In 2018, in a narrative systemic review titled "Conversion therapies and access to transition-related healthcare in transgender people", Zuckers work was provided as a case study in conversion therapy including open-ended play psychotherapy, parent counselling, and parent-guided interventions to prevent "transsexualism". The study was criticized by the reviewers for relying on flawed estimates of desistance as well as actively trying to reduce cross-gender identification.In 2015, the American Psychological Association and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration collaborated on a report stating "conversion therapy—efforts to change an individuals sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression—is a practice that is not supported by credible evidence and has been disavowed by behavioral health experts and associations. Conversion therapy perpetuates outdated views of gender roles and identities as well as the negative stereotype that being a sexual or gender minority or identifying as LGBTQ is an abnormal aspect of human development. Most importantly, it may put young people at risk of serious harm." Already by 2017, the majority of major medical associations had defined attempts to change an individuals gender identity or gender expression as conversion therapy.In 2021, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health concluded that treatment aimed at trying to change a persons gender identity and expression to become more congruent with sex assigned at birth "is no longer considered ethical." Edgardo Menvielle, a child-adolescent psychiatrist at the Childrens National Medical Center in Washington advised that "Therapists who advocate changing gender variant behaviours should be avoided."
This, as far as we know, is best achieved by providing a relationship between husband and wife exemplifying these respective roles. "In 1968, Green published "Childhood Cross-Gender Identification", a paper reviewing the therapy of nine AMAB children who were younger than 8 and "clearly prepubertal". The first six were from the collaborative papers between Green and Money, the last 3 were from Robert Stoller. Citing the failure of attempts to "cure" adult trans women, he reported early diagnosis and treatment may be effective in preventing manifestations of adulthood cross-gender identification. The stated goals of family therapy are for "for the husband and wife to gain some perspective on the second class citizen of the husband and of the significance of their unbalanced roles in shaping their sons personality. Additional focus is on the masculinity-inhibiting of mothers anxiety over her sons healthy aggression and her greater comfort with what to her is his less threatening behavior. "Another early researcher was George Alan Rekers, who later became an administrator at NARTH, who focused his 1972 doctoral research on the treatment of feminine boys. In this work, Rekers describes a litany of feminine behaviours which he catalogues including: feminine posture, gait, arm and hand gestures, feminine inflection in speech, as well as interest in feminine clothing, games and conversation topics.