Picture this: Two identical boy twins are born to a Canadian couple,
their foreskins sealed at the tip. They are taken
to a hospital where the doctor uses a cauterizing gun to circumcise
them.
The surgery goes very, very wrong, and the doctor winds up slicing off
one of the boys' entire penis. The parents are advised to raise their
castrated baby as a girl.
Sound like the beginning of a David
Cronenberg film? Unfortunately it's a true story, one that Rolling
Stone writer John Colapinto covers in As Nature Made Him: The Boy
Who Was Raised as a Girl (Harper Collins). Colapinto's book is
filled with revealing, touching, and infuriating accounts of the boy,
Bruce, who was
raised as a girl, Brenda, and his attempt to mend his life. What struck
me
was how Bruce/Brenda's early experience as a girl helped eventually
shape him
into an adult with a heightened sensitivity to the way women are
treated. Sometimes
a little gender confusion can be a good thing.
Recent Articles
Movies
