Once you begin reading As Nature Made Him, a mesmerizing story of a medical tragedy and its traumatic results, you absolutely won't want to put it down. Following a botched circumcision, a family is convinced to raise their infant son, Bruce, as a girl. They rename the child Brenda and spend the next 14 years trying to transform him into a her. Brenda's childhood reads as one filled with anxiety and loneliness, and her fear and confusion are present on nearly every page concerning her early childhood. Much of her pain is caused by Dr. Money, who is presented as a villainous medical man attempting to coerce an unwilling child to submit to numerous unpleasant treatments.

Reading over interviews and reports of decisions made by this doctor, it's difficult to contain anger at the widespread results of his insistence that natural-born gender can be altered with little more than willpower and hormone treatments. The attempts of his parents, twin brother, and extended family to assist Brenda to be happily female are touching--the sense is overwhelmingly of a family wanting to do "right" while being terribly mislead as to what "right" is for her. As Brenda makes the decision to live life as a male (at age 14), she takes the name David and begins the process of reversing the effects of estrogen treatments. David's ultimately successful life--a solid marriage, honest and close family relationships, and his bravery in making his childhood public--bring an uplifting end to his story. Equally fascinating is the latest segment of the longtime nature/nurture controversy, and the interviews of various psychological researchers and practitioners form a larger framework around David's struggle to live as the gender he was meant to be. --Jill Lightner


From Publishers Weekly
Forget sugar, spice, snails and puppy dog tails: discussions of how little boys and little girls are made have become quite complicated over the past three decades, as scientists, feminists and social theorists debate the relative impact of "nature" and "nurture" on gender and sexual identity. Focusing on the real-life story behind sexologist Dr. John Money's famous sexual reassignment case of 1965, Colapinto, an award-winning journalist, has penned a gripping medical melodrama. After Bruce Thiessen, one of two identical male twins, lost his penis during a botched circumcision, he underwent surgery that made him anatomically female, later received estrogen injections and was raised as a girl under Money's supervision at the Psychohormonal Research Unit at Johns Hopkins. All of Money's reports of the case--which quickly appeared in textbooks as a prime example of environment trumping biology--portrayed Bruce (now Brenda) as a well-adjusted girl, although the reality was quite different. Angry, sullen and having always insisted that "she" was a boy, Brenda finally decided at age 15--after "she" finally learned of the surgery-to revert to her original sex and take the name David. Drawing on extensive interviews with the Thiessen family, "Brenda"'s therapists and friends, Colapinto has written a wrenching personal narrative and a scathing indictment of Money's methods and theories, including instances of what Colapinto and David Thiessen see as extraordinarily invasive behavior and sexual abuse in his examinations of "Brenda" and her twin brother. Although Colapinto runs into trouble when he tries to generalize about nature vs. nurture from this single case, his book is illuminating, frightening and moving. (Feb.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From School Library Journal
YA-A sorrowful account of a healthy male baby who, after suffering from a botched circumcision, was surgically altered and raised as a girl. Beyond that, it is the story of a psychologist from Johns Hopkins who would not see that the transsexual "remedy" was a grievous error since that admission meant the loss of the fame, power, and acceptance gained from his theories on gender identity. The book is in actuality a reporting of the facts of the case: the medical diagnosis; the surgery; the results; and the terrible effects the gender switch had on Bruce Reimer (soon to be Brenda), her twin, and their parents. By adolescence, despite hormone treatments, Brenda's misery was so complete that a switch back to the gender of birth was inescapable. Thus was David born. The tragedy of this family was compounded by the details of the famous Dr. Money's refusal to accept the failure of this treatment. One is forced to wonder how many other children who are afflicted with genital anomalies, whether from physician error or from a congenital defect, have suffered due to the ongoing nature versus nurture debate of scientists. This is a compelling story that will educate teens about some serious physical, psychological, and scientific issues. Because of interviews on television recently, David Reimer's story may already be familiar to many of them.Carol DeAngelo, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
We've all heard the famous case of the boy raised as a girl after his circumcision was botched, supposedly a triumph for nurturists. Now he's an adult, living as a man with a family. Based on an award-winning Rolling Stone article, this book recounts the ordeal of "John/Joan," whose full identify will be revealed here. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Natalie Angier
...[a] riveting, cleanly written and brilliantly researched account of a world-famous case...


From The New England Journal of Medicine, May 11, 2000
A variety of conditions may cause an infant to have ambiguous genitalia. The treatment of choice is a topic of hot debate among professionals and, more recently, among support groups of adults born with such intersexual conditions. One issue concerns the factors that determine a "good outcome" and thereby the policy of sex assignment. Sexual identity, the experience of oneself as male or female, is a core component of this outcome. Unfortunately, the empirical knowledge needed to make decisions about sex assignment is scanty. Such knowledge was virtually nonexistent in 1967, after a male twin had lost his penis in a circumcision accident at the age of eight months. At Johns Hopkins Hospital, John Money, an authority in the field of sexology, advised the parents to reassign the sex of the child. At the time, Money was one of the very few scientists who questioned the existing policy of assignment according to the sex of the gonads. His view was based on his studies of intersexual patients. In the great majority of such cases, sexual identity appeared to be shaped by rearing instead of by chromosomes, gonads, or sex hormones. In Money's view, even a healthy boy could, after genital traumatization, develop a female identity, provided that the reassignment was timely and the child was raised unambiguously as a girl. For many years, this case was considered to be the ultimate evidence of psychosexual neutrality at birth. It had a considerable effect on decisions concerning sex assignment of intersexual children throughout the world. Early reports showed that, in contrast to the twin brother, the reassigned child seemed to develop as a "real girl," although she had many tomboyish traits. However, it later became apparent that the child had serious problems with sexual identity. When, at the age of 14, she was informed of her sex at birth, she immediately decided to live as a boy again. Asked for his reaction to this outcome by the press and professionals, Money was reluctant to respond. Diamond and Sigmundson published a follow-up of the case three years ago, when the patient was in his early 30s. Unlike Money, they considered the development of male identity to be determined to a considerable extent prenatally, through the brain's exposure to androgens. In their opinion, the case invalidated the theory of psychosexual neutrality at birth. Colapinto's book contains two stories. One is the sad account of a family with a child who had to live with an unwanted sex role. The other provides the medical and psychological contexts of this tragedy. The personal story vividly describes how horrible life can be for a child with an incongruence between sexual identity and sex of rearing. For such children, stigmatization, bullying, and alienation from peers and family are daily problems. When confronted with so much suffering, it is hard not to look for someone to blame. Whereas in many cases of childhood problems of sexual identity there is no clear culprit, in this particular case the obvious candidate is John Money. It is proper that medical mistakes or wrongful approaches to patients be exposed, but it is regrettable that this book devotes so much attention to the psychological makeup of just one clinician. Colapinto uses much of his well-researched material to reveal each and every one of Money's flaws. Unfortunately, in doing so, Colapinto himself makes mistakes (e.g., he incorrectly describes the work of a scientist who defended Money's theoretical position by presenting another case of ablatio penis in which there were no identity problems) and depicts the medical and psychological treatment of transsexuals as one of Money's idiosyncratic hobbies. Transsexualism is a young field of study, full of prejudice and taboos. Colapinto doubtless wrote his book intending to protect the interests of intersexual patients, but ironically, he will probably make life harder for a group of equally vulnerable patients -- transsexuals. Colapinto overshoots the mark. Instead of launching a personal crusade, he could have focused on the challenges faced by clinicians in the field of sexual identity or tried to understand what the life of the reassigned twin would have been like if he had been raised as a boy without a penis. Such discussions would have given the book a broader and more balanced view of the complex issues at hand. Despite these criticisms, the book is interesting and will be accessible to a large audience. It shows how much more we need to know to prevent personal tragedies such as that suffered by the boy who was raised as a girl. Peggy T. Cohen-Kettenis, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2000 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved. The New England Journal of Medicine is a registered trademark of the MMS.


New York Observer
"With remarkable concision, Mr. Colapinto has telescoped this medical scandal, brilliantly weaving the perspectives of David [Reimer], his family, friends, doctors, and wife. . .The book's structure is that of a mystery."


Washington Post Book World
"Fascinating. . .the book, by New York writer John Colapinto, skillfully and unsentimentally chronicles the odyssey of David and his anguished parents, who were little more than teenagers when they faced the dilemma of how best to help their son. The book succeeds on many levels--as the gripping story of a child and his family as well as a carefully documented examination of how an unproven theory became accepted as standard treatment."


From Booklist
A young Canadian couple brought their eight-month-old, identical-twin boys to the hospital for routine circumcisions in 1965, but things went awry, and Bruce was left without a penis. The Thiessens had little hope that their son would live a normal life until they watched a television interview with Dr. John Money, a specialist in gender transformation at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Could Bruce, they wondered, be changed into a girl? The controversial Money, who believed that gender was a product of nurture rather than nature, persuaded the Thiessens to permit castration and to follow his instructions for transforming Bruce into Brenda. They did everything they were told, but nature asserted itself with a vengeance. There was nothing even remotely girlish about Brenda, and as she grew older, she vehemently objected to sessions with Money. Suffering severe trauma from masquerading as the opposite sex, Brenda refused to undergo any further operations. Money, meanwhile, suppressed the truth, writing triumphantly about his treatment in widely read books, which convinced doctors to treat hundreds of patients with the same destructive regime. Colapinto, a writer of striking lucidity and compassion, inspired the very private man who now proudly calls himself David to reveal the entire story of his horrendous ordeal in hopes of preventing others from suffering his fate. The result is an arresting and invaluable narrative of personal tragedy, scientific arrogance, and societal confusion over the source and significance of gender differences. David Thiessen emerges as a genuine hero who reminds us that we are far more than the sum of our reproductive parts. Donna Seaman


From Kirkus Reviews
Born a boy, brought up a girl, David Thiessen always knew in his genes that he was a male, despite his eminent doctor's self-serving pronouncements. Colapinto, the reporter who won a National Magazine Award for a piece on David's story, engrossingly recounts this tale of grotesque medical hubris and a life dragged slowly from the ashes. 30 years ago, Davida pseudonym used in review galleys, his actual name to be revealed upon publication``lost his entire penis to a botched circumcision.'' When he was just a year old, John Money, M.D., a pioneer in transsexual surgery at Johns Hopkins, convinced Davids parents to have the boys sex changed, arguing that subsequent social, mental, and hormonal conditioning would turn him into a happy woman. Publicly and falsely touted as an unqualified success, Davids caseexploited as a gaudy feather in the cap of nurturists over naturists, proof that the gender gap was not biological but environmentalushered in a period when sex-reassignment surgery became standard treatment in situations where newborns had injured or irregular genitals. David, on the other hand, was deeply confused about his gender identity long before his operation was disclosed to him. He suffered the cruelty of peers who didn't appreciate his tomboyism, had few friends but his identical-twin brother (who makes a fascinating comparative profile), and came to dread any contact with Money, a bully who deployed ``pressure tactics, cajoling, pornography, and unorthodox inspections and posings'' when Brenda, as David was known, resisted further surgery. As soon as David learned his birth sex, he applied for phalloplasty and began to pick up the pieces of his malignantly manipulated life. Colapinto's storytelling, taut and emotive, never plays the grim tale for its sideshow qualities, nor claims the last word on nature versus nurture. (First printing of 125,000; Literary Guild super release; author tour) -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Nature vs. Nurture

In As Nature Made Him, author John Colapinto offers a powerful true story that may shake beliefs you take for granted -- not least that doctors can be trusted to work in their patients' best interests. In lucid, impassioned prose, Colapinto, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, traces the life of David Thiessen, a boy sex-changed to female during infancy as part of a cruel experiment. In 1965, David (then named Bruce) was one of a pair of male twins. After a catastrophic circumcision accident, Bruce's penis was destroyed, while his brother Brian remained intact. Devastated, the twins' parents turned for help to Dr. John Money, a world-famous Johns Hopkins psychologist. They were searching for a solution. Instead, they found themselves pawns in a test designed to confirm Money's pet theory -- that gender is a purely social phenomenon, a matter of nurture, not nature.

Indeed, for 20 years, the doctor touted the success of the so-called "John/Joan" case. The surgically created girl, he claimed, had grown up contentedly feminine, in contrast to her rough-and-tumble brother. She fulfilled numerous stereotypes: shy, neat, and pretty, she loved babies and cooking. Most importantly, she considered herself a girl and seemed female to others. Gender, Money announced, was malleable. This finding was hugely influential, seized upon by everyone from feminist academics to pediatricians. And Money, already extremely powerful, rose to the top of his field, wielding enormous influence over surgeons and psychologists alike.

The real story did not emerge until many years later. For in fact, "Brenda" (the name the infant was given after surgery) had never felt female -- and was not perceived as a girl by others. Tormented by her peers, she was nicknamed "cavewoman" and sneered at for her mannish gait. She regularly got into brawls and was failing academically. Even the few bonds the unhappy child formed with tomboys were fragile, since she was perceived not as a tough girl but as a boy in a dress. In her teens, Brenda became suicidally depressed. She refused to go back to see Dr. Money, with whom she'd had annual visits until the age of 14. And she began to dress as a boy. Finally, her parents broke down and told her the truth. "More than anything else," David recalls of this revelation. "I was relieved. Suddenly it all made sense why I felt the way I did."

"Brenda" reverted to male. He had surgery to create a cosmetic penis and therapy to deal with his rage and depression. He changed his name to David, a reference, in part, to the biblical figure who slew a giant. Eventually, he married a loving woman with three children by other fathers. But all the while, the scientific theory supposedly based on his experience continued to guide medical protocols. Money claimed that the family had been "lost to follow-up" -- despite the fact that they never moved or changed their phone number. The case had special influence on the treatment of intersexed (that is, hermaphroditic) infants, who were increasingly "normalized" to female, despite evidence that, like Thiessen, many such children feel traumatized by the surgery and grow up to reject their gender. Finally, in 1996, biologist Milton Diamond, a longtime professional enemy of Money, tracked Thiessen down and revealed the truth to his colleagues, setting off a bomb that effectively destroyed Money's reputation.

Despite its wrenching subject matter, As Nature Made Him is an inspiring read. Colapinto has done a thorough job researching not only Thiessen's medical treatment but the social context in which it took place. And as with the best journalistic nonfiction, the author uses vivid and suspenseful storytelling to make complex ideas accessible. Colapinto builds an especially strong case against Dr. Money -- revealing horrific details about the doctor's treatment of the twins, to whom he showed pornography and even pressured to act out sexual acts, all in an attempt to "cement" their gender identities. Most of all, though, this is the story of one person: David Thiessen. With compassion and insight, Colapinto illuminates the courage of a remarkable individual who triumphed over the miserable treatment he received to become -- in the most literal sense -- a self-made man.

—Emily Nussbaum

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"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." "The so-called twins case would become one of the most famous in modern medicine and the social sciences; cited repeatedly over the past thirty years as living proof that our sense of being male or female is not inborn but primarily the result of how we are raised. A touchstone for the feminist movement, the case also set the precedent for sex reassignment as standard treatment for thousands of newborns with similarly injured, or irregular, genitals." "But the case was a failure from the outset. From the start the famous twin had, in fact, struggled against his imposed girlhood. Since age fourteen, when finally informed of his medical history, he made the decision to live as a male. John Colapinto sets the historical and medical context for the case, exposing the thirty-year-long scientific feud between Dr. John Money and his fellow sex researcher, Dr. Milton Diamond - a rivalry over the nature/nurture debate whose very bitterness finally brought the truth to light."--BOOK JACKET.

FROM THE CRITICS

Deirdre Donahue - USA Today

Beautifully read by Howard McGillin, As Nature Made Him contains a powerful lesson about the importance of questioning the big authorities and of listening to small children.

Library Journal

We've all heard the famous case of the boy raised as a girl after his circumcision was botched, supposedly a triumph for nurturists. Now he's an adult, living as a man with a family. Based on an award-winning Rolling Stone article, this book recounts the ordeal of "John/Joan," whose full identify will be revealed here. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

YA-A sorrowful account of a healthy male baby who, after suffering from a botched circumcision, was surgically altered and raised as a girl. Beyond that, it is the story of a psychologist from Johns Hopkins who would not see that the transsexual "remedy" was a grievous error since that admission meant the loss of the fame, power, and acceptance gained from his theories on gender identity. The book is in actuality a reporting of the facts of the case: the medical diagnosis; the surgery; the results; and the terrible effects the gender switch had on Bruce Reimer (soon to be Brenda), her twin, and their parents. By adolescence, despite hormone treatments, Brenda's misery was so complete that a switch back to the gender of birth was inescapable. Thus was David born. The tragedy of this family was compounded by the details of the famous Dr. Money's refusal to accept the failure of this treatment. One is forced to wonder how many other children who are afflicted with genital anomalies, whether from physician error or from a congenital defect, have suffered due to the ongoing nature versus nurture debate of scientists. This is a compelling story that will educate teens about some serious physical, psychological, and scientific issues. Because of interviews on television recently, David Reimer's story may already be familiar to many of them.-Carol DeAngelo, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

AudioFile

Narrator Adam Henderson presents this scientific discussion of the relatively new discipline of understanding gender disorders. He shows how a skilled reader can pleasantly embellish the learning experience by reading a quote by a British doctor with a British accent, for example. Henderson mispronounces only one technical term in nine hours, so it is easy to recommend this book for professionals interested in a brief look at this field. The audiobook's pivotal case, a young boy whose penis was accidentally amputated during circumcision, creates an excellent matrix around which is woven an informative (and sometimes prurient) discussion of intersexual pathology and treatment. J.A.H. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine

Natalie Angier - New York Times Book Review

As John Colapinto makes achingly clear in this riveting, cleanly written and brilliantly researched account of a world-famous case, Money's effort to prove the plasticity of human sexual identity by transforming Bruce into Brenda was a cataclysmic failure.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING