Science as Superstition In today's featured essay, Donovan Cleckley joins a rising chorus of voices decrying "modern conversion therapy." Today's "gender-affirming care," Cleckley argues, repeats a historical pattern, in which gender nonconformity and homosexuality are understood as a pathology that should be cured through chemical and/or surgical castration. In articulating a humanizing solution, Cleckley draws on the work of featured author Abigail Favale.