Subject of Gender Experiment Ends Life
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| Tue, 05-11-2004 - 5:40pm |
From correspondents in Toronto, Canada
May 12, 2004
A LIFE of torment ended in suicide for a Canadian man who was born as a boy but raised as a girl in a 1970s gender experiment after he lost his penis in a medical mishap.
David Reimer, 38, from Winnipeg, central Canada, killed himself last week after living the last two decades of his life as a man.
The tortured story started when newborn Reimer, christened Bruce, lost his penis in a botched circumcision attempt.
His parents renamed their son Brenda, on the advice of renowned Baltimore psychologist John Money, a New Zealander, and raised him as a girl as he took a course of hormone therapy.
At the time, in the 1970s, a line of medical theory argued that gender could be determined and that a child could be schooled into being a man or a woman.
But Reimer lived a life of agony and was ostracised socially until his story took another twist when he learned of his true gender as a teenager.
He rebelled, seeking a new life as a boy, and naming himself David.
In recent years, Reimer's plight filled medical journals, was the subject of a book by New York-based writer John Colapinto, and touched hearts on Oprah Winfrey's US television talk show.
Milton Diamond, a psychologist at the University of Hawaii, who was close to Reimer's case, told the Toronto Star newspaper that David's struggle with his gender turned medical theory on its head.
"His life was very difficult," Diamond told the paper.
"I think the legacy is the whole issue of how people identify and see themselves as male and female.
"It's not as simplistic as putting people into blue rooms and pink rooms."
Reimer was reportedly doing well until last year, after getting a job in a meat packing plant, marrying, and becoming the father of three stepchildren.
But he descended into depression after separating from his wife and losing thousands of dollars in an investment scheme.

Tragic.
Why did he commit suicide? It appears that it was caused by the following & not his identity confused upbringing.
>"he descended into depression after separating from his wife and losing thousands of dollars in an investment scheme."<
Never the less, he had obstacles few have to deal with.