Shaping Your Child's Sexual Identity
 Cover of the first edition | |
| Author | George Alan Rekers |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Homosexuality, parenting |
| Published | 1982 (Baker Book House) |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 170 |
| ISBN | 978-0801077135 |
Shaping Your Child's Sexual Identity is a 1982 book about homosexuality by George Alan Rekers.[1] The book was influential, but has been criticized for Rekers's anti-gay stance.
Summary
Rekers describes homosexuality as "promiscuous and perverted sexual behavior" and bemoans the fact that "homosexuality has been sold to the unwary public as a right between consenting adults."[1]
Scholarly reception
Shaping Your Child's Sexual Identity was influential. Jackie M. Blount writes that, "Using language and logic reminiscent of works from earlier decades, Rekers argued that when children grew up with gender identities that did not align with those traditionally associated with their biological sex, they risked becoming homosexuals." Blount compares the book to Peter and Barbara Wyden's earlier Growing Up Straight (1968).[2] Psychologist and sexologist Kenneth Zucker reviewed Shaping Your Child's Sexual Identity in a 1984 issue of Archives of Sexual Behavior. He noted that it, "includes descriptive chapters on cross-gender-identified children, some of Rekers' methods of therapeutic intervention, and information on normative studies of psychosexual development, all of which are written in a manner easily understood by the lay reader." Zucker noted that some of the material was controversial, including the chapter recounting Rekers' behavior as an expert witness in a child custody case, in which he testified against a lesbian mother seeking to regain custody of her daughters. According to Zucker, Rekers argued that the woman should not receive custody because her lesbianism "placed her children at risk for deviant sex-role development"; Zucker criticized Rekers for ignoring scholarly literature suggesting that there is little evidence that "rearing by a homosexual parent results in atypical patterns of childhood gender identity".[3] Neuroscientist Simon LeVay writes that Reker's work reveals his "virulent antipathy towards homosexuality."[1]
Robyn E. Blumner of the Tampa Bay Times writes that the book contains "gay-bashing" rhetoric, including the claim that gay activists secretly want to legalize pedophilia.[4]
References
Footnotes
- 1 2 3 LeVay 1996. p. 102.
- ↑ Blount, Jackie M. Fit To Teach: Same-Sex Desire, Gender, and School Work in the Twentieth Century. State University of New York Press, 2006, p. 161-3.
- ↑ Zucker, Kenneth (1984). "Book Review: Shaping Your Child's Sexual Identity". Archives of Sexual Behavior. 13 (4): 387–390. doi:10.1007/BF01541910. Retrieved 12 May 2015.
- ↑ "Rentboy and gay adoptions". Tampa Bay Times.
Bibliography
- Books
- LeVay, Simon (1996). Queer Science: The Use and Abuse of Research into Homosexuality. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-12199-9.