Author: Warren Throckmorton

In case you heard the rumors…
The Phelps clan had planned to picket at Eastern Michigan University (why there, I don’t know) due to the participation of several Campus Crusade for Christ groups in the Golden Rule Pledge/Day of Silence. I will not link to the Westboro page but this blogger has links enough to keep anyone busy for awhile looking at the whole story.
Now, back to final exams…

This National Public Radio broadcast provides a look at the controversies surrounding how to treat gender identity concerns in childhood. Essentially dividing the field into two camps, the program follows the treatment choices of two families. One approach, represented by Kenneth Zucker, advocates making “the child comfortable with the sex he or she was born with.” The reporter elaborates further:

So, to treat Bradley, Zucker explained to Carol that she and her husband would have to radically change their parenting. Bradley would no longer be allowed to spend time with girls. He would no longer be allowed to play with girlish toys or pretend that he was a female character. Zucker said that all of these activities were dangerous to a kid with gender identity disorder. He explained that unless Carol and her husband helped the child to change his behavior, as Bradley grew older, he likely would be rejected by both peer groups. Boys would find his feminine interests unappealing. Girls would want more boyish boys. Bradley would be an outcast.

Zucker’s approach is contrasted with Oakland, CA therapist, Diane Ehrensaft’s approach. She advocates:

She describes children like Bradley and Jonah as transgender. And, unlike Zucker, she does not think parents should try to modify their child’s behavior. In fact, when Pam and Joel came to see her, she discouraged them from putting Jonah into any kind of therapy at all. Pam says because Ehrensaft does not see transgenderism itself as a dysfunction, the therapist didn’t think Pam and Joel should try to cure Jonah.
Ehrensaft did eventually encourage Joel and Pam to allow Jonah to live as a little girl. By the time he was 5, Jonah had made it very clear to his parents that he wanted to wear girl clothes full time — that he wanted to be known as a girl. He wanted them to call him their daughter. And though Ehrensaft does not always encourage children who express gender flexibility to “transition” to living as a member of the opposite sex, in the case of Jonah, she thought it was appropriate.

The whole program is intriguing, controversial and worth a review.
UPDATE – The second part of this story is out today here and a school district in Southeastern PA is confronting this issue.

This is just off the wall.
Wayne Besen has a blog post this morning with this title:

‘Corrective Rape’ of Lesbians In South African Schools Shows Sickness of ‘Ex-Gay’ Movement

In a confusing post, Besen first suggests via his title that the rape of lesbians in South Africa somehow demonstrates something about the ex-gay movement. Then he says, “these extreme cases do not represent the so-called “ex-gay” movement in general.” However, in the last sentence of the post, he hints again at a link with this: “It is time to end the sickening abuse in all of its injurious forms that occur in the name of “corrective” or “ex-gay” therapy.”
This is outrageous. When Paul Cameron links gays and teacher-student sex, he is rightly denounced and dismissed. In my opinion, this post from Besen is the same kind of tactic. What is the point of that post and that headline? How does it further accurate understanding of the story he claims to be telling?
I call on people of good will to challenge this kind of shrill, polarizing rhetoric. I didn’t approve of Sally Kern calling the gay agenda worse than terrorists and I hope people will condemn this linking of sexual violence with people who refrain from homosexual behavior due to conscience of religious belief.

This will be short. This morning I spoke at the Christian Medical Society breakfast along with Dr. Al Mohler. We presented abbreviated versions of the remarks originally planned for the APA symposium. From there, I had conversations with several psychiatrists who were quite enthusiastic about the Sexual Identity Therapy Framework. Without naming names, I learned that there is a group of gay psychiatrists and observers who were not happy that the symposium did not happen.
Something I want to mention is that I presented a similar program regarding the SIT framwork at the American Psychological Association last August in San Francisco. At that meeting, there were no protests and few distortions of my views and work. Why the difference here? Part of it may have related to Dr. Mohler’s presence but I am struck by the extreme differences at this APA.
I enjoyed meeting the participants of the symposium and reflecting on the turn of events.

The Washington Times has a lengthy article on the APA cancellation with an interview from David Scasta. For now, I only have time to post it. I hope to have more comment about the whole situation soon.
May 3, 2008
Other articles about the symposium have come from MedPage Today, Citizenlink and Worldnetdaily.
First a couple of corrections and observations about these articles. The MedPage Today article leads by saying the symposium was to have covered “the ethics of ‘therapies’ for homosexuality.” Not so. We were not going to discuss therapy for homosexuality as if homosexuality is a disorder to be treated. In a related statement, the reporter referred to me as “closely identified with therapies to ‘cure’ homosexuality.” Again not so. That would require me to hold a view of homosexuality as a disorder which I do not.
The Citizenlink article makes a similar mistake in reporting that the symposium was to provide a “‘balanced discussion’ on the origins and treatment of homosexuality.” See the above on the treatment issue and the symposium was not going to discuss causal factors relating to homosexuality.
The Worldnetdaily article is interesting as I think it is largely accurate about some of the factors which led to the demise of the program. For instance, the Gay City News article of last weekend was an attack piece and may get a separate post to outline the problems with it. The WND article incorrectly identifies David Scasta as past-president of the APA (he is past-president of the Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists, a related group). Another point of the WND article is the quote attributed to Peter LaBarbera: “it wouldn’t be correct to ‘paint Warren Throckmorton as the religious right.'”
Peter’s quote highlights something I recently taught in social psychology: The more familiar one is with a group, the more one sees the diversity of that group. Social conservatives are not of the same mind when it comes to homosexuality. Case in point, this blog posts from Derek Keefe at Christianity Today and the Indegayforum regarding the different ways to respond to the Day of Silence. Those outside the social conservative world may very well lump me in with “efforts to cure” as a part of the “religious right” (is there a membership card?). However, those closer to those circles see the differences and experience them as very significant. As I have talked and listened to people of various ideological leanings, I see the same thing on the other side. I continue to hope for opportunities for dialogue, despite the efforts of those who worked to undermine the symposium.