As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who was raised as a girl

As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl Name: Institution: The book by John Calapinto talks about a ‘boy who was raised as a girl` (Colapinto, 2001). A Canadian couple (Ron and Janet Reimer) in 1967 gave birth to identical twin boys (Brian and Bruce Reimer). At the age of eight months during their circumcision, one of the boys loses his pennies accidentally. The tragedy traumatizes the parents who seek help from Dr. John Money, the sexual development and gender identity psychologist at John Hopkins hospital. The doctor who believes that gender is environment influenced and not innate. He trains Bruce to live like a girl. It is so hard for the child Bruce who is named Brenda to live the girl life. Instead of playing with dolls, she loves trucks and toy cars: the kind of life that makes her grow in distress and hardship within the family and at school. At age 14, the parents decide to tell their child what is happening. In learning the truth about him, he calls himself David and after praying and reaches of age, he gets married to a wife with three children. David later commits suicide due years live in depression, financial instability, and a troubled marriage. The book carries major highlight and opinions on the life of David Reimer and sexology. One of the book`s major highlight is that sexual identity is innate and not learnt from the environment. The parents of David Reimer together with the doctor tried all that they could to make Brenda adopt completely to a girl but, to no avail. The book clearly shows that the environment cannot change a person`s gender. Gender is gene influenced. Therefore, environmental factors cannot influence our gender behaviors easily. Although sex reassignment surgery was done on David, his gender was not influenced from the inside. He loved playing with trucks rather than dolls showing that he was more of a boy than a girl. The book also highlights the importance of consent in choosing gender for the persons affected. David`s parents decided to have him trained to live like a girl and to have the operation done on him while he was still young. He did have a chance to chose who he wanted to live like. This is portrayed when the parents tell him the truth about his situation. When he learns what has happened, he chooses to live like a man and not like a woman. He calls himself David from Brenda. A decision that hits his parents hard. They have lived in distress in trying to make decisions on their son in order to make him live a happy life. Instead, they make him live a terrible life. Infants are robbed of a voice in such a crucial decision as to choosing whom to be. Most of the children forced to go through gender transition live to reject and deny their gender. As shown in the book the children are pressured to do things they are not willing to. Money would show Brenda pornographic materials and force her to do sexual acts as a female (something she is not) in efforts to cover their sexuality. Forceful sex reassignment surgery affects not only the individuals but also their families and the people around them. The Reimer`s family has experienced trauma, anger, and shame caused by the decisions they made over baby Bruce. Ron Reimer the father to David withdrew from the fam...