It seems that the American Psychological Association can't escape from their controversial stance on masculinity published back in 2018, even if they have partially backtracked (not nearly enough though).

This Canadian academic publication likens these types of views to that of conversion therapy, which used to be a popular "treatment" for gay people until it was finally outlawed.

For example, the American Psychological Association (APA, 2018) recently released Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Boys and Men in a 31-page document aiming to help practicing clinicians better engage males in mental health treatment and foster their recovery. Of note, this document continuously pathologizes “traditional masculinity,” stating early on that “conforming to traditional masculinity ideology has been shown to limit males’ psychological development ...and negatively infuence mental health.” Listed among the supposed “traditional masculinity” traits that can limit psychological development and adversely infuence mental health are “risk,” “achievement,” “adventure,” and “success, power, and competition.” These guidelines imply that psychologists need to transform (or emasculate) traditionally masculine men into a new form of man, devoid of masculinity through reeducation and therapy. Such an approach is dangerous for many reasons. First, it implicitly frames men as a psychologically defective version of women, taking a defcit-based approach that simultaneousl stigmatizes and blames men for their mental health issues. Second, the proposed therapeutic approach has echoes of conversion therapy, a pseudoscientifc, ineffective, and harmful practice, which was used in an attempt to transform gay men into straight men and has recently been outlawed by various jurisdictions. Third, the pathologization of traditional masculinity seems to be based on outdated ideology rather than scientifc evidence, as discussed in the next section.

Whitley, R. (2021). Men’s Issues and Men’s Mental Health: An Introductory Primer. Springer, Cham.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-86320-3