Long-time Toronto gender identity clinic shuttered in clampdown on ‘reparative therapy’
Under intense pressure from Toronto's influential
LGBT community, the Center for Addiction and Mental Health has suspended
operations at its Gender Identity Service, which has long been accused of
practicing "reparative therapy" to help youth suffering from gender
dysphoria to adapt to their biological gender. This violates provincial law as
of this summer.
The longtime director, Dr. Kenneth Zucker, has left
the clinic. The CAMH itself announced the suspension after making public a
highly critical independent review of its practices which pointedly observed
that Dr. Zucker had reached "end of career" age and his retirement
would clear the way for "revisioning and modernization."
Zucker's days were clearly numbered by a petition
launched against him by Toronto's trans and homosexual communities on
Change.org titled "Eliminate Dr. Kenneth Zucker's Practice of Transgender
'Reparative Therapy,'" which prompted Bill 77, banning any treatment for
Ontario minors with same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria.
The petition called CAMH a former "lunatic
asylum" and "the most notorious and regressive facility in the world
dedicated to preventing and 'curing' gender non-conforming behavior in children
and adults."
Though this conjures up images of thumbscrews and
electroshock therapy, the critical review by Dr. Suzanne Zinck of Dalhousie
University in Halifax and Dr. Antonio Pignatiello could indict it only for
an overreliance on "play therapy," which they considered old hat and
unsupported by evidence.
There were complaints too from some patients about
the use of one-way mirrors, having their pictures taken without permission and
too many questions about their sexual preference. One patient reported being
called "a hair vermin" by Dr. Zucker when he stripped to the waist on
request. The clinic reportedly has treated 500 youths over 30 years.
But as to the charge that Zucker was practicing the
now-verboten "reparative" therapy, the authors obliquely admitted
they could not make a case when they stated, "We cannot state the clinic
does not practice reparative approaches."
Apart from play therapy, the center appears from
the report to be practicing conventional cognitive – or "talk" –
therapy. But it is clear from this that any kind of "intensive"
treatment to help a youth troubled by same-sex attractions or gender
dysphoria "runs counter to the prevailing worldview."
The "current worldview" is that most of
those suffering from gender dysphoria will end up self-identifying as members
of their biological sex if left alone. What the reviewers don't consider is the
rush by schools and some parents to actively encourage children in their gender
dysphoria.
But with the intensive treatment practiced at the
CAMH clinic, children and parents feel "pathologized." Zucker's
approach, much documented by his critics, is based on the premise that
homosexuality and gender dysphoria begin in early childhood (not in the womb or
the genes). Zucker is reported to believe that a girl observing her mother as
bullied may self-identify as a male, while a boy observing his mother as
depressed may self-identify as a female because at a subconscious level he
wants to support his mother. On the other hand, a mother with unresolved hostility
toward men may encourage effeminacy in her son.
Zucker's accusers in the LGBT community are certain
he isn't just helping patients resolve their subconscious issues, but is
actively engaged in reparative therapy. Thus, even play therapy becomes a sinister
tool in Dr. Zucker's hands, as he encourages boys who like dolls to find a more
masculine use for them.
The reviewers clearly think Zucker has got hold of
the wrong end of the theoretical stick when he blames the evident mental
problems of dysphoric children (depression and suicidal thoughts) on their
dysphoria. "Gender variance itself does not cause psychopathology,"
the report declares. "Rather the distress associated with it does."
In other words, the discomfort of parents, teachers, or classmates with a
gender dysphoric's cross-dressing or other trans displays is the cause of all
mental health problems.
As well, the reviewers found that the clinic was
too oriented to the wishes of the parents rather than those of the children it
was treating. Finally, it was not connected enough with "the
community," an apparent code word for the various transgender support
groups who complained about the clinic and Zucker in the first place.
The director of CAMH, Dr. Kwame McKenzie, announced
the clinic's gradual suspension of operations. "Really, our clinic needed
to make a change with the times," he explained to the Canadian Press.
"We welcome the fact that we now have a chance to work with the community
to make things better."
Dr. Zucker could not be reached for comment.
