David Reimer1965–2004
I do not know if this counts as an experiment but I cannot help but feel that Reimer was treated like a lab rat. David was one of a set of twins born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, as Bruce Reimer. When he was six months old he was subjected to an unconventional method of circumcision that involved electric burning and things went badly when his penis was basically burned beyond repair.
His parents were concerned about the boy’s future and when he was two years old they took him to the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, to meet with psychologist John Money. Money was a huge believer that gender was a social construct and persuaded the Reimers to subject their son to a gender reassignment surgery. The Reimers went ahead and did so, and Bruce was renamed Brenda.
During her childhood, Brenda was subjected to many exercises by Dr. Money to make sure he would be girl-like. Money kept a record about Brenda’s progress but the Reimers would routinely lie about the results to make the doctor happy.
Brenda had a miserable childhood. It was obvious she was different from the other girls and was teased by the other children about it. Brenda was made to take female hormones but claimed they had no effect. David talked about allowing a boy to kiss him once and did not like it at all.
When she was thirteen years of age, Brenda told her parents she would commit suicide if they made her see Dr. Money ever again. The parents complied and told her the truth about her identity. At fourteen, Brenda renamed himself David and went through a reversal of gender reassignment.
When he was 22 years old, he went public with his story and many people were horrified by his ordeal. He received enormous public support and even made an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show but David still suffered from depression. His twin brother, Brian, suffered psychological damage from this as well since he was an unwilling participant in Dr. Money’s exercises to make David feel more girl-like and also from survivor’s remorse if you will. Brian took his own life in 2002. David’s relationship with his parents understandably never repaired and his marriage fell apart. David took his own life in 2004 at the age of 38, two years after his twin brother.
There are many feminists today who claim gender is nothing more than a social construct. All of them should be required to read up on David Reimer’s story.