David Reimer On Thursday night TV3 screened a documentary about the late David Reimer (1966-2004), a surgically mutilated baby boy who was raised as a girl, due to the unethical behaviour of Dr John Money, a sexologist. John Money was New Zealand-born and supportive of lesbian/gay rights, but there is no doubt in my mind that he was partially responsible for David's intense suffering. Unfortunately, sometimes, heroes have feet of clay, and Money falls into that category. I have no reservation whatsoever in condemning his lack of appropriate medical ethics in this context. John Colapinto wrote about David Reimer's life five years. This Rolling Stone journalist deserves credit for the intensive research and balance that he undertook when he dealt with David's experiences. David was a victim of surgical mutilation when an infant, due to surgical incompetence. His Canadian parents decided to raise David as a girl, Brenda, after advice from Dr John Money. Money was wrong to do that, and has attracted considerable criticism from the transgender and intersexed communities for advising what he did. While the transgender communities favour surgical reassignment for those with gender identity disorder. These people are usually competent adolescents or adults who have made a conscientious and informed decision about the hormonal and surgical modification of their bodies, not infants. As Colapinto notes in his excellent book, the Intersex Society of North America gave strong support to David and his family after he recounted his experiences at the hands of Dr Money and his collaborators. Cheryl Chase is cited as someone who became a close friend, because the intersexed community could relate to David's experiences of surgical mutilation due to their own non-consensual surgical treatment to 'correct' anomalous genitals. ISNA argues that parents should be given informed consent about the physiological and psychological pain that involuntarily gender 'corrected' infants go through after experiences of early 'corrective' surgery. They agreed that Money should have left well alone. Tragically, despite his support, Reimer ended his life at thirty eight last year. What about New Zealand? Mani Mitchell has talked about her experiences, which closely resemble those of Reimer, although Mani was brought up male until s/he realised hir gender identity was intersexed. S/he then founded the Intersex Society of New Zealand. Under our Code of Health and Disability Consumers Rights, there would be a legal obligation to tell the parents of an intersexed infant about the choice of not undergoing surgical modification, under its provisions for 'informed consent.' Under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003, Money would have been obliged to listen to both sides of the clinical story involved here, or risk response from the Medical Discplinary Review Tribunal. Predictably, the Christian Right has tried to jump onboard and grandstand over the Reimer tragedy, using it to argue for the internal and essential nature of gender identity. In Australia, anti-feminist Babette Francis omits mention of the intersexed community in her highly selective, ideologically slanted review of Colapinto's book. (But then, Francis is a conservative Catholic and unthinkingly obeys papal diktats about the iniquity of reassignment surgery.) It tells us nothing of the sort - and Francis should be ashamed of herself for her opportunist exploitation of what has become David's personal tragedy. Recommended Reading: John Colapinto: As Nature Made Him: HarperCollins: New York: 2000. Intersex Society of North America: http://www.isna.org Craig Young - 20th June 2005