Hide this

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl by John Colapinto
Loading...

As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl

by John Colapinto

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations
559158,742 (3.86)21
Loading...
won't like will probably not like will probably like will like will love

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

Showing 1-5 of 15 (next | show all)
Imagine an eight-month old boy whose penis was destroyed in a botched circumcision, and whose parents were then urged by a world-renowned psychologist to raise him as a girl. Imagine that they did so, subjecting him to clinical castration followed by a dozen years of psychological and hormonal treatment designed to make him female.

Imagine further that the psychologist - whom the child detested but was forced to meet with regularly - was a sex pervert who defended pedophilia and incest and whose sexual theories were based, not on scientific evidence, but on his own arbitrary beliefs. Imagine that the many psychiatrists the child saw over the years sided almost unanimously with the psychologist. Imagine tha the child lived in utter misery for fifteen years, because on some level he sensed that he was actually a boy - even as he was being hailed in medical textbooks as an ideal example of successful "gender transformation."

This is not the plot of a Hollywood horror movie; it is a true story - powerfully conveyed in *As Nature Made Him*. As the author explains, the psychologist's theory was that sexual identity has nothing to do with one's biological nature, but is solely a matter of "social conditioning." This theory holds, in effect, that the metaphysically given can be readily replaced by any object of human preference. In philosophical terms, it is a tragic instance of the "primacy of consciousness" - the view that reality is whatever we wish it to be - in action. The psychologist in question had no interest in scientific evidence ("It is like playing a game of science fiction") or even in the child's welfare; he actually hated men ("I wondered if the world might really be a better place for women if not only farm animals but human males also were gelded at birth").

Unsurprisingly, there is an additionally tragic aspect to the story. Although the child outwardly conformed to the female role, and suffered terribly, he did not give in intellectually; he continued to insist to himself that he was in some sense a boy, and even went so far as to defy the psychologist (who wanted him to have a "female" operation) and his own parents. When psychiatrists finally convinced his parents to tell him, at age 15, the truth about what had happened, he immediately chose to reassert his masculinity, to have corrective "male" surgery and to live as a man. After additional terrible struggles, he suicided.

At once an indictment of psychological and medical malpractice and a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit, this is a book that will both horrify and inspire. ( )
  Toolroomtrustee | Nov 9, 2009 |
John Colapinto, a writer for Rolling Stone has been given the exclusive right to author the tale of David Reimer, who, a victim of a botched circumcision, had his sex reassigned at age two and lived the next twelve years as a girl. David is the victim of several doctors: the one who originally performed poorly at his circumcision; Dr. John Money, who used his considerable influence to convince David's parents to agree to the gender reassignment (and still to this day insists his treatment was a success); and later psychiatrists who, cowed by Money's prestige and influence, persisted in pushing him towards femininity. However, David has overcome. He is a happily married man, a father and a provider who, although still haunted by his unusual past, has come to terms with it and speaks out against the practice of gender reassignment to infants with damaged penises. Unfortunately, it has only been recently that other victims of this practice, members of ISNA (Intersex Society of North America) have been heard by the physicians and psychiatrists responsible for its continuation even today. I was also impressed with the depth of research done by the author, who, as an entertainment writer, was probably unprepared for the difficulty he would face in addressing this rather sensitive subject both with David's friends and family members and with members of the Sex Research community who still insist David's reassignment as Brenda was successful and that the author and his subject sensationalized this book for the money and film rights.
This is an important book for any medical, psychiatry, or psychology student to read.
Edit: I was not aware of David Reimer's eventual suicide until after I wrote this review, and wish to alter my assertion that David is 'happy' and has 'overcome.' Although the book ends on this note, several years later the situation is different. ( )
  lilyfyrestorm | Sep 12, 2009 |
This was a very strong and very interesting book. While it's heavy with excerpts from research and interviews, I would have liked for it to have included a list of the references from which this material had been drawn from.

Colapinto also wrote a follow-up article as a response to David Reimer's suicide, four years after the publication of this book. ( )
2 vote MyriadBooks | May 10, 2009 |
This book was amazing. Such a sad story. I saw a follow-up documentary about him on tv. So sad. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Re... ( )
  laserone | Apr 25, 2009 |
Though I've listed this in my glbt collection under T(ransgender), the subject isn't technically transgender or intersex, but rather is a biological male forced to lives 'as a girl' from the age of 2 to 15. The book attempts to make score a point for 'nature' in the nature vs. nurture debate as to which contributes the most to gender identity (and sexual orientation). However, it loses points in my book for furthering the gender role dichotomy ('proving' that the gender role imposition wasn't working because the child was aggressive, dominant, likes trucks & guns, etc.).
1 vote wademlee | Apr 6, 2009 |
Showing 1-5 of 15 (next | show all)
As John Colapinto makes achingly clear in this riveting, cleanly written and brilliantly researched account of a world-famous case, Money's effort to prove the plasticity of human sexual identity by transforming Bruce into Brenda was a cataclysmic failure.
 
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Series (with order)
Canonical Title
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Awards and honors
Epigraph
Dedication
First words
Quotations
Last words
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (4)

David Reimer

History of intersex surgery

John Money

Sexual identity

Book description
Eight–month old David Reimer, an identical twin, had his penis accidentally amputated during a botched circumcison attempt in Winnipeg, Canada. At the direction of the famous psychiatrist Dr. John Money of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, this child’s parents were directed to re-assign David’s sex to a girl and given the suggestion to later make available to him vaginal surgery and hormone treatments to grow breasts. This experiment did not go as planned, but Dr. Money continued to defend his position and influence others in psychiatry to go along with his mistaken ideas about nature versus nurture. At age 14, “Brenda” Reiner decided to once again become a boy.

Amazon.com (ISBN 0060929596, Paperback)

Once you begin reading As Nature Made Him, a mesmerizing story of a medical tragedy and its traumatic results, you absolutely won't want to put it down. Following a botched circumcision, a family is convinced to raise their infant son, Bruce, as a girl. They rename the child Brenda and spend the next 14 years trying to transform him into a her. Brenda's childhood reads as one filled with anxiety and loneliness, and her fear and confusion are present on nearly every page concerning her early childhood. Much of her pain is caused by Dr. Money, who is presented as a villainous medical man attempting to coerce an unwilling child to submit to numerous unpleasant treatments.

Reading over interviews and reports of decisions made by this doctor, it's difficult to contain anger at the widespread results of his insistence that natural-born gender can be altered with little more than willpower and hormone treatments. The attempts of his parents, twin brother, and extended family to assist Brenda to be happily female are touching--the sense is overwhelmingly of a family wanting to do "right" while being terribly mislead as to what "right" is for her. As Brenda makes the decision to live life as a male (at age 14), she takes the name David and begins the process of reversing the effects of estrogen treatments. David's ultimately successful life--a solid marriage, honest and close family relationships, and his bravery in making his childhood public--bring an uplifting end to his story. Equally fascinating is the latest segment of the longtime nature/nurture controversy, and the interviews of various psychological researchers and practitioners form a larger framework around David's struggle to live as the gender he was meant to be. --Jill Lightner

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:01 -0400)

(see all 3 descriptions)

The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details.

Quick Links

Ebooks Audio Swap
1/18

Popular covers

 

Help/FAQs | About | Privacy/Terms | Blog | Contact | LibraryThing.com | APIs | WikiThing | Common Knowledge | 47,029,576 books!