CW: Suicide, child abuse on the basis of gender and sexuality, aversives, torture
Update 12/26/21: Additional commentary can be found here.
Now that we’ve kicked off Pride Month by first discussing how conservatism is equated to unethical practices, let’s continue by discussing the dirty little secret ABA defenders don’t like to hear about: O. Ivar Lovaas’ contributions to Gay Conversion Therapy.
When I first heard ABA compared to conversion therapy, I could not have been more livid. For context: The overwhelming majority of my loved ones are gender, sexual, and/or romantic minorities, including myself and my spouse. I had never taken more offense to anything in my life. However, all it took was some light digging off the paths well-worn by ABA’s insular community to find the truth. Lovaas not only participated in conversion therapy, he also contributed to its creation.
What is conversion therapy?
Conversion therapy is more an umbrella term for varying approaches meant to force behavior more in-line with a person’s assigned gender at birth, including heterosexuality and conformity to gender stereotypes in the U.S. The United Nations Human Rights division defined conversion therapy with 3 main types: Psychotherapy, Medical, and Faith-Based.
The faith-based version is usually based on fundamentalist Christian ideas and uses these interpretations of Biblical sources to implement behavioral change. It focuses on the idea that gender, sexual, and romantic minorities (GSRM) are inherently evil and lead to eternal damnation. Methods vary from prayer, use of anti-GSRM rhetoric and sermons, beatings, starvation, and exorcism.
Medical interventions consist of chemical castration and use of classical conditioning to change behavior. For example, a gay man may be exposed to homoerotic media and then given nausea-inducing drugs to make such content aversive. Other times, the gay man may be exposed to heterosexual pornographic media while his genitals are stimulated to pair sexual pleasure with heterosexual content.
The psychological approach (because to call this therapy would be a gross misnomer), contains primarily behavioral approaches and is based on the idea that GSRM behavior is fundamentally pathological. Techniques in this area may also include the classical conditioning used in the medical model, as well as operant conditioning, such as punishments and differential reinforcement. See: Rekers and Lovaas (1974). “Wrong” behaviors and play are systematically punished using anything from planned ignoring to spanking, while “right” behaviors and play are reinforced with love-bombing and praise (sound familiar?).
Lovaas’ role
George Rekers, a student of Lovaas, pioneered the Feminine Boy Project as part of his doctoral work. Aside from supervising Rekers in his endeavors, Lovaas helped fund, acquire grants, and assisted in cataloging interventions and obtaining participants for it (Gibson, M & Douglas, P.). The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) funded the project from 1972-1986 for the proposed treatment of “prehomosexual behavior” (BrianKate). That is, these experts in behavior modification would receive referrals for children exhibiting “deviant behavior” for their assigned gender in order to prevent them from “becoming homosexuals.” This goal turned to preventing “transsexuality” when homosexuality was removed from the DSM in the mid-70s (BrianKate).
“Kraig” of the infamous 1974 paper was considered the “poster boy” of the project due to the overwhelming “success” in their intervention with him. Of course, when he attempted suicide at age 18 and succeeded in his 30s, suddenly their role in his behavior was far less significant. Rekers and Lovaas responded to the family’s statements– that the treatment contributed to his death– by saying it was merely “hypothesis.”
Conversion therapy would continue to leave a body count and even more trauma in its wake throughout the next three decades. The majority of the “participants” (read: victims) were male-bodied children engaging in stereotypically feminine behaviors, but there were a few female-bodied children who were engaging in stereotypically masculine behaviors.
Even after Rekers’ career essentially crashed and burned when he was found with a male prostitute in 2010, their work continues across the world, having spread like a cancer throughout various forms of behavioral “health,” from pastoral care to psychiatry.
ABA and Conversion therapy now
Although conversion therapy has been banned in most states, it has not been banned in all states as of this post. There are also movements in the states who have banned it to try to reverse that legislation, or at the very least, rebrand it, using essentially the same techniques as conversion therapy, but calling it something else. Thus, conversion therapy continues to this day, with varying levels of covertness, using techniques developed and supported by Ivar Lovaas.
It is these similarities and roots that lead many Autistics to call for referring to ABA as “Autistic Conversion Therapy.” A visceral-inducing phrasing indeed, but it makes sense. Conversion therapy can trace its roots to literally the same places as ABA without even having to go that far. The techniques used are behavioral techniques familiar to all practitioners without exception. ABA’s goal, as it was originally set, was also to make autistics “indistinguishable from their typically-developing peers.” As such, the goal of conversion therapy was to make GSRM children indistinguishable from their cisgender/gender-comforming, heterosexual peers.
That is, the goal was to make “weird” kids “normal” with the use of techniques, now known to be harmful, developed by Lovaas.
Now, before you yell about how ABA isn’t used for that anymore, let me just stop you right there and say yes the fuck it is.
There are adults with horror stories that you should listen to. These adults are far too young for anyone to blame their treatment on “old ABA.” They weren’t alive when “old ABA”’ was being used. There are autistic adults who received “modern ABA” in order to treat gender non-comforming behavior.
Where should we go from here?
There has yet to be a satisfactory reaction from the field to the infamous “Sissy Boy” study, and that is inexcusable. Retracting that paper and loudly denouncing such practices should be the least we do. Our field has got to stop engaging in avoidance behavior whenever we encounter something uncomfortable. Ignoring the shared origins between ABA and Conversion Therapy allows harmful practices to continue.
Plus, our insistence on remaining quiet on the subject is a very bad look.
If you’re that unwilling to openly speak out against this, then you are, by practice, supporting it. Yes, we should denounce conversion therapy and yes, we should denounce Ivar Lovaas and stop glorifying him as The Father of ABA.
Regardless of his contributions, I have a hard time believing ABA couldn’t have arrived at the same and better conclusions if we had built our practice more directly from Skinner’s work instead of Lovaas’. What if we had looked at behaviorism as purely the science of learning and behavior, and applied it with the aim of actually helping society. That is, revolutionizing education for example, rather than “creating a person” from an autistic, which Lovaas stated were separate things.
We have got to stop shirking responsibility. Yes, pretty much all human service fields have a nasty past, but we seem to be the only one left that refuses to confront ours. On the contrary, we seem to be clinging to it with disturbing loyalty. Why? How can you argue that we are better now if you won’t say the words.
So if you have any plans to go to a Pride Parade, or want to call yourself an ally, or if you are a member of the LGBTQ+ community yourself, consider this: Are you still causing harm?
Our field owes the world an apology.
Resources
- United Nations Independent Expert on Protection Against Violence and Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (IESOGI), Report on Conversion Therapy. https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/SexualOrientation/ConversionTherapyReport.pdf
- Gibson, M. F. and Douglas, P., Disturbing Behaviors: Ivar Lovaas and the Queer History of Autism Science. https://catalystjournal.org/index.php/catalyst/article/view/29579/23427
- BrianKate, C. The Feminine Boy Project Still Threatens Gender Non-Comforming People. Radfae.org. https://www.radfae.org/feminineboyproject.htm
- The Trevor Project. About Conversion Therapy. https://www.thetrevorproject.org/get-involved/trevor-advocacy/50-bills-50-states/about-conversion-therapy/
- Reker, G. A., and Lovaas, O. I. (1974) Behavioral Treatment of Deviant Sex-Role Behaviors in a Male Child. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, Summer, 7(2) 173-190.