Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl By Bruce Reimer

In her article A Boy’s Life, Hanna Rosin gives us a glimpse at what some of these transgender children go through. As she follows the life of Brandon (later called Bridget), she unveils a range of hurdles that kids like him and his parents must overcome. Problems like social rejection, gender identification, and the anxiety that all of this creates becomes the usual for a family like Brandon’s. But even so, all of this is minimal in comparison to the huge decision that the parents must make in behalf of the child. In the article, Rosin reveals to us that scientists have come up with a way to prevent a kid’s development into

The documentary Dr. Money and the Boy with No Penis depicts the tragic experience of a young boy and the psychologist who attempts to “treat” him after an unfortunate accident. In a time of little knowledge of sexual variation Dr. John Money proposed the theory that a boy could be raised as a girl, but after years of failed attempts this theory would be shattered. This story began when twins Bruce and Bryan went in to the hospital to have a routine circumcision operation at 7 months of age. On the 27th of April 1966 Bruce was the first of the two twins to be operated on, but the procedure would not go as planned. The boy’s parents were soon informed that their son’s penis had been fully burned off in a nontraditional attempt to burn the foreskin away from the penis. In a position of great confusion the Reimers became hopeful in light of such tragedy as they later became aware of the work of Dr. John Money, a man who was becoming a pioneer in the field of sex change surgery. In meeting with this man the Reimers were informed that their baby boy could live a normal life as a girl.

Although men and women have significant biological differences, the question whether gender-specific labels stems from these biological differences or are gender constructed remains a polarised nature versus nurture debate. Whether it is through the process of socialisation or genetic make-up, “gender identity” is given from a person’s birth, determining how a person culturally interacts and the expectations society places on them. Along with a “gender identity” comes a whole set of “norms”, “values” and so-called “gender characteristics”, which are supposed to define the differences between a male and a female. According to the World Health Organisation (n.d.), the term “sex” is often used to define the biological and physiological

In The Boy Who was Raised as a Dog author Bruce Perry demonstrates how understanding the brain’s inner workings and development can help bring traumatized children from heartbreak to hope, while always balancing that hope with caution. In his book Perry illustrates how empathy is vital to healthy child development. There has been a decrease in the amount of healthy adults involved in a child’s life than in decades before. Families are smaller, teacher to pupil ratio has increased, and so the number of human-to-human interactions where children are being taught and nurtured has suffered. If you are an adult who is involved with children in your daily life, parent, teacher, law enforcement, etc., and you know that a child has been exposed to something that is potentially traumatic the first thing you should be aware of is that not all traumatic events automatically lead to disastrous mental health outcomes. In fact the majority do well, but for these successful outcomes they do need your attention, support, and awareness. What makes children get better following a trauma is connection with other human beings. Connections to people who are kind, patient, present, but not necessarily psychologically insightful, is at the core of a successful therapeutic relationship.

Judith Butler (Gender Trouble, 1990) argues that rather than sex determining gender-gender determines sex. Sex is shaped by gender discourses which give us scripts to perform according to whether we are biologically classed as male or female. The continual performance of these scripts on a daily basis is what makes us male or female. The classic example of this is the third sex, yes, the third sex and that is the transgender( born male in a female’s body or

A person’s sex is determined on the basis of three fundamental human physiognomies, chromosomes (XX for a female and XY for a male), gonads (ovaries for females and testes for males) and the obvious being genitals (vagina for a females and a penis for males). However socially, gender identity is formulated on the grounds of stereotypical roles from both

The idea of human traits and physical characteristics being masculine or feminine has always been socially constructed, however, there is no denying that men and women look different. The different physical attributes a male and a female have are due to the hormones in their bodies. The novella “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?” by James Tiptree Jr. presents a man named Andy. Andy was born biologically female, however, went under androgen therapy in order to present masculine and physically be fully male. Andy’s masculine features are attributed to this process, even though they do not typically correlate with the sex Andy was assigned at birth. Many see this technology as far-fetched and fiction because of it’s prevalence in Tiptree Jr’s wild

Joan g.Hampson was one of the male’s twin boys that experience sex alteration. During the time he was crucumsized his penis was damage completely .Doctors took it into their own hands to remove the penis of Joan. They assumed that if his parents had raised him as a girl Joan would eventually go own to live a happy healthy life. The assumptions made by the doctors were false. Joan grew up miserable and never was able to identify himself as a girl. Once he became cognizant that he was born a male Joan had decided to change back into male in his teens. He now went by the name David Rimmer. After undergoing numerous surgery to reconstruct his penis Rimmer had committed suicide at the age of 38.The surgery did not help to redefine Rimmer’s true

They explain how from birth society labels infants as male or female and thus initiates them into a continuing learning process of what it means to be a boy or a girl. Naming and colour coding are used as examples of how infants are immediately plunged into a life of gender processing by adults, which they then later adopt themselves. Eckert and McConnell-Ginet’s work aims to demonstrate, through reliable sources and studies, that gender is not something we are born with, but something we learn to

The formation of gender identity is not completely understood as it is much more complex than just getting a sperm and egg cell to join; an XX or an XY genotype is only the first part in gender identity. There are many biological, psychological and sociological factors involved. The biological includes chromosomes, gonads, prenatal hormones, internal accessory organs, external genital appearance. The psychological includes assigned gender role and gender identity. The sociological could come from family, mass media and society (Kenyon, PhD, 2006). Sammons (2007) states that biological psychology

The body once established as “natural” and binary sex an unquestioned “fact,” is the alibi for constructions of gender and sexuality, which can purport to be the just-as-natural expressions or consequences of a more fundamental sex. It is on the foundation of the construction of this natural binary sex that the binaries of gender and heterosexuality are likewise constructed as innate. This narrative “gives a false sense of legitimacy and universality to a culturally specific and, in some cases, culturally oppressive version of gender identity” (Butler 329). Without a critique of sex as produced by discourse, Butler claims, the distinction of sex and gender used to contest the constructions of binary gender and enforced heterosexuality would be wholly ineffective.

After watching the video and reading the chapter about David Reimer, I concluded that early on in his life, the environment he was raised in had more to do with his gender than his genetics did. His parents raised him as a girl, and he learned to act like a girl from the beginning of his childhood. David’s parents and his psychologists’ had a huge role in developing, and persuading him into liking female things and becoming a girl. He was definitely a product of his environment in his early childhood years. However, as time went on he felt more and more that something was not right. By the time he reached adolescences, he knew he was meant to be a boy. Genetics had eventually taken over and he was destined to become what he was born to be, a boy. The power of DNA had taken over, and no matter how strong the environment, I believe that nature trumps nurture because genetics contributes to the preconceived tendencies that an individual has.

Between the Sexes is a compelling narrative. Through several anecdotes, it illustrates the devastating psychological implications of early surgical intervention on intersexuals. According to the article, the surgery robs individuals of their sexual gratification, their gender identity, and their innocence. It's argument is noble, yet flawed. Authors Christine Gorman and Wendy Cole spin several sad yarns of intersexed people who are upset with handling of their gender assignment. They tell horror stories of people kept in the dark about their intersex, about a child forced to stop acting like a boy and become a girl, a teen who was raised to be a girl, but developed into a male. Gorman and Cole stumble into the fallacy of hasty

There are several sources that tell a person how to be a man or woman. Science tells us by recognizing the X or Y chromosomes. The media shows us through the physically ideal celebrities that grace the covers of magazines and flaunt their bodies in commercials. Sports, wrestling, cars, and blue for the boys. Dresses, make-up, painted nails, and pink for the girls. All of these sources, as well as others, have evolved into an expectation that has become institutionalized within society. This expectation, is placement and belonging into the binary system of person: the man or the woman. In Anne Fausot-Sterling's acrticles “The Five Sexes” and the “The Five Sexes, Revisited”, the

It is often recognized that a baby boy with genitalia is supposed to grow up to become a man. Anything that deviates from the norms of what the society perceives is “not