Using classical behaviour modification techniques he and a team of research assistants set about extinguishing problem feminine behaviours in three boys in particular, enlisting the help of parents and occasionally teachers to provide rewards and punishments corresponding to behaviours identified as wanted or unwanted. Rekers dissertation describes in detail, the case of Kraig (a pseudonym for Kirk Andrew Murphy) whose mother was instructed over earphones to alternately praise or ignore him depending on whether he played with a table of toys deemed to be feminine (typically dolls) or masculine (typically weapons). She was also trained to monitor his behaviour at home, with research assistants visiting weekly to ensure she was correctly completing her four times daily observations of Kraigs gendered behaviour. Physical punishment from Kraigs father is named as one of the primary consequences for feminine behaviour at home. Throughout Rekerss future work, he cites his treatments with Kraig as a success, claiming that "Kraigs feminine behaviours have apparently ceased entirely […]. "In 1974, Rekers and Ole Ivar Lovaas published the article "Behavioral Treatment of Deviant Sex-Role Behaviors in a Male Child." The article cited Green and Money as a source of the "growing evidence that childhood cross-gender manifestations are indicative of later adult sexual abnormalities; e.g., transvestism, transsexualism, or some forms of homosexuality."
Katherine Wilson of GID Reform Advocates stated:
In the case of gender non-conforming children and adolescents, the GID criteria are significantly broader in scope in the DSM-IV (APA, 1994, p. 537) than in earlier revisions, to the concern of many civil libertarians. A child may be diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder without ever having stated any desire to be, or insistence of being, the other sex. Boys are inexplicably held to a much stricter standard of conformity than girls. Most psychologists who specialize in gender identity disorder in children note a higher level of male patients brought to them, rather than female patients. A possible explanation would be that cross-sex behavior is less acceptable and therefore more noticeable and more likely to be viewed as problematic by the childs parents (Bradley, Zucker, 1997). Preference for cross-dressing or simulating female attire meets the diagnostic criterion for boys but not for girls, who must insist on wearing only male clothing to merit diagnosis. References to "stereotypical" clothing, toys and activities of the other sex are imprecise in an American culture where much childrens clothing is unisex and appropriate sex role is the subject of political debate. Equally puzzling is a criterion which lists a "strong preference for playmates of the other sex" as symptomatic, and seems to equate mental health with sexual discrimination and segregation. Some clinicians, such as Wilson et al., argue that GIDC "has served to pressurize boys to conform to traditional gender and heterosexual roles."