David Reimer shouldn't be your mascot
His tragic story does not make the point anti-trans activists think it does.
Welcome back to another edition of Weigh-in Wednesday, where I tell you my opinion on stuff I've come across. Today we'll be discussing David Reimer and his status as a warning against letting trans children medically transition before they're fully developed.
David Reimer, a twin, was born a boy in 1965 and originally named Bruce. After a botched circumcision, Bruce’s and his twin brother Brian's parents were convinced by Dr John Money to raise Bruce as a girl, assuring them that gender is based entirely on nurture, not nature, and is not innate. Desperate for their child to live a life as close to normal as possible, they agreed. They re-named him Brenda and raised him as a girl.
Years go on, Brenda is still being treated by Dr Money, it's going very poorly, Brenda is clearly rejecting her forced identity as a girl, and finally, after years of trauma and mental health issues directly caused by being forced to live as the gender with which she did not identify, Brenda begins living again as a male at 14 and changes his name to David. After a lifetime of difficulty and pain, he took his own life in 2004, at 38 years old. (I read the book I linked to just now; I recommend doing the same.)
As conservative commentators bafflingly continue to insist that transgender children don’t exist and are instead created entirely by the trans lobby or Marx himself or whatever else, David's tragic story has been invoked more often in recent years as a way to disprove trans “ideology,” demonstrating what happens when you treat children like blank slates who can change their gender at will. Ironically, I think David’s story suggests the opposite of what these commentators infer: one’s gender identity is typically innate, felt from a young age, and follows them throughout life. Meaning, of course, that David’s innate identity as a male matches that of the sex recorded at his birth, making his sex and gender identity congruent, which means that he was not transgender, but cisgender. To insist that David was transgender and that his story mimics those of children with gender dysphoria suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be transgender: one whose gender identity does not match that observed and recorded at birth.
Unlike David, transgender people want to transition to the sex opposite that of their birth. Unlike David, actual transgender people who transition tend to feel much better post-transition than they did before they came to terms with who they were and began treatment.
I'm not sure if the people using David as their anti-trans mascot know this and believe their audience gullible enough to not know any better, or if they simply understand so little about what being transgender actually means that they sincerely don't understand that what David Reimer went through is nothing like being an actual transgender person, child or adult, seeking “affirming" care — unless you're willing to admit that it's cruel to force a child to live as the gender opposite of that which they've persistently identified throughout their life, as the right widely believes should be done to children with gender dysphoria (also known as, you know, “trans children”), and exactly what was done to David.
Whether and how children should be able to medically or socially transition, and what treatment for childhood gender dysphoria looks like, is a topic for another day and not one I have any interest in hosting, but suffice it to say that first and foremost, acknowledging the fact that gender dysphoria is a real condition and not simply a fun choice anyone makes is the first step to helping anyone. The cost/benefit analysis of various treatments are for the doctors and their patients, if you ask me, not the politicians. But alas.
Matt Walsh was one of the many anti-trans conservatives using David Reimer as an example of trans ideology gone amok in his recent documentary, What is a Woman?. Walsh obviously wasn't sincerely wondering how to define a woman in his documentary, but he missed a great opportunity to explore an interesting philosophical inquiry as a curious and influential “thinker” in society. Too bad; there’s a lot to talk about there. Many feminists of the past have philosophized about it at length, as have numerous trans people, doctors, and scores of other people. Sticking strictly to science is not really enough when there are so many variables (internal organs and menstruation — commonly-used examples — unintentionally exclude huge swaths of the cis female population, for example). I want to explore more about what a woman really is. Matt Walsh tries, but he’s so incredibly dull that he can’t seem to grasp that there might be more to think about and more people with whom to have these conversations and make these inquiries.
To summarize, David Reimer was born a boy, forced in infancy to transition socially and eventually medically to female, and once he was informed of what had happened to him as a small child and why he was being raised as “Brenda,” went back to identifying as a boy. Again, David was not transgender and his transition was forced. David’s tragic story demonstrates that gender identity is innate and cannot be changed on a whim, even if the proper language to describe it isn’t yet in one’s vocabulary. For trans kids, the same is true: their gender identity is innately felt, and because they are transgender, that gender identity does not match that which was recorded at birth, and therefore the transgender child requires treatment to feel mentally and physically well. What that treatment entails, what is best and at what age certain interventions are appropriate is, again, a topic for another post (or person), but it needs to be shouted from the rooftops: David Reimer’s tragic story has nothing to do with being trans. It instead proves the opposite of what many anti-trans activists perpetuate: gender is felt innately whether one is cis or trans, and therefore trans kids need help, not laws that intervene between doctor and patient, nor do they need even more shame, dismissiveness, and bullying from the adults charged with caring and setting a good example for them.