Anti-gay therapy recipient commits suicide

[grdell]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/06/07/sissy.boy.experiment/index.html

[Callie Del Noire]

It's sad really. To see someone with so much to live for. But I think that this isn't anything particularly new. Very tragic yes. But there has been a long history of suicides and 'gender-realignment' therapies (no matter what they are called and how they are treated).

[Izu]

:/ I'm just speechless. And I feel like throwing up with disgust.

[Callie Del Noire]

:/ I'm just speechless. And I feel like throwing up with disgust.

I'm (like I said) am sad.. and depressed. It's annoying to see that these 'scientists' can't see how these treatments go historically. That ought to tell them something.

[Revolverman]

I'm close to putting my fist through a wall. fucking BEATING HIM!? Great fucking parents.

[TheGlyphstone]

:/ I'm just speechless. And I feel like throwing up with disgust.

The disgusting part is how the parents cheerfully and willingly participated in the 'therapy', but now that he's dead, all of a sudden it's the doctor's fault.

[Jag]

The disgusting part is how the parents cheerfully and willingly participated in the 'therapy', but now that he's dead, all of a sudden it's the doctor's fault.

Exactly. The mother even stated at one point that she trusted the guy because 'he's a doctor'. If you google the guy's name (the man that died) it brings up a full report about the situation and how it's affected his siblings. His brother said that in the follow up appointments his brother would say that he was fine and happy, but swears that he only said those things because he feared what would happen if he didn't.

Also, some people are wondering what has happened with the other children that were in this 'therapy'. He used fake names in his reports and there was one of a little girl that was a tomboy and 'cured' when she fell in love with one of the male examiners.

It's horrible to think that people put their children through this simply because they trusted this doctor.

[Lithos]

Also, how much you do for your country does not seem to matter at all at such things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing

It is sad, really. Turing is one of my heroes and what they did to him was what brought this whole issue to my knowledge and no doubt many others. I cannot imagine how trying to "cure" something that is not a disease but ones nature could ever end up with other than sad results.

[Callie Del Noire]

Ah yes, Alan Turing. There are a lot of question marks around his suicide. One of the great tragedies of the 20th century I think. One has to wonder what would have come out of his mind if he had lived longer.

[Serephino]

Yeah, I don't think the parents had much room to talk.  They were the ones that found something wrong with his behavior, and took him to that quack.  They did everything they were told without question.  We were all given a brain for a reason.  These people didn't use theirs.

[Nico]

Yeah, I don't think the parents had much room to talk.  They were the ones that found something wrong with his behavior, and took him to that quack.  They did everything they were told without question.  We were all given a brain for a reason.  These people didn't use theirs.

This. +1

This makes me sad and angry.

[Rhys]

Yeah, I don't think the parents had much room to talk.  They were the ones that found something wrong with his behavior, and took him to that quack.  They did everything they were told without question.  We were all given a brain for a reason.  These people didn't use theirs.

This. Quotes I've seen from the mother on this blow my mind. The parents beat him and then years later when he commits suicide, she blames the doctors after pointing out that the beatings continued after the therapy ended. The doctors were horrible but it was, as said above, the parents who took him to see them. It was the parents who, when instructed to whip their child or to deprive him of attention went "well this just seems sane and normal. I'll do it because this doctor told me to."

I hear some people, not on this site of course, going 'well it was the 70s. Parenting was different back then.' I'm sorry, even if beating your kid with a belt was more accepted, beating him for doing nothing wrong wasn't. Depriving him of affection when he played with the toys he liked wasn't. That was just as sick and twisted then as it is now and if the mother wants someone to blame, she need only look in the mirror.

[Oniya]

Yes, parenting was different then.  Spankings weren't looked at as abuse.  Belts, on the other hand - even in a family with a military father, the idea of a belt was something horrifying.  That was something that got brought up during one of those open-hand spankings as something that you were lucky you weren't getting, because you had parents who cared about you.  Maybe you heard about 'when I was a kid, your grandma made me cut a switch from the willow/birch/etc. tree in the back yard', or 'when I was a kid, grandpa took me out behind the woodshed.'  Bill Cosby mentioned a belt in one of his routines, and everyone shuddered.  Joan Crawford broke out a wire coat hanger (1981, but if you were watching that movie, you were probably over 10), and you saw her as a hateful, evil person.

[Valencia]

It's just one big frickin' circus. If anything, the parents (and any one who approves of their actions) are the ones that need some TOLERANCE THERAPY. No one's punching them in the face for being morons.  :-\

[Wintercat]

Sickening. I cant help but curse the people that cant accept people's orientation, it might shock some people but honestly, if they spent a little while thinking it open minded perhaps they might see some sense in it as well... but I fear that they have also a lot of deep-rooted issues that leave them unwilling to accept things.

Amazing what repressing common sense can do.

I just wish some people who read that begin to think, and learn to -question- such methods.

[Langueduchatte]

The fact that this kind of thing still occurs really disheartens me...Firstly, the family (social mores of different eras aside)...what on earth were they thinking?...he was a five-year-old-boy!  Ferfucksakes!  And the perma-tanned quack from the Aquinas Clinic...argh! Makes my blood boil.  What are these people afraid of? 

[Malefique]

The fact that this kind of thing still occurs really disheartens me...Firstly, the family (social mores of different eras aside)...what on earth were they thinking?...he was a five-year-old-boy!  Ferfucksakes!  And the perma-tanned quack from the Aquinas Clinic...argh! Makes my blood boil.  What are these people afraid of?

What are they afraid of?  Anything and anyone that isn't exactly like them, I'm afraid.  Which puts them on a par with the people who beat or  kill someone because they're not white, or not black, or not Christian, or not Muslim, or not wearing the same colour clothes, or because they've got piercings or wear Goth clothing....  What makes me absolutely furious is that these ones took out their fear on a child.  In the case of the parents, their own child.  Sometimes I just want to take a hammer and nails to people's heads...

[MasterMischief]

This makes me sick to my stomach.  Can we send his parents for 're-education'?  Better their son be a miserable little kid than turn out to be gay?  For everyone who thinks homosexuality can be cured, why don't you test to see if your heterosexuality can be 'cured'.

[Nico]

For everyone who thinks homosexuality can be cured, why don't you test to see if your heterosexuality can be 'cured'.

~applauds~

[Jag]

Oh, not sure if people know, but the doctor that performed the therapy was caught in Europe with a Rentboy. The doctor claims he didn't know that the boy was a prostitute, but the boy claims that the doctor had him perform daily, nude massages for ten days. More specifically the boy says that the doctor asked for a move called 'The Long Stroke' many times.

This all happened about a year ago.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/05/george-rekers-anti-gay-ac_n_565142.html

He claims that he only hired the boy to carry and move his luggage, but:

But in fact, we saw Rekers pushing his own luggage cart while the escort idled to the side. -Source

[MasterMischief]

Shocking.[/sarcasm]

[Langueduchatte]

Ah! Yes... I remember that one, now!
Excellent!  ;D
"Hubris, meet Nemesis...
Nemesis this is Hubris..."


My question What are they afraid of? was kind of rhetorical...I just reckon if you're that scared...maybe (juuuust maybe) you are scared you might ENJOY IT!
*Pfft* The long stroke, indeed...
"Carry your sack...er...I mean bag, sir?"