Nature vs Nurture

Nature vs nurture has long been debated and many are coming to the conclusion now that it is more nature AND nurture that affect us equally rather than one or the other. Our book describes the case of Anna, a little girl who was kept in an attic her whole life and never had any personal interaction whatsoever. Anna was not able to communicate and did not develop how she should have. She eventually died and her caregivers concluded that her death was a direct effect of not being socialized. I am very interested in the whole nature vs. nurture debate and there was one case that I learned about a couple of years ago that really sparked my interest. This case is at the opposite end of the spectrum compared to the Anna case. In Anna's case nurture was what she lacked, where in this case nurture is what causes harm.




Brian and 'Brenda' Reimer

 

David Reimer

That is the case of David Reimer. A little background info:
David was a twin. He was born as Bruce and his twin's name was Brian. The twins had a urinary problem and were recommended for a circumcision at 8 months old. Bruce went first and there was a big complication. His reproductive body parts were damaged beyond repair. The parents decided not to have the surgery on Brian and his urinary problem eventually cleared on its own. The parents worried about Bruce not being able to have sexual satisfaction down the road. They took Bruce to  Dr. Money at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Money was a psychologist whose speciality was gender identity. He believed that through social learning(nurture) that Bruce could have gender reassignment surgery and could live happily as a female. Bruce had the surgery to remove what remained of his male parts when he was 22 months old. This was the perfect experiment for Dr. Money. He had done the surgery and studied children before but it had been on children that had had some sort of deformity at birth. Bruce was a good candidate for new research because he had no deformity at birth and his twin brother Brian would be the perfect control for the experiment. As the experiment went on, Bruce-now Brenda- was forced to do things that would be considered torture today. He was forced to rehearse sexual acts with his brother where he was the "female part" and his brother was the "male part". One example- Bruce was forced to lay down with his legs spread while Brian was on top of him. The family continued to take Bruce to Dr. Money over the years. Dr. Money wrote about his findings and said that Bruce aka Brenda was clearly a little girl and was so different from her twin brother. The parents later claimed that they often lied about the success of the procedure. Bruce did not identify with his female gender. When he was forced to wear dresses, he felt completely embarrassed. He was given estrogen and developed breasts yet still in no way felt like a girl. He eventually told his parents that he would commit suicide if they made him see Dr. Money again. His parents told him of the surgery and how he was originally born a boy. Bruce decided to begin living as a male at age 14 and changed his name from Brenda to David. He eventually got married and became a stepfather.

"You're always going to see people that are going to say well the Dave Reimer case could have been successful. I'm living proof, and if you're not going to take my word as gospel, because I have lived through it, who else are you going to listen to? Who else is there? I've lived through it. Like, is it going to take somebody to wind up killing themselves, shooting themselves in the head for people to listen?"- David Reimer

At age 38, David shot himself in a grocery store parking lot. His brother Brian had committed suicide 2 years earlier.

I find this case to be beyond sad. David never had a chance to live a normal life. He spend his entire childhood feeling like he couldn't be who he was born to be - and he was right. Obviously nurture is important. Anna was never nurtured and did not have the socialization she needed to survive. David, on the other hand, was forced to depend solely on nurture and none on nature. Nature is also important. Nature is who we are. We are born with certain characteristics that no amount of nurture will get rid of. Dr. Money and David's parents assumed that as long as David was dressed in pink and forced to play with dolls that he would identify as a girl. As our book describes, gender roles play a big part in kids learning what is acceptable for their gender. A commercial for a baby doll will most likely have a girl playing with the doll, while a commercial for toy cars will have a boy. We learn by seeing these types of things what we should like. However, nurture can't account for everything. We have some things ingrained in us when we are born. David knew that even though he was expected to like dolls but he didn't and there was a reason why. No matter how much his parents and doctors told him he liked dolls it wasn't going to change the fact that he didn't. That's just not how it works and I'm sure his family found that out the hard way after both of their children killed themselves. I agree with most current psychologists and sociologists when they say that a balance of nature and nurture is key. Both are important, but one can't overpower the other.

Schillo, Keith. 2011. Nature or Nurture: The Case of the Boy Who Became a Girl. National Center  for Case Study Teaching in Science. University of Buffalo, State University of New York.

         http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/files/gender_reassignment.pdf

2005. Dr. Money and the Boy with No Penis. BBC. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dr_money_prog_summary.shtml