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As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl
In 1967, after a twin baby boy suffered a botched circumcision, his family agreed to a radical treatment that would alter his gender. The case would become one of the most famous in modern medicine—and a total failure.As Nature Made Himtells the extraordinary story of David Reimer, who, when finally informed of his medical history, made the decision to live as a male. A macabre tale of medical arrogance, it is first and foremost a human drama of one man's—and one family's—amazing survival in the face of terrible odds.
289 pages, Paperback
First published January 13, 2000
About the author
John Colapinto
10books76followersAn award-winning journalist, author and novelist and is currently a staff writer at The New Yorker.
Prior to working at The New Yorker, Colapinto wrote for Vanity Fair, New York magazine and The New York Times Magazine, and in 1995 he became a contributing editor at Rolling Stone,[1] where he published feature stories on a variety of subjects ranging from AIDS, to kids and guns, to heroin in the music business, to Penthouse magazine creator, Bob Guccione (his Guccione story was a finalist for the ASME award in profile writing in 2004). In 1998, he published a 20,000 word feature story in Rolling Stone titled The True Story of John/Joan, an account of David Reimer, who had undergone a sex change in infancy—a medical experiment long heralded as a success, but which was, in fact, a failure. The story, which detailed not only Reimer's tortured life, but the medical scandal surrounding its cover-up, won the ASME Award for reporting and in 2000, Colapinto published a book-length account of the case, As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl. The book was a New York Times bestseller and the film rights were bought by Peter Jackson, the director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Colapinto also wrote a novel, About the Author, a tale of literary envy and theft. It was published in August 2001 and was a number 6 pick on the Booksense 76 list of best novels of the season; it was a nominee for the IMPAC literary award and for a number of years was under option by Dreamworks, where playwright Patrick Marber (Closer and Howard Katz) wrote a screen adaptation. The film rights to the novel have since been acquired by producer Scott Rudin.
As a writer for The New Yorker, Colapinto has written about subjects as diverse as medicinal leeches; Sotheby's auctioneer Tobias Meyer; fashion designers Karl Lagerfeld and Rick Owens; the linguistic oddities of the Pirahã people (an Amazonian tribe); and Paul McCartney. His piece on the Piraha was anthologized in "The Best American Science and Nature Writing" (2008); his New Yorker story about loss prevention (anti-theft in stores) was included in "The Best American Crime Reporting" (2009);[2] and his New Yorker profile of neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran was selected by Freeman Dyson for inclusion in "The Best American Science and Nature Writing" (2010).
John Colapinto lives on New York City's Upper East Side. He is married to fashion illustrator and artist, Donna Mehalko, and they have one son.
-Wikipedia
Prior to working at The New Yorker, Colapinto wrote for Vanity Fair, New York magazine and The New York Times Magazine, and in 1995 he became a contributing editor at Rolling Stone,[1] where he published feature stories on a variety of subjects ranging from AIDS, to kids and guns, to heroin in the music business, to Penthouse magazine creator, Bob Guccione (his Guccione story was a finalist for the ASME award in profile writing in 2004). In 1998, he published a 20,000 word feature story in Rolling Stone titled The True Story of John/Joan, an account of David Reimer, who had undergone a sex change in infancy—a medical experiment long heralded as a success, but which was, in fact, a failure. The story, which detailed not only Reimer's tortured life, but the medical scandal surrounding its cover-up, won the ASME Award for reporting and in 2000, Colapinto published a book-length account of the case, As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl. The book was a New York Times bestseller and the film rights were bought by Peter Jackson, the director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Colapinto also wrote a novel, About the Author, a tale of literary envy and theft. It was published in August 2001 and was a number 6 pick on the Booksense 76 list of best novels of the season; it was a nominee for the IMPAC literary award and for a number of years was under option by Dreamworks, where playwright Patrick Marber (Closer and Howard Katz) wrote a screen adaptation. The film rights to the novel have since been acquired by producer Scott Rudin.
As a writer for The New Yorker, Colapinto has written about subjects as diverse as medicinal leeches; Sotheby's auctioneer Tobias Meyer; fashion designers Karl Lagerfeld and Rick Owens; the linguistic oddities of the Pirahã people (an Amazonian tribe); and Paul McCartney. His piece on the Piraha was anthologized in "The Best American Science and Nature Writing" (2008); his New Yorker story about loss prevention (anti-theft in stores) was included in "The Best American Crime Reporting" (2009);[2] and his New Yorker profile of neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran was selected by Freeman Dyson for inclusion in "The Best American Science and Nature Writing" (2010).
John Colapinto lives on New York City's Upper East Side. He is married to fashion illustrator and artist, Donna Mehalko, and they have one son.
-Wikipedia
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January 5, 2012
This book will make you very angry; that a child could be so maltreated by an "expert," who clearly was in need of help himself, but who was so intent on proving a theory that he disregarded substantial evidence to the contrary. You'll be angry, too, with other professionals who were reluctant to challenge the "great" man even when their own evidence pointed in an opposite direction. But you'll be astonished and satisfied by the incredible fortitude of a young child who realized that something was wrong and in his own way stood up to the extraordinary pressure that was put on him.
David Reimer was the victim of numerous mistakes. The first was a botched circumcision that essentially fried his penis. Then he became subject to the attempts of a famous sex researcher to verify his theories about the nature of gender development. The result was a lot of pain for David and his family.
Colapinto got permission from the family to write this book, and all conversations, everything in quotes, is from transcripts or documents. All the scarier.
It all began when David (then called Bruce) and his identical twin brother Brian were diagnosed with a condition called phimosis that circumcision normally repaired. Bruce was operated on first, but a serious mistake in the voltage levels of the electrical surgical device was made and his genitalia burned beyond salvage. The medical staff suggested that Bruce be raised as a girl. This was at a time when feminist theory, supported by some psychologists, proposed that gender identity had nothing to do with biology: it was all a social construct. Eventually, the parents were referred to Dr. Money at Johns Hopkins University. Money was a world-renowned sex researcher who apparently suffered from a multitude of sex hang-ups himself. Money had staked his reputation on the belief that sexual identity was socially determined, and he had worked with numerous transsexuals. When Bruce's parents showed up with an identical twin who had no male genitalia, it was an obvious answer to his prayers, for now he could develop data from a twin study to validate Money's theories. Money and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins had performed numerous sex reassignment surgeries on hermaphrodite children, but no such operation had ever been attempted on a child born with normal genitalia and nervous system, a distinction that the parents, Ron and Janet, never grasped until years later. Money's conviction was the procedure would be successful; "I see no reason why it shouldn't work," he told them. The decision had to be made early, because, according to his theory, there was a gender identity gate at which point the child was locked into a male or female identity. Bruce became Brenda and was raised as a girl. There were problems from the start, but Money insisted he was right and continued to promote the case as an example of the correctness of his theory of psycho sexual neutrality at birth.
In the meantime, at the University of Kansas, a young researcher was studying the role of hormones on behavior, and in a paper published in the late fifties, he marshaled considerable evidence from biology, psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, and endocrinology to argue that gender identity is hardwired into the brain virtually from conception. Hermaphrodites had an inborn neurological capability to go both ways, a capability that genetically normal children would not share.
The researcher, Milton Diamond, was to become a thorn in Money's side as he marshaled considerable evidence of the role of prenatal hormones in determining gender identity. Moneys accusation that Diamond's alliance with unscrupulous media caused the cessation of what would have been the culmination and piece de resistance of his life's work, the twin study, finally pushed Diamond to a public response in the form of a paper. Money's work was still being used to support the behaviorist proponents in the psychological community, who were still trying to "convert" and "change" adult homosexuals back to a heterosexual orientation. In the meantime, Money had been uncharacteristically silent what was occurring with the twins. Diamond managed to track down the psychiatrist,Keith Sigmundson, who had been working with Brenda/David in the intervening years. Having seen firsthand the implementation of Money's theories, Sigmundson, after reading Diamond's papers and convincing himself of Diamond's research integrity, agreed that something needed to be documented publicly as to the outcome of the case.
By this time, Brenda had become David, reverting to male, and had married. His parents, after years of therapy for the whole family, had finally broken with Money, and told Brenda of the genital removal. David had married and wanted to put everything behind him, but finally agreed to meet with Diamond. Realizing after their conversations that his case was being used as evidence to support the implementation of Money's theories in other cases, he decided he had to speak out. The resulting paper warned physicians of the dangers of surgical sexual reassignment, especially for intersexual newborns, since "physicians have no way of predicting in which direction the infant's gender identity has differentiated." Assigning a sex, i.e. name, hair length, and clothing, was one thing, but irreversible surgical intervention had to be avoided until the child was old enough to determine and articulate. "To rear the child in a consistent gender, but keep away the knife," was the caveat expressed by as Diamond to Colapinto.
One of the more interesting side issues I think the book raises is the nature of authority, i.e. what constitutes being an expert. Certainly, being right, correct, and knowledgeable appears not to be criteria.
Note 2011. David Reimer committed suicide in 2004.
David Reimer was the victim of numerous mistakes. The first was a botched circumcision that essentially fried his penis. Then he became subject to the attempts of a famous sex researcher to verify his theories about the nature of gender development. The result was a lot of pain for David and his family.
Colapinto got permission from the family to write this book, and all conversations, everything in quotes, is from transcripts or documents. All the scarier.
It all began when David (then called Bruce) and his identical twin brother Brian were diagnosed with a condition called phimosis that circumcision normally repaired. Bruce was operated on first, but a serious mistake in the voltage levels of the electrical surgical device was made and his genitalia burned beyond salvage. The medical staff suggested that Bruce be raised as a girl. This was at a time when feminist theory, supported by some psychologists, proposed that gender identity had nothing to do with biology: it was all a social construct. Eventually, the parents were referred to Dr. Money at Johns Hopkins University. Money was a world-renowned sex researcher who apparently suffered from a multitude of sex hang-ups himself. Money had staked his reputation on the belief that sexual identity was socially determined, and he had worked with numerous transsexuals. When Bruce's parents showed up with an identical twin who had no male genitalia, it was an obvious answer to his prayers, for now he could develop data from a twin study to validate Money's theories. Money and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins had performed numerous sex reassignment surgeries on hermaphrodite children, but no such operation had ever been attempted on a child born with normal genitalia and nervous system, a distinction that the parents, Ron and Janet, never grasped until years later. Money's conviction was the procedure would be successful; "I see no reason why it shouldn't work," he told them. The decision had to be made early, because, according to his theory, there was a gender identity gate at which point the child was locked into a male or female identity. Bruce became Brenda and was raised as a girl. There were problems from the start, but Money insisted he was right and continued to promote the case as an example of the correctness of his theory of psycho sexual neutrality at birth.
In the meantime, at the University of Kansas, a young researcher was studying the role of hormones on behavior, and in a paper published in the late fifties, he marshaled considerable evidence from biology, psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, and endocrinology to argue that gender identity is hardwired into the brain virtually from conception. Hermaphrodites had an inborn neurological capability to go both ways, a capability that genetically normal children would not share.
The researcher, Milton Diamond, was to become a thorn in Money's side as he marshaled considerable evidence of the role of prenatal hormones in determining gender identity. Moneys accusation that Diamond's alliance with unscrupulous media caused the cessation of what would have been the culmination and piece de resistance of his life's work, the twin study, finally pushed Diamond to a public response in the form of a paper. Money's work was still being used to support the behaviorist proponents in the psychological community, who were still trying to "convert" and "change" adult homosexuals back to a heterosexual orientation. In the meantime, Money had been uncharacteristically silent what was occurring with the twins. Diamond managed to track down the psychiatrist,Keith Sigmundson, who had been working with Brenda/David in the intervening years. Having seen firsthand the implementation of Money's theories, Sigmundson, after reading Diamond's papers and convincing himself of Diamond's research integrity, agreed that something needed to be documented publicly as to the outcome of the case.
By this time, Brenda had become David, reverting to male, and had married. His parents, after years of therapy for the whole family, had finally broken with Money, and told Brenda of the genital removal. David had married and wanted to put everything behind him, but finally agreed to meet with Diamond. Realizing after their conversations that his case was being used as evidence to support the implementation of Money's theories in other cases, he decided he had to speak out. The resulting paper warned physicians of the dangers of surgical sexual reassignment, especially for intersexual newborns, since "physicians have no way of predicting in which direction the infant's gender identity has differentiated." Assigning a sex, i.e. name, hair length, and clothing, was one thing, but irreversible surgical intervention had to be avoided until the child was old enough to determine and articulate. "To rear the child in a consistent gender, but keep away the knife," was the caveat expressed by as Diamond to Colapinto.
One of the more interesting side issues I think the book raises is the nature of authority, i.e. what constitutes being an expert. Certainly, being right, correct, and knowledgeable appears not to be criteria.
Note 2011. David Reimer committed suicide in 2004.
January 2, 2009
What an account! I am very thankful to say this is not the state of pediatric urology today. I am a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Urology SEction, and remember very clearly when Milton Diamond spoke in San Francisco at the AAP conference. Out in the streets, we were being picketed by a group called "HErmaphrodites with an Attitude". What the group failed to realize is that the majority of the pediatric urologists were genuinely trying to understand what was best for the patient.
In my own experience, I can say that gender reassignment is not the norm. When a child is born with ambiguos genitalia, there is a concerted effort to find out what nature actually intended- where the genes are and what "equipment" is there. "Reassignment" is not the norm, rather careful consideration of "assignment". What also has to be looked at is the natural cycles of hormone surges that occur as early as a few weeks or months, that could impact a child. There is an AAP group. or at least was, before I had to leave practice because of medical disability, looking at issues of intersex and helping to clarify the best possible standards of care. Fascinating subject.
As an aside, when I was about 17 or 18, there was this girl I knew who insisted something had been "done to her" to make her a woman. That she was really both male and female, despite the female genitalia she said she had. She was...interested...shall we say, in a relationship with me, but it was not my cup of tea. She kept insisting she was both male and female, so that I shouldn't be uptight, but I still declined. That was in the late 70's. At this AAP lecture by Diamond in the 90's he showed slides of patients. There she was, up on the screen. I blurted out "holy S***! That's ______!" Turns out, she was a true hermaphrodite, who had the external appearance of a female. So she was right- there was a guy inside the female's body! She'd had an operation as a kid to "normalize" her exterior parts. Not that I would know by personal experience, but how weird is it that I should find that out after all those years????
In my own experience, I can say that gender reassignment is not the norm. When a child is born with ambiguos genitalia, there is a concerted effort to find out what nature actually intended- where the genes are and what "equipment" is there. "Reassignment" is not the norm, rather careful consideration of "assignment". What also has to be looked at is the natural cycles of hormone surges that occur as early as a few weeks or months, that could impact a child. There is an AAP group. or at least was, before I had to leave practice because of medical disability, looking at issues of intersex and helping to clarify the best possible standards of care. Fascinating subject.
As an aside, when I was about 17 or 18, there was this girl I knew who insisted something had been "done to her" to make her a woman. That she was really both male and female, despite the female genitalia she said she had. She was...interested...shall we say, in a relationship with me, but it was not my cup of tea. She kept insisting she was both male and female, so that I shouldn't be uptight, but I still declined. That was in the late 70's. At this AAP lecture by Diamond in the 90's he showed slides of patients. There she was, up on the screen. I blurted out "holy S***! That's ______!" Turns out, she was a true hermaphrodite, who had the external appearance of a female. So she was right- there was a guy inside the female's body! She'd had an operation as a kid to "normalize" her exterior parts. Not that I would know by personal experience, but how weird is it that I should find that out after all those years????
February 29, 2020
Subtitle: The Boy Who Was Raised As a Girl
From the book jacket:In 1967, after a baby boy suffered a botched circumcision, his family agreed to a radical treatment. On the advice of a renowned expert in gender identity and sexual reassignment at Johns Hopkins Hospital, the boy was surgically altered to live as a girl. This landmark case, initially reported to be a complete success, seemed all the more remarkable since the child had been born an identical twin: his uninjured brother, raised as a boy, provided to the experiment the perfect matched control.
My reactions
This made me so angry! It’s been a week since I finished it and I thought I had calmed down, but just typing that synopsis from the book jacket stirred those embers in me. The unmitigated arrogance and superior attitude of Dr John Money made me want to hunt him down and do an experiment on HIM! (But he died in 2006…)
In writing the book, Colapinto did an excellent job of researching the various players in this tragedy. He provides considerable background on the development of sexual/gender identity theory, including interviews with many researchers and reporting from numerous professional journals. He gained the trust of David Reimer, his parents and brother and had extensive interviews with them, as well as with childhood friends, teachers and physicians who treated the boys. I think the book is balanced and truthful. I applaud David Reimer for the way he manages to survive the horror that was his childhood.
(Note:)
From the book jacket:In 1967, after a baby boy suffered a botched circumcision, his family agreed to a radical treatment. On the advice of a renowned expert in gender identity and sexual reassignment at Johns Hopkins Hospital, the boy was surgically altered to live as a girl. This landmark case, initially reported to be a complete success, seemed all the more remarkable since the child had been born an identical twin: his uninjured brother, raised as a boy, provided to the experiment the perfect matched control.
My reactions
This made me so angry! It’s been a week since I finished it and I thought I had calmed down, but just typing that synopsis from the book jacket stirred those embers in me. The unmitigated arrogance and superior attitude of Dr John Money made me want to hunt him down and do an experiment on HIM! (But he died in 2006…)
In writing the book, Colapinto did an excellent job of researching the various players in this tragedy. He provides considerable background on the development of sexual/gender identity theory, including interviews with many researchers and reporting from numerous professional journals. He gained the trust of David Reimer, his parents and brother and had extensive interviews with them, as well as with childhood friends, teachers and physicians who treated the boys. I think the book is balanced and truthful. I applaud David Reimer for the way he manages to survive the horror that was his childhood.
(Note:)
December 19, 2007
A recommendation from hells_librarian, I checked this book out and read it last Sunday afternoon. I didn't take as many notes as I might have normally, as the story just sucked me in.
A gripping story of Bruce, an infant boy who, after a botched circumcision, was surgically altered and raised as a girl, upon the recommendation of an expert in gender identity & sexual reassignment. This expert, Dr. John Money, had been looking for proof that nurture was more important than nature in gender identity; as this boy had an identical twin brother, it seemed the perfect situation: same genes, same parents, same upbringing, except for one being a boy and one a girl.
However, the child (renamed Brenda) never quite seemed to fit into the model of girlhood, try as she would. The years of therapy, both with Dr. Money and other psychiatrists, only confused her further, as she was never told exactly what had happened. Her family was as supportive as they could be in the circumstances, trying out different schools and even moving halfway across the country in an attempt to give Brenda a new start. While I felt the parents made the wrong decision, I could understand their reasoning and empathize with them.
The bizarre details of the therapy sessions disturbed me at least as much as the graphic details of the surgeries; Dr. Money not only showed Brenda (and occasionally her brother, Brian) pornographic material (not just drawings & photos of nudes, but actual porn), he also asked very sexually explicit questions at what I thought was much too early of a time in her life. As puberty arrived, Brenda's nature rebelled against the regimen of hormones; and once she learned the whole story, she decided to become male again, adopting the name David. He is now in his late twenties, relatively well-adjusted, and married to a woman whose 3 children satisfy his longing to be a father.
This story is nearly as much about Dr. John Money as it is about Bruce/Brenda/David: exposing his prejudices (bordering on perversions, IMHO*) in the realm of sexual study. He remained convinced that Brenda would turn out just fine; his insistence at completing the surgical alteration in her early teens nearly drove her to suicide; I got the impression he was treating this human being as a lab animal.
Dr. Milton Diamond, another sex researcher, also found himself questioning this celebrated "twin study" and his opposition fueled a 30-year feud between the men. Oddly enough, the original (skewed) results of this study were considered proof to feminists that there are no meaningful differences between men and women.
Colapinto ends the book with a more general study of gender reassignment and intersexed individuals. As with any minority, there are activist individuals speaking out against cases such as the one in this book, and he presents their viewpoint in a fair manner. Treatment options are slowly moving away from infant surgical reconstruction to raising the child in a specific gender, but leaving the surgery decisions to the individual, once he/she is old enough to understand and determine his/her gender identity. While the family will face difficulties with this course of action, it seems to me that less permanent damage is done to the child this way.
Recommended to anyone interested in gender identity or in biographies of people who successfully face incredible challenges.
------
* My (rather skimpy) notes refer to him at one point as "a fucking nutcase". However, my personal history may be coloring my impressions a bit.
A gripping story of Bruce, an infant boy who, after a botched circumcision, was surgically altered and raised as a girl, upon the recommendation of an expert in gender identity & sexual reassignment. This expert, Dr. John Money, had been looking for proof that nurture was more important than nature in gender identity; as this boy had an identical twin brother, it seemed the perfect situation: same genes, same parents, same upbringing, except for one being a boy and one a girl.
However, the child (renamed Brenda) never quite seemed to fit into the model of girlhood, try as she would. The years of therapy, both with Dr. Money and other psychiatrists, only confused her further, as she was never told exactly what had happened. Her family was as supportive as they could be in the circumstances, trying out different schools and even moving halfway across the country in an attempt to give Brenda a new start. While I felt the parents made the wrong decision, I could understand their reasoning and empathize with them.
The bizarre details of the therapy sessions disturbed me at least as much as the graphic details of the surgeries; Dr. Money not only showed Brenda (and occasionally her brother, Brian) pornographic material (not just drawings & photos of nudes, but actual porn), he also asked very sexually explicit questions at what I thought was much too early of a time in her life. As puberty arrived, Brenda's nature rebelled against the regimen of hormones; and once she learned the whole story, she decided to become male again, adopting the name David. He is now in his late twenties, relatively well-adjusted, and married to a woman whose 3 children satisfy his longing to be a father.
This story is nearly as much about Dr. John Money as it is about Bruce/Brenda/David: exposing his prejudices (bordering on perversions, IMHO*) in the realm of sexual study. He remained convinced that Brenda would turn out just fine; his insistence at completing the surgical alteration in her early teens nearly drove her to suicide; I got the impression he was treating this human being as a lab animal.
Dr. Milton Diamond, another sex researcher, also found himself questioning this celebrated "twin study" and his opposition fueled a 30-year feud between the men. Oddly enough, the original (skewed) results of this study were considered proof to feminists that there are no meaningful differences between men and women.
Colapinto ends the book with a more general study of gender reassignment and intersexed individuals. As with any minority, there are activist individuals speaking out against cases such as the one in this book, and he presents their viewpoint in a fair manner. Treatment options are slowly moving away from infant surgical reconstruction to raising the child in a specific gender, but leaving the surgery decisions to the individual, once he/she is old enough to understand and determine his/her gender identity. While the family will face difficulties with this course of action, it seems to me that less permanent damage is done to the child this way.
Recommended to anyone interested in gender identity or in biographies of people who successfully face incredible challenges.
------
* My (rather skimpy) notes refer to him at one point as "a fucking nutcase". However, my personal history may be coloring my impressions a bit.
September 18, 2015
So while I was a middle school student, I ended up stuck at an airport in Texas for an entire day. My mom gave me $5 and I spent it on a bag of Reese’s Pieces and a copy of Rolling Stone Magazine.
Life was a lot harder in the 90s without mobile internet.
The issue had an article on The Dead Kennedys, which as a young punk I thought was incredibly rad, and I think there was an article on some new band called Foo Fighters, though I’m sure that with a ridiculous name like the band simply faded into obscurity.
But what really stood out to me from that magazine was John Colapinto’s article about twin boys, one of whom was raised as a girl after a botched circumcision cost him his penis.
“As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl” is a full length expansion by Colapinto of his original article.
Bruce and Brian are twin baby boys suffering from phimosis, a condition in where the foreskin of the penis seals at the tip. Their parents, Ron and Janet, bring the boys in for a routine circumcision. Bruce is up first and due to complications with the electric cautery device used to perform the surgery, Bruce’s penis is burnt off.
Worrying that their son will suffer a miserable existence due to his newfound inability to grow into a “sexually active adult,” Ron and Janet are coerced by Johns Hopkins University sex researcher John Money to raise Bruce as a girl named Brenda.
Money is an ass and clearly taking advantage of the family during a difficult time, but more on that later.
Ron, Janet, John and other adults in this book hypothesize that by simply giving the child pretty dresses, dolls and Easy Bake Ovens Brenda will grow up to identify as female. This is obviously ridiculous and completely misses how gender works. Instead, Brenda grows up feeling incomplete, bullied and suicidally depressed.
Both the original article and this book are absolutely fascinating looks into the idea of “nature versus nurture,” especially when it comes to identity. John Money is clearly a quack, and his ruining the life of not just Bruce but Bruce’s entire family to try and prove some misguided point is absurd. If I could reach into this book and punch him, rest assured I would.
Colapinto does great work here. It’s well researched and riveting,. The book is terribly sad but also very important and if you're like me, it will make you angry and stick with you for a very long time.
kit:Twitter|Tumblr
Life was a lot harder in the 90s without mobile internet.
The issue had an article on The Dead Kennedys, which as a young punk I thought was incredibly rad, and I think there was an article on some new band called Foo Fighters, though I’m sure that with a ridiculous name like the band simply faded into obscurity.
But what really stood out to me from that magazine was John Colapinto’s article about twin boys, one of whom was raised as a girl after a botched circumcision cost him his penis.
“As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl” is a full length expansion by Colapinto of his original article.
Bruce and Brian are twin baby boys suffering from phimosis, a condition in where the foreskin of the penis seals at the tip. Their parents, Ron and Janet, bring the boys in for a routine circumcision. Bruce is up first and due to complications with the electric cautery device used to perform the surgery, Bruce’s penis is burnt off.
Worrying that their son will suffer a miserable existence due to his newfound inability to grow into a “sexually active adult,” Ron and Janet are coerced by Johns Hopkins University sex researcher John Money to raise Bruce as a girl named Brenda.
Money is an ass and clearly taking advantage of the family during a difficult time, but more on that later.
Ron, Janet, John and other adults in this book hypothesize that by simply giving the child pretty dresses, dolls and Easy Bake Ovens Brenda will grow up to identify as female. This is obviously ridiculous and completely misses how gender works. Instead, Brenda grows up feeling incomplete, bullied and suicidally depressed.
Both the original article and this book are absolutely fascinating looks into the idea of “nature versus nurture,” especially when it comes to identity. John Money is clearly a quack, and his ruining the life of not just Bruce but Bruce’s entire family to try and prove some misguided point is absurd. If I could reach into this book and punch him, rest assured I would.
Colapinto does great work here. It’s well researched and riveting,. The book is terribly sad but also very important and if you're like me, it will make you angry and stick with you for a very long time.
kit:Twitter|Tumblr
April 28, 2009
It is not often I can say a book turned my world view on edge but this one did. This is the story of a boy, David, who, because of a surgical accident as an infant, lost his penis and was raised a girl until he was 13 or 14. The gender reassignment never worked on him: he was always aggressive, butch, eschewed "feminine" things, etc. He never felt like a girl and when he finally found out the truth, he felt like everything finally made sense.
The book is well written and very interesting. It doesn't just focus on his life but spends quite a bit of time talking about gender reassignment research, the lives and opinions of intersex (hermaphrodite) people who were raised as a different gender than they ended up adopting, the politics involved with gender reassignment at the time of this incident, and biological theories of gender. The author appears to try to be objective but the horror of what this boy went through is so pronounced, it's hard for Colapinto to remain neutral. He very much makes the psychiatrist, John Money, who initially recommended the gender reassignment into Dr. Evil and, if the text is correct, it certainly is good and just that he does. If everything in the book is true, I don't know why Money isn't in jail for child endangerment and pedophilia.
So why did this book set my worldview asunder? Because I was raised to believe that I am more than my genitalia, that I am capable of doing and being anything I want to be. Just because I'm female doesn't mean that I will like makeup or dresses. Just because someone is male doesn't mean they will be aggressive and like sports. I grew up believing that the only differences between boys and girls was a matter of size, musculature and genitalia.
But this book talked about the research that shows that just small amounts of testosterone introduced into the uterus during pregnancy can make a girl much more aggressive, masculine and even gay. This boy always felt wrong, never felt like a girl, even though he was told he was one. I've always felt like a girl, even when I hated wearing dresses. I hate makeup and have never had any desire to join a sorority or be like Barbie. But I am also not violent or aggressive in any way. And I am bisexual.
So what makes a woman a woman and a man a man? It's more than muscles and it's more than genitalia. But it's apparently at least partially rooted in biology and genetics. So I am propelled to do more reading in this area, especially on the subject of transexuals and intersexuals. It's definitely food for thought.
The book is well written and very interesting. It doesn't just focus on his life but spends quite a bit of time talking about gender reassignment research, the lives and opinions of intersex (hermaphrodite) people who were raised as a different gender than they ended up adopting, the politics involved with gender reassignment at the time of this incident, and biological theories of gender. The author appears to try to be objective but the horror of what this boy went through is so pronounced, it's hard for Colapinto to remain neutral. He very much makes the psychiatrist, John Money, who initially recommended the gender reassignment into Dr. Evil and, if the text is correct, it certainly is good and just that he does. If everything in the book is true, I don't know why Money isn't in jail for child endangerment and pedophilia.
So why did this book set my worldview asunder? Because I was raised to believe that I am more than my genitalia, that I am capable of doing and being anything I want to be. Just because I'm female doesn't mean that I will like makeup or dresses. Just because someone is male doesn't mean they will be aggressive and like sports. I grew up believing that the only differences between boys and girls was a matter of size, musculature and genitalia.
But this book talked about the research that shows that just small amounts of testosterone introduced into the uterus during pregnancy can make a girl much more aggressive, masculine and even gay. This boy always felt wrong, never felt like a girl, even though he was told he was one. I've always felt like a girl, even when I hated wearing dresses. I hate makeup and have never had any desire to join a sorority or be like Barbie. But I am also not violent or aggressive in any way. And I am bisexual.
So what makes a woman a woman and a man a man? It's more than muscles and it's more than genitalia. But it's apparently at least partially rooted in biology and genetics. So I am propelled to do more reading in this area, especially on the subject of transexuals and intersexuals. It's definitely food for thought.
March 11, 2017
3.5/5
excellently written and exhaustive book but I really didn't enjoy the dehumanizing and transphobic rhetoric towards trans women (i.e. referring to a woman only as "the transsexual" ).
who else wants to punch John Money in the face (or more)?
excellently written and exhaustive book but I really didn't enjoy the dehumanizing and transphobic rhetoric towards trans women (i.e. referring to a woman only as "the transsexual" ).
who else wants to punch John Money in the face (or more)?
March 23, 2009
I didn't find this book to be riveting in the writing style - it can be rather dry and there are parts that drag on a bit. But it is a fascinating true story about identical twin boys who, because of a circumcision gone horribly wrong, are raised as brother and sister.
The ego of Dr. John Money is infuriating and it is frustrating just how he managed to get all these cases of sex reassignment. I find it baffling that all these parents would let their children have these yearly therapy sessions with this nut without oversight, especially when the children were all vocal about not wanting to go and would get more nervous about meeting with the man as they grew older. People - listen to your children!!! They are the experts of themselves!
There are just two other parts that I have to write about. The first is that there seems to be confusion on the part of the author in the difference between gender identity (the gender you perceive yourself to be) and sexual orientation (the gender you are sexually attracted to). The author doesn't seem to understand that these two things are not related.
The other thing I want to comment on is the underlying belief that all these children have to suffer the taunting of their school peers. Children do NOT have to suffer this kind of cruelty! Do whatever you have to do to keep your children home if society cannot accept them for who they are. Let them develop their sense of self without cruel children telling them they are a freak.
I came away from this book with a strong belief that intersexed children should remain as they were born until they decide that they want to do something about it. But they need the full support of their parents to be able to develop into who they are meant to be without the taunting and teasing of people who think everyone must be the same (well, they can be a boy or a girl, but beyond that the girls all must be the same and the boys must all be the same).
I also came away with a slight fear of "experts". There is something to be said for people who have humility and a more fluid viewpoint. Who can consider actual circumstances rather than always have the "right" answer before even being presented with the case.
While this isn't a parenting book, I chose to place in on my parenting shelf because I feel that it is an important book for parents.
The ego of Dr. John Money is infuriating and it is frustrating just how he managed to get all these cases of sex reassignment. I find it baffling that all these parents would let their children have these yearly therapy sessions with this nut without oversight, especially when the children were all vocal about not wanting to go and would get more nervous about meeting with the man as they grew older. People - listen to your children!!! They are the experts of themselves!
There are just two other parts that I have to write about. The first is that there seems to be confusion on the part of the author in the difference between gender identity (the gender you perceive yourself to be) and sexual orientation (the gender you are sexually attracted to). The author doesn't seem to understand that these two things are not related.
The other thing I want to comment on is the underlying belief that all these children have to suffer the taunting of their school peers. Children do NOT have to suffer this kind of cruelty! Do whatever you have to do to keep your children home if society cannot accept them for who they are. Let them develop their sense of self without cruel children telling them they are a freak.
I came away from this book with a strong belief that intersexed children should remain as they were born until they decide that they want to do something about it. But they need the full support of their parents to be able to develop into who they are meant to be without the taunting and teasing of people who think everyone must be the same (well, they can be a boy or a girl, but beyond that the girls all must be the same and the boys must all be the same).
I also came away with a slight fear of "experts". There is something to be said for people who have humility and a more fluid viewpoint. Who can consider actual circumstances rather than always have the "right" answer before even being presented with the case.
While this isn't a parenting book, I chose to place in on my parenting shelf because I feel that it is an important book for parents.
December 31, 2017
Again, my husband recommended me this book and he did not fail me. A heartbreaking tale of a boy who was raised as a girl, due to a freak accident during circumcision.
It is hard for me to talk about this book. While the book does end on an optimistic note, it was shattering for me to learn that David Reimer took his own life in 2004, three years after the book was originally published. The life this man had to endure, the confusion, the sadness, the disappointment… And yet, I will forever recommend this book, if nothing else to help us understand the biology behind a currently very polarising subject.
Books Rock My World: Best Books I’ve Read In 2017
It is hard for me to talk about this book. While the book does end on an optimistic note, it was shattering for me to learn that David Reimer took his own life in 2004, three years after the book was originally published. The life this man had to endure, the confusion, the sadness, the disappointment… And yet, I will forever recommend this book, if nothing else to help us understand the biology behind a currently very polarising subject.
Books Rock My World: Best Books I’ve Read In 2017
April 12, 2008
This is the tragic true account of a little boy, who after a botched circumcision that destroyed his penis, was taken to Johns Hopkins for help. His poor and uneducated parents were convinced by a research scientist, one who was considered the expert in his field, to castrate the child and to raise him as a girl. This man's completely untested theory was that gender is malleable in babies and that "nurture beats nature". This man was not a doctor, had done no preliminary research on animals, and based his theory on his success with treating hermaphrodites and adult transexuals.
The little boy, despite the attempts by his parents to convince him otherwise, had a clear sense from the time he was small that he was a boy. He, his twin, and the parents were destroyed by the situation. They experienced terrible guilt, shame, and depression. The boy was ostracized by his peers, and fought tooth and nail against the inappropriate gender assignment. Dr. Money, at every turn, refused to admit the experiment was failure, and insisted on having the family continue the charade. When the boy was a teen, his family finally told him the truth, and allowed him to live as a boy.
The thing that probably struck me most about this book was the stunning hubris of Johns Hopkins Hospital, and their complete disregard for the well-being of the patient in favor of an interesting research topic. This case was made more enticing to Hopkins, because the child was an identical twin, and therefore a perfect experiment. It appears the hospital, with little or no formal oversight or review, allowed Dr. Money to mutilate and experiment on a human child. Their actions, and those of Dr. Money, were criminal in my mind, and I am shocked that even after all this time, after so much evidence has come to light, there have been no sanctions or repercussions.
The other thing that struck me was the terrible anguish any person and family must feel when a child is born "in the wrong body" naturally, and is forced to live as a gender they don't feel they really are. I am glad that we as a society have begun to accept such people.
The little boy, despite the attempts by his parents to convince him otherwise, had a clear sense from the time he was small that he was a boy. He, his twin, and the parents were destroyed by the situation. They experienced terrible guilt, shame, and depression. The boy was ostracized by his peers, and fought tooth and nail against the inappropriate gender assignment. Dr. Money, at every turn, refused to admit the experiment was failure, and insisted on having the family continue the charade. When the boy was a teen, his family finally told him the truth, and allowed him to live as a boy.
The thing that probably struck me most about this book was the stunning hubris of Johns Hopkins Hospital, and their complete disregard for the well-being of the patient in favor of an interesting research topic. This case was made more enticing to Hopkins, because the child was an identical twin, and therefore a perfect experiment. It appears the hospital, with little or no formal oversight or review, allowed Dr. Money to mutilate and experiment on a human child. Their actions, and those of Dr. Money, were criminal in my mind, and I am shocked that even after all this time, after so much evidence has come to light, there have been no sanctions or repercussions.
The other thing that struck me was the terrible anguish any person and family must feel when a child is born "in the wrong body" naturally, and is forced to live as a gender they don't feel they really are. I am glad that we as a society have begun to accept such people.
September 11, 2007
I highly recommend this book to all my friends in the field of psychology. I first heard about this case when I was an undergraduate in psychology. The subjects were in adolescence at the time, and my professor told us that the prepubertal adjustment of the altered child was healthy but that out of respect for the child's privacy nothing was being published about the case during the period of adolescence. The study was cited in my textbook as Money & Erhardt. Though I couldn't remember the year the initial findings were published, I searched for updates occasionally over the years when I was in graduate school and thereafter. I was puzzled not to find anything---until this book was published. If you've ever heard of the case, you should read it. If you've never heard of the case, you should read it. This is a book you have to take like medicine. Though it's well-written, it's not a happy tale. But you just need to know the truth of what happened in this case.
March 18, 2015
Bon, 1 étoile, ça peut paraître fort sévère mais selon le barème Goodreads, ça veut dire avec justesse "Je n'ai pas aimé". Il y a plusieurs raisons pour ça. D'abord l'horrible préface de Marcel Rufo qui tient des propos essentialisants, qui semble croire que la non-hétérosexualité tient à la théorie douteuse de l'inversion des genres et que l'ambiguïté sexuelle est automatiquement "un traumatisme majeur pour les familles".
Ensuite, je ne sais pas trop comment situer les propos du journaliste. On sent qu'il a voulu faire un travail d'enquête sérieux, approfondi, motivé par une cause sincère qui est de dénoncer un traitement désastreux par le Dr John Money. Or, il me semble qu'il aurait eu intérêt à se faire relire d'avantage par des personnes trans et intersexes. Est-il maladroit ou simplement butor en insistant sans cesse sur les anciens noms de certaines des personnes rencontrées qui s'identifient à un autre genre que celui assigné à la naissance? En parlant d'une étudiante anonyme comme de "la transsexuelle" à 7 reprises en à peine 2 pages? En parlant d'une femme intersexe en insistant sur le fait qu'elle est "passing" et en mentionnant que lorsqu'elle évoque des aspects difficiles de son passé, "son vocabulaire et le ton de sa voix perdent leur grâce féminine affectée. Sa voix descend de deux octaves et elle crache un jet de jurons." (p.243) Ce n'est qu'un exemple parmi d'autres qui figurent dans le bouquin. C'est violent.
Les maladresses abondent. En parlant d'une psychiatre particulièrement touchée par son patient David Reimer, dont l'histoire fait l'objet du bouquin au départ, il s'étonne qu'elle admire son ex-patient. "Il était inattendu de la part d'un psychiatre parlant d'un de ses patients, ou d'un médecin comme MacKenty évoquant un employé d'abattoir tel que David Reimer." Je veux dire, vraiment? La condescendance transparaît souvent dans le propos. malgré des sentiments qui se veulent ou se prétendent bienveillants. Malaise.
Si le cas David Reimer méritait d'être dénoncé et investigué en profondeur, il aurait pu être traité différemment. L'entreprise de démolition de la crédibilité du Dr Money en était parfois caricaturale. De plus, l'auteur a effleuré la question des enfants intersexes, ou à qui des incidents chirurgicaux en bas âge sont survenu au niveau des organes génitaux, qu'on devrait consulter plus tard sans intervenir dans l'immédiat mais c'est 3 pages sur les 309. Décevant.
Bref, l'histoire se devait d'être racontée mais tout est dans la manière et en ce sens, si le livre avait été écrit par quelqu'un d'autre avec une tout autre approche, ça aurait pu donner un meilleur résultat, moins violent et plus sensible pour les réalités qui n'entrent pas dans la binarité traditionnelle.
Ensuite, je ne sais pas trop comment situer les propos du journaliste. On sent qu'il a voulu faire un travail d'enquête sérieux, approfondi, motivé par une cause sincère qui est de dénoncer un traitement désastreux par le Dr John Money. Or, il me semble qu'il aurait eu intérêt à se faire relire d'avantage par des personnes trans et intersexes. Est-il maladroit ou simplement butor en insistant sans cesse sur les anciens noms de certaines des personnes rencontrées qui s'identifient à un autre genre que celui assigné à la naissance? En parlant d'une étudiante anonyme comme de "la transsexuelle" à 7 reprises en à peine 2 pages? En parlant d'une femme intersexe en insistant sur le fait qu'elle est "passing" et en mentionnant que lorsqu'elle évoque des aspects difficiles de son passé, "son vocabulaire et le ton de sa voix perdent leur grâce féminine affectée. Sa voix descend de deux octaves et elle crache un jet de jurons." (p.243) Ce n'est qu'un exemple parmi d'autres qui figurent dans le bouquin. C'est violent.
Les maladresses abondent. En parlant d'une psychiatre particulièrement touchée par son patient David Reimer, dont l'histoire fait l'objet du bouquin au départ, il s'étonne qu'elle admire son ex-patient. "Il était inattendu de la part d'un psychiatre parlant d'un de ses patients, ou d'un médecin comme MacKenty évoquant un employé d'abattoir tel que David Reimer." Je veux dire, vraiment? La condescendance transparaît souvent dans le propos. malgré des sentiments qui se veulent ou se prétendent bienveillants. Malaise.
Si le cas David Reimer méritait d'être dénoncé et investigué en profondeur, il aurait pu être traité différemment. L'entreprise de démolition de la crédibilité du Dr Money en était parfois caricaturale. De plus, l'auteur a effleuré la question des enfants intersexes, ou à qui des incidents chirurgicaux en bas âge sont survenu au niveau des organes génitaux, qu'on devrait consulter plus tard sans intervenir dans l'immédiat mais c'est 3 pages sur les 309. Décevant.
Bref, l'histoire se devait d'être racontée mais tout est dans la manière et en ce sens, si le livre avait été écrit par quelqu'un d'autre avec une tout autre approche, ça aurait pu donner un meilleur résultat, moins violent et plus sensible pour les réalités qui n'entrent pas dans la binarité traditionnelle.
November 8, 2022
John Money is laughing up at us from hell.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 21, 2016
I thought this would be interesting, but it really exceeded my expectations. This is a fascinating account of the role of biology in gender identification as well as of academic research and debate, and the tragedy that occurs when lust for scientific fame outweighs care for a patient. What is shocking is how unethical the treatment of the child was--Dr Money leapt at the chance to prove his theory that gender is established by nurture alone, and appears not to have thought about the child's wellbeing at all. To say he is lacking in empathy is an understatement. When twin baby boys are in hospital for circumcision, the first one is botched, effectively requiring amputation of his penis. Dr Money's reaction is excitement that he can now use him as a research subject and he advises the parents to raise the child as a girl and to force the child to comply with "feminine behaviour". Even when it is apparent that the child is distressed and unhappy, he insists they continue the experiment. To see how this famous, respected doctor strongarms the parents and gets the concurrence of the medical community on the strength of his reputation is frightening. His yearly sessions with the child are unethical, abusive and smack of pedophilia (he shows the 7 year old child pornographic photos and videos to see which gender s/he identifies with). Yet such was his reputation and charisma that no one thought to intervene. His actions destroyed so many lives--that of the child, his twin brother, and his parents--and the author is unstinting and objective in his account. I highly recommend this!
May 30, 2014
I stuck this on my GLBT shelf, but only because the book talks about intersexual children who are more with ambiguous genitalia. The main thrust of the book is about David Reimer, who was born as a natural male (one of a pair of identical male twins) whose penis was destroyed during a botched circumcision (which is scary in and of itself). Under the suggestion of a sex psychologist, David was raised as a girl named Brenda, but always knew he was not female.
The tale of David's path to self-discovery is a very sad story, but it is vital and needs to be heard. Apparently as many as 200 babies are born yearly with ambiguous or unclear genitalia, and in the past, the normal procedure was to assign the child to a particular gender. The studies referenced throughout this volume offer proof that gender isn't something that can be taught or trained, which throws into question the whole nature vs. nurture debate.
A very good story. I would recommend it to anyone interested in sexual and gender identity.
The tale of David's path to self-discovery is a very sad story, but it is vital and needs to be heard. Apparently as many as 200 babies are born yearly with ambiguous or unclear genitalia, and in the past, the normal procedure was to assign the child to a particular gender. The studies referenced throughout this volume offer proof that gender isn't something that can be taught or trained, which throws into question the whole nature vs. nurture debate.
A very good story. I would recommend it to anyone interested in sexual and gender identity.
September 13, 2018
An amazing and heartbreaking story that formed the basis for a LAW AND ORDER - SVU episode some years ago. A Canadian baby boy suffered a botched circumcision at birth, and the decision was made by his radical-constructionist pediatrician to raise him as a girl, with hormones and everything. It didn't work, but the story is fascinating, upsetting, and extremely well-written.
By the way, the LAW AND ORDER - SVU episode based largely on this story was no. 128, "Identity," first aired January 18, 2005.
By the way, the LAW AND ORDER - SVU episode based largely on this story was no. 128, "Identity," first aired January 18, 2005.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 29, 2020
As soon as I heard about this book, which was about 20 years after it came out (missed it due to where I was in my life), I knew I had to read it, since the books we used in my university had NOT updated their information about this case (I can't remember when it was first revealed), but because it was discussed a great deal in some of my women's studies classes because it was part of the prevalent feminist theory, I knew all of the false reports on this man.
Not a spoiler: in short, identical twins were taken in for a circumcision due to a condition they had, the correct doctor was not there, and the GP botched it to the point that the baby's penis was destroyed. This was in the mid-1960s and reconstructive surgery was very rudimentary and very poor. When he was over a year old his very young parents (then aged 20 and 21) heard a fallacious claim from an apparently respectable scientist at John Hopkins that babies were neutral and if they acted within a certain window of time, he could become a girl. Shocking as this may seem in the 21st century, in the mid-twentieth century the blank slate baby thought was still around--it was all nurture, and not nature, according to this man and others. Bear in mind that the fields of psychology and endocrinology were not particularly advanced yet, and, in my opinion, at that time psychology was still more of a pseudoscience. This was the first decade of the pill where women who got it were given hormones at a far higher level than necessary, etc. Also, this "expert" in gender identity was full of hogwash, but you can read about that yourself.
In any event, the doctor thought he had the perfect set up because there was an identical twin and they would be raised in the same home--he had a control. Once again, not very advanced thinking since there were only two of them.
Suffice to say that this is not an easy read emotionally, but it's worth while.
Not a spoiler: in short, identical twins were taken in for a circumcision due to a condition they had, the correct doctor was not there, and the GP botched it to the point that the baby's penis was destroyed. This was in the mid-1960s and reconstructive surgery was very rudimentary and very poor. When he was over a year old his very young parents (then aged 20 and 21) heard a fallacious claim from an apparently respectable scientist at John Hopkins that babies were neutral and if they acted within a certain window of time, he could become a girl. Shocking as this may seem in the 21st century, in the mid-twentieth century the blank slate baby thought was still around--it was all nurture, and not nature, according to this man and others. Bear in mind that the fields of psychology and endocrinology were not particularly advanced yet, and, in my opinion, at that time psychology was still more of a pseudoscience. This was the first decade of the pill where women who got it were given hormones at a far higher level than necessary, etc. Also, this "expert" in gender identity was full of hogwash, but you can read about that yourself.
In any event, the doctor thought he had the perfect set up because there was an identical twin and they would be raised in the same home--he had a control. Once again, not very advanced thinking since there were only two of them.
Suffice to say that this is not an easy read emotionally, but it's worth while.
January 9, 2018
This book is about the arrogance of one doctor who pursued his theory that behavior is all culturally engendered rather than inborn. He pursued it despite increasing evidence that it was false and unscientific, and this book is a narrative of the case that exploded his theory--although he hotly and aggressively pushed it far beyond any period that it may have had any credibility.
The story is a fascinating case of identical boy twins, one of whom had his tiny penis accidentally burned off during an attempted circumcision as an infant. The doctor arrogated the right to himself to refashion the boy's mangled genitals into a vagina. His theory was that the boy would be raised as a girl and soon come to evidence girlish qualities. It never happened, despite the doctor browbeating the parents into submitting that, yes, sometimes the boy acted like girl, the poor boy fought being treated like a girl and being expected to show feminine qualities.
The hero of the narrative is the poor boy himself, who spent a tortured childhood being forced into a mode that repelled all his natural instincts. When, as a child, he refuses to have any more surgery that will make his genitals conform more specifically to those of a woman, the jig is basically up, alth0ugh the doctor fights a fierce rear-guard battle to justify himself and his theory. The most incredible part is how great-hearted the boy was about being raised as a girl, and his forgiveness to all his childhood tormentors--except the doctor.
It is an engaging book during which, as a reader, I found myself championing the boy being allowed his natural inborn sexuality and hoping desperately for the doctor's comeuppance. I was not aware that the man who the boy became committed suicide until I read several readers' comments on Goodread. It makes the book tragic,
The story is a fascinating case of identical boy twins, one of whom had his tiny penis accidentally burned off during an attempted circumcision as an infant. The doctor arrogated the right to himself to refashion the boy's mangled genitals into a vagina. His theory was that the boy would be raised as a girl and soon come to evidence girlish qualities. It never happened, despite the doctor browbeating the parents into submitting that, yes, sometimes the boy acted like girl, the poor boy fought being treated like a girl and being expected to show feminine qualities.
The hero of the narrative is the poor boy himself, who spent a tortured childhood being forced into a mode that repelled all his natural instincts. When, as a child, he refuses to have any more surgery that will make his genitals conform more specifically to those of a woman, the jig is basically up, alth0ugh the doctor fights a fierce rear-guard battle to justify himself and his theory. The most incredible part is how great-hearted the boy was about being raised as a girl, and his forgiveness to all his childhood tormentors--except the doctor.
It is an engaging book during which, as a reader, I found myself championing the boy being allowed his natural inborn sexuality and hoping desperately for the doctor's comeuppance. I was not aware that the man who the boy became committed suicide until I read several readers' comments on Goodread. It makes the book tragic,
April 3, 2014
This was a powerful and disturbing book about a ruthless scientist (who I believe was a sociopath as well as latent pedophile) who advised a young and impressionable couple to raise one of their twin sons as a girl after a botched circumcision damaged his penis. "Brenda" as she was called, suffered immeasurably, and so did the whole family. The scientist had something to prove – his pet theory that genetics has nothing to do with what makes us male or female, that it is all a product of how e are raised and socialized. He put forth the story of the twins in many publications, promoting his fear he, all the while knowing that Brenda was living a life of misery full of suicide feelings and attempts, constant teasing from her peers, behavioral problems, poor grades, a strong and growing sense that she was not, in fact a girl,, depression, and frequent acting out. It was glaringly obvious that the experiment was a failure, and I got very upset with his parents for going along with it for so long when it was clearly damaging their child so severely. I was almost as angry at the parents in this as I was at the doctor. The doctor was so incredibly unscrupulous, and his "counseling" sessions with the boys border on pedophilia. He forced them to look at dirty pictures and engage in "sex play" with a simulated sex with each other – at six. It was disgusting, and accounting this guy should be in jail. The worst part is that because of his theory, which was built on lies, thousands of intersex children (children with both genitals) were operated on as babies and often assigned to the "wrong" sex.
It was sad to learn that David (the name that he chose when he decided to live as a man) committed suicide. I come to care about him and I wanted to hear that he overcame his problems.
It was sad to learn that David (the name that he chose when he decided to live as a man) committed suicide. I come to care about him and I wanted to hear that he overcame his problems.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 28, 2024
As Nature Raised Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl by John Colapinto
Reading John Colapinto’s As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl, about the disastrous influence of Dr. John Money, the coiner of the term “gender identity” and a pioneer of what he called “sex-change” surgery on non-intersex infants on the lives of his first test case child and his family, and then on countless others, I am struck by how Money’s flawed science theory, whose primary supporting case fell apart when David Reimer reverted to living and presenting as a boy, later killing himself from the torment caused by Dr. Money’s human experiment- how this egregiously applied theory, based as it is on the magical thinking of a hubristic narcissist who, like Judith Butler, propounded the notion that gender identity is socially constructed all the way down and that biological sex is negligible in the face of nurture, a theory thoroughly debunked by the advance of science and illuminations of the flaws in his argument, is advanced by the leadership of the Democratic Party across the board, and ESG type groups like Black Rock still push these erroneous, scientifically debunked, egregiously harmful theories on society liked a delayed-reaction, moralistic misfire, amplified into a bombardment by unthinking inertia with corporate money. Sometimes the aggressive hubris of erroneous scientists trumps the humbler truth-telling of more accurate scientists, sometimes with terrible consequences, especially when amplified by corporate money.
One thing the book As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl, by John Colapinto, brings out is that Dr. John Money had already formulated a theory about "gender identity" depending mainly on nurture, and he was looking for just such a case as David Reimer's when it fell into his lap. Already a rivalry had begun with Mickey Diamond, a critic of his theory who argued for the influence of biology. So the ego was very much in play.
Another thing I note is Dr. John Money was aggressively anti-Christian and aggressively and doctrinairely libertine. Dr. Money's doctrinaire libertinism included public championing of open marriage, nudism, and many sexual fetishes and perversities. (Mary Harington speculates that if sex were "rewilded", if it were again treated as consequential, many of these sexual fetishes would quickly clear out.)
David Reimer's parents were not religious and I suspect it would have been more difficult for Dr. Money to persuade Christian parents of his junk science because of the anti-Creational and libertine notions he promulgated which clash with Christian teaching. However, that is only speculation, and I think of his parents more as victims in the situation. The pornographic images and sex play he imposed on David and his brother were apparently concealed from their parents. Though it is by no means an iron law, Abigail Shrier noted in Irreducible Damage: Teenage Girls and the Transgender Craze that there is a greater amount of trans-identification among children with liberal parents. I think of this, though of course the case here is very different. The decision for the "transgendering" was imposed by the Doctor and his thralls, the parents, on David. It is just that here, the parents' secular liberalism seems, like many of the children transgendering today, to have made them susceptible to the false doctrine.
It is also noteworthy that Dr. Money formed an anti-male attitude very early in his life. "I suffered from the guilt of being male." "I wore the mark of man's vile sexuality." Early, gnostic, anti-Creation propensities, which he later would wrap in scientific jargon.
Milton Diamond opposed Dr. Money's theory that sex assignment in early infancy was a magical panacea. Yet Money's twin case was decisive in the universal acceptance not only of the theory that human beings are psychosexually malleable at birth, but also of sex reassignment surgery as treatment of infants with ambiguous or injured genitalia.
Another key assumption by Dr. Money, like his lynchpen assumptions about the Reimer twin case, appears also a moth-eaten, rotten fabrication or careless, doctrinal delusion. In his 1970 paper on the Yolnga published in the British Journal of Medical Psychology he claimed that the Yolnga accepted nudity and sex play in young children and this led to them being free of sexual neuroses and sexual difficulties, but one his colleagues, Professor J.E. Cawte, who studied the Yolnga for almost thirty years, says he never witnessed sexual rehearsal play among the tribal children and knows of no researcher who has, and he treated many of the Yolnga adults. Nonetheless, Dr. Money constantly referenced a purported habit of childhood sexual rehearsal and an alleged freedom from psychosexual confusion. Another lynchpen of his theory was a sham, and yet he applied it to the Reimer twins and to other unfortunate souls, traumatizing them, forcing the Reimer twins to strip and mimic sexual behavior toward each other when they were little children. Though Dr. Reimer tried to get the twins' parents to have sex in front of their children, they refused, but Mrs. Reimer did follow his instructions to go around naked in front of her children at home.
Genital appearance was also critical to Dr. Money's theory of how one "learns" a sexual identity. He put tremendous weight on this, and believed that living with the results, for instance, of the surgery that burned off most of David Reimer's penis, would be something David couldn't learn to deal with. David Reimer later in life reflected on this: "You know, if I had lost my arms and my legs and wound up in a wheelchair where you're moving everything with a little rod In your mouth -would that make me less of a person? It just seems that they implied that you're nothing if your penis is gone. They second you lost that, you're nothing, and they've got to do surgery and hormones to turn you into something. Like you're a zero. It's like your whole personality, everything about you is all directed - all pinpointed- toward what's between the legs. And to me, that's ignorant. I don't have the kind of education that these scientists and doctors and psychologists have, but to me it's very ignorant. If a woman lost her breasts, do you turn her into a guy? To make her feel 'whole and complete'?" I'm persuaded in Christianity a view of persons is upheld which meshes with David's commonsense observation here but human personhood and freedom is eroded by materialistic, anti-Christian approaches to persons.
The portrait of Dr. McKenty in the book is very moving. She was the most powerfully impactful therapist on David and helped him tremendously. The description of his visit to her when she was retired and suffering from Alzheimer's and her admiration for her patients whom she mothered is touching.
Dr. Money pursued David Reimer in a sense. David early on developed a deep, and healthy, aversion to the annual visits to Dr. Money at John Hopkins in Baltimore.
Dr. Money's theory, based on the Reimer twins, despite its falling apart, seems to have become a core, foundational piece in the formation of current woke doctrine on sex and gender and to have propelled it along despite the now demonstrable egregious errors in the theory.
Reading John Colapinto’s As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl, about the disastrous influence of Dr. John Money, the coiner of the term “gender identity” and a pioneer of what he called “sex-change” surgery on non-intersex infants on the lives of his first test case child and his family, and then on countless others, I am struck by how Money’s flawed science theory, whose primary supporting case fell apart when David Reimer reverted to living and presenting as a boy, later killing himself from the torment caused by Dr. Money’s human experiment- how this egregiously applied theory, based as it is on the magical thinking of a hubristic narcissist who, like Judith Butler, propounded the notion that gender identity is socially constructed all the way down and that biological sex is negligible in the face of nurture, a theory thoroughly debunked by the advance of science and illuminations of the flaws in his argument, is advanced by the leadership of the Democratic Party across the board, and ESG type groups like Black Rock still push these erroneous, scientifically debunked, egregiously harmful theories on society liked a delayed-reaction, moralistic misfire, amplified into a bombardment by unthinking inertia with corporate money. Sometimes the aggressive hubris of erroneous scientists trumps the humbler truth-telling of more accurate scientists, sometimes with terrible consequences, especially when amplified by corporate money.
One thing the book As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl, by John Colapinto, brings out is that Dr. John Money had already formulated a theory about "gender identity" depending mainly on nurture, and he was looking for just such a case as David Reimer's when it fell into his lap. Already a rivalry had begun with Mickey Diamond, a critic of his theory who argued for the influence of biology. So the ego was very much in play.
Another thing I note is Dr. John Money was aggressively anti-Christian and aggressively and doctrinairely libertine. Dr. Money's doctrinaire libertinism included public championing of open marriage, nudism, and many sexual fetishes and perversities. (Mary Harington speculates that if sex were "rewilded", if it were again treated as consequential, many of these sexual fetishes would quickly clear out.)
David Reimer's parents were not religious and I suspect it would have been more difficult for Dr. Money to persuade Christian parents of his junk science because of the anti-Creational and libertine notions he promulgated which clash with Christian teaching. However, that is only speculation, and I think of his parents more as victims in the situation. The pornographic images and sex play he imposed on David and his brother were apparently concealed from their parents. Though it is by no means an iron law, Abigail Shrier noted in Irreducible Damage: Teenage Girls and the Transgender Craze that there is a greater amount of trans-identification among children with liberal parents. I think of this, though of course the case here is very different. The decision for the "transgendering" was imposed by the Doctor and his thralls, the parents, on David. It is just that here, the parents' secular liberalism seems, like many of the children transgendering today, to have made them susceptible to the false doctrine.
It is also noteworthy that Dr. Money formed an anti-male attitude very early in his life. "I suffered from the guilt of being male." "I wore the mark of man's vile sexuality." Early, gnostic, anti-Creation propensities, which he later would wrap in scientific jargon.
Milton Diamond opposed Dr. Money's theory that sex assignment in early infancy was a magical panacea. Yet Money's twin case was decisive in the universal acceptance not only of the theory that human beings are psychosexually malleable at birth, but also of sex reassignment surgery as treatment of infants with ambiguous or injured genitalia.
Another key assumption by Dr. Money, like his lynchpen assumptions about the Reimer twin case, appears also a moth-eaten, rotten fabrication or careless, doctrinal delusion. In his 1970 paper on the Yolnga published in the British Journal of Medical Psychology he claimed that the Yolnga accepted nudity and sex play in young children and this led to them being free of sexual neuroses and sexual difficulties, but one his colleagues, Professor J.E. Cawte, who studied the Yolnga for almost thirty years, says he never witnessed sexual rehearsal play among the tribal children and knows of no researcher who has, and he treated many of the Yolnga adults. Nonetheless, Dr. Money constantly referenced a purported habit of childhood sexual rehearsal and an alleged freedom from psychosexual confusion. Another lynchpen of his theory was a sham, and yet he applied it to the Reimer twins and to other unfortunate souls, traumatizing them, forcing the Reimer twins to strip and mimic sexual behavior toward each other when they were little children. Though Dr. Reimer tried to get the twins' parents to have sex in front of their children, they refused, but Mrs. Reimer did follow his instructions to go around naked in front of her children at home.
Genital appearance was also critical to Dr. Money's theory of how one "learns" a sexual identity. He put tremendous weight on this, and believed that living with the results, for instance, of the surgery that burned off most of David Reimer's penis, would be something David couldn't learn to deal with. David Reimer later in life reflected on this: "You know, if I had lost my arms and my legs and wound up in a wheelchair where you're moving everything with a little rod In your mouth -would that make me less of a person? It just seems that they implied that you're nothing if your penis is gone. They second you lost that, you're nothing, and they've got to do surgery and hormones to turn you into something. Like you're a zero. It's like your whole personality, everything about you is all directed - all pinpointed- toward what's between the legs. And to me, that's ignorant. I don't have the kind of education that these scientists and doctors and psychologists have, but to me it's very ignorant. If a woman lost her breasts, do you turn her into a guy? To make her feel 'whole and complete'?" I'm persuaded in Christianity a view of persons is upheld which meshes with David's commonsense observation here but human personhood and freedom is eroded by materialistic, anti-Christian approaches to persons.
The portrait of Dr. McKenty in the book is very moving. She was the most powerfully impactful therapist on David and helped him tremendously. The description of his visit to her when she was retired and suffering from Alzheimer's and her admiration for her patients whom she mothered is touching.
Dr. Money pursued David Reimer in a sense. David early on developed a deep, and healthy, aversion to the annual visits to Dr. Money at John Hopkins in Baltimore.
Dr. Money's theory, based on the Reimer twins, despite its falling apart, seems to have become a core, foundational piece in the formation of current woke doctrine on sex and gender and to have propelled it along despite the now demonstrable egregious errors in the theory.
September 12, 2013
HOLY HELL.
I’m sorry, I’m just trying to wrap my mind around everything I just read from this book. It was absolutely horrendous. Not the writing, not the book itself, but the content it covers is a crime against thousands of children.
This is going to be a long review, with a preface of a bit about myself so as to draw better conclusions about how this book affected me personally.
I am a cisgendered Lesbian. I am very lucky in that I was born in the body that I associate with mentally. I am and have always been what people may consider a butch, or tomboy. Growing up I stole my brothers toys, which were so much cooler than the doll houses and barbies and such my parents tried desperately to interest me in. Before the age of 8 my mother would dress me up in adorable little outfits with stockings, skirts, and bows in my hair. Without fail, I would come home having stomped through every puddle I could find, and climbed every tree that I could.
On my 8th birthday my mother dressed me up for the last time. I told her that day I would dress myself from then on. After that it was overalls for years, and never a skirt or dress again. But I never wanted to be a boy. I was very content being a little girl that wanted to play like the boys did.
On the flip side, I know of cisgendered males who want to play with dolls and house and dress up. You find less of that because society tolerates a tomboy more than it does a ‘tomgirl’ (for lack of a better term.)
When I was younger and learned about transsexuals, I never really understood them. I am ashamed to admit at first I thought they wereweird.
In this past few years as an adult, and as I’ve become more involved in the LGBT community, I learned to be accepting, met a few transsexuals, came to respect their decisions and understood their fight to be accepted. But I still didn’t really get why they wanted to change sexes, especially the ones who did so in adulthood.
This book has put it into a new light for me.
This book is about a set of twins who were born male, Brian and Bruce. Due to some complications at 8 months of age with them being able to pee, it was recommended that they undergo circumcision. By sheer chance Bruce was elected to go first. The Doctor who conducted the operation was not a doctor who normally conducted circumcisions, he used the wrong tools, did not have the necessary training and basically destroyed Bruce’s penis.
Doctors told the parents that basically he would never have a normal sex life and would be set apart from others, and they resigned themselves to that fact until they saw a TV show featuring Dr. John Money, a psychologist and sexologist. His theory was that gender was learned rather than innate.
The parents, feeling hope, went to see Dr. Money.
Dr. Money of course jumped at this chance. It would be the perfect experiment to prove his theory that gender is learned. And from there they decided that Bruce would be Brenda, and they started to raise him as a girl.
Brenda throughout the process of growing up is constantly showing more masculine traits. The Dr. Money told the parents that he was just a tomboy. Which is some respects, I could see that as being viable. Sitting with his legs open, refusing girl’s toys, fighting with boys. These are all things that I myself did growing up. Except he was unhappy. He didn’tfeellike a girl. He felt apart from others.
During the entire course of his treatment of “Brenda” Dr. Money told the scientific community and his peers that Bruce/Brenda was a success. This continued onwards even past the time when ‘Brenda’ refused to undergo vaginal surgery at the age of 14.
Dr. Money also did unspeakable things to Brenda. He forced him to view pornographic images, believing that seeing heterosexual sex would instill the correct gender image in his mind. He also forced both twins to strip naked in front of each other,made Brenda get down on all fours and had his brother Brian come up behind him and press his crotch against him.
WHAT. THE. FUCK.
Dr. Money said that this Sexual rehearsal play reinforced gender correct rules.
While all these atrocities were being committed against the children, the parents were unaware.
I could continue on and on about all the bull shit that was done by Dr. Money. Bruce/Brenda was NOT accepting that he was a girl. He was having atrocities committed against him that would scar him for life because this Doctor was trying to push his pet theory about gender in nurture versus nature. All throughout the treatment Dr. Money continued to lecture and publish about the success of Bruce being raised as Brenda. Because of his theories and papers and supposed successes, thousands of other children through accidents or birth with in-between/indeterminate gender were forced into one or another. Many of them would grow to be like Brenda, not understanding, not knowing, why they did not feel right.
Dr. Money is a terrible human being, a level below what the Nazi’s did in their human experiments.
This book did make me realize that gender is in the mind, not the body. It made me understand how people can be transsexuals. Even though most are not children born with indeterminate genitals, their brains are wired one way or the other. I believe this is proven in the case of Bruce/Brenda (now David).
Thankfully because David and other intersexual people who were gender reassigned at birth have outspoken about their experiences, it is more common now that with intersex children they be placed into a “role” of either sex. It’s not until they themselves can voice what they want does the hormone and surgeries begin. And that is as it should be.
I’m sorry, I’m just trying to wrap my mind around everything I just read from this book. It was absolutely horrendous. Not the writing, not the book itself, but the content it covers is a crime against thousands of children.
This is going to be a long review, with a preface of a bit about myself so as to draw better conclusions about how this book affected me personally.
I am a cisgendered Lesbian. I am very lucky in that I was born in the body that I associate with mentally. I am and have always been what people may consider a butch, or tomboy. Growing up I stole my brothers toys, which were so much cooler than the doll houses and barbies and such my parents tried desperately to interest me in. Before the age of 8 my mother would dress me up in adorable little outfits with stockings, skirts, and bows in my hair. Without fail, I would come home having stomped through every puddle I could find, and climbed every tree that I could.
On my 8th birthday my mother dressed me up for the last time. I told her that day I would dress myself from then on. After that it was overalls for years, and never a skirt or dress again. But I never wanted to be a boy. I was very content being a little girl that wanted to play like the boys did.
On the flip side, I know of cisgendered males who want to play with dolls and house and dress up. You find less of that because society tolerates a tomboy more than it does a ‘tomgirl’ (for lack of a better term.)
When I was younger and learned about transsexuals, I never really understood them. I am ashamed to admit at first I thought they wereweird.
In this past few years as an adult, and as I’ve become more involved in the LGBT community, I learned to be accepting, met a few transsexuals, came to respect their decisions and understood their fight to be accepted. But I still didn’t really get why they wanted to change sexes, especially the ones who did so in adulthood.
This book has put it into a new light for me.
This book is about a set of twins who were born male, Brian and Bruce. Due to some complications at 8 months of age with them being able to pee, it was recommended that they undergo circumcision. By sheer chance Bruce was elected to go first. The Doctor who conducted the operation was not a doctor who normally conducted circumcisions, he used the wrong tools, did not have the necessary training and basically destroyed Bruce’s penis.
Doctors told the parents that basically he would never have a normal sex life and would be set apart from others, and they resigned themselves to that fact until they saw a TV show featuring Dr. John Money, a psychologist and sexologist. His theory was that gender was learned rather than innate.
The parents, feeling hope, went to see Dr. Money.
Dr. Money of course jumped at this chance. It would be the perfect experiment to prove his theory that gender is learned. And from there they decided that Bruce would be Brenda, and they started to raise him as a girl.
Brenda throughout the process of growing up is constantly showing more masculine traits. The Dr. Money told the parents that he was just a tomboy. Which is some respects, I could see that as being viable. Sitting with his legs open, refusing girl’s toys, fighting with boys. These are all things that I myself did growing up. Except he was unhappy. He didn’tfeellike a girl. He felt apart from others.
During the entire course of his treatment of “Brenda” Dr. Money told the scientific community and his peers that Bruce/Brenda was a success. This continued onwards even past the time when ‘Brenda’ refused to undergo vaginal surgery at the age of 14.
Dr. Money also did unspeakable things to Brenda. He forced him to view pornographic images, believing that seeing heterosexual sex would instill the correct gender image in his mind. He also forced both twins to strip naked in front of each other,made Brenda get down on all fours and had his brother Brian come up behind him and press his crotch against him.
WHAT. THE. FUCK.
Dr. Money said that this Sexual rehearsal play reinforced gender correct rules.
While all these atrocities were being committed against the children, the parents were unaware.
I could continue on and on about all the bull shit that was done by Dr. Money. Bruce/Brenda was NOT accepting that he was a girl. He was having atrocities committed against him that would scar him for life because this Doctor was trying to push his pet theory about gender in nurture versus nature. All throughout the treatment Dr. Money continued to lecture and publish about the success of Bruce being raised as Brenda. Because of his theories and papers and supposed successes, thousands of other children through accidents or birth with in-between/indeterminate gender were forced into one or another. Many of them would grow to be like Brenda, not understanding, not knowing, why they did not feel right.
Dr. Money is a terrible human being, a level below what the Nazi’s did in their human experiments.
This book did make me realize that gender is in the mind, not the body. It made me understand how people can be transsexuals. Even though most are not children born with indeterminate genitals, their brains are wired one way or the other. I believe this is proven in the case of Bruce/Brenda (now David).
Thankfully because David and other intersexual people who were gender reassigned at birth have outspoken about their experiences, it is more common now that with intersex children they be placed into a “role” of either sex. It’s not until they themselves can voice what they want does the hormone and surgeries begin. And that is as it should be.
September 3, 2018
What would you do if the doctor made a horrible mistake and your son was terribly disfigured during the circumcision? In this case the doctor persuaded the parents to just cut the darn thing off and raise him as a girl. Was this a good idea? The story then goes on to explore nature vs. nurture and what happened when the boy reached puberty and beyond. The research is very good. I'd love to tell you how it all came out in the end but you will just have to read the book.
September 18, 2017
I was assigned to read this book for a class but despite that handicap I found it utterly captivating. In a "can't look away from the trainwreck" kind of way. The prose is intelligent but clear, free of jargon; the language might show a bit of age (the usage of transsexual vs. transgender, and particularly the usage of adjectival gender identity descriptions as nouns: "a transsexual" "an intersex" ), but overall it takes a neutral approach so that the horror of the story speaks for itself.
And what horror. Colapinto balances a deep dive into the story and psychology of David Reimer with a broader discussion of the significant and far-reaching implications the case had for treatment protocols, the gestalt of scientific consensus on gender identity, etc. It's a story fraught with tension and populated by some fascinating (or fascinatingly disturbed) characters.
In short, it messed me up, man.
The book ends on a haunting but mostly hopeful note, which is unfortunately undermined by the later update on Reimer's suicide. But it's an important text: a poignant story, a cautionary tale of medical ethics, an unflinching look at the psychological damage we can do to a child.
Highly recommended. Read with caution.
And what horror. Colapinto balances a deep dive into the story and psychology of David Reimer with a broader discussion of the significant and far-reaching implications the case had for treatment protocols, the gestalt of scientific consensus on gender identity, etc. It's a story fraught with tension and populated by some fascinating (or fascinatingly disturbed) characters.
In short, it messed me up, man.
The book ends on a haunting but mostly hopeful note, which is unfortunately undermined by the later update on Reimer's suicide. But it's an important text: a poignant story, a cautionary tale of medical ethics, an unflinching look at the psychological damage we can do to a child.
Highly recommended. Read with caution.
February 14, 2023
Oh my goodness. First, I agree with so much in this book. In many cases nature wins nurture. Second, I think Dr. Money needs to be in prison. He is psychotic. Third, this book gives you so much more of an understanding about gender and how important it truly is. Being sure of, confident, and embracing your true gender will aid in your success. Not only success academically and intellectually, but in your mental, physical, and spiritual health. Gender is a vital role in life. This book proves that over and over and over again.
Five stars for this book. I'd recommend this to anyone and everyone.
Five stars for this book. I'd recommend this to anyone and everyone.
June 10, 2008
As Nature Made Him was a rather disturbing book. I read it at a time where I didn't exaclty feel like I needed any more depressing tales. I also had the revised copy which included the fact that the main character committed suicide in the end. Especially because it's a true story, it made the book a heavy one to carry around in one's understanding. If I maybe read the book at a different time in my life, I would have connected more. It simply did not strike me.
August 10, 2020
This was such an interesting exploration of gender issues. How imperfect science is, & how sometimes the agendas of scientists can destroy people's lives. David's comments at the end about what makes a man and what a father is are tremendous. His reactions to John Money's position about sex and gender are also fascinating. I don't think I could have liked this book any better. It had me hooked from page one.
March 24, 2013
Could not put it down. Angering and bloody sad story, great journalism. Should not be used to dismiss environmental and social factors in gender (baby/bathwater), but what an awful, arrogant screw-up. Good for thinking about how expertise and authority are created and maintained, and their potential dangers.
March 11, 2017
A tragic but facinating story. Sadly, David Reimer committed suicide in 2004. His twin brother also died.....from a drug overdose.
Read
June 2, 2024I’m not going to rate this book bc so much of it was over my head. A lot of it is details with the doctors and researching side. However, it was so sad what happened to him and so wrong what the doctors put their family through. I’m so glad that I was raised knowing that God created us as the gender he wanted us to be. To switch is to mess with his plan and does not work at all. I looked up the family online and was sad to see that David and his brother both ended up committing suicide at a young age. This book has strong language and graphic details concerning the situation.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 10, 2024
David Reimer, you are my hero ❤️ I hope your suffering ended and next to God you found the justice, the truth and the love this horrible world could not give such an amazing soul like you ❤️
I pray for your soul 🤍
I pray for your soul 🤍
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