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David Reimer: the boy who was raised as a girl:

The truth turned out to be very nearly the opposite of what Dr. Money had reported. Far from an effortless transformation from male to female, Brenda/Bruce had fought the assignment to the female gender -- even though "she" had not been informed of the truth of "her" sexual identity. As a small child, "Brenda" tore off the frilly dresses her mother made. She insisted on rolling in the mud with the other boys. She stomped on the dolls that relatives gave as presents.

School had been an unending nightmare. Teachers and students alike somehow knew at a glance that something was not right about "Brenda." Girls avoided her. Boys made fun of her. Teachers anxiously asked the parents for more information about what made "Brenda" so strange, so combative, so un-ladylike. One of "Brenda's" few friends at school later recalled:

As far as I knew, Brenda was a girl -- physically. But from everything that she did and said, she indicated that she didn't want to be a girl. The other girls in our group were competitive against the boys; we wanted to prove we could do whatever they could do. We might get in arguments with the guys, but we wouldn't have gone as far as to fight with them physically. I wouldn't want a bruise on my face, for example. But Brenda fought with the boys. Brenda would take the bruises. I myself was a tomboy, but I never wanted to be a boy. Brenda did.

Injections of female hormones did nothing to change "Brenda's" boyish ways. "When I say there was nothing feminine about Brenda," brother Brian Reimer later recalled, "I mean there was nothing feminine:

She walked like a guy. Sat with her legs apart. She talked about guy things, didn't give a crap about cleaning house, getting married, wearing makeup. We both wanted to play with guys, build forts and have snowball fights and play army. She'd get a skipping rope for a gift, and the only thing we'd use that for was to tie people up, whip people with it. She played with my toys: Tinkertoys, dump trucks. This toy sewing machine she got just sat.

Remember, neither "Brenda," nor her brother, nor any of her classmates knew the true story about her sexual identity. They all thought she was a girl, albeit a girl who behaved pretty strangely. The other kids at school called her "gorilla," or "Cavewoman." One girl who made fun of Brenda must have been surprised when Brenda "grabbed her by the front of her shirt, smashed her against the lockers, and threw her onto the ground. Boys who teased her got similar treatment. "That's what always impressed me about Brenda," said a classmate. "She'd actually fight with the boys who teased her. She'd haul off and punch them. I always wished I could do that."

David Reimer committed suicide in May, 2004. He was 38 years old.

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