Gender-reparative therapies (sometimes called gender-conversion therapies) typically involve the use of positive and negative reinforcement strategies—e.g., having parents discourage or withhold gender non-conforming expression, toys, play partners, etc., while encouraging gender-normative behaviors—in an attempt to convert transgender or gender non-conforming children into cisgender and gender-normative ones.
While the practice used to be more common, and while a few researchers (such as Ken Zucker) still advocate for such approaches, the field of trans health as a whole now considers such practices to be both unsuccessful (as it merely coerces children to temporarily hide or repress their gender identities and expressions, which they may assert again at a later age) and unethical (as it often results in a host of negative psychological outcomes, as reviewed in Temple Newhook et al., 2018).
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| WPATH's SOC7 |
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) has said as much in their most current Standards of Care (SOC) for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender Nonconforming People (version 7). A PDF of the SOC7 can be downloaded here. The passage in question can be found on page 175, and it reads as follows:
"Treatment aimed at trying to change a person’s gender identity and expression to become more congruent with sex assigned at birth has been attempted in the past without success (Gelder & Marks, 1969; Greenson, 1964), particularly in the long term (Cohen-Kettenis & Kuiper, 1984; Pauly, 1965). Such treatment is no longer considered ethical."
Florence Ashley has subsequently published (in October 2018) the amazingly comprehensive List of professional organisations opposing conversion or reparative therapy targeting transgender and gender non-conforming individuals, which cites over fifty groups and provides excerpts from, and links to, their position statements.
Here are a few other articles I have written that touch on this subject:
- Placing Ken Zucker's clinic in historical context (2016) discusses the long history of gender-reparative therapies, and links to books, stories, and articles that describe what these practices entail, and how traumatic they often are for children who are subjected to them.
- Detransition, Desistance, and Disinformation: A Guide for Understanding Transgender Children Debates (2016) addresses popular misconceptions and biases that plague debates about gender-reparative therapies versus gender-affirming approaches.
- Transgender Agendas, Social Contagion, Peer Pressure, and Prevalence (2017) challenges fearmongering claims that gender-affirming approaches are "turning children transgender."
- Reframing “Transgender Desistance” Debates (2018) shares recent research debunking the "80% Desistance" narrative that is often cited in support of gender-reparative therapies.
- The big problem with Alice Dreger’s Wired article about (or not about) gender conversion therapies (2015).
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