The Story of David Reimer

on April 27, 1966, an identical 8 mth twin boys were brought to the hospital to be circumcised( the removal of the foreskin of the penis and is said to be of a hygiene issue). Because the head doc was not present tat time, his assistant took the case to his own and performed the small op. During this op, an electrical cauterizing needle which a device for to seal the bloodvessel as it cuts. However, as the assist. doc was performing the op, he accidentally burned off one of the boy's penis... and this starts the sad story of David Reimer.


of cos, after the failed op, his parents desperately sought medical help and no matter whom they seek, the conclusion is stil the same- and tat is he has to accept that he is unable to consummate marriage and have normal heterosexual relations. He has to accept that he is incomplete and physically defective.

So happen that on one evening when his parents are watching tv, they heard about this psychologist, Dr John Money. he was then well known for this research on intersexed infants- babies that are borned with ambiguous genitals. In his opinion, infants with 'unfinished genitals' should be assigned a sex by surgery and hormone treatment and reared with his assigned sex. Only by this way, the child is able to develop a sense of self identity.


His parents then wrote to him who urged them to bring the child over to him immediately. After several discussion, they decided to allow his son to undergo sex reassignment( and that is convert him to a female). So, they stop cutting his hair, dressed him in feminine clothes, and even changed his name to Brenda. surgical castration was performed. earlier reports have shown to success of the conversion; that she starts to be fascinated by dolls and disdain cars. At puberty, she began taking regular dose of the female hormone, oestrogen.


This case has brought fame to Dr John Money, who proved that 'conventional patterns of masculine and feminity behaviour can be altered..which means that our sex is no longer determined by what genes we have( remember the X and Y chromosome).


However, in 1980, Brenda learned about her sex reassignment from her father. Unable to suffer her imposed sexual identity any longer, she stopped taking oestrogen. years later, she performed a surgery to have her breasts removed and a penis constructed and took the name David. At age 25, he married a women and adopted her three children. but that did not end his ordeal, at the age of 38( 2004) he committed suicide.


imagine a life of a boy was being ruined just like that. at such a young age, he has to suffer from all these surgical pains. and not forgetting the psychological impact on her when his classmates called him a 'stonegal'. His grades suffered. At the age of 9, she had a nervous breakdown and at the age of 14, she attempted suicide.