I stumbled on a fascinating show on TLC, the other night. The unweildy title of it was Born a Boy, Brought up a Girl. It recounted the story of twin boys, born to a Canadian farm couple in 1965. In '66, they were scheduled for circumcision due to a medical condition. The first twin was tragically operated on with a cautery machine (not designed for external use and certainly not on a baby's genitals). His penis was destroyed.
From there the poor child ended up in Baltimore at Johns Hopkins in the care of psychologist John Money. At the time, Money was considered a specialist in the field of sexual development and gender identity. He recommended and espoused that if the boy was given estrogen therapy and surgical intervention to resemble a female, in effect, raising a boy as a girl, and believed that he could demonstrate that gender was largely a result of nurture over nature. He believed that these theories could be applied to so-called "intersexed" babies. Those born with both male and female genitalia, or severely underdeveloped male genitalia.
Bruce/now Brenda lived the first 15 years of his life in a starightjacket of an incorrect gender. Indeed he was experiencing feelings of suicidal depression at age 13. It wasn't until age 15 that Bruce's parents admitted to both Bruce and his twin brother, that their girl was actually born a boy. Brenda immediately felt enormous relief and opted to assume a male identity, calling himself David. David's brother Brian eventually deteriorated mentally and developed schizophrenia. David endured testosterone injections, a double mastectomy and plastic surgery on his genitals to "restore" his male identity.
David eventually grew up, had a decent job and got married. Tragically, his brother Brian overdosed on alcohol and antidepressants in 2002 and died. In 2004 David's marriage seemed to be failing, and he suffered the damaging psychological effects of his "therapies" for his whole life. Finally, severly depressed, David took his own life with a sawed-off shotgun in May of 2004.
Dr. Money's work and theories, as well as Johns Hopkins, suffered severe damage to their reputations, although he has never admitted that he may have made a mistake. And how that mistake caused two innocent boys, and indeed an entire young family, to suffer needlessly for years.
You can get more information here. And read an article about David's suicide by the author of his biography here.
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