Born a Boy Raised a Girl

Born a Boy Raised a Girl : 

Born a Boy Raised a Girl The David Reimer John/Joan Case Lisa Lahey, B.Ed.

Gender Re-Assignment : 

Gender Re-Assignment Gender re-assignment: a change of gender after an original, definitive assignment in infancy. There have been cases where a male infant has been reassigned to female because of loss of the penis to trauma. This is no longer recommended by experts in the field because of failed reassignments.... such as that of David Reimer...

August 22, 1965 : 

August 22, 1965 In Winnipeg, Manitoba, two identical twin boys were born to Ron and Janet Reimer. The boys were named Bruce (David) and Brian. By 6 months of age after Reimer’s parents noticed their sons had difficulty urinating, the boys were diagnosed with phimosis, a condition where the foreskin cannot fully retracted from the head of the penis. Phimosis

Malfunction : 

Malfunction Cauterization involves the use of electricity for tissue removal. The Reimers had no idea the urologist would be using cauterization to circumcise their sons and assumed they would be using knives. During the procedure on Bruce the equipment malfunctioned and Bruce’s penis was badly burned.

Dr. John Money : 

Dr. John Money John Money, was a psychologist who, during the 1960’s was developing a reputation as a pioneer in the field of sexual development and gender identity, based on his work with intersex patients. Money was a firm believer in the 'theory of Gender Neutrality‘, that gender identity developed primarily as a result of social learning from early childhood. Money believed that gender identity could be changed with the appropriate behavioral interventions. “They say masculinity and femininity are built into the genes, so women should get back to the mattress and the kitchen.”

gender roles : 

gender roles Money’s defined gender role as a theoretical construct that refers to social and behavioral norms that are considered to be socially appropriate for individuals of a specific gender. Proponents of this theory assert that gender differences in behavior and personality characteristics are in part socially constructed.

Intersex : 

Intersex The phenomenon of intersex people, formerly called hermaphrodites,has influenced debate about gender roles. Many intersexual people identify with the opposite sex, while others are more androgynous. Some see androgyny as a threat to traditional gender roles, while others see it as a sign that these roles are a social construct. Watch Intersex Part 2 of 3

Brandon Teena/Teena Brandon : 

Brandon Teena/Teena Brandon The famous, true case of Brandon Teena was portrayed in the Oscar-winning film Boys Don’t Cry, released in 1999 and starring Hillary Swank in the role of Brandon. Brandon was a young transgender woman who presented as male. As a young child, Teena was sexually molested by a male relative. Sexologists believe this was the catalyst behind Teena’s transition into a transgender individual, suggesting she was not born transgender. Watch The true story of Brandon Teena (1998 documentary behind Boys Don’t Cry 1/6

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Brandon claimed to be intersex, but this was later proven false. After Brandon met a young woman in Nebraska named Lana Tisdale, Brandon was raped and murdered by Tisdale’s male acquaintances after they discovered she was biologically female. A significant difference in Brandon’s case and that of sexual re-assignment for individuals such as David Reimer, is the innate desire to behave, identify and function as the opposite sex. Watch a scene from Boy’s Don’t Cry Watch The True Story of Brandon Teena (1998 documentary behind Boys Don’t Cry) 2/6

The Reimers and John Money : 

The Reimers and John Money One afternoon Janet Reimer saw a television program This Hour Has Seven Days, featuring an interview with Dr. John Money and a transsexual woman he had counselled before and after she opted for a sex reassignment surgery (SRS). Reimer was impressed at how feminine and happy the transsexual woman seemed. Money sounded like the “answer to her prayers.” She contacted Money at John Hawkins Hospital in Baltimore and arranged for a meeting. Watch BBC Horizon: Dr Money and the Boy With No Penis

The Answer to Money`s Prayers : 

The Answer to Money`s Prayers What the Reimers didn`t know was that Money was excited about working with their sons for his own purposes, since he believed he needed twin boys to use in an SRS experiment to verify his gender re-assignment theory. Watch BBC Horizon: Dr John Money and the Boy With No Penis Pt 2

Bruce and Brian : 

Bruce and Brian Reimer had a twin brother, Brian Reimer, who made an ideal control since the two boys not only shared genes and family environments, but had shared the intrauterine environment as well. This would be the first sex reassignment and reconstruction performed on a male infant who had no abnormality of prenatal or early postnatal sexual differentiation.

SRS : 

SRS Money and other physicians working with young children born with abnormal genitalia believed that a penis could not be replaced but that a functional vagina could be constructed surgically. They convinced Ron and Janet Reimer that Bruce would be more likely to achieve successful, functional sexual maturation as a girl than as a boy. Read Born a Boy Raised a Girl – The John-Joan-David Reimer Case and Sex Reassignment Surgery “My parents feel very guilty, as if the whole thing was their fault. But it wasn’t like that. They did what they did out of kindness, and love and desperation. When you’re desperate, you don’t necessarily do all the right things.”

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Money persuaded Ron and Janet Reimer to allow Bruce to undergo SRS. At 22 months a surgeon removed Bruce`s testes. The Reimers took Bruce home, renamed her Brenda and began raising her as a girl. They did not opt for vaginal reconstruction and from 22 months into Brenda's teenaged years Reimer urinated through a hole in her abdomen. “You cannot be an it,” Money declared

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At age 2, Brenda angrily tore off her dresses. She refused to play with dolls and would beat up her brother and seize his toy cars and guns. From as early as kindergarten, she was a target for bullying by both male and female. “As [I’d ]walk by, they’d start giggling. Not one, but almost the whole class. It’d be like that every day. The whole school would make fun of [me] about one thing or another.” “It was a pretty, lacy little dress,” Janet recalls. “She was ripping at it, trying to tear it off. I remember thinking, ‘Oh, my God, she knows she’s a boy and she doesn’t want girls’ clothing. She doesn’t want to be a girl.’

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She was forced to dress like a girl even in frigid Manitoba winters. She was given estrogen injections at puberty to induce breast development, but her behavior and other mannerisms were incongruous with her gender role. “When I say there was nothing feminine about Brenda” Brian laughs, “I mean there was nothing feminine. She walked like a guy. She talked about guy things, didn’t give a crap about cleaning house, getting married, wearing makeup.” In her early teens Brenda attended a technical high school. Right away her peers dubbed her cave-woman and told her, “You’re a boy.” When she reached puberty she became confused by her sexual orientation. She liked girls instead of boys and that added to her confusion.

Slide 17: 

Once a year for 10 years Brenda was obliged to visit John Money for follow-up visits. Brenda dreaded these visits. Money pressured her to complete sex re-assignment surgery and allow a surgeon to construct her a vagina. She refused. Although she didn`t know her true identity Brenda knew she didn`t feel comfortable in her role as a female. Watch BBC Horizon: John Money and the Boy With No Penis Pt 3 I recognized Brenda as my sister,” Brian says, “but she never, ever acted the part. She’d get a skipping rope for a gift, and we’d use that to tie people up, whip people with it. She played with my toys: Tinkertoys, dump trucks.”

False Reports : 

False Reports For several years, Money falsely reported on Reimer's progress as the "John/Joan case," describing apparent success, and using this case to support sex reassignment and surgical reconstruction even in non-intersex cases. "The child's behavior is so clearly that of an active little girl and so different from the boyish ways of her twin brother."

Dr. Money and Brenda : 

Dr. Money and Brenda When Brenda and Brian Reimer visited Dr. Money he photographed both children nude without requesting permission from their parents. He showed Brenda explicit photographs of women giving birth. Brenda was traumatized by the visits. Brenda recalls that Dr. Money showed them pictures of adults engaged in sexual intercourse: “He’d say to us, ‘I want to show you pictures of things that moms and dads do.’ ”

The Limit : 

The Limit Brenda informed her parents that if she had to see Money again she would kill herself. Her psychiatrist advised the Ron Reimer took Brenda for a drive one afternoon and told her the story of her circumcision and their decision to raise her as a girl. Brenda took the news surprisingly well, feeling that “suddenly it all made sense why I felt the way I did.” Watch BBC Horizon: Dr John Money and the Boy With No Penis pt 4 “It comes to a point in your life where you say, ‘I’ve had enough,’ ” David says. “There’s a limit for everybody. This was my limit.”

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A double mastectomy removed the breasts David had grown as a result of estrogen therapy; multiple operations created a functional artificial penis and testicles. Regular testosterone injections masculinized his musculature.

The Truth Will Out : 

The Truth Will Out His case came to international attention when Reimer allowed Milton Diamond, an academic sexologist to report the true outcome of his case in psychiatric journals. Soon after, John Colapinto published an influential account in Rolling Stone magazine in December 1997. Reimer and Colapinto later collaborated on the book, As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl. Read John Colapinto’s Rolling Stone article The Case of John/Joan Dec 11, 1997

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Yet David was depressed over what he saw as the impossibility of his ever marrying and having a family. He twice attempted suicide in his early 20s.Eventually Brian’s wife introduced David to Jane Fortaine, a single mother with 3 children. They liked each other right away and were, in David’s words “like peas in a pod.” They soon married. David continued to experience depression, traumatized by memories of his visits to Dr. Money. “I said to Ron ‘I wonder if we should just leave him, because that kid has done nothing but suffer all his life. He really wants to die.’

Milton Diamond : 

Milton Diamond When David was 30 Milton Diamond contacted and informed him that Money had stopped reporting on his case after the late 1970s, but David’s case was still legitimizing the use of infant sex change in cases of hermaphroditism and genital injury. David participated in Milton’s follow-up to his own case published in Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine in March 1997 “What they did to you in the body is sometimes not near as bad as what they did to you in the mind – with the psychological warfare in your head.”

Trouble Ahead : 

Trouble Ahead Several traumatic occurrences happened in David’s life. Brian was diagnosed as schizophrenic and he committed suicide by a drug overdose. David grieved over his brother terribly. David experienced marital difficulties. He was not easy to live with: his explosive anger, depression, and his intense fear of abandonment wore on Jane Reimer for almost 14 years until finally she asked him for a trial separation on May 2 2002. “It was like brainwashing,” David says as he lights a cigarette. “I’d give just about anything to go to a hypnotist to black out my whole past. Because it’s torture.”

David’s Suicide : 

David’s Suicide David stormed out of the house. Two days later, Jane received a call from the police, telling her they had found David but that he did not want her to know his location. Two hours after that, Jane got another call from the police telling her that David was dead. He’d committed suicide by shotgun. Watch BBC Horizon: Dr. John Money and the Boy With No Penis 5/5 Read John Colapinto article: What were the real reasons behind David Reimer’s suicide? “What’s done,” David says, “is done.”

Causes : 

Causes Clearly the trauma of David’s childhood and gender reassignment was a significant factor in his depression and in his suicide. However Janet Reimer was a clinical depressive all her life. Brian Reimer suffered from the same disease. It is quite likely that inherited depression contributed to David’s unhappy situation, making it even more difficult for the mentally anguished family to cope. “We have to learn to listen to the children themselves,” Reiner says. “They’re the ones who are going to tell us what is the right thing to do.”

Cheryl Chase : 

Cheryl Chase Cheryl Chase was born an intersex individual, possessing partially formed male and female parts. Initially her parents named her Brian Sullivan and raised her as a boy. When Cheryl was 18 months old doctors removed her enlarged clitoris and advised her parents to raise her as a girl which they did, re-naming her Bonnie Sullivan. Although she began speaking before the operation, she fell silent for six months after the surgery. Watch Intersex Part 1 of 3

Cheryl’s journey : 

Cheryl’s journey Watch Intersex 20/20, Part 2 Chase found out about the clitorectomy at 10 years old and at 22 she succeeded in gaining access to her medical records. Chase had a "nervous breakdown" in her mid-30s and contemplated committing suicide "in front of the mutilating physician who had rendered her genitalia numb and scarred.“ When she was 35, Chase badgered her mother for answers, then embarked on a search for a fuller understanding of what she had learned.

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Read What if it’s (sort of) a Boy and (sort of) a Girl? Watch Intersexuality: Redefining Sex (1 of 3) In 1993, via a letter to the editor published in The Sciences July/August issue, she founded the now-defunct Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) by fiat and asked for people to write to her under her new name, Cheryl Chase, the beginning of the movement to protect the rights of people born with intersex conditions in the U.S.

Slide 31: 

Watch Intersexuality: Redefining Sex (part 2 of 3) Despite the four-year efforts of Cheryl Chase, the 30 years that Mickey Diamond spent warning the medical establishment about the dangers of the treatment of ambiguous or injured genitals, and despite the long-term follow-up of sex-reassigned youngsters in Bill Reiner’s study, the medical establishment remained unwilling to address the issue until David Reimer went public. Let’s hope they are still listening and David Reimer’s journey has not been in vain. Read The Micropenis and the Giant Clitoris