Grrr…

Back in the sixties, Dr. Money thought that gender identity was all nurture, a social construct and that by raising a child as a boy or a girl would result in that person becoming a boy or a girl. The classic case was a set of twins in Canada when one of the boys had an accident during circumcision. Dr. Money advised the parents to raise him as a girl, the results were disastrous, and he eventually committed suicide. His story is told in the book “As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as A Girl” by John Colapinto. Dr Money did a famous case study on the boy, following him though out his life and reporting that the boy was successfully transformed in to a woman. It wasn’t until 1997 that Dr. Milton Diamond, with the cooperation of Dr. H. Keith Sigmundson exposed the truth, that the boy never felt that he was a woman and that he went back to living as man.
Now, Dr. Zucker is still preaching that it is all nurture, that it is how you raise the child that counts, not prenatal conditions. Here is a YouTube video where Dr. Zucker expresses his views on his beliefs; it is the exact same thing that Dr Money said back in the sixties. They were proved wrong then and will be proved wrong again. Dr. Zucker also believe that homosexualism can be cured! He is often use as a reference in articles by National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuals (NARTH) AND this is the man who was appointed to chair the on the Task Force on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders to rewrite the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) which is the handbook for mental health professionals that lists different categories of mental disorders and the criteria for diagnosing them.
There is an on-line petition to ask the American Psychological Association (APA) to remove him and Dr. Blanchard from the committee. Please consider signing the petition.

Related blog entry:
NPR All Things Considered – “Two Families Grapple with Sons' Gender Preferences”

I found the video on Donna Rose’s blog