The story of David Reimer is unquestionably an eye opener to the unknown world of transgender in North America. This story was not only heartbreaking in nature it also was quite disturbing. I tend to think that doctors have their patient’s best interest in mind; however that does not seem to be the case between Dr. Money and David Reimer and his family. While watching the video of David story, I wanted to understand the Doctor’s theory, ponder whether I could accept his proposed validity, and answer the question of what I would do, as a parent, given that I was placed into a similar situation as David’s parents. Dr. Money had a theory that pertained to nature vs. nurture. He referred to this theory as the Theory of Gender Neutrality. The doctor proposed was that identity genes were neutral in the first two years of life and because of this a child could be raised as the opposite gender given the parent nurtured the child as that particular gender. I disagree with Dr. Money’s theory and I felt that he took advantage of this family by brainwashing them in order to enhance his own theory. After all he …show more content…
Money’s theory is false. This doctor saw an opportunity to further his scientific breakthrough, if you will, by using a family that has just suffered from a traumatic event and who only wanted to help their young child. The doctor needed to children from the same family to test his theory and he seized this opportunity when David’s family approached him. This doctor knew his proposed plan may not work and I suspect this because of his saying to the parents never to tell David the truth about his real gender identity. This doctor knew that if this child was struggling with gender identity and found out the he was in fact was a boy, he would want to be a boy. This would go against everything the doctor had worked towards. This one reason is why he went public with this theory; and why he continued to push David to follow through with the
The doctor would even make Brian stand behind Brenda checking for sexual arousal. During childhood Brenda lived as a girl but still had male tendencies. She fought like boys, did not like baby dolls, and she still walked like a boy. Brenda took estrogen until
The author's purpose for writing this book is to inform people about transgender people’s point of view about how they feel about changing themselves to what they feel they really are and to help people understand the meaning of the legal cases ( Nutt 263). One example is the time when Nicole’s Family won the civil lawsuit in Maine’s highest court in 2014 because Wyatt was being harassed over using the girls restroom by other schools ( Nutt 145). Another example is the time when Nicole and her dad Wayne
Which makes the audience question the substantiality of Adkins' claim. ““Addressing the same court, Adkins asserted that “evidence strongly suggests that gender identity is innate or fixed at a young age and that gender identity has a strong biological basis.” (At no point in her expert declaration did she cite any sources for any of her claims.)” (Anderson, 33). Without proper citation Adkins’ credibility becomes even more questionable.
This is what drove all of his decisions in the case of Brenda Reimer. Dr. Money believed that if Brenda was raised as a girl not being told that she was once a boy that she would grow up to be a normal female with the help of surgery and hormone injections. He viewed human newborns as “total psychosexual blank slates” that could be changed despite what they were biologically born as. He told the Reimers when they made the decision to have their son sexually reassigned that for it to work that they must never tell their child and continually reaffirm the fact that they are a girl, and always have been a girl. Over the course of thirty years Dr. Money debated with Dr.
Perhaps one of the most fascinating yet depressing studies on gender, its fluidity, and how oppressive it can be is the case of David Reimer. In Chapter 3 of "Undoing Gender" by Judith Butler, this situation was studied in detail and psychoanalyzed. When Reimer was extremely young (under a year old), his penis was damaged and had to be removed, so psychiatrist John Money stepped in and told Reimer's parents that they could have sex reassignment surgery, raise David as a girl, and he'd live a normal and happy life. David was thus renamed Brenda and was brought up as female. Around age eight, however, Brenda started exhibiting traditionally masculine behaviors such as wanting to play with trucks and toy guns.
I think he could have relied heavily on non-maleficence in a strict sense of the term that doctor should not do any harm. Also, throughout all four cases I believed that we relied heavily on taking into account how the family would be affected by the decision, which shows a utilitarian perspective. I also, noticed that when it came down to the final decisions autonomy of the patient was not always respected by all three of us, such as the car accident victim. She wanted death, but we all denied her because we were worried about her mental health. Although with autonomy we should have still respected her wishes, if we were solly basing our decision on
This is because gender is so deeply ingrained in society that additional measures are necessary to control all variables that could influence X’s gender identity. The scientists carefully created an Official Instruction Manual for Baby X’s parents, which guides them to “[b]uy plenty of everything”, both girls’ and boys’ clothes and toys (2). In this way, gender is commodified for profit, with targeted marketing aiming to convince parents to purchase different toys and clothing for their children based on gender (BBC Newsround). Gould further shows how society’s perception of gender is linked with capitalist interests with the symbol of X’s and the other children’s clothing. With X’s influence, “Susie [...] suddenly refused to wear pink dresses to school any more.
In the film “Growing Trans” in which PBS Frontline follows around eight transgender adolescence as they try to make a crucial decision within their family, friends, and even within themselves as they are reaching the puberty stage of life. The documentary supplies about young men and young women in which their ages ranging from nine to 19 years old the documentary provides us into seeing their feelings, thoughts, and own needs but importantly it gives us inside into the kid's main support system which is their parents and peer support group. Furthermore, there are many difficulties when it comes to growing up trans such as family members and even friends using the wrong pronouns or who cannot be able to accept their new identification. Equally
He would argue that presence of male or female hormones in male/female shows the biological construction of sex/gender or the presence of male
For centuries, men and women have abided by the strict gender roles set forth by society. In her piece Bloodchild, Octavia Butler goes against gender norms set forth by society in an inverse way. Butler wanted to experiment with the notion of a man bearing children. The impregnation of a man shows the reversal of male and female roles. The process of implantation involving an alien female and human male leads to the switch in power dynamics between the two genders.
Notably, the “T” in LGBT stands for transgender, which includes those who do not conform to the traditional ideals of their ‘gender’ or birth sex (Ard & Makadon, 2012). In some cases, these individuals may decide to go through hormonal therapy or surgery to alter their gender identity. Due to the fact that the transgender population in the US is known to only be 0.3%, many are uneducated about the medical needs of these individuals, including physicians (Ard & Makadon, 2012). Moreover, a policy to diminish LGBT care disparities should also educate people (especially physicians) in understanding the cultural context of their patients’ lives (LGBT individuals) in order for all people to attain the best possible
The film, Growing Up Trans, was a great medium for me to better understand and reflect on gender socialization, gender identities, and countless variations within the transgender communities. Each child and his/her stories give the audience an insight to both the personal troubles of living as transgenders and the systemic errors of the society that intensifies these troubles. Undoubtedly, the children in the film expressed their discomfort of being characterized as the deviants. Deviants are those who are perceived as outsiders and who violate what the society considers true and correct (Charon). In our society, heterosexuality and gender conformity – one’s gender identity matching one’s sexual identity – are considered the norm.
Transgender is the term used to describe an individual whose gender identity does not align with their sex assigned at birth. The documentary, “Growing up Trans”, is a sensitive clip to watch about young youths who attempt to navigate family, friends, gender, and the medical decisions they face at puberty. “Growing up Trans” focuses mainly on transitioned young youths. The transgender youth from the documentary links to many theories from chapter eight. Theories such as socialization, gender, sexuality, homophobia, transphobia, and microaggression are associated with “Growing up Trans”.
According to sexologists John Money and Anke Ehrhardt, sex and gender are separate categories. “Sex, they argued, refers to physical attributes and is anatomically and physiologically determined. Gender they saw as a psychological transformation - the internal conviction that one is either male or female (gender identity) and the behavioral expressions of that conviction” (Sterling 4). Although there are biological differences between the two sexes, but gender roles are socially constructed. They determine how males and females should think, speak, dress, behave and interact with society.
In Chapter 4 the author of the book Kimmel talks about psychological perspectives of gender development. In the readings we could see that the author includes some theories that help us to understand how gender development is related to psychological perspectives. In this chapter the author of the book included some of the psychoanalysis done by Freud. It is explained in the readings that gender is acquired and determined by biology because males and females learn to identify the differences of sexes at an early stage. For instance, it is mentioned in chapter 4 that both sexes go through the oral stage which is where gratification is breast feeding.