The Tragic Story of a Boy turned into a Girl

Bruce Reimer was born in Winnipeg, Canada, as one of two identical twins. When they were only eight months old the doctors wanted to circumcise both boys (cutting off the part of the penis known as the foreskin). Neither of the parents had ever finished highschool and did not know any better, so they brought their twins in for the "procedure". The doctor who normally did the procedure was not available that day, so another doctor who did not have much experience with circumcisions was assigned. The doctor somehow got the idea into his head that the procedure would be less complicated if he used an electric cauterizing scalpel. Such a device is virtually never used for circumcisions. The doctor attempted to make the first incision, but the scalpel did not seem to be working. He turned up the power setting. It still did not work. Frustrated, the doctor turned up the power setting all the way. What happened next was horrifying. Another doctor, who was in an adjacent room at the time, later reported that he could smell burnt flesh.

Bruce's little penis changed color and became rigid and rough in texture. His pee hole was sealed closed. Doctors had to make an incision below the baby's navel and insert a catheter directly into the bladder so the urine would be able to drain out. Over the next few days, the penis blackened like charcoal and finally flacked away. Only the base of the penis was left.

Bruce's parents were horrified when they were told of what had happened to their little boy baby (the doctors waited two days to tell them).
But even this is not as shocking as what came next...

The parents, concerned about their son's prospects for future happiness and sexual function without a penis, took their son to see a psychologist named John Money, who was at the cutting edge of research of young children born with abnormal genitalia. He believed that, although the penis could not be replaced, a functional vagina could be constructed surgically, and Bruce would be more likely to achieve successful, functional sexual maturation as a girl than as a boy. The parents did not know what to do. They were impressed by the psychlogist who seemed to know what he was talking about. Their local family physician strongly recommended against the advice of the psychlogist, but Money stressed that they needed to begin as soon as possible. After a few months, Money finally persuaded the parents to consent to sex reassignment surgery for their baby. At the age of 22 months, the baby's testicles were removed. The baby was thereafter raised as a female and given the name Brenda.

When Brenda reached 11 years of age, he was forced to take hormone pills to feminize his body. Brenda did not want to turn into a girl, and at first refused to take the pills. Her parents did not give him any choice, he later remembered. He pretended to take the pills while flushing them down the toilet, but the parents caught on and thereafter stood watch over the child while he was made to swallow the pills. To his intense dismay, Brenda grew a pair of breasts. Brenda was forced to wear frilly dresses, even during the cold Canadian winters. When Dr. Money started pressuring the family to bring him in for surgery, during which a vagina would be constructed, the family discontinued follow-up visits. From 22 months into his teenaged years Reimer urinated through a hole surgeons had placed in the abdomen. Dr. Money wrote in his reports that everything was proceeding successfully with the patient. (In his reports, Money had ignored or concealed the mounting evidence that the patient's gender reassignment to female was not going well.)

Despite this, Brenda did not identify with being a girl, and made this clear to her family. By the age of 13, Reimer was experiencing suicidal depression, and told his parents he would commit suicide if they made him see John Money again. After this, Brenda's parents finally told him the truth about what had happened as to him as a baby and the gender reassignment. At age 14, he decided to assume a male gender identity, and changed his name to "David". The hormone treatments were reversed, and David later went on to marry a woman and adopt children. David suffered from severe depression throughout his adult life, in no small part due to his traumatic childhood experiences. He had to deal with long term unemployment, financial instability, and a troubled marriage. Tragically, David finally committed suicide, shooting himself in the head with a shotgun.

A book was made about David Reimer's ordeal. "As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl" by John Colapinto.

Here is a picture of the child as "Brenda",

 

I have a copy of the book. While the experiment in and of itself was valid in trying to determine if nurture would affect gender over sex, the methods used by Money were criminal.

May I ask if you have a certain viewpoint you are trying to support with this post?

 

If nothing else, it does lend some credibility to the viewpoint that perceived gender is a function of the mind and not of the body. No matter what they tried, they could not force the person to think of themself as a female when their mind was saying male...no matter what the genitals look like.

 

Genital mutilation of infants is a barbaric practice that needs to be outlawed nationwide.

 

What a terribly sad story and I hope the 'psychologist' in question was prosecuted and stripped of his license to practice.

 

If that's not bad enough, the book also states that Dr. Money forced the twins to rehearse sexual acts involving "thrusting movements" with David playing the bottom role. "Brenda" was made to get "down on all fours" with his brother, "up behind his butt" with "his crotch against" his "buttocks". In another sexual position, Dr. Money forced Brenda to have his "legs spread" with Brian on top. Dr. Money also forced the children to take their "clothes off" and engage in "genital inspections". On at "least one occasion", Dr. Money took a "photograph" of the two children doing these activities.

One really wonders how the parents could have trusted their child to someone like Dr. Money.
I guess the parents were just desperate for answers, since it was a tragic very unusual situation. They were ignorant, naive and uneducated and didn't know what to do.

 

Yes, this whole tragedy would have never happened if the practice of circumcision did not exist.
This story is a very extreme (albeit rare) example of the types of things that can go wrong.
There was no reason to perform a circumcision on that baby.

Why do we talk about banning guns over a mass shooting but no talk of prohibiting routine infant circumcision when things like this have happened?

(I'll leave that as an open rhetorical question; I have no intention of derailing this thread with a heated debate over circumcision)

 

yes, there are bad gay and lesbian parents just like there is bad straight parrents

 

it would be if not for religions supporting it

 

WTF does this tragedy have to do with Gay & Lesbian Rights?

What was the OP's MOTIVATION for posting this story in this forum?

What was the OP trying to "prove" in this forum?

 

I asked the same question and never got an answer.

 

I think there are multiple things that can be learned from this story:
1. Nature often tends to be more powerful than nurture
2. the routine practice of circumcision can sometimes have some horrific downsides, maybe we shouldn't be doing it to children
3. Two wrongs don't necessarily make a right. Transitioning the child into a girl to try to provide a solution to the accident just messed up the child even more and made things worse.
4. Oftentimes people will listen to the "experts" to tell them what should be done to their children, blatantly ignoring what should be common sense, when sometimes those "experts" can be very very wrong.

In fact the whole reason I brought up this story was the issue got brought up in this thread:

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/jury-rules-against-dad-trying-to-save-his-7-year-old-from-gender-‘transition’.563317/#post-1071091036

5. Lastly, some people may want to discuss the fact of existence of perverted doctors like Dr. Money.

And that could have several political/social implications.
(For example, the fact that there's a doctor out there who will perform a gender transition surgery doesn't mean this is accepted medical protocol or rational. We shouldn't let their medical credentials legitimize what is happening.)

6. Also, Dr. Money did not want to see the truth even though it was right before his eyes. He had a theory and wanted to believe he was at the cutting edge of psychology and making a revolutionary discovery. And he didn't care if it messed up someone else's life.
Isn't that like how it is in politics too? People often times don't want to see the truth even though the evidence is right in front of their eyes. They would have to admit they might be wrong, and all the energy they've spent on their quest to try to change the world might have been in error. It's hard to admit the opponents you've intellectually been fighting may have been right. ​

 

NONE of the above justifies the OP being posted in this forum.

The OP is about MEDICAL MALPRACTICE and therefore it belongs in the HEALTHCARE forum.

No one is defending the felonious doctors who should have their licenses revoked and be facing criminal and civil cases against them.

There is NOTHING in the OP that applies to the CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS of the LBGT community.

The OP should request that this thread be MOVED to the appropriate forum ASAP.

 

Yes it does.

Oh no, it's far from just being about that.
You just want to write this off as a simple case of medical malpractice because you're resistant to wanting to see all the uncomfortable truths.

I believe stories have value. They contain multiple truths. Even when they're not obviously about any single one issue in particular.
Life rarely works out so simple as that.

Cutting up genitals for no good reason, and excercising perverse fantasies on young children trying to mess with their gender (in some misguided attempt to be at some sort of rebelious cutting edge of social sexual liberation) is wrong wrong wrong.

Also isn't very supportive of those modern day theories of gender fluidity you have.

 

So you don't believe that boy had a right not to have all those things done to him?? (Talking about after the tragic accident)
You don't have any problem with what Dr. Money did?

I suspect there's something about this story that really bothers you and you just want it gone.

 

To present a shocking story, and show things that we can learn from it. Maybe several different things.
Sometimes bad things like this happen. What are we going to do, what are we doing, to prevent it?
Did the society itself have a little bit of blame for what happened here?

Circumcision, a social movement and movement among the physchological community where these things were being fostered.

 

Thank you for establishing that you have a nefarious agenda for your OP that has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with LBGT RIGHTS but rather you are entirely focused on the MEDICAL MALPRACTICE that occurred.

 

Bovine excrement STRAWMAN ignored for derogatory reasons!

 

It was a shocking story of MEDICAL MALPRACTICE!

TAKING IT OUT OF CONTEXT and using it to nefariously disparage LBGT RIGHTS says volumes.

 

You're ignoring Dr. Money, and everything that came after the accident.

 

WRONG again!

What he did falls under the DEFINITION of MEDICAL MALPRACTICE!

https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/medical-malpractice/claims-against-psychiatrists.html

 

So are you agreeing that performing chemical/surgical gender transitions on young children is wrong?

Because not everyone seems to have gotten the memo these days, apparently.

 

Yet another bovine excrement STRAWMAN ignored for derogatory reasons!

 

To highlight that messing with children's identity when they are still growing leads to severe mental problems.

 

Why is what he did medical malpractice but not what many on your side want to do?

What's the big difference?