Custom As Nature Made Him Essay
The book As Nature Made Him: the Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl by John Colapinto is a story about the real life and fatal destiny of David Reimer, a boy, whose sex was changed to female as a result of a catastrophic experiment. David (whose born-name was Bruce) was born in 1965 in a pare of twins. The boys were born with phimosis. Their parents decided to solve this problem by making the genital mutilation. Bruce was to be the first. When he was one year old boy, he was made the mutilation by the cautery with inappropriate instrument, and his penis was almost destroyed. His brother was successfully treated later in other way. In fact, the doctors who made the operation solved the twins’ fate from the very beginning, as the phimosis cure in that age was just inadmissible, and the surgeons’ conviction of the necessity of urgent maneuver was a swindle.
Grieving parents asked John Money, the best mental specialist of Johns Hopkins Clinic, for help. Of course, they were searching for the right problem resolution. Instead of this, they have become the man into Money’s experiment. The thing is that Money wanted to realize his experiment, which would prove as he thought, the theory of gender identity; he claimed that gender is not determined by nature, but by the society and is absolutely social phenomenon. The doctor convinced boy’s parents, that if the Bruce’s penis cannot be restored, they may operate him, make a false vagina and parents were to raise their son as a daughter.
Actually, in twenty years, John Money proclaimed the success of the so-called “John Joana’s experiment”. Brenda (the child’s name after the operation) was made surgical sex change manipulation, after which were the long years of social adaptation.
John Money confirmed that a girl that was “artificially created” has become absolutely feminine, in contrast with her masculine brother. She approved a huge amount of stereotypes concerning girls’ behavior and appearance: she was shy, modest and attractive; she loved children, managed sewing and cooking. What is even more important, she realized herself as a woman and was perceived as a woman by other people. Gender, as a phenomenon, was prostrated. This story has been staying irrefutable for a long time. The Money’s researches were admitted by everyone. Money has reached a huge success in his career and has gained great influence in the field of medicine.
Though, in her real life, Brenda has never felt and realized herself as a girl and was never treated as one. She was bullied because of her masculinity. She was arguing with everyone and was not successful in her studies. When she had become a teenager, she fell into depression. She wanted to kill herself. Brenda refused to visit doctor Money, whom she visited regularly earlier. Finally, her dad told her the truth about her sex. In that moment everything became clear for Brenda, she, finally, got the explanation of her problems.
Brenda has become a man and changed her name to David, in honor of the hero from Holly Bible, who flipped over the giant. David was operated to get an esthetic penis and was getting the hormonal therapy to fight the chronicle depression and figure out the effects, of being under the influence of estrogen, for a long time. At the end, he got married with the woman he loved.
Nevertheless, for all this time, the scientific theory, based on previous researches of David’s life, continued to rule the medical protocols. Money claimed that he cannot contact Reimers (David’s family), instead of that fact, that they have never changed the place of their living and their phone number. This case had a special influence on the cure of babies who had the hermaphroditism. The thousands of them where “normalized” into the females, instead of evidence of the fact, that most of them suffered, just as Reimer, because of their problems with self-identity, and then, when becoming adult, they had to make the sex-change operation again. In 1996, the biologist Milton Diamond, the opponent of John Money, has found David Reimer and told the truth to the medical world. This ruined Money’s reputation. Many psychological and psychiatric tests approved that David is a man. Unfortunately, David’s personal life was not very happy. When his wife offered him to live separately, he committed suicide. He was 85.
The case of David Reimer makes us think about the phenomenon of gender equality, either it is actual or not. The research, made by Shwartz and Rubel-Lifschitz proves that men and women have some exact features, which are inherited and determined by their sex. Also, they solve the same problems using different psychological and mental processes. So, they consider that gender is determined by the nature.
There is no doubt that gender and sex are not absolutely biological phenomena as they are social at the same time. Social structures and convictions also play its definite role in the formation of person’s sexuality. According to Shmidt (2006), sex is one of the person’s physical characteristics (male or female) and gender concerns his or her self-identity. In other words, sex is what one cannot choose and gender, on the other hand, is a thing one can define according to his self-perception. The concept of gender is wider than one of sex as it consists of biological and psychological factors at the same time – it is determined not only by the sex, which was given you by nature, but also by the influence of society.
One of widely discussed questions nowadays is the professional activity of a person and its determination by the sex. Many of those professions, which were considered as masculine some years ago, are now approachable for women. Some scientists consider that the activity that is defined by gender-marker is determined by social rules, and in this case the activity cannot be defined as biologically determined for one of the sexes. The other point is that certain activities (or professions) are characteristic for certain gender (male or female) as they demand the estimated human features. Firstly –that is the difference between men’s and women’s physical abilities, as far as men, in their majority, are stronger than women, and that is why they participate in work, that demands the high level of physical effort. At the same time, the women’s maternity rules the raising of posterity and house holding.
The differences in mental, psychological and communicational particularities also prove the theory of the biological or natural gender identity. It is a well-known fact, that the level of girls’ communicational abilities is higher than the boys’ one. It is connected with the speed of girls’ mental development that is usually faster, than the boys’. Women and men use different types of attention: women can make some activities at the same time; they can switch their attention from one object to another. Men, on the other hand, can do one job, but they do it more precisely.
The science informs us about our differences in behavioral reactions, in our navigation abilities and many others. This defines that the biological factor plays the determinant role in our gender identity. Nevertheless, one should remember that he or she is a person, who is responsible for the realization of the potential, which is given by nature.