Reading “As nature made him” brought mixed thoughts,
reactions. While reading this, I didn’t know what to expect and as I read more
into it, I was just getting more upset and Dr. Money. I was so upset with him
because he didn’t take the twin’s feelings into consideration, and all he
wanted was to look good. He was ambitious and didn’t stop at nothing. When he
was questioned, he would get agitated and yell. But aside from that, as I read
it I realized that even if you’re born a certain gender, it doesn’t mean it
determines how you act, if that makes any sense? I feel that you’re born a certain
way and you can’t, even if you try psychologically make someone feel a certain
way. In Bruce’s example, even though he was a girl, he never felt like a girl,
no matter how much he tried to feel like a girl and fit in. The parents tried
their best to make him fit into society. David’s (Bruce or Brenda’s) accident
was a horrible one, and his parents out of love did something so he won’t feel
left out. But in the end, it just made things worse. This happened during the 60’s 70’s, during the
“sexual revolution” so what was happening was new and controversial, but more
accepted as if were to happen 20 years before.
As I said earlier, I
feel as if gender does not determine how you feel (feminine or masculine). A
woman can be a woman, but if she doesn’t feel like one, regardless of the times
she’s told one, she won’t be happy. Like Bruce’s case.
Jocelyn,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you. As I was reading the book I couldn’t image going through what they were going through. I also felt a somewhat anger and confusion towards Dr. Money. All he was really worried about was his own image and he being right. When people would question him, he would become so mad. Something that seems so sad is the fact that this wasn’t an answer to the family prayers but they were the answer to Dr. Money since the twins were the first for his experiment. It is interesting to see how even at a young age Brenda (Bruce or David) knew she didn’t belong in the body she was in, especially since she did have a twin brother that she saw herself in. You are right, the parents did this out of love and so he would be able to fit in society but in the end it caused him and his twin brother to commit suicide.