As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl

Synopsis

Brian and Bruce Reimer were born as normal identical twin boys. At 8 months of age, they developed a urinary problem, which their Winnipeg hospital said could be easily cured via circumcision. The day they were scheduled for that, a doctor who did not normally do this procedure was in charge. As a result, Bruce lost his penis altogether. Dr. John Money of Johns Hopkins Hospital, who had been treating intersexed babies by genital surgery, saw this as the perfect empirical study of nurture over nature. These were developmentally-normal identical twin boys. Following this, Bruce was castrated, his name changed to Brenda and he was raised as a girl. However, Brenda's personality did not conform, no matter how much the family and others tried to nurture the child as a girl. Neither twin was told of their background. In their early teens, Brenda rebelled. Eventually, she was told the truth and felt "normal", she was indeed the boy she had always felt internally. She changed her name to David, as one who slew the incomparably-sized Goliath. The rest of the book tells how David's life developed from there forward to adulthood, marriage, and fatherhood. It also covers Dr. Money's cover-up of the study results as not the positive picture he had reported consistently over the years, and details his downfall in the medical profession. Of note, is that the study, which was reported as successful nurture over nature, was constantly used in feminist rhetoric at the time about gender roles. Money was also an early co-founder of the Gender Identity Clinic at Johns Hopkins, involved with transsexual procedures. The author began this investigation for a Rolling Stone magazine article. Later, David Reimer decided to let his story become public for the education of others, and asked Colapinto to do the writing. There are three vulgar sex terms, minor description of pornographic pictures used by the doctor, and a few uses of the word "God."

Copyright:

2000

Book Details

Book Quality:

Excellent

Book Size:

279 Pages

ISBN-13:

9780060192112

Publisher:

N/A

Date of Addition:

05/19/08

Copyrighted By:

John Colapinto

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Nonfiction, Science, Biographies and Memoirs, Health, Mind and Body, Parenting and Family, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender, Psychology, Social Studies

Submitted By:

Liz Halperin

Proofread By:

Grandma Cindy

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.