Product Description
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 th… More >>
As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as A Girl
Tags: Advice, Baby, baby boy, botched circumcision, boy, brother, circumcision, DescriptionIn, expert, Family, gender identity, Girl, johns hopkins hospital, landmark case, Made, nature, radical treatment, Raised, renowned expert, sexual reassignment, Treatment
#1 by Anonymous on January 24, 2010 - 1:33 am
I saw this story (and the subjects of this experiment) on the OPRAH Winfrey show and I was horrified as a doctor, a scientist and as a mother of identical twins. My children have been through the time where it was decided that sex/gender was all in the mind and that girls only played with dolls because their mother told them to and I thought then as I think now about this episode, has everyone gone mad! Every little toenail clipping and every little hair on your head and every other cell in your body says XX or XY and none of them are undecided. This story is far more to the point than that of BRANDON TINA/TINA BRANDON, which is dangerous and misinformed. This story reminds me of the doctor who came to our hospital and “saved” a patient. However something he forgot to tell us was that he screwed up the medications and the treatment in the first place. There is nothing heroic in creating a disaster and then rushing in to try fix it up. Memories of Dr Mengler come rushing back to my mind. It did not seem to me that a man should or could really write this book.
Rating: 1 / 5
#2 by Juli on January 24, 2010 - 3:42 am
Once you get over the initial shock about what happened to this man, the rest of the story is just doctoral gibberish that bores you to insanity. I couldn’t get past chapter 4. Save your money, borrow someone else’s, look at the pictures inside and return it.
Rating: 1 / 5
#3 by A. Kuhlmann on January 24, 2010 - 4:53 am
I have to read this book for school and jesus christ is it boring… It’s all about weird pedo doctors and morbid surgery. It’s like im stuck watching one of those godwaful surgery shows on discovery channel, except it’s a long boring book.
Rating: 2 / 5
#4 by Calliope on January 24, 2010 - 5:09 am
Leave it to Rolling Stone magazine to drop one of the great Right Wing bombs of the 90’s. With one unfortunate case history, the entire environment / behavorological project of the 70’s gets wiped. “See, biology IS destiny” crowed the Silent Majority. Not for nothing did Abbie Hoffman call Jan Wenner the “Benedict Arnold of the Sixties.”
Anyway, nature seemingly triumphed over nurture in the profound year of 2001 when this reductionist piece of garbage topped the best seller charts. Johns Hopkins stopped treating TSs and many other clinics, such as Stanford University, followed suit. Reaction has set in; next stop, Thailand, girls.
As Colapinto points out throughout his book, Brenda would have rather committed suicide than go on against the “natural” fiber of his existence. Yet – after the happy ending, reverse SRS, and the royalty checks, the newly emerged David Reimer killed himself anyway. BLAM. Just a few years after his twin brother did the same (with dope).
Seems like the story here is actually depression, not gender. And what does Colapinto have to say about that embarrassing piece of business? “It was what David was inclined to brood about that killed him. David’s blighted childhood was never far from his mind.” How frickin’ convenient. Ideologically speaking, Colapinto’s got the subtlety of Ayn Rand.
Rating: 1 / 5
#5 by Ken Zirkel on January 24, 2010 - 5:41 am
Although well-written, I found this book to be intensely creepy and sad. Once you get the point — this poor boy was denied his true identity — what else is left except one sad anecdote after another. It’s a true tragedy, and not one that makes for particularly compelling reading, IMHO.
Rating: 2 / 5