Reddit Reddit reviews As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl (P.S.)

We found 27 Reddit comments about As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl (P.S.). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl (P.S.)
As Nature Made Him The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl
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27 Reddit comments about As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl (P.S.):

u/urdnot_bex · 41 pointsr/todayilearned

Read. The. Book. This article leaves a lot of things out, like the fact that once David's penis was lost, the parents sought out Dr. Money themselves. At the time, he was the most prominent sex psychologist in the country. He had a reputation, research $$, and lots of public exposure for his other work. Remember the year this happened. At that time, it was unthinkable for them to raise their child without his genitals, and not much was understood about the mappings of the brain. We didn't know that sex and gender are determined in the womb by the hormones were are exposed to. At that time, consulting this professional was, to David's parents, the best option. All they wanted to do was help him. Of course, it backfired, because this guy was a power-hungry psycho (among other things) and couldn't see the evidence that the transition was not working. The parents saw a bad change in David, but they blindly followed this man because he was a Doctor. A professional. They had no reason to suspect this wouldn't work because, well, they didn't know any better at the time. They placed their trust in this man, and he failed horribly.

The parents would drive across the country for these treatments, despite David, at one point, threatening to kill himself if they went back. They would bribe him with trips to Disney to get him to go. I know Dr. Money is made out to be the villain here, but a lot of blame needs to be moved to the parents for their ignorance and blind optimism, and for not accepting that the treatments weren't fucking working.

This is an exceptional case that needs more attention than the Wikipedia article gives it. Here is a link to the book. It provides so much more than this wimpy article.

u/MistressFey · 25 pointsr/changemyview

Have you ever read as nature made him?

It's the story of a young boy who was raised as a girl because his genitalia was lost within the first couple of months and they replaced it with female genitalia. He never knew that he was really a boy, but he felt it.

Wikipedia article

u/viviphilia · 21 pointsr/gaybros

Yes, from that shitty post which gets a laugh at the expense of gender-sex variant individuals, I am assuming that he has not imagined it. If he had actually imagined what it would be like, for example, to have been "Born a male. Bad circumcision. Raised female" then he might understand how painful it is to be lumped in with a "household pet that walked across the keyboard."

In that particular case of a botched circumcision, one doesn't need to imagine since there is a detailed biography of such a person. "As Nature Made Him" is the tragic story of David Reimer, and how he was driven to insanity and suicide by the doctor who tried to raise him as female after a botched circumcision. While it might be funny for a "simple gay man," this kind of social humiliation drives some people to their deaths.

Seeing it happen here, where people should know better, is especially sad.

u/Garblin · 17 pointsr/AskSocialScience

John Money was a piss poor scientist, he swept his findings so far under the rug that he literally ignored the fact that the application of his theories literally caused suicides (such as the one detailed in the non-fiction novel "As Nature Made Him" so we don't generally take him seriously anymore...

u/pussy_footing · 14 pointsr/AskReddit

The nature vs nurture debate has gone on long enough, but in such instances nature wins out. For example, David Reimer was born a boy. His penis was burned off during a botched circumcision, and a doctor convinced his parents that if they raised him as a girl, he would believe he was a girl and all would be well. So they did.

However, his whole life he knew something was "off" and wrong about him. He didn't want to wear dresses, and he liked girls. He had no idea he was born a boy but knew something was wrong despite countless hormone treatments.

In the end, he found out the truth and immediately went back to being a boy. He committed suicide a few years ago, though, due to all the trauma. "As Nature Made Him" is a book documenting this whole ordeal and really talks a lot about nature vs nurture. In the end, nature won out.

sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer
http://www.amazon.com/As-Nature-Made-Him-Raised/dp/0061120561/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324282353&sr=1-1

As for transgender people, they believe it happens in the womb. The body develops as a girl but something goes wrong and the hormones for a boy end up getting released. There is a lot that is still unclear, but it does not seem to be a psychological reason; it all happens before the person is born.

^ Gizewski, E. R., Krause, E., Schlamann, M., Happich, F., Ladd, M. E., Forsting, M., & Senf, W. (2009). Specific cerebral activation due to visual erotic stimuli in male-to-female transsexuals compared with male and female controls: An fMRI study. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 6, 440–448.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1836041/posts


In any case, since it is not very prevalent in contrast to the number of people born with the same sex and gender, it feels unnatural and one cannot be blamed for being slightly off put so long as they don't discriminate or treat them badly. You're entitled to have your opinions so long as you're tolerant.

u/Spockrocket · 14 pointsr/AskMen

This (debatably) goes against your request for someone who did not live as a transsexual, but there's the book As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl.

This is a true story about how a boy named David, after receiving a botched circumcision, was raised as a girl at the recommendation of a quack doctor. The doctor was convinced that gender identity was purely a product of upbringing and wanted to use David (named Brenda when he was being raised as a girl) as a long-term experiment to prove this. However, David was born a cisgendered male, and was absolutely miserable being forced to live life as a girl.

It's a fantastic look into gender identity and his story serves as pretty compelling evidence that a person is definitely born with their identity; no amount of social pressure, surgery, or upbringing can change whether someone self-identifies as male, female, or what have you.

u/MondoKai · 7 pointsr/TransyTalk

Not doing summaries/reviews, cause it's late and I'm tired. On request, I suppose. Mostly books, with a couple docs and a few blogs.


Less theory, more personal experiences:

u/Ennyish · 7 pointsr/TumblrInAction

Oh, yeah, I read that book for my humanities class in college last year.

As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl.

I still think transgenderism is real though, but what do I know, I'm not a behavioral psychologist or a sexologist.

u/Chocobean · 6 pointsr/Parenting

Get this book, and give it a good read.

The synopsis is that a young boy was, due to circumstances, secretly raised as a girl. For 13 years everyone lied to his face to convince him he was a girl and that he must accept being a girl. He was extremely unhappy and became suicidal. He reverted back to the gender that he always, always always knew deep down he was, and became much happier as a result.

This is not something that you did or have any control over.

I would suggest being honest. Tell your son that you are having a hard time and about your "pre-exisitng condition". Offer to go to therapy. The problem is yours and not at all your child's.

Look, everyone has preferences on gender of their children. But when that preference gets in the way of life (eg, your inability to have biological children out of this fear, and your inability to continue to love your son),/you need therapy. That's what a mental illness is, something that gets in the way of normal life.

u/jolie178923-15423435 · 3 pointsr/highdeas

People are nuts on this issue. There is no medical reason to remove the foreskin of a baby. none whatsoever. Everyone should read the story of David Reimer, which is where I learned about the history of routine infant circumcision and that it's pointless.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer

https://www.amazon.com/As-Nature-Made-Him-Raised/dp/0061120561

u/fareven · 3 pointsr/funny
u/kittenmommy · 3 pointsr/AgainstHateSubreddits

> The problem is that these individuals did not adjust to their prescribed gender as predicted. All of the social conditioning, which included their surgically altered bodies, was not enough. There are a few decently brief, but appropriately in depth docs on this if you search around. The confusion and distress these people felt over a lifetime is not to be underestimated. Imagine being a guy or girl, and being raised your whole life in the opposite category, and even with different genetalia. Then one day you find out that you were born different, and had your genitals mutilated without your consent, and kept in the dark about it. It can be a long and confusing road to self acceptance and balance in life.

See: As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl by John Colapinto for a particularly heartbreaking true story about this sort of thing.

u/CristabelYYC · 3 pointsr/Documentaries

There was a book written about him, called "As Nature Made Him".

u/sixandsevens · 3 pointsr/gaybros

I think you're trying to refer to John Money and the Reimer case. (Link is to a book about the case and Dr. Money's influence on gender studies/identity politics and I highly recommend it.) Basically that case, among some work by Dr. Milton Diamond, led to the conclusion that there is some inevitable "nature" aspect to the determination of gender, whether it corresponds with biological sex or not.

I appreciate that you acknowledge not knowing much about certain groups and reaching out to understand them, as I often find myself in the same position. I wish more people thought that way.

u/withbellson · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

Yup. It's really an astounding story. That poor kid.

u/MrsJeek · 2 pointsr/Random_Acts_Of_Amazon

REDRUM! REDRUM!

My favorite biography is hands down As Nature Made Him. As a result of a botched circumcision "Bruce" is raised as "Brenda". Because "Bruce" was an identical twin, scientists turned these kids' lives into an experiment. Is gender and sexual preference nurture or nature? It's a fascinating read!

u/iglidante · 2 pointsr/todayilearned
u/MeMyselfAndI1974 · 2 pointsr/fatlogic

>Well, that, and the possibility the knife slips and they cut off too much. That's scary as hell.

And it's happened.

u/carpetplaydohx2 · 2 pointsr/GenderCritical

David Reimer -- and it was far more than just being raised as a girl. There was a significant amount of child abuse involved, iirc, and emotional trauma.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-may-13-me-reimer13-story.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer#CITEREFColapinto2001b
https://www.amazon.com/As-Nature-Made-Him-Raised/dp/0061120561

u/Ridergal · 1 pointr/MensRights

If anyone is really interested in this case, I suggest reading the book "As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl". I read the book myself and noted are few things:

  1. This was not a 40 year experiment. This was at most a 14 year experiment after which David found out he had been born a boy and chose to live as one.

  2. The psychologist, Dr. Money, who "treated" David and Brian Reimer was a sick idiot. He had some stupid ideas regarding gender identity including sex play between children which he thought was healthy. When I read that, it made me want to gag.

  3. Even after David decided to live as a boy, Dr. Money was telling the scientific community that David has successfully transferred to a girl. These lies lead to wrong beliefs regarding intersex people.

  4. There was a lot of other factors affecting David Reimer including his family, his environment, and where he was being raised. However, the worst part of this story is how much the scientific and medical community put on what is an ancedotal situation.

    http://www.amazon.ca/As-Nature-Made-Him-Raised/dp/0061120561
u/lazer_kat · 1 pointr/todayilearned

I don't see the comment, but just FYI, there is a great book about this: http://www.amazon.com/As-Nature-Made-Him-Raised/dp/0061120561

u/begrudged · 1 pointr/TumblrInAction

As Nature Made Him by John Colapinto, if we are thinking of the same book. The child in this one wasn't intersex; there was a botched circumcision involved.

u/southwer · 1 pointr/PurplePillDebate

but babies have died having this done. not a lot, but it has happened. See this book for another horrible example of things going wrong:

http://www.amazon.com/As-Nature-Made-Him-Raised/dp/0061120561

Obviously what happened to David Reimer was horrible above and beyond the initial accident, but...why do this to a newborn if it's not necessary medically? It's just stupid, I can't think of another word for it.

u/meltingintoice · 1 pointr/tifu

I strongly recommend this book [As Nature Made Him] (http://www.amazon.com/As-Nature-Made-Him-Raised/dp/0061120561) about a much worse case of sex reassignment surgery that went terribly wrong. Pre-intenet, parents had virtually no information to go on and doctors suggested awful, stupid things, including especially to lie to their children. Very likely your parents are terrified that they made a mistake at every step but were told to keep you in the dark for your own good.

u/Forresterc · -2 pointsr/AskWomen

I'd encourage you to look up some psychological studies of boys that were raised to act like women after complications after birth. We are programmed differently. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061120561

I'd even point toward males that are raised to be straight and end up gay. It is in you're genetic programming. Things like dresses and stuff aren't though.

u/jbaird · -2 pointsr/canada

Yeah I don't get the circumcision clusterfuck of panic that has evolved over the last couple years. Sounds like a big load of
'but but but MEN TOO' RedPill bullshit.. Equality doesn't mean all issues have to be 50/50 split in their effects on men and women, christ, just be happy when things work out in your favor..

I was circumcised, if no one had told me I'd never know, I experienced 0 pain I can remember my penis works fine, sex is pleasurable, what's the fucking deal? my parents are not jewish, they're not even THAT religious, I'm just in my late 30s and was born at a time that everyone got circumcised

Since the science is now saying 'don't do that' instead of 'do that' i'm all for not doing it. but it kind of a fucking toss up since the procedure is largely safe, does that mean it was safe for absolutely every single person who ever had it? no. Was there side effects? sure there was.. but that doesn't mean it a problem on the level of FGM being a problem, nope! WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE, it seems like people can't stand that it isn't..

Also a reallly interesting book about a botched circumcision is "As Nature Made Him" where psychologists of the 1970s tried to raise a guy as a girl after they accidently lopped of his dick which goes about as well as you would imagine trying to raise a boy who wants to be a boy as a girl