David Tverskoy
As Nature Made Him Essay
Gender, Identity, and Role
Date Finished- 1/18/15
Date Due- 1/19/15

Gender Identity is a person’s inner sense of being male or female. This definition plays a huge roll within the plot of As Nature Made Him, by John Colapinto. Born a straight male, David Reimer was raised as a girl after a botched circumcision that destroyed his penis. Because his parents thought he would have too much sexual frustration in his later days without a penis, they took him to John Money; an experimental psychologist that believed in the “theory of Gender Neutrality”. Attempting to change a perfectly normal male into a female both physically and mentally as a result from social learning from early childhood. Picture being in poor David’s shoes, loosing his man-hood and simply his ability to act like a normal boy. Though He killed himself with a shotgun. Did he theoretically kill himself? Or was it his environment.
Concerning my understanding of gender identity. This just proved that someone’s environment couldn’t solely change an individual’s gender identity. Even after all the extensive research and experiments, David was left confused about his identity. Still thinking like a boy and having boy like tendencies, but forced to act like a girl until he couldn’t take it anymore. From the beginning, no one but himself should have been able to make the decision for David to be experimented on. Even though his parents truly loved him and wanted the best for him. They’re efforts were completely unethical on deciding how should their son live his life when it should be his own decision to begin with. Hurting him more than benefiting him, it had to come to a point where David said he’d take his own life if his parents kept making his go to Money. Someone’s gender identity cannot come from anyone but himself or herself. If people are forced to live a life that they do not choose, it will lead them into unhappiness and increase their chances of suicide. Environment still plays a big role in someone’s development, just not in terms of his or her gender identity. A poor childhood environment may make someone more irritable and violent, but it defiantly cannot change a males mentality into a women’s or vise versa without a desire from the person themself to change.
This case as a whole is highly controversial. Defiantly unethical because these experiments took away David’s rights to be whom he wants to be. His Parents Lied to him and lab workers about his progression into “changing” female but in reality he was stick stuck as a male. Forced to act like a female because of what was thought by others to be his best bet. Who knows how David would’ve played out to be if he was able to live on as a male after the accident and take in what happened instead of being lied to half of his life. They made him feel confused by telling him he is a girl, although feeling like a boy on the inside. All of these experiments set on him defiantly impacted his health and way of thinking. Another ethical issue began because he was a minor; his parents were technically able to make the decision for him to try to form a prosthetic