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a1000shadesofhurt

a1000shadesofhurt

Category Archives: Gender Identity

Tragic end of the boy who was brought up as a girl

13 Tuesday Mar 2012

Posted by a1000shadesofhurt in Gender Identity

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Gender Identity, Hermaphroditism, suicide, surgery

2004:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/tragic-end-of-the-boy-who-was-brought-up-as-a-girl-6170071.html

Two weekends ago, 38-year-old David Reimer told his parents in their shared hometown of Winnipeg, Canada, that although he was going through a rough patch – recovering from the death of his twin brother two years ago and from his separation from his wife – things would getter better very soon. He didn’t explain how.

Now his family knows. On 4 May, Reimer took his own life. While his recent ills surely contributed to the despair, his mother knows there was more to it than that. His death was the final coda to a life that became a world-renowned case study in the perils of tampering with gender. During the span of his life he had been a boy, then a girl and then a boy again. “I thought I was an it,” he once said.

The wrenching story of David (baptised as Brian) Reimer began with a freak snowstorm in 1966. His parents, working-class people from the plains of Manitoba, drove him to the local hospital for a routine circumcision. He was eight months old. But the regular surgeon had not made it in and an assistant took over. She botched the job. A cauterising implement burned David’s penis – and it fell off. A witness later said that when the mistake was made there was a sizzling sound, like a steak being seared.

Left with a child with testicles but no penis, his parents were unsure what to do. Then, one day when the boy was more than a year old, they learned about a doctor in Baltimore who had gained a reputation of helping people of ambiguous gender. His name was John Money and they went to see him.

It was Money, a native of New Zealand and the author of some 40 books on human sexuality, who persuaded them that the best course of action was to transform their son into a daughter. He recommended surgery, including clinical castration, and hormone treatment to turn young Brian into a girl. His parents agreed and the treatment began. Brian became Brenda and long trousers gave way to skirts.

For Money, who had pioneered studies in sexology at Baltimore’s prestigious John Hopkins University, it was an irresistible challenge. He was a main proponent at the time of the theory that was briefly popular in the Sixties and Seventies, that gender identity was not necessarily predetermined in the womb. It was more about environment. In the controversy that still rages today over the balance between nurture and nature in determining our sexual selves, Money was a hero of the camp favouring nurture.

Better still for Money, the Reimer case offered an unheard-of opportunity to prove his theory. The patient had an identical twin brother, who was indisputably male. He had an experiment, therefore, with a readily supplied control subject. Two human beings conceived in the same womb with the same genetic profile. But nurture, with help from the knife and some pills, would demonstrate how their gender paths could be separated for ever.

And all seemed to go well. All remnants of Brenda’s male genitalia were gone and her parents did all they could to raise her as a daughter. All the while, the so-called John/Joan case, expounded with pride by Money, a fine writer and charismatic lecturer, was celebrated by science and sociologists everywhere. The gender-fixing procedure was adopted at hospitals worldwide. And the Money theory was also embraced by the then burgeoning feminist movement as proof that social expectations of gender were misplaced. The male-female axis, they declared, was not set in stone. It was fluid and dynamic.

The John/Joan case also helped inform treatment of hermaphrodites, who are born with genitalia so ambiguous that hospitals cannot determine whether at birth the babies are boys or girls. In the vast majority of these cases, parents are told that their children should be raised as girls. Meanwhile, Money’s reputation continued to grow. Considered one of the world’s leading sexologists, his books included The Breathless Orgasm(1991), Venuses Penuses (1986) and Gay, Straight and Inbetween (1988.)

But things in the Reimer household were not as people imagined. It was only in 2000 that the true story of Reimer’s experience reached a wide public. By then, out of dresses and bras and back in the world as a boy, Brian – by then renamed David Reimer – had decided that enough was enough. The truth had to be told. By going on Oprah Winfrey’s show and collaborating on a book with a well-known New York journalist, he revealed that Money had consigned him to a childhood of humiliation, confusion and misery.

“David was a hero,” said Milton Diamond who collaborated on the first scientific papers to expose the disaster of the John/Joan case. Commenting on his death, he said: “David didn’t give permission for what was done to him. Even though he didn’t have a penis, he still knew he was male.”

It was when Reimer was 13 and in therapy with a counsellor provided by the Winnipeg school system that he learned for the first time what had happened to him. Already he had been stigmatised by fellow classmates. They had seen his ungainly gait, the muscles that, despite the removal of his testicles, had begun developing on his neck and arms, and his lack of interest in boys. “They wouldn’t let him use the boys’ washroom or the girls’,” his mother, Janet Reimer, recalled. “He had to go in the back alley.”

That was when he rebelled, demanding that he be allowed to go through more surgery to restore his manhood. It was a transition that would be traumatic for any person, let alone someone in their early teens. The breasts that had developed because of the hormone injections were removed by mastectomy. And he opted for reconstructive surgery to build back the penis of which he had been robbed after birth.

The debunking of what Money had wrought first began with the publication of the paper written jointly by Diamond and also Dr Keith Sigmundson, who was the supervising psychiatrist for Reimer from the age of eight until 20. Published in the relatively obscure Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine in 1997, it outlined Reimer’s rejection of being a girl.

“By the time Reimer was 11, the whole experiment was falling apart,” noted Sigmundson. “From that point on he sought out all the surgery. He totally changed how he was presenting himself and struggled with a number of operations. He eventually lived his life as a man.”

Sigmundson added that the case should serve as a caution to those still drawn to the nurture over nature idea. “There are certain immutable things that happen in your chromosomes andin utero that develop the gonads that have an impact. Reimer didn’t adjust well to being a girl at all and began having difficulties at school.”

Most experts today contend that there is no overriding the gender determinants that are in a person before birth. But that does not mean that environment does not play some part. “The Reimer case has taught a lot of people in the field that things are a lot more complex when it comes to gender than people originally thought 30 years ago,” argued Ken Zucker, who is chief psychiatrist at the Toronto Center for Addiction and Mental Health.

“Where we’ve really had a lot of advances is in recognising biology has a predisposing influence on gender identity and gender roles. But the environment is also important.”

Diamond was shocked by the news of Reimer’s death. But he hoped lessons had been learned. “His life was very difficult. 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. Certainly our environment makes a difference and how we’re brought up makes a difference. But we come to the game with our own inherent natures and how those things interplay can’t be predicted.”

It was the book, written with Rolling Stone journalist John Colapinto, entitled As Nature Made Him: the Boy who was Raised as a Girl, that brought the calamity of Reimer’s situation to the attention of the world. He was inspired to write it after seeing an account of the Diamond-Sigmundson paper in the New York Times. Colapinto cast Money as the villain of the story, although the doctor, who is now 83, never publicly responded to it. The appearance with Oprah Winfrey coincided with its publication. “I thought the Reimers were just the most dignified, fantastic people,” Colapinto commented in an interview at the time. “I think in a way these wonderful working-class people from Winnipeg just kind of stepped onto the world stage onOprah and were a lesson to us all in dignity and survival and openness and courage.”

“Scientists had just relied on this case as being a precedent for the fact that you could assign the sex and gender to children,” Colapinto added. And his book had a strong impact. “Those who believed that and taught it and based their clinical practice on it, and who actually performed similar procedures, were scandalised.”

The same sense of scandal was what drove Reimer to collaborate with the journalist and expose his pain to the world. He was angry about what had happened to him and by the discovery that Money’s tampering with him was being replicated in clinics and hospitals around the world. He wanted it to stop.

“I was surprised that other people wound up going through what I had, because of my so-called ‘success story’ that wasn’t so much of a success,” he said. “You were expected to wear girl’s clothing and to behave in a certain manner and you were expected to play with girl’s toys.” But he never believed he was a girl. “I thought it was very ignorant for them to think I was no longer a male because my penis was burned off. A woman who loses her breasts to cancer doesn’t become any less of a woman.”

His family is left now to grieve for a loved one who was subjected to such humiliations without his consent. For a while, there had been hope that he had put his life back on the rails. While the years of treatment had given his features the fine lines of femininity, he was widely accepted in Winnipeg as a man once more. He got menial jobs and finally found a wife. He became stepfather to her three children.

The loss of his brother, his family said, hit him hard. His twin had also taken his own life and for the past two years, David had made the pilgrimage to his brother’s grave every day to arrange fresh flowers. Then the wife with whom he had established the traditional male role walked away, with her children. He slumped into depression. Worse came soon after when he lost his job. His mother, Janet, came closer than anyone at the funeral last Sunday to blaming Money for what had happened to her child.

“He was a hero,” she whispered to a reporter. “He showed the doctors, he was a worldwide hero.” Asked why she thought he had finally taken his own life, she responded: “I think he felt he he had no options. It just kept building up and up.” His father, Ron, shook his head when approached by reporters and said he had nothing to add.

Janet, however, tried to pay tribute. “He was the most generous, loving soul that ever lived. He liked music. He liked jokes. He was a very funny guy. He was so generous. He gave all he had.”

Zach Avery, 4, Is Among Youngest In Britain To Be Diagnosed With Gender Identity Disorder (GID)

21 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by a1000shadesofhurt in Gender Identity

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Gender Identity Disorder

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/02/20/zach-avery-4-is-youngest-in-britain-to-be-diagnosed-with-gender-identity-disorder-gid_n_1288531.html?ref=mostpopular

A little boy who decided he was a girl trapped in a boy’s body has become one of the youngest-ever children to have his decision backed by the NHS – aged just four.

With his blonde pigtails and purple tutu, Zach Avery, now five, has been living as a girl for more than a year.

Little Zach was just three when he began refusing to live as a boy, instead choosing to wear pink dresses and ribbons in his long, blonde hair – because he hasGender Identity Disorder (GID).

Mum Theresa Avery, 32, said her son used to be a “normal” little boy who loved Thomas the Tank Engine, but suddenly at the end of 2010, he decided he wanted to live as a girl.

He became obsessed with the children’s TV character Dora the Explorer and started dressing in female clothing.

Theresa and Zach’s father Darren, 41, became worried by their son’s behaviour and took him to the doctor.

He was officially diagnosed with GID by NHS specialists at the Tavistock and Patman Foundation Trust in London, making Zach one of the youngest affected children in the UK.

Mum-of-four Theresa said: “He just turned round to me one day when he was three and said: ‘Mummy, I’m a girl’. I assumed he was just going through a phase and just left it at that.

“But then it got serious and he would become upset if anyone referred to him as a boy.

“He used to cry and try to cut off his willy out of frustration.”

Specialists explained to Theresa and Darren that gender identity disorder is a conflict between a person’s actual physical gender and the gender that person identifies himself or herself as.

Theresa said: “They told us that although he had a male body, his brain was telling him he was a girl.”

And Zach’s school – Purfleet Primary in Essex – has even turned their toilet block gender-neutral to support him.

Theresa added: “They have changed the toilets for Key Stage 1 pupils into Unisex instead of male/female and they address him as a girl, which is what he wants.

“When he gets a bit older, to Key Stage 2, then obviously the law changes and there will be more difficulties surrounding the bathroom issue, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it – it may be that Zach will use the staff toilets.

“We explained to the other kids at the school that Zachy’s body was that of a boy but in his brain he was a girl. We said Zach was just happier being a girl than a boy.

“But the other kids haven’t batted an eyelid, they’ve accepted Zach as Zach and there’s been no problems at the school with bullying.

“The school has been brilliant and really, really supportive.”

When he goes to school, Zach, known affectionately as Zachy, wears a girl’s trouser uniform and black boots with pink trim, which his mother said is female but still neutral.

And mum said that although she misses her little boy, the family is very supportive of Zachy.

She said: “He just wants to be like a little girl and he’s very happy with his long blonde hair, pink and red bedroom and a wardrobe full of girls clothes.

“He likes playing with his sister’s old toys but he still loves Dr Who too and playing with his brother. And we still put some neutral clothes in his wardrobe if he ever decides he wants to wear them.

“We leave it up to him to decide what he wants to do – if he changes his mind and wants to be a boy again then he does, but if he doesn’t, he doesn’t.

She admitted: “I would love to have my son back, but I want him to be happy. If this is the route he wants to take – if this is what makes him happy – then so be it. I would rather him have my full support.

“People need to be aware of this condition because it’s very common but even many family support workers have never heard of cases in children. There are people out there but they don’t want to talk about it.”

Figures from the Tavistock and Patman Foundation Trust clinic – the national body for GID – revealed 165 children have been diagnosed with GID this year.

A spokesperson at Tavistock Clinic in London said they were unable to comment on individual case, but only seven children under the age of 5 were diagnosed last year – making Zach one of the youngest.

The spokesperson said: “Tavistock Clinic had 97 referrals in 2009/2010; 139 in 2010/2011 and thus far this year 165 referrals.

“The trend in referrals has been up over the years – this may reflect greater awareness.

“We see children and young people up to the age of 18, from across the UK, who are experiencing difficulties in the development of their gender identity.

“This includes children who are unhappy with their biological sex. Some may be boys who prefer activities and role associated with the opposite sex, some may also identify as the opposite sex and vice versa for girls.

“In general when younger children are referred it is in relation to cross gender preferences in play, play mates and activities. It is more unusual for children of this age to express cross gender identification – that is the wish or belief that they belong to the opposite sex.

“The diagnosis of GID is made by the key workers working with the young person. We will also assess their general wellbeing. We remain in contact with young people often for many years.

“Our aim is not to predict or direct the outcome, but rather to support the young person in their general development as well as develop a trusting collaborative therapeutic relationship in which it is possible to openly explore their feelings about their gender.”

FACTS ABOUT GENDER IDENTITY DISORDER

  • Gender Identity Disorder in children (GIDC) is the formal diagnosis used by psychologists and physicians to describe children who experience significant gender dysphoria.
  • Gender identity disorder is a conflict between a person’s actual physical gender and the gender that person identifies himself or herself as. For example, a person identified as a boy may actually feel and act like a girl.
  •  Males are diagnosed with GIDC 5-30 times more than females. The person experiences significant discomfort with the biological sex they were born. Children with GID may feel disgusted by their own genitals, have anxiety or depression or believe they will grow up to be the opposite sex.
  • The exact cause of gender identity disorder is not known, but several theories exist, including one that it may be caused by generic (chromosomal) abnormalities.

 

Except this season’s most-wanted model isn’t, for once, a she – it’s a he

15 Thursday Dec 2011

Posted by a1000shadesofhurt in Gender Identity

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androgenous

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/8335719/Andrej-Pejic-Whos-that-boy.html

Tall and impossibly skinny, with impeccably arched eyebrows and cheekbones sharp as diamonds: on first impression, fashion’s latest darling looks no different to any of the other freaks of nature gliding through the offices of Storm model agency.

Except this season’s most-wanted model isn’t, for once, a she – it’s a he.

In an industry obsessed with the new, fashion has certainly found it with Andrej Pejic. Last month, the 19-year-old – already something of a name in menswear – caused a stir when he modelled womenswear for the Paris couture shows; he even wore a wedding dress for Jean Paul Gaultier.

Right now, Pejic is very much in demand. As well as editorials with prestigious photographers such as Steven Meisel and Mert & Marcus for Paris and Italian Vogue, he is the gender-bending face of the new advertising campaign for Marc by Marc Jacobs. Tonight he will be back in women’s clothing, modelling on the catwalk for Vivienne Westwood as part of London Fashion Week.

So which does he prefer – men’s or women’s? “I’m comfortable doing both,” he says, “although womenswear is more glamorous. The clothes are more exciting. In menswear I have to work more at having a masculine presence. But then that’s my job. If they put me in, say, a rubbish bag and I feel completely unattractive, I still have to show it to its potential.”

Pejic’s androgenous look is entirely his own creation – today, for instance, he’s wearing a light grey micro-mini dress, thick black tights and biker boots. “Around the age of 14, I decided to experiment with my look,” he explains. “As a kid, you get to the stage where you realise the gender barriers that exist in society and what you’re supposed to do and not supposed to do. I really tried being someone else during that period. It was hard for me – not being able to express myself and feeling I had to be someone else.

“But now I’m comfortable in my skin, and for my look to be celebrated is great. My look is very personal to me. When I started experimenting, it was a personal decision because I was unhappy. It wasn’t something I did for attention.”

Even on the closest of inspections, it is hard to discern Pejic’s gender: his complexion is a perfect peaches-and-cream, and there’s not a whisper of a five o’clock shadow. The only clue, perhaps, is his slightly protruding Adam’s apple.

Still, the female models he works with don’t seem too perturbed. “The girls don’t mind if I’m in their dressing room,” he muses. Neither are they annoyed that his flat-chested, snake-hipped figure is nigh-on impossible for most women to achieve. “Most of the girls are friendly. I guess they find me intriguing.”

What does remain intriguing, though, is why designers would want a man modelling women’s clothes.

“Andrej is the perfect coat-hanger,” says Clare Coulson, fashion features director of Harper’s Bazaar. “Clothes look best on someone who is tall and skinny, on a long and lean silhouette.”

Harriet Quick, Vogue fashion features director, agrees. “Andrej is incredibly beautiful with a very striking face – sharp angles and planes that look good on camera.”

Yet Quick believes his appeal goes deeper than that. “For the past decade, fashion has concentrated on the alpha male and alpha female stereotype. Now it’s all about questioning sexuality and blurring the boundaries. Andrej is reflecting our times – he’s what’s out there; he’s reflecting culture.

“It’s the same look we’re now seeing in music and with teenagers and twentysomethings on the street. He makes people open their eyes; makes them question how one presents one’s image. It’s attention-grabbing – it’s all about looking twice and asking questions. How? Why? And a good fashion image should hold your attention.”

Originally from Bosnia – his mother is Serbian, his father Croatian – Pejic was born shortly before the start of the Balkan conflict. His family moved to Serbia and, when he was eight, to Melbourne, Australia. “I had to learn a whole new culture as well as a whole new language,” he says. “At school, I was thrown in at the deep end. It took me a year to learn English.”

His refugee status has meant living as an outsider – and fashion is full of outsiders. “Fashion is quite inclusive and good at embracing different things and different forms of beauty,” he says. “It’s a very liberal industry. You can be yourself. Just not overweight,” he adds, drily.

Pejic was spotted shortly before his seventeenth birthday. “I was working in McDonald’s part time, and this guy came in – he wanted a cheeseburger. He then told me to see him at his modelling agency.”

Did he think you were a woman? “I don’t know, he didn’t say. Obviously, when I went into the agency, they figured it all out … But they signed me up right away.”

Initially, the agency was unsure about which direction Pejic should go. “In the beginning they wanted me to be more masculine – they told me to go to the gym because the menswear clients would like me more. That wouldn’t be such a good idea now because I wouldn’t be able to fit into womenswear.”

His friends and family have been supportive throughout. “Mum’s very proud. She finds every picture of me and has them on every wall. And my friends – well, since being a teenager, I’ve always been experimental. So they aren’t surprised. Obviously, they were surprised to see me in a wedding dress in a couture show. That was probably something they didn’t expect! But they’re all supportive.”

And how does the average Aussie macho male deal with his looks? “I’ve been getting chatted up by men ever since I was 14. In Australia, you’ve got your Greeks, and your Italians … I haven’t had any horrible experiences. Sometimes they’re shocked, but most of the time they still want to buy me a drink.”

Post-modelling, Pejic hopes to study either law or economics (before fleeing to Australia, his father was an economist and his mother a lawyer). “My favourite author is Leon Trotsky – the political philosophy and the way he writes is beautiful, and really relevant, too.

“But at this point nobody knows where this modelling is going. I usually have a plan in life – but this wasn’t planned. When I went to the agency, I was like, modelling’s better than a part-time job at McDonald’s. I thought I’d give it a shot. But it’s still going well so we’ll see. I would love to do Playboy with [the photographer] Terry Richardson. I love Playboy and Terry would be the person to do it.”

Along with the transgender model Lea T – the current face of Givenchy and Kate Moss’s co-star on the latest cover of Love magazine – Pejic is very much in demand. But fashion is a fickle business – something he is only too aware of.

“At this point, yes, everything’s going well. I’m still a sample size, so I can fit into designer womenswear. The only thing I have a problem with is my shoulders.”

Well, nobody’s perfect ..

 

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