The sad story of David Reimer, who recently committed suicide. His mother was interviewed on CBC television a few nights ago about David's life. The doctor involved, a renowned sexologist at Johns Hopkins, declined to comment.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/reimer/

In a related story, more recent research at Johns Hopkins (where he had his tragically botched operation) essentially has proven the futility of surgically assigning gender to "intersex" babies (kids with ambiguous genitals, formerly called "pseudo-hermaphrodite" or something equally stigmatizing).
Hopkins Research Shows Nature, Not Nurture, Determines Gender

Really sad story. I don't see how it could have turned out any other way. It was the basis for an episode of PBS's "Nova."

Sex: Unknown

I have a psychology degree and a journalism degree and studied his case . For those who are unfamiliar with the details I will inform them: In the late sixties in Canada identical twin boys were born. When the boys were six months old the mother took them to a physican worried about their tight foreskins. A doctor recommended circumcision even though it was not necessary in this case as the foreskins would probably have eventually become less tight as time went by. The doctor performed the circumcision with a heat instrument and ended up severely burning off the child's penis. The parents decided against circumcision for the other lad. Eventually the burnt penis slughed off. When the notorious John Money entered the case he was the most respected paediatric 'expert' on sexual identity or so he claimed. His ideas on intersex cases were accepted as almost scriptural by the medical establishment. He urged the parents to raise the little boy as a girl. She was taken to John Hopkins University and Dr. Howard Jones castrated the child and used the scrotal skin to construct mock outer labia. A partial artifical opening was constructed but a full artifical 'vagina' would not be constructed until adulthood. In the meantime John Money had the child 'Joan' be brought into his office for psychological counselling. The child's parents were instructed on how to raise the child as an authentic female. John Money put Joan and her brother through enormous psychological torture including sexual abuse. The children were made to sexually experiment on each other. Money believed that this would reinforce female identity in Joan and make her become sexually attracted to males. Money thought of this whole episode as a colossal experiment in gender identity. Money's crimes against this particular family and those of so many others is unspeakable. He has worked with another notorious 'researcher' his protogee Richard Green author of The Sissy Boy Syndrome- a work on male homosexuality. Money has pretended to be an advocate for trans people but his agenda is very sinister. He has been pro paedophilia and written for pro paedophilia journals. His work was once regarded as the Holy Bible but less so nowadays. But this case is certainly not the only one of it's kind. Boys born with a condition called micropenis are subjected to penectomy and castration and raised as pseudo females all over the western world based on Money's theories. This is a crime against these children's humanity. It is scarcely different than female genital mutilation that is practiced in many African nations. It is entirely different for informed adult transsexuals to submit to sex reassignment procedures and doing it on children who have no say at all. I am sorry that this story ended in David's suicide. He deserved a happy life. I would urge you all to read his life story AS NATURE MADE HIM THE BOY RAISED AS A GIRL.

Thank you for the additional information, Sergei. The CBC documentary about David Reimer's life did not include all those extra details about John Money, although he certainly was not portrayed in a very positive light. As you said, his theories were treated as gospel back in the 1960s. But when David's mother began to have concerns about what was happening to her son, and asked Money about what happened to other boys who had followed his 'program' he apparently told her quite casually 'oh, they usually commit suicide'. And yet, from what I've been able to find out about him so far, his callous disregard and questionable ethics which led to this tragedy doesn't seem to have hurt his career at all.

eek! How these quacks avoid massive lawsuits is beyond me. :mad:

There's a longer article on this case here from Rolling Stone in 1997.

In books written by John Money such as MAN AND WOMAN BOY AND GIRL and SEXUAL SIGNATURES he would occassionally mention the Bruce/Brenda case. He would state how well it was going and how 'she' was the perfect little girl. He never mentioned that the child had attempted suicide three times and so had the mother. The father became an alcoholic and left the home. Money's ideas are still accepted only some 'experts' just leave his name off. I know that the agony aunt ANN LANDERS even mentioned Money in glowing terms and this particular case as a success. The surgeon Howard Jones who mutilated David even further was at one time one of the United States main 'sex change' surgeons. When asked about the David case he hardly even remembered it. One can bet that neither Money nor Jones will lose any sleep over the suicide of David.

This story is jsut as fascinating for the philosophical implications as it is for the psycho-sexual ones. Are humans merely the sum of their physical parts? Can someone re-make themselves and be happy and satisfied? If gender is determined well before birth, and if physiological ambiguities can occur, can you also have a male with a "female" brain and vice versa?

Well the defenders of John Money are already crawling out of the woodwork. Several sexologists are praising Money for the Bruce/Brenda genda experiment and are defending Money against charges of paedophilia saying that the late David Reimer lied about this. Yes blame the dead victim who cannot defend himself.

An enlightened approach to the problem in, of all places, Houston.

Fascinating reading, and a comple contrast to John Money's misguided \"interventionist strategy\" discussed above. At the end of the Slate article, a couple of worthwhile links:

I neglected to add that David's brother committed suicide himself two years ago. The evil unleashed by John Money has claimed so many innocent victims.

Wow....I didn't know that...his twin brother? Doubly sad.

NJ

I remember we discussed this as long as two years ago, when the book was first published, and we had a pretty discussion about the case. I have also seen a documentary on tv (which may well have been the Nova special someone mentioned above) and was very moved by how this sort of thing is actually happening quite a lot more than previously thought, and that almost all who have had gender-reassignment surgery have been badly traumatized by it. In this particular documentary, they focused on a couple whose child was intersexed; I seem to recall this child being assigned the female gender, and her parents being told she'll likely be a lesbian as well, which leads to an obvious question - is it a matter of convenience her gender was chosen to be female, or truly out of what limited understanding they had of her? Yes of course she could be a lesbian, but is it more a case of a true male being made to be a woman?

It's plain awful David's case was as complicated as they come. Sad to think he likely won't be the last of his kind.

On another note, has anyone else read, "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides? It's a more entertaining look at the subject, yet no less sad.

Sadly this kind of mutilating surgery is still done on infant boys who have lost their penis by disease or accident and to intersexed children. A few months ago on PBS there was a program on AMERICAN EXPERIENCE called TEST TUBE BABIES. Doctor Howard Jones was praised for his work to create invitro babies in the U.S. The program never mentioned that Howard Jones mutilated hundreds of intersexed kids and was the surgeon who mutilated young Bruce aka David Reimer. The mutilation and being falsley raised as a girl ultimately caused David to kill himself. His brother had killed himself a few years before. I hope that John Money who was the psychologist who caused the child to be raised as a girl and Dr. Howard Jones who surgically mutilated the boy both burn in hell . Money is thankfully dead and decaying.

I understand that the movie rights to this sad story are now in the works.