Julia update: Whipping Girl 2nd edition, Sister Spit 2016, future releases, and more!

So yesterday I sent out my latest email update. In it, I discuss:

1) Whipping Girl 2nd edition is here!
2) March 2016 tour dates (including Sister Spit)!
3) new writings and web updates!
4) two brand new books coming later this year!

You can read the update in all its glory here.

If you want future Julia updates emailed directly to you, please sign up for my email list.

enjoy! -j.

placing Ken Zucker's clinic in historical context

Note added March 28, 2021:

Five years after it was published, this post is receiving renewed attention in the wake of Jesse Singal's recent assertion that he does not support conversion therapy. While I cannot speak to Singal's personal views on the matter, the article he penned (discussed below) strongly (and I would add, unduly) defended Ken Zucker against charges that his clinic conducted gender conversion/reparative therapy. 

Below, I describe the history behind Zucker's approach, and how both "gay conversion" and "gender reparative" therapies share the exact same strategy of coercing gender non-conforming children to behave in a more normative manner, in the hopes that this might "turn" them heterosexual and/or cisgender.

This history has become obscured as time has passed, especially since few practitioners nowadays want to be associated with "gay conversion." I often recommend Phyllis Burke's book Gender Shock: Exploding the Myths of Male and Female (1996), which details the historical connections between these related approaches.

If you don't want to buy Burke's book, I would recommend Stephanie Wilkinson's archived article Drop the Barbie! (2001). It outlines the history of these overlapping approaches – from George Rekers, to Richard Green, to Ken Zucker – and includes the very telling quote that appears below.

from Wilkinson, "Drop the Barbie"

More recently, in their YouTube broadcast The XX Factor, Christa Peterson and Katy Montgomerie delve deeply into Ken Zucker's own journal publications to show (in his own words) that his goals were to change children's gender identities and expressions. They also show how Singal's article obfuscated these facts (see also this thread).

Lastly, here is Florence Ashley's very comprehensive List of professional organisations opposing conversion or reparative therapy targeting transgender and gender non-conforming individuals.