Watch “The Sissy Boy Experiment: Uncovering the Truth,” the Anderson Cooper 360 series, which aired on CNN recently. Below, parts one, two, three and four:
Image: BTB
In 1970, a five-year-old boy named Kirk Murphy was subjected to an ex-gay experiment. Under the care of Dr Ivor Lovaas and George Rekers, then a doctoral student, of UCLA, he underwent therapy to eliminate supposed effeminate behaviors.
In 1974, Lovaas and Rekers jointly published a paper about the boy they renamed “Kraig,” heralding his treatment for “childhood cross-gender problems” a success and claiming he had been transformed from a gender-confused homosexual-in-waiting to a healthy, heterosexual young man.
On the back of this study, Rekers built a career as an anti-gay activist and a supposed expert in childhood sexual development. He co-founded the Family Research Council and championed reparative therapy to turn gay men straight.
In 2003, Kirk, aged 38 years old and gay, committed suicide.
In 2010, George Rekers was photographed with a male escort who had accompanied him on a trip overseas. His reputation was already ruined by the time rent-boy Jo-Vanni Roman, aka “Lucien,” outed Rekers as a homosexual and revealed the allegedly erotic details of their relationship.
Now Kirk’s story is in the media spotlight. Last night, Jim Burroway of Box Turtle Bulletin revealed the results of an investigation into the Rekers experiment and the real story behind “Kraig.” What Are Little Boys Made Of? contains extensive interviews with family members, and several supporting documents giving insight into Rekers, the study and its tragic outcome.
CNN has carried out a parallel investigation, the results of which will be aired in three installments of “The Sissy Boy Experiment: Uncovering the Truth,” beginning tonight (Tuesday, June 7) at 10pm ET on Anderson Cooper 360. George Rekers will appear.
Dr George Rekers has resigned from the board of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), following allegations that he received nude, erotic massages from a male prostitute.
Rekers, who has been an anti-gay activist for decades, took a 10-day European vacation with Jo-Vanni Roman (at first identified only as “Lucien”), a gay escort who says they met through the explicit website Rentboy.com. Rekers faced humiliation in the media after denying the accusations, claiming he he hired Roman to help carry his luggage while he recovered from surgery. He said he only found out Roman was an escort partway through the trip, and responded by evangelizing him and warning him against homosexuality.
Stepping down from NARTH, Rekers wrote:
I am immediately resigning my membership in NARTH to allow myself the time necessary to fight the false media reports that have been made against me. With the assistance of a defamation attorney, I will fight these false reports because I have not engaged in any homosexual behavior whatsoever. I am not gay and never have been.
NARTH responded:
NARTH has accepted Dr. Rekers’ resignation and would hope that the legal process will sufficiently clarify the questions that have arisen in this unfortunate situation. We express our sincere sympathy to all individuals, regardless of their perspective, who have been injured by these events. We also wish to reiterate our traditional position that these personal controversies do not change the scientific data, nor do they detract from the important work of NARTH. NARTH continues to support scientific research, and to value client autonomy, client self-determination and client diversity.
Earlier this week, there were premature reports of some websites and organizations (Focus on the Family’s Family Research Council, for example, which Rekers co-founded) deleting mentions of Rekers from their history. Today, Dr Warren Throckmorton reports that the purge has begun.
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Joe Jervis from the blog Joe.My.God has posted an excellent and refreshingly candid interview he conducted by phone with Jo-Vanni Roman (Lucien), the 20 year old male escort who accompanied anti-gay activist George Rekers to Europe recently. In that interview, Jo-Vanni mentions that he would be taping an interview for “that gay reporter on TV.” Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out (TWO) has confirmed that he will also be on CNN’s 360 with Anderson Cooper tonight.
A transcript of a conversation Rekers reportedly had with Jo-Vanni shortly after the story broke has been posted on the Miami New Times site. Both it and the Jervis interview add to the details. Jo-Vanni seems to be naive but bright and lacking in guile. In contrast, Rekers seems wrapped in layers of hypocritical deception, making conflicting statements and lashing out. The irony has not escaped notice.
Tonight’s interview is probably must-see for anyone who ends up reading here. Feel free to discuss your reactions and observations on this thread after.
The gay escort at the center of the George Rekers scandal says Rekers paid him for nude massages.
On Tuesday, the Miami New Times reported that Dr George Rekers, a long-time anti-gay, ex-gay Religious Right activist and scholar, had taken a vacation with a 20-year-old male prostitute he had met through the sexually explicit website Rentboy.com.
Rekers first claimed “Lucien” was a travel assistant, employed to help him lifting luggage, following recent back surgery. He later added the incredulous story that he was evangelizing Lucien in an attempt to persuade him against homosexuality.
Lucien said there was no sex between them, but he has now admitted there was sexual contact, and told Miami New Times that Rekers paid him for daily body rubs during the European vacation:
Rekers allegedly named his favorite maneuver the “long stroke” – a complicated caress “across his penis, thigh … and his anus over the butt cheeks,” as the escort puts it. “Rekers liked to be rubbed down there,” he says.
Dr George Rekers was co-founder of the Family Research Council, a board member of NARTH, and Distinguished Professor Emeritus Professor at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. The latter disassociated itself from Rekers today by removing his profile from its website. Expect other organizations to follow suit.
Meanwhile, Exodus International President Alan Chambers has written about the situation, calling out the “gay community” for throwing stones at Rekers and for failing to extend any “compassion or care” to Lucien, whom he invites to call Exodus.
Sure, the coverage has been tacky at times, and frankly, I didn’t see a lot of concern for Lucien in some of the reports I read. But Alan’s own attempt to use Lucien as an opportunity to smear gays for offering “counterfeit” community, promote Exodus and its message, and exalt the virtues of his own compassion is hardly much classier – and very transparent.
While the titillating details of the events surrounding anti-gay activist Dr George Rekers’ recent overseas trip with a male escort continue to spread at an incredible rate, there are some errors multiplying just as quickly.
While we fully expect from past experience that conservative sites now referencing Rekers will start to disassociate themselves at some point, there is no evidence that this has happened yet. Contrary to recent reports which are being duplicated with the fast pace of reporting on this story, it does not appear that the Family Research Counsel (FRC) has made any recent edits to their site concerning Rekers.
At some point in the past, perhaps as far back as 2007, the FRC restructured it’s web site. The page describing their origins was changed to eliminate a couple of academics, Armand Nicholoi Jr. of Harvard University and George Rekers of the University of South Carolina. It now focuses more on conservative political figures such as Gerald P. Regier, Department of Health and Human Services in the Reagan administration.
The verbiage concerning Rekers and Nicholoi was moved to their FAQ where it remains (in the answer to the second question). However, even the May 1 Google cache of the page in question shows that it is the same as it was before the Miami New Times story broke.
Again, a silent purge of Rekers from conservative sites would be typical, but it should be noted for the record that this hasn’t yet happened. It’s easy to make mistakes on such a quickly developing bombshell as this — we have all done it — but all the more reason to be especially careful not to cloud the serious facts with false information.
Religious Right scholar, anti-gay activist and NARTH officer Dr George Rekers has responded directly to blogger Joe. My. God following the report that he took a vacation with a male prostitute he’d met through the sexually explicit website Rentboy.com.
Wrote Rekers:
I have spent much time as a mental health professional and as a Christian minister helping and lovingly caring for people identifying themselves as “gay.” My hero is Jesus Christ who loves even the culturally despised people, including sexual sinners and prostitutes. Like Jesus Christ, I deliberately spend time with sinners with the loving goal to try to help them. Mark 2:16-17 reads, “16When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the “sinners” and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” 17On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” In fact, in a dialogue with hypocritical religious leaders, Jesus even stated to them, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him. ” (Matthew 21:31).
Like John the Baptist and Jesus, I have a loving Christian ministry to homosexuals and prostitutes in which I share the Good News of Jesus Christ with them (see I Corinthians 6:8-11). Contrary to false gossip, innuendo, and slander about me, I do not in any way “hate” homosexuals, but I seek to lovingly share two types of messages to them, as I did with the young man called “Lucien” in the news story: [1] It is possible to cease homosexual practices to avoid the unacceptable health risks associated with that behavior, and [2] the most important decision one can make is to establish a relationship with God for all eternity by trusting in Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins, including homosexual sins. If you talk with my travel assistant that the story called “Lucien,” you will find I spent a great deal of time sharing scientific information on the desirability of abandoning homosexual intercourse, and I shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him in great detail.
According to the Miami New Times, an anti-gay activist and NARTH officer took a vacation with a rentboy he met through the sexually explicit gay hookup website Rentboy.com.
George Rekers, PhD is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, and has been lurking behind the scenes of the Religious Right and the ex-gay movement for decades. In 1983, he co-founded the vociferously homophobic Family Research Council with Dr James Dobson of Focus on the Family, and – among other political activities – he testified against gay adoption in the state of Florida, in 2008. He has written extensively against LGBT persons, as a search of the NARTH website will show.
But now the academic who has worked tirelessly for discrimination against gays has reportedly vacationed with a gay male prostitute he met through a gay website. The Miami New Times reports:
Rekers said he learned [travel companion] Lucien was a prostitute only midway through their vacation. “I had surgery,” Rekers said, “and I can’t lift luggage. That’s why I hired him.” (Though medical problems didn’t stop him from pushing the tottering baggage cart through MIA.)
Yet Rekers wouldn’t deny he met his slender, blond escort at Rentboy.com — which features homepage images of men in bondage and grainy videos of crotch-rubbing twinks — and Lucien confirmed it.
There would appear little doubt that Rekers met Lucien by deliberately trawling the explicit website. As the article points out, users must manually agree to to enter the site in the knowledge that it contains graphic sexual material.
Dr Rekers is the second NARTH officer this year to be exposed by the media. In February, the pseudo-psychiatric organization’s Executive Secretary Arthur Abba Goldberg was revealed to have been hiding a criminal past. Goldberg, who also co-founded and co-directs the Jewish ex-gay organization JONAH, was found to have been convicted and jailed for his part in a major Wall Street fraud during the 1980s.
Goldberg subsequently resigned from NARTH – but not before blaming the LGBT community for his failings.
We can expect Rekers’s name to be quietly removed from NARTH’s list of officers in the coming days.
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