Part Deux: As Nature Made Him response

About two weeks ago, I finished reading the book as nature made him by John Colpinto; where he depicts the life of David Reimer (also known as: Bruce, and Brenda) and his life as a boy, to girl back to a male. His story is unique because he was born a healthy baby boy and due to an unfortunate circumcision accident, his parents, with the advice of Dr. Money had a sex reassignment to a girl. Colpinto just depicts the life of David as he grows up; emotionally, physically and psychological.

The more I got to analyze this story, the strongly I felt against Dr. Money and his theory. I just think that it was so unfair that he was so pompous and stubborn that he didn’t care about the life he was ruining—or shall I say lives; yeah, lives sound better, for the sake of his reputation. He ruined the lives of the reimer family, he tried to put his “theories” and tried to make Brenda happy with whom she was, even though on the inside he/she was miserable. We can clearly see that the twin's ending is not your typical, "and they lived happily ever after",  because of Dr. Money's meddling and stubbornness.   the scars that were left were deep, which hugely affected the twins, even in the later years of their lives.  Another thing that upset me was the things he made the twins do, it was completely disturbing. Dr. Money tried messing with nature and nature came back and bit him in the arsenal (I apologize for my lack of better words). Another thing I realized while we discussed this in class was nature vs nurture go hand in hand. You cannot believe that one is greater than the other, and we can see in this case how nurture did not work.

What I learned about gender identity is that your identity (well the majority of it) comes from within, how you feel and not by how your parents dress you, not by how people tell you how you should feel. In David’s case, even though he was dressed as a girl, he felt like a boy. His thoughts were boyish; his attitudes were more masculine than feminine, boyish things interested him. But he was constantly told that he was something else. Gender Identity is not the sex you were born, it’s how you feel. Also with construction, I’ve felt that if you feel that you should change, then do it. Because you feel like you’re old enough to make your own decisions and how you feel. What the Reimers should have done, what Dr. Diamond stated is that: they (parents of those who went through the same situation as David) should let the children decide when they are aware of their gender identity. When they know who they are, even if you’re 4 years old, kids know who they are. Maybe it won’t be 100% but they know.