A New Gender Paradigm
ARTIFICIAL TRANSSEXUALS
During the 1960's thru the 1990's surgeons created transsexuals on a regular basis, in celebration of the Old Paradigm. One of the key tenets of the Old Paradigm was that Gender (personality) was NOT innate; Gender was either a "social construct", a response to undefined genital influences, or an arbitrary set of rules taught to a young child.
Bruce Reimer was one of a set of identical twins born on 22 August 1965. At 8 months of age a circumcision was attempted with disastrous results: Bruce's genitals were destroyed.
At that time Johns Hopkins psychiatrist Dr John Money was considered the premier expert on matters of gender and biologic-sex. Dr Money was a firm proponent of Old Paradigm principles. Bruce's male genitals were gone, no longer able to exert their influence on the infant's Gender. No problem, girls are in the same boat. The infant was transformed the rest of the way into female biology, then reared as a girl named Brenda. Problem solved.
In 1975 Dr Money triumphantly announced to the medical world (Archives of Sexual Behavior) that he had proven the Old Paradigm beyond dispute:
What Dr Money claimed:
Bruce at Birth
Brenda after Surgery
Supposedly Fully-male Bruce was transformed by surgery into Fully-female Brenda
UNFORTUNATELY.... It turned out that Dr Money was lying. Brenda didn't feel like a girl at all. He refused to wear dresses. He tore apart the dolls he got for Christmas and played with his brother's Tinkertoys & dump trucks instead. And he was harassed at school:
Bruce at Birth
Brenda after Surgery
Fully-male Bruce was transformed by surgery into male transsexual Brenda in a Wrong-gender Expression
RESULT: Constant harassment, anger, frustration, suicidal depression, just like naturally-born transsexuals
At age 14 Brenda transitioned into a boy named David. At age 31 David underwent reversal of the initial surgery--he switched from biologic-female to biologic-male. Finally he was whole again. He married and adopted 3 children.
Transsexual Brenda after 1st Surgery
David after 2nd Surgery
Like naturally-born transsexuals, Brenda was "cured" by surgery--becoming David
Like naturally-born transsexuals, Wrong-gender Expression & harassment at school had caused injury
Although "cured", the whole process had been traumatic for David--he bore deep emotional scarring. On 2 May 2004 39 year old David broke up with his wife and committed suicide.
Instead of being the Old Paradigm poster child, David Reimer disproved the Old Gender Paradigm. Biology does NOT determine Gender; changing biology does NOT change Gender. Gender is innate. Bruce's male gender identity had already been established by the time of surgery at age 1 1/2 years. Surgery, hormones and rearing as a girl couldn't change that inborn male Gender Identity.
Once surgery had transformed him into a male transsexual, Brenda felt and acted just like other male transsexuals. Wrong-gender Expression was agonizing. He was driven to switch to Right-gender Expression regardless of what the adults said. ...And when he found out what had been done to him as an infant, he was FURIOUS!
LET'S TRY IT AGAIN...
Just to be sure, David Reimer's story was repeated countless times during the next few decades. Intersexual boys (ie boys with "deformed genitals") were surgically transformed in infancy into transsexual girls. In every case, the gender boys remained gender boys in spite of their wrong-gender biology, rearing and imposed wrong-gender expression. None of them were informed, but their inner-self was fully aware. Over half demanded surgical restoration; the other half remained butches (male gender, female biology).
OLD PARADIGM WINS!
One might have thought these cases would've been the death-knell to the Old Paradigm. Unfortunately not. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, vast numbers of professionals are still devoted to the idea that biology irrevocably determines gender, and that childhood rearing also determines gender. It's taught in sociology classes. It's ingrained into psychology training. It's enshrined in legislation.
Dr Money's book, Man and Woman, Boy and Girl--which announced the stunning success of Dr Money's experiment--is still sold (paperback edition, reprinted from 1996, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Masterwork Series). The publisher still describes the book as follows:
BY A LANDSLIDE!
By showing that surgery alone could consistently and predictably create an artificial transsexual, the David Reimer cases conclusively proved the reality of and purely biologic basis for transsexuality:
This is what Dr Paul McHugh, Dr Money's successor at Johns Hopkins concluded after noting the similarities between artificially-induced transsexuals and naturally-occurring transsexuals:
Bottom line: ANYBODY could become either a male or a female by modifying their genitals and/or by being reared appropriately.So, it was time to make some girls....
Bruce Reimer was one of a set of identical twins born on 22 August 1965. At 8 months of age a circumcision was attempted with disastrous results: Bruce's genitals were destroyed.
At that time Johns Hopkins psychiatrist Dr John Money was considered the premier expert on matters of gender and biologic-sex. Dr Money was a firm proponent of Old Paradigm principles. Bruce's male genitals were gone, no longer able to exert their influence on the infant's Gender. No problem, girls are in the same boat. The infant was transformed the rest of the way into female biology, then reared as a girl named Brenda. Problem solved.
In 1975 Dr Money triumphantly announced to the medical world (Archives of Sexual Behavior) that he had proven the Old Paradigm beyond dispute:
"No one [outside the family] knows [that she was born a boy]. Nor would they ever conjecture. Her behavior is so clearly that of an active little girl, and so different by contrast from the boyish ways of her twin brother, that it offers nothing to stimulate one’s conjectures.”
What Dr Money claimed:
Bruce at Birth
| Gender | Male |
| Gender Identity |
Male |
| Gender Expression |
Right |
| Biologic Sex |
Male |
Brenda after Surgery
| Gender | Female |
| Gender Identity |
Female |
| Gender Expression |
Right |
| Biologic Sex |
Female |
Supposedly Fully-male Bruce was transformed by surgery into Fully-female Brenda
Supposedly Brenda knew she was female (Gender Identity) and behaved like a female (Gender)At the outset the two twins had been biologically identical; they even had identical chromosomes. ...Until surgery changed Bruce's biology, which supposedly triggered a change in behavior (Gender).
Supposedly surgery changed biology, which then changed Brenda's Gender & Gender Identity
Supposedly Brenda spontaneously wore dresses to express her innate femininity (Female Right-gender Expression)
UNFORTUNATELY.... It turned out that Dr Money was lying. Brenda didn't feel like a girl at all. He refused to wear dresses. He tore apart the dolls he got for Christmas and played with his brother's Tinkertoys & dump trucks instead. And he was harassed at school:
His family remembered:“As you’d walk by, they’d start giggling. Not one, but almost the whole class. It’d be like that every day. The whole school would make fun of you about one thing or another.”
"You know generally what a girl is like, and you know generally what a guy is like. And everyone is telling you that you’re a girl. But you say to yourself, ‘I don’t feel like a girl.’ You think girls are supposed to be delicate and like girl things – tea parties, things like that. But I like to do guy stuff. It doesn’t match. So you figure, ‘Well, there’s something wrong here. If I’m supposed to be like this girl over here but I’m acting like this guy, I guess I gotta be an it.’"
“It started the first day of kindergarten. She was teased every day. It wasn’t a weekly thing. Or a monthly thing. This was a daily thing. They’d call her names, ignore her, not involve her in the groups. Even the teacher didn’t accept her. The teachers knew there was something different.”REMEMBER: The events during infancy were a carefully guarded secret. Neither Brenda nor the school knew what had actually taken place.
What actually happened:
Bruce at Birth
| Gender | Male |
| Gender Identity |
Male |
| Gender Expression |
Right |
| Biologic Sex |
Male |
Brenda after Surgery
| Gender | Male |
| Gender Identity |
Male |
| Gender Expression |
Wrong |
| Biologic Sex |
Female |
Fully-male Bruce was transformed by surgery into male transsexual Brenda in a Wrong-gender Expression
Surgery changed biology but could not change Gender & Gender Identity
Parents told him he was a girl and made him go to school as a girl (imposed Wrong-gender Expression)
Brenda innately knew he was a boy (Gender Identity) --Like naturally-born transsexuals
Like naturally-born transsexuals, Wrong-gender Expression was painful
The other students knew he wasn't a girl (detected Wrong-gender Expression).
RESULT: Constant harassment, anger, frustration, suicidal depression, just like naturally-born transsexuals
At age 14 Brenda transitioned into a boy named David. At age 31 David underwent reversal of the initial surgery--he switched from biologic-female to biologic-male. Finally he was whole again. He married and adopted 3 children.
Transsexual Brenda after 1st Surgery
| Gender | Male |
| Gender Identity |
Male |
| Gender Expression |
Wrong |
| Biologic Sex |
Female |
David after 2nd Surgery
| Gender | Male |
| Gender Identity |
Male |
| Gender Expression |
Right |
| Biologic Sex |
Male |
Like naturally-born transsexuals, Brenda was "cured" by surgery--becoming David
Like naturally-born transsexuals, Wrong-gender Expression & harassment at school had caused injury
Although "cured", the whole process had been traumatic for David--he bore deep emotional scarring. On 2 May 2004 39 year old David broke up with his wife and committed suicide.
Instead of being the Old Paradigm poster child, David Reimer disproved the Old Gender Paradigm. Biology does NOT determine Gender; changing biology does NOT change Gender. Gender is innate. Bruce's male gender identity had already been established by the time of surgery at age 1 1/2 years. Surgery, hormones and rearing as a girl couldn't change that inborn male Gender Identity.
Once surgery had transformed him into a male transsexual, Brenda felt and acted just like other male transsexuals. Wrong-gender Expression was agonizing. He was driven to switch to Right-gender Expression regardless of what the adults said. ...And when he found out what had been done to him as an infant, he was FURIOUS!
OLD PARADIGM: 0 points NEW PARADIGM: 100 points
LET'S TRY IT AGAIN...
Just to be sure, David Reimer's story was repeated countless times during the next few decades. Intersexual boys (ie boys with "deformed genitals") were surgically transformed in infancy into transsexual girls. In every case, the gender boys remained gender boys in spite of their wrong-gender biology, rearing and imposed wrong-gender expression. None of them were informed, but their inner-self was fully aware. Over half demanded surgical restoration; the other half remained butches (male gender, female biology).
See Reiner, Discordant Sexual Identity in Some Genetic Males with Cloacal Exstrophy Assigned to Female Sex at Birth New England Journal of Medicine 350:333-41 (2004)Not one case has been reported in the medical literature describing a male infant undergoing genital surgery in infancy that transformed him into a frilly feminine female later on (female gender and female gender identity). Rearing infant boys as girls has likewise NEVER produced a frilly feminine female adult.
"In the end it is only the children themselves who can and must identify who and what they are. It is for us as clinicians and researchers to listen and to learn. Clinical decisions must ultimately be based not on anatomical predictions, nor on the 'correctness' of sexual function, for this is neither a question of morality nor of social consequence, but on that path most appropriate to the likeliest psychosexual developmental pattern of the child. In other words, the organ that appears to be critical to psychosexual development and adaptation is not the external genitalia, but the brain."
-- Dr William Reiner To Be Male or Female--That is the Question, Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine 151 (1997): pp. 224-225
OLD PARADIGM: 0 points NEW PARADIGM: 50,000 points
OLD PARADIGM WINS!
One might have thought these cases would've been the death-knell to the Old Paradigm. Unfortunately not. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, vast numbers of professionals are still devoted to the idea that biology irrevocably determines gender, and that childhood rearing also determines gender. It's taught in sociology classes. It's ingrained into psychology training. It's enshrined in legislation.
Dr Money's book, Man and Woman, Boy and Girl--which announced the stunning success of Dr Money's experiment--is still sold (paperback edition, reprinted from 1996, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Masterwork Series). The publisher still describes the book as follows:
In Man and Woman, Boy and Girl, John Money and Anke Ehrhardt offer a comprehensive account of sexual differentiation using genetics, embryology, endocrinology and neuro-endocrinology, psychology, and anthropology. Their multidisciplinary approach to gender identity avoids the old arguments over nature versus nurture. Money and Ehrhardt focus instead on the interaction of hereditary endowment [ie nature --Ed] and environmental influence [ie nurture --Ed]. Money and Ehrhardt's work will lead many readers to the conclusion that the differences between man and man, or woman and woman, can be as great as between man and woman
BY A LANDSLIDE!
By showing that surgery alone could consistently and predictably create an artificial transsexual, the David Reimer cases conclusively proved the reality of and purely biologic basis for transsexuality:
At which point in the original Bruce-to-Brenda surgery did the infant get her supposed paraphilia--her mental disorder--her dysphoria? Was it administered IV? Did the scalpel instill it as it made the incision? Were the sutures contaminated?Ironically the popular mind learned exactly the opposite of what actually happened: Since surgery couldn't transform the damaged male Bruce into the girl Brenda, therefore surgery couldn't transform naturally female transsexuals into females. Conveniently forgotten is the surgery which DID cure the artificial transsexual Brenda.
At which point in the surgery did the infant Bruce incur the wrath of god? At which point did Bruce lose his naturally-endowed access to the priesthood?
When did Bruce lose his access to employment?
Which surgery erased Bruce's unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
This is what Dr Paul McHugh, Dr Money's successor at Johns Hopkins concluded after noting the similarities between artificially-induced transsexuals and naturally-occurring transsexuals:
"Having looked at the Reiner and Meyer studies, we in the Johns Hopkins Psychiatry Department eventually concluded that human sexual identity is mostly built into our constitution by the genes we inherit and the embryogenesis we undergo. Male hormones sexualize the brain and the mind. Sexual dysphoria — a sense of disquiet in one’s sexual role — naturally occurs amongst those rare males who are raised as females in an effort to correct an infantile genital structural problem. A seemingly similar disquiet can be socially induced in apparently constitutionally normal males, in association with (and presumably prompted by) serious behavioral aberrations, amongst which are conflicted homosexual orientations and the remarkable male deviation now called autogynephilia."
"Quite clearly, then, we psychiatrists should work to discourage those adults who seek surgical sex reassignment. When Hopkins announced that it would stop doing these procedures in adults with sexual dysphoria, many other hospitals followed suit, but some medical centers still carry out this surgery. I am disappointed but not surprised by this, given that some surgeons and medical centers can be persuaded to carry out almost any kind of surgery when pressed by patients with sexual deviations."
"We at Hopkins hold that official psychiatry has good evidence to argue against this kind of treatment and should begin to close down the practice everywhere."
FIRST THINGS, The Journal of Religion, Culture and Public Life [Roman Catholic] #147: November 2004
© Cassandra Branch MD
