Tragic end of the boy who was brought up as a girl
David Reimer was hailed by scientists as a triumph of nurture over nature. But as his suicide shows, this was a terrible mistake.
Two weekends ago, 38-year-old David Reimer told his parents in their shared hometown of Winnipeg, Canada, that although he was going through a rough patch – recovering from the death of his twin brother two years ago and from his separation from his wife – things would getter better very soon. He didn’t explain how.
Now his family knows. On 4 May, Reimer took his own life. While his recent ills surely contributed to the despair, his mother knows there was more to it than that. His death was the final coda to a life that became a world-renowned case study in the perils of tampering with gender. During the span of his life he had been a boy, then a girl and then a boy again. “I thought I was an it,” he once said.
The wrenching story of David (baptised as Brian) Reimer began with a freak snowstorm in 1966. His parents, working-class people from the plains of Manitoba, drove him to the local hospital for a routine circumcision. He was eight months old. But the regular surgeon had not made it in and an assistant took over. She botched the job. A cauterising implement burned David’s penis – and it fell off. A witness later said that when the mistake was made there was a sizzling sound, like a steak being seared.
Left with a child with testicles but no penis, his parents were unsure what to do. Then, one day when the boy was more than a year old, they learned about a doctor in Baltimore who had gained a reputation of helping people of ambiguous gender. His name was John Money and they went to see him.
It was Money, a native of New Zealand and the author of some 40 books on human sexuality, who persuaded them that the best course of action was to transform their son into a daughter. He recommended surgery, including clinical castration, and hormone treatment to turn young Brian into a girl. His parents agreed and the treatment began. Brian became Brenda and long trousers gave way to skirts.
It was when Reimer was 13 and in therapy with a counsellor provided by the Winnipeg school system that he learned for the first time what had happened to him. Already he had been stigmatised by fellow classmates. They had seen his ungainly gait, the muscles that, despite the removal of his testicles, had begun developing on his neck and arms, and his lack of interest in boys. “They wouldn’t let him use the boys’ washroom or the girls’,” his mother, Janet Reimer, recalled. “He had to go in the back alley.”
That was when he rebelled, demanding that he be allowed to go through more surgery to restore his manhood. It was a transition that would be traumatic for any person, let alone someone in their early teens. The breasts that had developed because of the hormone injections were removed by mastectomy. And he opted for reconstructive surgery to build back the penis of which he had been robbed after birth.
Most experts today contend that there is no overriding the gender determinants that are in a person before birth. But that does not mean that environment does not play some part. “The Reimer case has taught a lot of people in the field that things are a lot more complex when it comes to gender than people originally thought 30 years ago,” argued Ken Zucker, who is chief psychiatrist at the Toronto Center for Addiction and Mental Health.more at source
I think this story should go out to all the parents and medical professionals who want to play gender bender with their children. Come on sex/gender changes through hormone blocking drugs at the age of 18 Months, because they think they have gender identity issues a real look.
I know this poor boy/mans issue was not his fault if anyone is to blame it is the Medical Foul Up/Shoddy Surgery, Parents and Medical treatment made by John Money for starters. What Mr. Money couldn’t surgically construct a penis? I guess I should have figured by his last name alone there would have been more ‘Money’ with gender blocking treatments.
Gender Benders TerminologyMy goodness what would you do as a parent if something like this happened to your son? shera~
