekers files involves eight-year-old “Paul,” who was treated at the Gender Identity Clinic at UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute sometime in the early 1970s. As with Kirk Murphy — Rekers’s most famous case history — and with “Carl,” “Paul’s” treatment was paid for by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health. Paul and his two brothers, ages five and nine, had been living with foster parents for four years. Paul’s case (with Kirk and “Carl”) was one of fifteen cases discussed briefly in a 1976 paper comparing “Sex-typed play in feminoid boys versus normal boys and girls,” as the paper’s title put it. Crude measures were created on “percent femininity” scale based on observed play behaviors of boys being treated at UCLA and a control group of students from a nearby elementary school. “Normal” boys scored in the 20% range while “normal” girls scored in the 80% range. “Paul” scored at somewhere below 50%, making him still more “masculine” than “feminine” according to Rekers’s categorizations.

That paper however doesn’t describe much about any of the children individually though. “Paul’s” biographical debut would come a year later in a paper published by Rekers and four other researchers at UCLA, including Alexander Rosen (who was involved with Kirk’s case) and Benson P. Low (who was a co-author of “Carl’s” case, and who would go on to work with Rekers later while at the Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena).” The paper, “Assessment of Childhood Gender Behavior Change,” appeared in the January 1977 issue of the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. By then, Rekers had added an another affiliation to his name: director of Logos Research Institute, a Christian-based research think tank that he founded in the 1970s which would serve as a model for later when he co-founded the Family Research Council. The paper introduced Paul this way:

Paul had a 4-yr history of playing with his foster mother’s jewelry and cosmetics. He often improvised feraale clothing by wrapping towels around his waist to make skirts, or by tying ribbons in his hair to simulate long hair. He repeatedly asked for a girl’s dress to wear, he cross-dressed, and he played with girls’ dolls. He obsessively changed his clothing several times daily to remain clean, and expressed strong avoidance of masculine games that involved “rough-and-tumble” action or getting dirty. In fact, he appeared unable to play masculine-like games proficiently. Paul regularly avoided play with his brothers and boys in the neighborhood, complaining “they call me girly and sissy”. The foster parents observed that Paul’s peers rejected him because he exhibited effeminate gait and arm movements and cross-gender voice inflection. The extent of Paul’s adoption of a female sex-role is reflected in his frequent statements to his foster mother: “I want to be a girl so that I can have a baby”. In addition to the gender disturbance, Paul had a 3-yr history of encopresis and the behavior problems of non-compliance to parental requests and excessive temper tantrums. He was characteristically unhappy and sought to cooperate with professional assistance. Paul complained that all the boys and many of the girls his age would not play with him. He described himself as being shy and lonely and told us that his foster mother brought him to see us in order to help him be happier. He asked us if we could help him be happier, and be like the other boys. He asked questions such as “Why do the boys call me a sissy?” and “Why don’t the boys play with me?” We assured him that we would try our best to help him with these problems.

Rekers and his colleagues, by this point, had sought to distinguish between different degrees of severity of gender-nonconformity. For patients like Kirk, “Joan,” and “Carl,” Rekers felt that they were so severely “disturbed” that he diagnosed them with “cross-gender identification.” Paul’s case, according to Rekers, wasn’t so profound:

The data suggested that the problem was a gender-role disturbance and effeminate behavior rather than a profound childhood cross-gender identification. In the absence of treatment, the boy would be a high risk for transvestism or sexual orientation disturbance, and a moderate-to-low risk for transsexualism.

By the mid-1970s, Rekers had introduced new methods for treatment. During the play-time in the clinic, “Paul” was videotaped through the one-way mirror. After play time was over, “Paul” was shown the video and asked to identify each instance of feminine behavior. If he identified them correctly, he was awarded a penny. This was to get him used to identifying every instance of girlish behavior, some of which he was apparently unaware. After several sessions, the game changed. “Paul” was awarded 25 pennies, but as he played with a therapist he would lose a penny any time he made a feminine gesture or verbal inflection. He was also put on the red chip/blue chip program at home. In addition, he was given athletic training, ensuring that he didn’t throw like a girl while playing ball. After about a year, Rekers, once again, had claimed another success:

At termination of treatment, Paul’s sex-role behaviors had changed markedly. Our clinical observations, which were corroborated by the foster mother and other friends and relatives, indicated that Paul now looked and acted like most other boys his age. He was wearing jeans and T-shirts exclusively and no longer avoided rough-and-tumble games for fear of getting dirty or hurt. He also appeared to be much more comfortable in a male role, and rarely asked his foster mother for girls’ toys and clothing. Our follow-up observations indicated occasional cross-gender behavior, although at a much lower frequency than before treatment. The 2-yr follow-up observation indicated no feminine mannerisms in the home, as indicated by session “F” on Fig. 6. There has been no recurrence in his verbal expressions of wanting to be a girl, and the encopresis has not recurred.

Little additional information is available about “Paul.” It would appear that his follow-ups ended by the time he was eleven years old, which would still be before puberty. If there were any follow-up investigations after that, Rekers never published the results, not even in a cursory two-sentence form that he used in assuring readers that Kirk Murphy was still heterosexual at the age of fifteen. Rekers’s two-sentence follow-up descriptions for Paul ended much earlier for reasons that remain unknown. If “Paul” is still out there, he is probably approaching fifty years old, and very likely unaware that his case has been published in the professional literature. I wonder what a follow-up investigation forty years after the fact would tell us.

See Also:
“Carl,” age 8½
“Joan,” age 14
“Paul,” age 8
“Wayne,” age 7
And, of course, “Kraig” (Kirk Murphy), age 4

The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, July 20

TODAY’S AGENDA:
First Ever Senate Hearings On DOMA Repeal: Washington, DC. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, will convene the Senate’s first-ever hearing on the proposed Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act.” Scheduled to testify is 77-year-old veteran Ron Wallen, who married Tom Carollo, his partner of 55 years. Carollo died in March, and Wallen is bared from receiving his spouse’s Social Security survivor benefit. Due to the loss of income, he is being forced to sell the home the couple shared in Indo, CA. Anti-gay activists Tom Minnery of the Family “Research” Council Focus On the Family and David Austin R. Nimocks of the Alliance Defense Fund will explain why Wallen should be denied the same benefits every other faithful (and unfaithful) heterosexually married couple enjoy and, as a result, lose his home. The hearings will take place beginning at 9:45 EDT at the Hart Senate Office Building, Room 216. The hearings willl be streamed live according to the committee’s web site.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Burlington, VT; Detroit, MI (Black Pride); Ft. Wayne, IN; Halifax, NS; and Tampere, Finland.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Rep. Gerry Studds Censured: 1983. On this date in history, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to censure Reps. Gerry Studds (D-MA) and Daniel Crane (R-IL), who admitted to having sexual affairs with pages. Crane admitted to having sex with a 17-year-old female page three years earlier, while Studds acknowledged a relationship with a 17-year-old male page ten years earlier. Both Studds and the page described the relationship as consensual and not intimidating. When Studds returned home to his district following his censure, he was met with standing ovations at his first town meeting. He would continue to be re-elected to Congress until his retirement in 1997, where he fought for AIDS funding, gays in the military, and marriage equality. When Studds died in 2006, his legally married spouse was denied Studd’s pension, which is provided to all other surviving spouses of former members of Congress.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).