Penis removal during circumcision

Ablation (removal) of the penis

The tragedy of David (initially named Bruce) Reimer of Winnipeg, Manitoba, is seldom blamed on circumcision, as it should be.

Bruce was born one of normal identical twin boys in Winnipeg in 1965. Seven months later, his mother noticed that "their foreskins were closing, making it hard for them to urinate," a doctor told her that they had phimosis, and both boys were scheduled for circumcision at St. Boniface Hospital. .

(In fact foreskins do not normally close, and true phimosis is not diagnosable in boys as young as seven months, since the foreskin has usually not yet separated from the glans. The facts as given do not stack up. One probability is that the mother had been wrongly instructed to retract their foreskins, and that this caused tearing and scarring, leading to the closure. This is a common excuse for circumcision.)

A power surge in the electocautery needle (used to seal blood vessels by heat) burnt off Bruce's penis, and it was decided to reassign his genitals surgically and raise him as a girl, Brenda. There is a strong suspicion that his being an identical twin was a factor in the decision, and the case was widely used by Dr John Money for the next 15 years to demonstrate that gender is completely malleable, under purely social control.

Brenda was subjected to castration at the age of 22 months, but she was a troubled tomboy throughout her childhood. From the age of eight onward, she steadfastly refused further surgery, and at puberty she resisted taking hormones. Her sexual desires, closely monitored by Dr Money, were towards females, and her parents were made to face the possibility that their daughter was a lesbian.

At 14 she refused to live as a girl any longer and was told the truth about his gender.
At 16 he had a penis reconstructed, but the outcome was unsatisfactory and teasing by his peers led to two suicide attempts. At 21 he had another reconstruction with a better outcome. He met a woman with three children, abandoned by their three biological fathers, who was somewhat disillusioned with men's pride in their penile prowess. For some years he was a happily married adoptive father, but he said:

"It was like brainwashing. I'd give just about anything to go to a hypnotist to black out my whole past. Because it's torture. What they did to you in the body is sometimes not near as bad as what they did to you in the mind - with the the psychological warfare in your head."

- The true story of John/Joan
by John Colapinto
Rolling Stone December 11, 1997
(David was called "John/Joan" in the medical literature.)

"It only added to the young couple's misery that [brother] Brian's phimosis had long since cleared up by itself, his healthy penis a constant reminder that the disastrous circumcision on Bruce had been utterly unnecessary in the first place."

Colapinto also discusses another very similar case, also reassigned as female by Dr Money. - As Nature Made Him
by John Colapinto
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In March, 2004, David Reimer committed suicide.
Colapinto has written a feature article for Slate analyzing his motives. (email here if this article becomes unavailable.)