This is SO sad! It literally brings tears to our eyes.
At 5-years-old, a happy Kirk Andrew Murphy preferred to play with dolls over little plastic army men leading his mother to enroll him in a government-funded therapy program at UCLA designed to eliminate young children’s “exaggerated feminine qualities.”
The “therapy” instructed Kirk’s parents to offer their child rewards for playing with boys’ toys coupled with harsh physical and emotional abuse if he chose to play with girls’ toys.
George A. Rekers, a doctoral student at the time who led the study, declared in an academic journal that the therapy had rid Kirk of any effeminate qualities and left him “indistinguishable from any other boy.” Rekers then went on to a build a career of influence based on his premise that homosexuality can be prevented.
Unforunately for Kirk, Dr. Reker’s hypothesis was wrong. Instead of preventing “homosexuality”, he simply prevented that young child from living a normal life.
His brother and sister say Kirk was never the same after therapy, explaining on the verge of tears:
“It left Kirk just totally stricken with the belief that he was broken, that he was different from everybody else. He even ate his lunch in the boy’s bathroom for three years of his high school career, if you want to call it that.”
In 2003, their worst fears were confirmed when at just 38-years-old Kirk Andrew Murphy took his own life.
Of course, Dr. Reker does not see any correlation between his controversial therapy and Kirk’s suicide years later, saying:
“That’s a long time ago, and to hypothesize, you have a hypothesis that positive treatment back in the 1970s has something to do with something happening decades later. That would, that hypothesis would need a lot of scientific investigation to see if it’s valid.”
Kirk’s mother, on the other hand, has finally seen the light, recognizing that the therapy may be blame for her son’s death, explaining:
“I blame them for the way his life turned out. If one person causes another person’s death, I don’t care if it’s 20 or 50 years later, it’s the same as murder in my eyes.”
Unfortunately, it seems that Mr. and Mrs. Murphy share just as much of the blame for ever enrolling their son in this disgusting program. Perhaps, however, there is something more despicable about a man preying on parent’s fears to acquire test subjects for a ludicrous theory based on prejudiced beliefs.
We can only hope Kirk’s unfortunate story stresses the importance to others that we NEED to accept people for WHO THEY ARE!
Love you child for who they are, not who society feels they should be. Please watch the video above to see the devastating effects of this truly disturbing “therapy”.
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