As Nature Made Him
by John Colapinto
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In 1967, after a twin baby boy suffered a botched circumcision, his family agreed to a radical treatment that would alter his gender. The case would become one of the most famous in modern medicine-and a total failure. As Nature Made Him tells the extraordinary story of David Reimer, who, when finally informed of his medical history, made the decision to live as a male. A macabre tale of medical arrogance, it is first and foremost a human drama of one man's-and one family's-amazing survival show more in the face of terrible odds. show lessTags
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MyriadBooks For adults searching to understand what was done to them as a child.
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Member Reviews
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.
This book is shocking. Not only for telling what outrageous physical and show more psychological assaults were made on this child, but also for revealing the fact that Dr. Money could perpetutate this farce for years with no loud voices raised against his ideas. This very brave and well researched piece of investigative journalism tells David's story with empathy and kindness. It is an amazing read with a moral lesson of note by the author at its conclusion. In the words of John Colapinto, it is every person's individual responsibility to define for himself who he is, and to assert that against a world that often opposes, ridicules, oppresses, or undermines him. show less
This book is shocking. Not only for telling what outrageous physical and show more psychological assaults were made on this child, but also for revealing the fact that Dr. Money could perpetutate this farce for years with no loud voices raised against his ideas. This very brave and well researched piece of investigative journalism tells David's story with empathy and kindness. It is an amazing read with a moral lesson of note by the author at its conclusion. In the words of John Colapinto, it is every person's individual responsibility to define for himself who he is, and to assert that against a world that often opposes, ridicules, oppresses, or undermines him. show less
Subtitle: The Boy Who Was Raised As a Girl
From the book jacket: 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 the perfect matched control.
My reactions
This made me so angry! It’s been a week since I finished it and I thought I had calmed down, but just typing that synopsis from the book jacket stirred those embers in me. show more The unmitigated arrogance and superior attitude of Dr John Money made me want to hunt him down and do an experiment on HIM! (But he died in 2006…)
In writing the book, Colapinto did an excellent job of researching the various players in this tragedy. He provides considerable background on the development of sexual/gender identity theory, including interviews with many researchers and reporting from numerous professional journals. He gained the trust of David Reimer, his parents and brother and had extensive interviews with them, as well as with childhood friends, teachers and physicians who treated the boys. I think the book is balanced and truthful. I applaud David Reimer for the way he manages to survive the horror that was his childhood.
(Note:I could not help but look up the case on the internet, which is how I discovered that Money died in 2006, but also learned that both David and his brother committed suicide. ) show less
From the book jacket: 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 the perfect matched control.
My reactions
This made me so angry! It’s been a week since I finished it and I thought I had calmed down, but just typing that synopsis from the book jacket stirred those embers in me. show more The unmitigated arrogance and superior attitude of Dr John Money made me want to hunt him down and do an experiment on HIM! (But he died in 2006…)
In writing the book, Colapinto did an excellent job of researching the various players in this tragedy. He provides considerable background on the development of sexual/gender identity theory, including interviews with many researchers and reporting from numerous professional journals. He gained the trust of David Reimer, his parents and brother and had extensive interviews with them, as well as with childhood friends, teachers and physicians who treated the boys. I think the book is balanced and truthful. I applaud David Reimer for the way he manages to survive the horror that was his childhood.
(Note:
(I feel it is important to note that this review was originally written when I read this book in 2004, not in 2026 when I finally got around to posting it here.)
If you’ve ever thought about the extent to which gender might be biologically determined, you’d be likely to be interested in this book. However, I would recommend that you read this book in isolation, with no one whatsoever to talk to, because there will be parts of the book that are so outrageous you won’t be able to keep from talking about, and really, most people don’t consider botched circumcisions to be polite dinner conversation.
So now you can guess how I spent my first few days at home.
Anyway, this book is about a boy, who at eight months underwent a botched show more circumcision that led to
the loss of his entire penis. After travelling thousands of miles to consult with many doctors, the parents were convinced that the best thing for their son would be to perform a sex change operation and raise him as a girl. The first boy to undergo an infant sex reassignment, the case was reported in the medical literature as an unqualified success, leading to the procedure’s widespread use both on intersex children and children who lost parts of their genitalia in accidents. However, what was covered up for decades was that this initial case was anything but a success. (but I’m not going to tell you any more. You have to read the book.)
Some of the material in the beginning of the book was fairly frustrating to read, as the author seemed
to be erring on the side of biologically determined binary gender characteristics. Which of course goes
against many of my deeply held beliefs as a feminist. But later in the book it is made more clear that it
is not uncommon for a member of one sex to display many of the opposite gender characteristics, and even explains some possible mechanisms. So it ends up being less black/white male/female, but still, the degree to which the author treats gender characteristics as biologically determined makes me uncomfortable. Clearly I have more reading on this subject to do. show less
If you’ve ever thought about the extent to which gender might be biologically determined, you’d be likely to be interested in this book. However, I would recommend that you read this book in isolation, with no one whatsoever to talk to, because there will be parts of the book that are so outrageous you won’t be able to keep from talking about, and really, most people don’t consider botched circumcisions to be polite dinner conversation.
So now you can guess how I spent my first few days at home.
Anyway, this book is about a boy, who at eight months underwent a botched show more circumcision that led to
the loss of his entire penis. After travelling thousands of miles to consult with many doctors, the parents were convinced that the best thing for their son would be to perform a sex change operation and raise him as a girl. The first boy to undergo an infant sex reassignment, the case was reported in the medical literature as an unqualified success, leading to the procedure’s widespread use both on intersex children and children who lost parts of their genitalia in accidents. However, what was covered up for decades was that this initial case was anything but a success. (but I’m not going to tell you any more. You have to read the book.)
Some of the material in the beginning of the book was fairly frustrating to read, as the author seemed
to be erring on the side of biologically determined binary gender characteristics. Which of course goes
against many of my deeply held beliefs as a feminist. But later in the book it is made more clear that it
is not uncommon for a member of one sex to display many of the opposite gender characteristics, and even explains some possible mechanisms. So it ends up being less black/white male/female, but still, the degree to which the author treats gender characteristics as biologically determined makes me uncomfortable. Clearly I have more reading on this subject to do. show less
'As Nature Made Him' is the horrifying true story of David Reimer, who lost his penis as an infant after a botched circumcision. His parents, only under-educated teenagers at the time, believed in the expertise of John Money at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Money told them the best course was to castrate the baby and raise him as a girl, that nurture was more important than nature; gender could be changed with willpower, surgery and hormone treatments. The book recounts Brenda's lonely, mixed-up childhood and the devastating effect it had on the entire family. I was filled with rage at Dr. Money, who only wanted to promote his theories and stroke his own ego, no matter what the cost to patients or their families. This book is doubly show more devastating after hearing the news that David Reimer (formerly Brenda) had killed himself in May, 2004 at the age of 38 show less
I first encountered David Reimer’s story as a kid: my mother was getting her special ed certification and brought home a textbook on Child Psychology. At the end of one of the chapters, there was a brief sidebar about the case, which detailed its success, save for an incident when the little boy-turned-girl in question threw her panties over a neighbor’s fence.But, as I learned through John Colapinto’s powerful As Nature Made Him: The Boy who was Raised a Girl, that rosy-if-mischievous picture couldn’t have been further from the truth. David, born Bruce Reimer, was indeed raised a girl, Brenda, when doctors gave his parents no other feasible options after a botched circumcision at eight months old. Though this case was often show more touted by his doctor, John Money, as immutable proof that gender was completely a social construction, the truth is that Brenda had an incredibly unhappy childhood, marked by social difficulties and competition with her twin brother, Brian, and marred further by disturbing therapeutic sessions (which included forced viewings of pornography and graphic sexual conversations) administered by Money.Colapinto’s account is vividly and soundly written. It’s an incredibly fast-read and has the juicy journalistic quality of a good episode of Dateline, not to mention a similarly horrific car-crash-on-the-highway feel. Colapinto’s strong descriptions of David and his family are incredibly sympathetic; when, after finishing the book, I learned that both David and his brother Brian died at their own hands in 2004 and 2002 respectively, I fully felt the loss of their lives that had, I suppose, begun nearly four decades earlier.Before the publication of As Nature Made Him, the then-anonymous case of the Reimers was often cited by feminists as proof that it was nurture, not nature—upbringing, and not sex—that determines gender. The sad truth is that, had doctors been more open-minded about what constitutes a “boy” or a “man”, David Reimer would have never been subjected to castration, would never have had to endure therapy sessions with Money where he was forced to pose naked with his brother in order to model “proper gender roles”, would never have had to struggle in school and at home with the conviction that he wasn’t really a girl. The motives of the doctors were reductionist, as David himself says: “It just seems that they implied that you’re nothing if your penis is gone. The second you lose that, you’re nothing, and they’ve got to do surgery and hormones to turn you into something. Like you’re a zero. It’s like your whole personality, everything about you is all directed—all pinpointed—toward what’s between his legs. And to me, that’s ignorant. I don’t have the kind of education that these scientists and doctors and psychologists have, but to me it’s very ignorant.” (262)I do think that there’s a feminist lesson to be found in Reimer’s story: namely, that prescriptivist attitudes toward gender and sex are problematic, and that forcing gender models (and certainly genital surgery) on young children who cannot express their feelings about their own gender or sex is a dangerous game. show less
This book will make you very angry; that a child could be so maltreated by an "expert," who clearly was in need of help himself, but who was so intent on proving a theory that he disregarded substantial evidence to the contrary. You'll be angry, too, with other professionals who were reluctant to challenge the "great" man even when their own evidence pointed in an opposite direction. But you'll be astonished and satisfied by the incredible fortitude of a young child who realized that something was wrong and in his own way stood up to the extraordinary pressure that was put on him.
David Reimer was the victim of numerous mistakes. The first was a botched circumcision that essentially fried his penis. Then he became subject to the attempts show more of a famous sex researcher to verify his theories about the nature of gender development. The result was a lot of pain for David and his family.
Colapinto got permission from the family to write this book, and all conversations, everything in quotes, is from transcripts or documents. All the scarier.
It all began when David (then called Bruce) and his identical twin brother Brian were diagnosed with a condition called phimosis that circumcision normally repaired. Bruce was operated on first, but a serious mistake in the voltage levels of the electrical surgical device was made and his genitalia burned beyond salvage. The medical staff suggested that Bruce be raised as a girl. This was at a time when feminist theory, supported by some psychologists, proposed that gender identity had nothing to do with biology: it was all a social construct. Eventually, the parents were referred to Dr. Money at Johns Hopkins University. Money was a world-renowned sex researcher who apparently suffered from a multitude of sex hang-ups himself. Money had staked his reputation on the belief that sexual identity was socially determined, and he had worked with numerous transsexuals. When Bruce's parents showed up with an identical twin who had no male genitalia, it was an obvious answer to his prayers, for now he could develop data from a twin study to validate Money's theories. Money and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins had performed numerous sex reassignment surgeries on hermaphrodite children, but no such operation had ever been attempted on a child born with normal genitalia and nervous system, a distinction that the parents, Ron and Janet, never grasped until years later. Money's conviction was the procedure would be successful; "I see no reason why it shouldn't work," he told them. The decision had to be made early, because, according to his theory, there was a gender identity gate at which point the child was locked into a male or female identity. Bruce became Brenda and was raised as a girl. There were problems from the start, but Money insisted he was right and continued to promote the case as an example of the correctness of his theory of psycho sexual neutrality at birth.
In the meantime, at the University of Kansas, a young researcher was studying the role of hormones on behavior, and in a paper published in the late fifties, he marshaled considerable evidence from biology, psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, and endocrinology to argue that gender identity is hardwired into the brain virtually from conception. Hermaphrodites had an inborn neurological capability to go both ways, a capability that genetically normal children would not share.
The researcher, Milton Diamond, was to become a thorn in Money's side as he marshaled considerable evidence of the role of prenatal hormones in determining gender identity. Moneys accusation that Diamond's alliance with unscrupulous media caused the cessation of what would have been the culmination and piece de resistance of his life's work, the twin study, finally pushed Diamond to a public response in the form of a paper. Money's work was still being used to support the behaviorist proponents in the psychological community, who were still trying to "convert" and "change" adult homosexuals back to a heterosexual orientation. In the meantime, Money had been uncharacteristically silent what was occurring with the twins. Diamond managed to track down the psychiatrist,Keith Sigmundson, who had been working with Brenda/David in the intervening years. Having seen firsthand the implementation of Money's theories, Sigmundson, after reading Diamond's papers and convincing himself of Diamond's research integrity, agreed that something needed to be documented publicly as to the outcome of the case.
By this time, Brenda had become David, reverting to male, and had married. His parents, after years of therapy for the whole family, had finally broken with Money, and told Brenda of the genital removal. David had married and wanted to put everything behind him, but finally agreed to meet with Diamond. Realizing after their conversations that his case was being used as evidence to support the implementation of Money's theories in other cases, he decided he had to speak out. The resulting paper warned physicians of the dangers of surgical sexual reassignment, especially for intersexual newborns, since "physicians have no way of predicting in which direction the infant's gender identity has differentiated." Assigning a sex, i.e. name, hair length, and clothing, was one thing, but irreversible surgical intervention had to be avoided until the child was old enough to determine and articulate. "To rear the child in a consistent gender, but keep away the knife," was the caveat expressed by as Diamond to Colapinto.
One of the more interesting side issues I think the book raises is the nature of authority, i.e. what constitutes being an expert. Certainly, being right, correct, and knowledgeable appears not to be criteria.
Note 2011. David Reimer committed suicide in 2004. show less
David Reimer was the victim of numerous mistakes. The first was a botched circumcision that essentially fried his penis. Then he became subject to the attempts show more of a famous sex researcher to verify his theories about the nature of gender development. The result was a lot of pain for David and his family.
Colapinto got permission from the family to write this book, and all conversations, everything in quotes, is from transcripts or documents. All the scarier.
It all began when David (then called Bruce) and his identical twin brother Brian were diagnosed with a condition called phimosis that circumcision normally repaired. Bruce was operated on first, but a serious mistake in the voltage levels of the electrical surgical device was made and his genitalia burned beyond salvage. The medical staff suggested that Bruce be raised as a girl. This was at a time when feminist theory, supported by some psychologists, proposed that gender identity had nothing to do with biology: it was all a social construct. Eventually, the parents were referred to Dr. Money at Johns Hopkins University. Money was a world-renowned sex researcher who apparently suffered from a multitude of sex hang-ups himself. Money had staked his reputation on the belief that sexual identity was socially determined, and he had worked with numerous transsexuals. When Bruce's parents showed up with an identical twin who had no male genitalia, it was an obvious answer to his prayers, for now he could develop data from a twin study to validate Money's theories. Money and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins had performed numerous sex reassignment surgeries on hermaphrodite children, but no such operation had ever been attempted on a child born with normal genitalia and nervous system, a distinction that the parents, Ron and Janet, never grasped until years later. Money's conviction was the procedure would be successful; "I see no reason why it shouldn't work," he told them. The decision had to be made early, because, according to his theory, there was a gender identity gate at which point the child was locked into a male or female identity. Bruce became Brenda and was raised as a girl. There were problems from the start, but Money insisted he was right and continued to promote the case as an example of the correctness of his theory of psycho sexual neutrality at birth.
In the meantime, at the University of Kansas, a young researcher was studying the role of hormones on behavior, and in a paper published in the late fifties, he marshaled considerable evidence from biology, psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, and endocrinology to argue that gender identity is hardwired into the brain virtually from conception. Hermaphrodites had an inborn neurological capability to go both ways, a capability that genetically normal children would not share.
The researcher, Milton Diamond, was to become a thorn in Money's side as he marshaled considerable evidence of the role of prenatal hormones in determining gender identity. Moneys accusation that Diamond's alliance with unscrupulous media caused the cessation of what would have been the culmination and piece de resistance of his life's work, the twin study, finally pushed Diamond to a public response in the form of a paper. Money's work was still being used to support the behaviorist proponents in the psychological community, who were still trying to "convert" and "change" adult homosexuals back to a heterosexual orientation. In the meantime, Money had been uncharacteristically silent what was occurring with the twins. Diamond managed to track down the psychiatrist,Keith Sigmundson, who had been working with Brenda/David in the intervening years. Having seen firsthand the implementation of Money's theories, Sigmundson, after reading Diamond's papers and convincing himself of Diamond's research integrity, agreed that something needed to be documented publicly as to the outcome of the case.
By this time, Brenda had become David, reverting to male, and had married. His parents, after years of therapy for the whole family, had finally broken with Money, and told Brenda of the genital removal. David had married and wanted to put everything behind him, but finally agreed to meet with Diamond. Realizing after their conversations that his case was being used as evidence to support the implementation of Money's theories in other cases, he decided he had to speak out. The resulting paper warned physicians of the dangers of surgical sexual reassignment, especially for intersexual newborns, since "physicians have no way of predicting in which direction the infant's gender identity has differentiated." Assigning a sex, i.e. name, hair length, and clothing, was one thing, but irreversible surgical intervention had to be avoided until the child was old enough to determine and articulate. "To rear the child in a consistent gender, but keep away the knife," was the caveat expressed by as Diamond to Colapinto.
One of the more interesting side issues I think the book raises is the nature of authority, i.e. what constitutes being an expert. Certainly, being right, correct, and knowledgeable appears not to be criteria.
Note 2011. David Reimer committed suicide in 2004. show less
In the late 1960s, the Reimers give birth to identical twin boys. When one is mutilated in a botched circumcision, they follow the advice of psychologist John Money to have the boy surgically castrated and raised as a girl. Money believes that people are sexually neutral at birth, that gender identity is entirely the product of environment, not biology. Identical twin boys give him the perfect opportunity to prove this theory. The "girl" rebels from the start, knowing something is wrong, but still the experiment continues, growing more disturbing over time. The psychologist even has the twins engaging in pretend sex play, nude, while he takes pictures.
This is not a novel. This actually happened. The whole thing is both highly disturbing show more and undeniably compelling. I was absolutely appalled at much of what went on under the guise of medicine, and at what lengths Money went to in order to confirm his cherished theories. The good news is that much of this led to changes in the field of sexual psychology, but that doesn't make it less infuriating to read about. Definitely recommended if you're at all interested in gender identity, but it's a bit hard to take at times. show less
This is not a novel. This actually happened. The whole thing is both highly disturbing show more and undeniably compelling. I was absolutely appalled at much of what went on under the guise of medicine, and at what lengths Money went to in order to confirm his cherished theories. The good news is that much of this led to changes in the field of sexual psychology, but that doesn't make it less infuriating to read about. Definitely recommended if you're at all interested in gender identity, but it's a bit hard to take at times. show less
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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.
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Author Information
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John Colapinto is an award-winning longtime staff writer for The New Yorker. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller As Nature Made Him and the novel About the Author. He lives in New York City.
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- As Nature Made Him
- Alternate titles
- As Nature Made Him, the Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl
- Original publication date
- 2000-01-14
- People/Characters
- David Reiner (Bruce, Brenda); Ron Reimer (David's father); Janet Reimer (David's mother); Peter Reiner (David's paternal grandfather); Janet Reiner (David's paternal grandmother); Brian (David's twin brother) (show all 44); Dr. Max Cham (anesthesiologist); Dr. Jean-Marie Huot (general practitioner); Dr. William Money (sex researcher, psychiatrist); Johnny (David's uncle); Evelyn (David's aunt) [As Nature Made Him] (David's aunt); Dr. Howard Jones (surgeon); Audrey McGregor (kindergarten teacher); Dr. Mario Tan (pediatrician); Sharyn Froome (David's first grade teacher); Joan Nebbs (child guidance clinic worker); Viola Lewis (hospital unit worker); Dr. Keith Sigmundson (psychiatrist); Dr. Doreen Moggay (psychiatrist); Dr. Janice Ingimundson (psychiatrist); Heather Legarry (David's friend); Dr. Jerome Winter (pediatric endocrinologist); Dr. Sheila Cantor (psychiatirst); Wendy Holderston (popular girl); Dr. Mary McKenty (child psychiatrist); Dr. Robert Martin (clinical psychiatrist); Steve Whysall (journalist); Dr. Milton Diamond (psychiatrist); Edward Goldwyn (documentary filmmaker); Peter Willams (freelance TV journalist); Jo Taylor (Williams' wife); Martin Smith (freelance documentary filmmaker); Sir Charles Curran (director general of BBC); Dr. Nona Doupe (Janet's psychiatrist); Dorothy Troop (David's tutor); Harold Normand (David's friend); Ron Mandel (David's friend); Jane Fontane (David's wife); Virginia Prince (transvestite activist); Dr. Mel Grumbach; Dr. Robert Blizzard (pediatric endocrinologist); Dr. John Bancroft (psychiatrist); Dr. William Reiner (child psychiatrist); Cheryl Chase (activist)
- Important places
- Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada; Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland, USA; British Columbia, Canada; Manitoba, Canada
- Epigraph
- I have entered on an enterprise which is without precedent, and will have no imitator. I propose to show my fellows a man as nature made him, and this man shall be myself.
--Rousseau Confessions
How could I not be glad to know my birth?
Sophocles, Oedipus Rex
The difficulty is to detach the framework of fact -- of absolute, undeniable fact -- from the embellishments of theorists and reporters. Then, having established ourselves on this sound basis, it is our duty to see what infe... (show all)rences may be drawn and what are the special points upon which the memory turns.
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes - First words
- On the morning of 27 June, 1997 I paid my first visit to David Reimer's home, a small, nondescript dwelling in a working-class neighborhood of Winnepeg, Manitoba.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)It's the only way to change things.
- Publisher's editor
- Fiona Hallowell
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- Sexuality and Gender Studies, General Nonfiction, Nonfiction, Biography & Memoir, LGBTQ+, Science & Nature
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- 305.9066 — Society, government, & culture Social sciences, sociology & anthropology Social group - Age, Gender, Ethnicity People by occupation and miscellaneous social statuses Sexuality; Migrants Gay, lesbian, queer studies
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- RC560 .G45 .C65 — Medicine Internal medicine Internal medicine Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry Psychiatry Psychopathology Personality disorders. Behavior problems
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- (3.87)
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