This writing explores the case of a boy who was forced to become a girl without his consent. It aims to raise critical questions about the concept of gender through the lens of his experience.
When Judith Butler pointed out gender as a performative construct and said that “the “appearance” of gender is often mistaken as a sign of its internal or inherent truth” (Butler, 2009), and when Simone de Beauvoir claimed, “one is not born, but, rather, becomes a woman” (De Beauvoir, 2011), what did they mean by that? And can we claim that gender is a completely socially constructed term?
According to John Money, a psychologist and sexologist, who was publicly promoting his theory that gender identity is primarily shaped by socialization rather than biology, he argued that nurture—not nature—was the defining factor in the process of gender identity development. Therefore, if a boy is raised as a girl, his gender identity will align with the gender he is socialized to adopt.
The case starts with the surgery of David Reimer and his identical twin brother who were diagnosed with phimosis, a condition affecting the foreskin. During surgery to correct this, David Reimer (then named Bruce) suffered a catastrophic injury in which his penis was severely burned and irreparably damaged. After this incident, the family came across Dr. John Money.
Based on his belief, he advised the family to raise Bruce as a girl. Following this guidance, Bruce was castrated and began being raised as “Brenda.” Throughout their childhood, both Brenda and her twin brother were regularly brought to follow-up appointments with Dr. John Money. For years, Dr. John Money reported the case as a success and published it as evidence supporting his gender theory.
However, when Brenda/Bruce reached the age of 14, she discovered the truth about her past and left the name Brenda, choosing to reclaim her identity as David Reimer. The trauma from the experiment and its aftermath had a profound impact on both twins. David Reimer’s brother died from a drug overdose, and David Reimer later died by suicide, led by his severe depression, at the age of 38.
Some time after Dr. John Money published David Reimer’s case as a success story and misled the public with his theory, David Reimer realized the importance of speaking out publicly to display that the gender theory experiment had been a failure rather than a success.
These horrifying results showed that gender is a more complicated term than it seems and revolves around many factors, such as biology, socialization, gender norms, etc., and cannot be defined easily. And more importantly, it cannot be defined by others.
References:
Butler, J. (2009). Performativity, precarity and sexual politics. AIBR. Revista de Antropología Iberoamericana, 4(3), 321–336. https://doi.org/10.11156/aibr.040303e
De Beauvoir, S. (2011). The second sex (C. Borde & S. Malovany-Chevallier, Trans.). Vintage Books. (Original work published 1949)
Gaetano, P. (2017, November 15). David Reimer and John Money gender reassignment controversy: The John/Joan case. Embryo Project Encyclopedia
Colapinto, J. (2000). As nature made him: The boy who was raised as a girl. Harper Perennial.
Real Stories. (2017, September 18). Dr. John Money and the boy with no penis (David Reimer Documentary) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLFGMWoQaCU
Jordan B Peterson Clips. (2023, April 18). The Monster Behind Gender Theory, and the Atrocious Lie He Told [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zw1EdRKocI
Bahati Mwakasole. (2023, June 14). Oprah Winfrey’s interview of David Reimer, the boy raised as a girl by John Money [Video]. YouTube.