Gender Dysphoria: "The Boy Who Was Turned Into a Girl"
Author: Ronald J. Comer
Princeton University
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This video case looks at the question of whether sexual reassignment in a "normal child" is possible. It tells the tragic story of the Reimer family, a Canadian family who in the 1960s had twin boys. When Bruce Reimer was circumcised, a hospital mishap resulted in the destruction of most of his penis. His parents eventually sought the council of psychologist John Money, a sexual reassignment specialist, who believed through his previous work that gender is primarily learned. Money advised the family to give their son a sex change operation and rear him as a girl. As you will see, the results turned out to be disastrous and ultimately tragic.
1. David Reimer, the individual in this video, displays ____________.
2. The case of David Reimer seems to suggest that ____________.
3. How was David Reimer's sex change surgery different from the vast majority of sex change surgeries?
4. When David Reimer decided as a teenager to change and live his life as a male again, what biological treatment might have been used to help him achieve this?
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