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A review by book_concierge
As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as A Girl by John Colapinto
5.0
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. 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:)
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. 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: