The American Psychological Association (APA) has just given a female-to-male transgender graduate student its prestigious “Award for Distinguished Early-Career Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest.”
Opponents of the practice say that it involves shaming the client, causing him to deny his true self, and breaking up family ties. I would like to take this opportunity to explain what reparative therapy actually is.
Some take the position that the condition is a developmental disorder--particularly, a gender-identity disorder--which leads to a romantic idealization and sexualization of the qualities that the individual experiences as deficient within himself.