Talk:David Reimer/Archive 1

message: It is the birthday of David Peter and Brian Reimer.  This must be a terrible day for Ron and Janet Reimer.  This is so tragic.  I and all other Intactivist mourn his death.
It sickens me that Max Cham, Jean Huot, and John Moey will never be punished for their crimes.
Ŭalabio 00:11, 2004 Aug 22 (UTC)
I removed the word medically from the phrase "medically unnecisary circumsicion-accident".  It made the sentance read ackwardly and is redundant anyway.  That issue is discussed more fully in the Social Impact section. --Starx 20:45, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Birthday 

message: Just like with the paragraph about what David Peter Reimer means to intactivists, we forgot that the article itself exists.  I took our paragraph and the first paragraph from the section Overview and merged them.  We still have other issues to resolve, but I hope that we can resolve them here, on the talk-page.
--Ŭalabio 21:08, 2004 Dec 4 (UTC)
Who is the "we" you speak of? - Robert the Bruce 04:06, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The we are  Ŭalabio  and  Jakew.   --  Ŭalabio 04:43, 2004 Dec 5 (UTC)
It is good that you two have agreed. Now I suggest that you seek to sell this version to the broader community. You will get some help with the process from here on here.  - Robert the Bruce 07:11, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Put that about what we agree in the article

message: It's sad to know that those responsible for destroying his penis were not sued or at least lost thier license. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.160.197.209 (talk) 21:33, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Legal Consequences

message: Could this story be part of the inspiration behind Iain Banks' novel, The Wasp Factory?  See: http://www.iainbanks.net/f01.htm
There are remarkable parallels between the two. Jontce 00:22, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Iain M. Banks 

message: I am amazed that you consider removal of the word "accidental" from the phrase "penis was destroyed in a circumcision accident" as making it "NPOV." Do you think the doctor intended to destroy the penis? Then what POV were you removing? alteripse 00:43, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, it was the word "accident". In its prior usage, the adjective "circumcision" suggests that the attempt to remove "just some" of his penis was accidental.  Clearly that part was deliberate.  Nobody says "a woman died after a rape accident".  The last two words are incompatible.  Either way, we shouldn't try to read the mind of the person being described, or use a POV to describe what happened.  All we can say factually is that it was destroyed during a circumcision, instead of using some euphemism.  DanP 00:56, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: But that's not how the sentence was constructed!  While you might infer a meaning different than the one in the literal words, there is no reason not to clarify the sentence.  Just as you say, leaving out the word "accident" still leaves the impression to the reader that destruction of the remainder of the penis was not intended.  Since you're adamant that the intentions be explicit, I changed it to "inadvertent" which does not have the connotation of bad luck (as opposed to bad judgement), and made it modify "destruction" and not "circumcision".  I hope that clarifies the meaning for both of us.  DanP 01:41, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: DanP

message: How about "...the majority of his (or his entire) penis was unintentionally destroyed during a circumcision..."?  Sematically, wouldn't that reflect both the intent to circumcise, and the non-intent to take all of the penis off?
Anon Lurker Shrew2u 4.3.67.30 00:04, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Room for Compromise 

message: Walabio, I've just had to make a bunch of corrections, some of which we went over months ago.
*(which is an inappropriate diagnosis for infants) - even the doctor you contacted said that it was always possible, if unlikely, for it to be appropriate.
*without ever trying less radical therapy - we agreed that we don't know this.
*This indicates that Bruce's circumcision was unnecessary. - unproven. they were individuals. discussed before.
*involuntary medically unnecessary - a) repetition, b) POV. we're supposed to report others' POV, not include it ourselves.
*libellous text about Money's reputation and so on - why?
- Jakew 00:09, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Walabio... 

message: (by user:67.1.241.111, 22:54, 30 July 2005 moved here from the article)
I Michelle Ann Bryce
Would like to add something to this Please...
I was born with the Chomosomes Of XXY
In the year of June 8,1958
My parents were told that I was to be growen up as a Boy,
I was not a Boy, I was a Girl,
I had a lot of the same things in school as him.
They made me be a Boy and I was a Girl...
If you want to get ahold of me you can get ahole of me at
michelleangelgirl4u2c@msn.com
Thank You From: Michelle Ann Bryce
Michelle, I had to move your comment to the talk page, because it just does not belong in the article. You are however decidedly not the only person with XXY chromosomes that, despite a basically male anatomy and upbringing, feels that she is really a woman. If you check transgender or transsexual support groups, you are bound to find other people with the same experience. -- AlexR 00:21, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: A personal comment

message: "In the face of Reimer's personal tragedy, few professionals felt secure enough to publicly question the accuracy of Reimer's recounted childhood experiences, nor whether the failure occurred because of the relatively late age of reassignment, nor how many more successful outcomes should be considered negated by this failure."
These sentences insinuate that the "traditional," post-Diamond, interpretation of this story is wrong, but provide no evidence to back it up.  I thus have several questions.  Is there an actual debate?  I am not familiar with many contemporary gender psychologists who don't believe that gender identity has important prenatal components, or even that it's entirely established prenatally.  The second sentence references successful reassignments.  Are there published accounts, and if so, why aren't they cited in the references? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.188.195.86 (talk • contribs) .
These sentences most certainly do not insinuate that it is wrong, just that it is an unusual story that has been freighted with a huge amount of social significance. The sentence simply reminds the reader that the book and the current conventional lay interpretation represents a single retrospective point of view that perhaps might not have been experienced or interpreted the same way by other participants, and that it has been used to support causes that are only partly related. The sentence is exactly correct: his story is so humanly tragic that almost no professionals have even disputed some of the more egregiously exaggerated versions, or the more overblown interpretations it has been used to support. You can find in previous versions of wikipedia articles and talk pages, as all over the internet, enormously distorted versions of this story with preposterous interpretations. This article was not the place to reprise the history of intersex surgery; this article was about this non-intersexed person's story. Referenced in the latter article are the papers that indicate exactly how unusual this story was and how atypical the outcome. alteripse 23:16, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems in Later Paragraph 

message: so all of this happened because... the 2 doctors made a mistake on him, or the circumcision wasnt neccessary. i mean, they should have known what they were doing though.
* The botched circumcision was obviously a problem, but the larger problem was the response to it. Reassigining David's gender to female was John Money testing his theories on gender identity. He ruined this man's life. I wonder if he ever apologized. Clashwho 18:29, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: He never apologised, saying since both Bruce/Brenda/David and Brian had withdrawn from treatment, he no longer had access to the facts. He has since died. --Hugh7 08:18, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

text: The decision to circumcise was incorrect on many counts. Every intact male has phimosis (a tight foreskin) up until puberty, it's not a pathological condition, it's the natural development of the penis. The condition (also termed phimosis) of a tight foreskin in adulthood is when circumcision is occasionally called for, circumcising an infant due to phimosis is completely uncalled for and shows spectacular ignorance of human anatomy on the part of the doctors involved. Blankfrackis 21:03, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  his problem 

message: I would like see a citation for where exactly the idea of gender as a social construct has somehow "Academically" fallen out of favor in the 90's? This is like saying evolution has "fallen out of favor" because creationists are more vociferous today than they were 10 years ago. SiberioS 23:24, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You need to get out of the humanities departments. Money's theories were the dominant authoritative scientific theory of gender in the 1970's and they were entirely congruent with the most liberal political attitudes of the era: that gender identity was a social construction taught to children. In the last decade that continues to be a popular view in English departments but most scientific authorities are now more circumspect at attributing gender identity entirely to social construction and are more reluctant to entirely dismiss evidence (such as this case) of a biological influence. I am not aware of any scientific reviews of gender identity in the last decade that argue a pure social construction theory. Do you know of any? Your evolution analogy seems both incorrect and irrelevant: a better one would be to compare it to psychoanalysis, which was originally a widely accepted scientific theory of higher brain functions: these days the English departments are almost the only place it is taken seriously. alteripse 16:30, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Poring over my old contributions, I was amused to find THIS little response to my comment, mostly because it flirts so deliciously on an ad homeneim attack ("Ha! You actually believe people in the social sciences!"). That said, like in a civil case, the burden of proof rests on the accusser, and as we can see in the reply, no evidence is forthcoming. Meanwhile gender studies (suspciously tucked away in the humanities department; those un-scientific fiends!) trudge on, elaborating upon and revealing more about the role of gender (and the ability of individuals to choose and adopt it at will). SiberioS 07:20, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You clearly don't understand ad hominem any better than you can spell it-- nothing in that reply said the argument was bad because the people were bad. My point is that no scientific researchers on human sexuality are arguing these days that gender identity is a purely taught/learned phenomenon with no biological substrate in the brain, which was the essence of Money's theory of the 1960s that led to the expectation that Reimer's identity would simply match what his parents told the child it was. You are also a little confused about who attacked what concept, as you offered no citations when you criticized the article. Here are a couple of current reviews for your education: both suggest we do not completely understand gender identity development but there is ample evidence for a role of biological factors:   Can you offer a credible citation that supports a purely taught/learned gender identity that originates outside an English department? alteripse 11:24, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Whats with the English department stuff? Last time I checked I was in Sociology, which, despite your attempts to conflate the two, are not the same. Nor are our contributions to things somehow less credible because we don't wear lab coats. I guess then I can't even cite sources from my own discipline, because it doesn't meet your approval of being "not from an English department".(If only we had known we were english majors!). SiberioS 17:53, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Read again. I asked for something that originates outside an English dept-- as they are the principal folks with no credibility on scientific topics. Sociology is usually science. I had no idea what your field was, so it wasnt a personal criticism. So is there a recent sociology citation on gender identity that says it is all taught and learned?  alteripse 21:18, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't understand the attacks on those in the English discipline.  Can a scientist credibly study Shakespeare?  I would say yes, and indeed, many people are a part of both disciplines.  Judgment needs to be made on an individual basis rather than a general condemnation of all those studying English.  The poster said nothing about being in the humanities, and in fact, was asking for a citation of something mentioned in the article, which is exactly what Wikipedia editors should be doing rather than ridiculing entire subjects of study on a talk page. --Gloriamarie 05:45, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Once again, slowly. It is hard to cite a negative. It is like finding a citation that current scientists no longer think there are canals on Mars-- it's true but I can't quickly "prove" it by citation. I did not claim that all English professors misunderstand science, only that some do, quite publicly. The last brief book on Theory I read written by an English professor still seemed reluctant to give up the idea of gender as something chosen, but I don't claim expertise in Theory and simply excluded them from my assertion about what academic scientists currently believe because they arent scientists and many of them seem to play by epistemologic rules that can charitably be described as "not scientific". Don't accuse me of saying something I didn't so you can get all huffily self-righteous about it. alteripse 04:51, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Just an afterthough: Cold it be that the ignorance is even bigger than I thought, and that some of you don't realize what's so obvious to me that I didn't care to mention it: That the ideas and methods of the infamous John Money has nothing to do with today's social constructionism, but represent an older belief in "scientific methods" used in psychology and social research? So if it's a question whether Money's views are old fashioned, the answer is yes. But that's old news and has nothing to do with the Reiner case. --Linkomfod 18:06, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You are correct that constructionism in English departments came after the cultural pendulum swing to "nurture" in the 1960s and 1970s. Money's theories were indeed based on observation of cases (i.e., medical science), not "theory". However, his taught-only theory of gender identity was quite congenial to the "nurture over nature" predominance of the 60s and 70s. Many feminist and other politically correct gender theorists of the era had rejected the old "anatomy is destiny" ideas and welcomed Money's theory as supporting the concept that all male-female differences were cultural (i.e., "learned") rather than biological. You can find published expressions of rejection or discomfort with one of the first published pieces of evidence suggesting a biologic basis to gender identity in the academic reactions to Imperato-McGinley's NEJM description (ca. 1979) of gender identity changes in adolescents with 5-alpha reductase deficiency. It is hard now to find any scientists, social or biological, who support a "purely-learned" or "purely socially-constructed" theory of gender identity, but contrary to your assertion, I know of no scientists who deny a cultural, learned, or constructed component to gender identity. The closest remaining thing to an academic champion of a "purely-socially-constructed" might be some of the Theorists who reject scientific epistemology. So, once again, please read carefully. Why argue against what has not been claimed? alteripse 16:38, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Out of fashion? 

message: Interview with him and his mother can be founded at YouTube: , . Is this worth to be added to article? --Yonkie 02:48, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interviews 

message: "the malleability and cultural construction of gender identity (see also gender mainstreaming), already falling out of academic fashion in the 1990s"...I have a question about this. I'm not sure it has fallen out of fashion. the idea that gender is a social/cultural construct still seems to be going strong- at least in the humanities. Novium 23:18, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  academia 

message: There are two separate reports under Death. He consumed alcohol and OD'd on drugs. He shot himself in the head.
They read separately, in two separate paragraphs, although they are not necessarily contradictory -- he could have done both, but it reads as if the OD killed him, and then the shotgun is mentioned later.
Please fix this. Which was it? Both? ... also, please keep him (and those close to him) in your prayers.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Newagelink (talk • contribs) 04:31, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two conflicting stories for suicide under Death section 

message: I've removed the following from the article - they're all news stories, easily used as footnotes; per WP:ELNO, they're not good choices as external links.  I've removed the IMDB link completely - he wasn't an actor and appeared only in one program.  I suppose it could be replaced, but I don't see the point.  WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 14:58, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links 

message: "he began living as male at age 14."
"At 13, Reimer decided to assume a male gender identity"
"In 1980, Reimer's parents told him the truth about his gender reassignment" (he was born in 1965, so was 14 or 15)
the web sources don't seem to say when precisely he identified as male, though it seems certainly later than 13, so I'm changing that one to 14 to be consistent. if somebody has the books, perhaps they could correct this. -Ethan (talk) • 2009-02-26 08:53 (UTC)
:I'm not quite sure what that third quote has to do with it, it's not necessarily the case that he might only have began living as a male after he became aware of his childhood mutilation - in fact it might only have been because of his rejection of a female identity that his parents decided to tell him the truth. --86.172.115.11 (talk) 16:34, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inconsistency when he identified as male 

message: As the misfortunes of David Riemer are often cited in connection with gender identity discussions I think a reference to the Gender Studies Portal might be usefully added to the article Everybody got to be somewhere! (talk) 00:43, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gender studies portal  

message: In this Wikipedia article it states that david's brother commited suicide. In the article on John Money, it states that his death was accidental. Can somebody research this and correct it?99.224.12.9 (talk) 00:48, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: If there's no note, it's hard to tell.  The sources seem to scrupulously avoid saying one way or another.  I've reworded to say what he died from but avoided any speculation on his reasons.  WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 19:50, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Suicide