monsters

George Alan Rekers Never Knew Why His ‘Spank Away the Gay’ Treatment Didn’t Work

In South Africa, a woman claims a member of her church kicked her in the groin, multiple times, because she wanted to convert the lesbian to heterosexuality. It sort of makes the techniques of George Alan Rekers, the disgraced Baptist minister, sound pretty decent.

His training as a certified parenting expert, Rekers, who has five grown children, recommended parents rid their boys of feminine characteristics by spanking it out of them. In the 1970s, he created the Feminine Boy Project at UCLA (!), where he

was presented with a 4-year-old “effeminate boy” named Kraig, whose parents had enrolled him in the program. Rekers put Kraig in a “play-observation room” with his mother, who was equipped with a listening device. When the boy played with girly toys, the doctors instructed her to avert her eyes from the child.

According to a 2001 account in Brain, Child Magazine, “On one such occasion, his distress was such that he began to scream, but his mother just looked away. His anxiety increased, and he did whatever he could to get her to respond to him… Kraig became so hysterical, and his mother so uncomfortable, that one of the clinicians had to enter and take Kraig, screaming, from the room.”

Rekers’s research team continued the experiment in the family’s home. Kraig received red chips for feminine behavior and blue chips for masculine behavior. The blue chips could be cashed in for candy or television time. The red chips earned him a “swat” or spanking from his father. Researchers periodically entered the family’s home to ensure proper implementation of the reward-punishment system.

After two years, the boy supposedly manned up. Over the decades, Rekers, who ran countless similar experiments, held Kraig up as “the poster boy for behavioral treatment of boyhood effeminacy.”

But how do we know if the treatment was actually effective?

At age 18, Rekers’ star patient attempted suicide.

This man is a monster.

Don't forget to share:

Help make sure LGBTQ+ stories are being told...

We can't rely on mainstream media to tell our stories. That's why we don't lock Queerty articles behind a paywall. Will you support our mission with a contribution today?

Cancel anytime · Proudly LGBTQ+ owned and operated