Will “The Sissy Boy Experiment” Finally Mean Death For “Ex-Gay Therapy”?
Read all the stories in “The Sissy Boy Experiment” series section. We’ll be adding more throughout the day today and the rest of the week.
Will “The Sissy Boy Experiment,” a three-part series from CNN’s Anderson Cooper which began Monday night, be the death of so-called “ex-gay” therapy? It should be. So-called “ex-gay therapy,” the pseudo-science of changing someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity to heterosexual, also labeled “conversion therapy,” has gotten its final nail in the coffin, thanks in large part to author Jim Burroway, whose extensive research — even more in-depth and broader that CNN’s – uncovered the fact that the man responsible for the so-called ex-gay movement, George Alan Rekers, fraudulently reported on a pivotal study — his study, as a student — back in the 1970s.
READ: Hey, George, How’s That Ex-Gay Hopey-Changey Thing Working Out?
The study? A four-year old boy, known as “Kraig” to millions who read the 20+ research papers Rekers published on him, had exhibited so-called “feminine” characteristics early on. “Kraig” went through Rekers’ emotionally and physically violent aversion therapy — not just “praying away the gay” — but attempts to physically beat homosexuality out of him. Rekers falsely reported that Kurt Murphy, aka “Kraig,†became a well-adjusted heterosexual man intent on marrying a woman and having a family. In reality, “Kraig,” after ten months of “therapy,” between the ages of four and five, attempted suicide at seventeen, and succeeded after a miserably unhappy life, at 38.
“In 1972, George Alan Rekers wrote a dissertation that earned him a Ph.D. in Psychology,” Burroway writes at Box Turtle Bulletin. “His dissertation described his success in treating three young boys whom he diagnosed as having a ‘cross-gender disturbance.’ The boys’ treatments were part of a federally funded study at UCLA. Two years later, Rekers and his mentor, Dr. Ivar Lovaas, published a groundbreaking paper based in Rekers’s dissertation. It featured one boy in particular, five-year-old Kraig. That paper launched Rekers’s career, and he would feature or mention Kraig’s case in at least twenty papers, books and chapters in the forty years following his dissertation.
“In 1987 another UCLA researcher, Dr. Richard Green, published a book, titled The ‘Sissy Boy Syndrome’ and the Development of Homosexuality. Kraig — this time his name would be changed to ‘Kyle’ — was one of a dozen feminine boys featured in his treatise on cross-gender behavior. Green interviewed Kyle’s parents when Kyle was five, Kyle and his mother when Kyle was seventeen, and Kyle again when he was eighteen. That last interview left Green considerably more ambivalent about Kyle’s sexuality than Rekers was. Rekers described Kraig as ‘indistinguishable from any other boy in terms of gender-related behaviors,’ but Green wrote that Kyle was bisexual. Green also revealed that Kyle tried to commit suicide when he was seventeen. Nevertheless, Green concluded that no one was ‘obviously harmed by treatment.’ (emphasis his).”
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Rekers wrote a questionably falsely dissertation on a fraudulent research study that not only earned him his Ph.D., and not only created his entire “ex-gay therapy” career, but with that fraudulent research, Rekers started an entire movement of people who, based on Rekers’ research, believed that people could be turned straight.
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So already it’s clear that Rekers either falsified his Ph.D. dissertation, lied, or didn’t deserve the degree based on amazingly sloppy reporting of his so-called “research.”
This is not only monumental, but, in my personal opinion, should be criminal. Also what should be criminal: the so-called “ex-gay therapy” industry takes in hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Think about this: Rekers wrote a questionably falsely dissertation on a fraudulent research study that not only earned him his Ph.D., and not only created his entire “ex-gay therapy” career, but with that fraudulent research, Rekers started an entire movement of people who, based on Rekers’ research, believed that people could be turned straight.
(As an aside, one must ask why no aversion therapy studies were made to see if people could be “turned” homosexual.)
Rekers co-founded or had high-level associations with several anti-gay organizations, groups which have now disowned him, including NARTH — the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality — on whose boeard of directors he sat, and the now-certified hate group, Family Research Council, which he co-founded along with the notoriously homophobic James Dobson.
The ACLU in 2004 wrote, “Rekers relies on the discredited research of Paul Cameron, an anti-gay “”researcher”” who was kicked out of the American Psychological Association for misrepresenting the research regarding homosexuality.”
Burroway writes that Rekers “projected an image as a successful clinical psychologist and a respected professor. And those credentials opened doors for him as an expert witness before Congressional committees and courtroom judges.” Indeed. For example, Rekers was paid $120,000 for testimony against same-sex couples adopting in Florida.
Rekers was taken down last year when two reporters in Miami photographed him with a 20-year old male companion who he paid to “carry his luggage,” during a trip to Europe. While that may have ended his career, it must be noted that Rekers’ career ended lives.
Isn’t that criminal?
The New Civil Rights Movement will have follow-up pieces on Rekers, the ex-gay movement, and the terribly sad story of Kurt Murphy, aka “Kraig,†whom, we believe, successfully completed suicide because of George Rekers.
Images: top: CNN. Insert: Kurt Murphy, age 3, courtesy of Jim Burroway and Kaytee Murphy.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
