Award winning article from 1997 on David Reimer

WTFSeriously
The triplets film looks interesting. I will check it out.
The lengths men go to, to force children and others weaker than themselves, to inflict on them, such devasting and permanent damage.

Most kids are asexual. Just it's an unnecessary label for a child. But the age at which young people develop sexual feelings varies hugely. It can be terribly excluding if a young person's peers are already sexual and they are still pre-sexual. The asexual label can be comforting, I suppose. But it's limiting, not helpful.

Yet again, it boils down to accepting people as they are, teaching them to value themselves, rather than forcing them to conform.

With regard to studies of twins separated at birth puts me in mind of Sir Cyril Burt.

He was an educational psychologist who falsified studies of non existent twins.

He was discredited but not stripped of his knighthood.

Twins separated at birth are quite a rare occurrence and I am suspicious of such studies.

Well, I thought I was a boy for a period before puberty. It's not unheard of in kids.

And yes, it's often expressed as people who are gay say they knew even as kids - Oprah was very big on this idea back in the 90s.

But it's also the case that many teens think they may be gay, or bisexual, and then come to the conclusion they aren't later on. Adolescent sexuality can be something of a loose canon. And children before puberty sometimes have a wholly mistaken impression of what sex is about - this is why we now have young kids coming to the conclusion they must be asexual when really they simply aren't old enough to be anything.

So sorry fir the diversion but perhaps this is not off topic after all. Maybe the whole situation of abuse of power with regard to gender matters is part of a wider problem in the mental health field.

What comes up again and again in these discussions is that abusers, whatever the form of their abusing, will seek out privileged positions where they are immune from accountability. As LangCleg put it, a sacred caste.

Most of the gay men I have known said that they knew they were gay (or, at least, different to the other boys) from before puberty.

I don't recall them saying that they thought they were girls, though.

It just goes to show how bits of information can be cherry picked and fabricated to support the bias of the researcher, while overwhelming evidence to the contrary is omitted. It’s still going on, just look at the information the Tavi failed to make public about their puberty blocker trial.

I think there are some serious personality problems in psychology generally. Not all by any means but it seems widespread and that is something I have heard from other health professionals.

Not all along the lines of being power hungry or inclined to abuse, but generally connected to personality and psychological issues of their own. Maybe that is what draws those particular people to that field.

It looks like some of the realisations made in the 90s have been lost. I'm wondering what part in this was played by puberty blockers and how they mask the evidence that something wrong is taking place.

I'm not sure about the puberty blockers, but one thing I have noticed in the last 5 years or so, which seems similar to that period in the 70s, is a lack of appreciation for how much development goes on in kids around sexuality, in all kinds of ways. In most instances this isn't related to kids who are taking puberty blockers and I think it even predates it somewhat.

I'm thinking for example of how common it seems to be now for people to talk about gay kids who are still pre-adolescent, or there sometimes seems to be little awareness that sexuality can be all over the place in the teen years and often doesn't really settle into a strong pattern until the 20s, or indeed that it can change over the life of an individual. Despite the fact that lots of adults have that kind of experience. So you get things like Rainbow clubs in primary schools or drag kids whose parents seem sure they are gay even though that haven't even started puberty.

If you think that way, there's not so much reason to follow the kids too far into adulthood.

Maybe also there has been something of a return to constructivist models around maleness and femaleness in progressive circles.

From my experience, this hints at a much wider pattern of concealed abuse by a proportion of psychologists, therapists and psychiatrists towards their clients/ patients.

There are many indications of Money's abusive & unethical behaviour in the article.

Many collude (still) by failing to recognise & prioritise identifying the patterns of abuse & impact on children / Vulnerable Adults.

I’ve not read the whole article yet but I will do - it looks fascinating and illuminating.

Slightly off topic, I was struck by this section quoted by @nauticant above:
‘During these visits, the twins discovered that Money had two sides to his personality. "One when mom and dad weren't around," Kevin says, "and another when they were." When their parents were present, they say, Money was avuncular, mild-spoken. But alone with the children, he could be irritable or worse. Especially when they defied him. ‘

From my experience, this hints at a much wider pattern of concealed abuse by a proportion of psychologists, therapists and psychiatrists towards their clients/ patients.

I have had recent experience of undergoing a psychological assessment by a senior and respected clinical psychologist dealing with parenting matters. In the session with him, he could only be described as an abusive bully, gaslighting me and literally laughing at me as I talked about very emotional experiences as I described how I compassionately cared for my children. I suffered sleepless nights for weeks after. Perhaps the worst aspect though was that when I described his behaviour to some professionals involved with my family - both female and both people I respected - they were both surprised, saying, ooh, I’m really surprised “John” [not his real name] was like that; we worked with him lots of times and relied on his opinion. It was quite clear that this psychologist presented a totally different impression to professional colleagues than to the vulnerable people he was being paid to “assess”. He was an abusive bastard, no ifs, no buts.

A similar thing - but worse - happened to a female friend of mine, who was horrifically abused verbally not also semi-physically, by a male NHS therapist to whom she had been referred for major ptsd and mental health issues as a result of childhood and teenage emotional and sexual abuse. In the end, about two years later, she built up the courage to finally complain, detailing the therapist s abusive behaviour in a 20-page long report and a multi-hour session im front of the complaints body. Some then, the person has been allowed to continue to practise and has actually been given an award by his employers for his work.

So sorry fir the diversion but perhaps this is not off topic after all. Maybe the whole situation of abuse of power with regard to gender matters is part of a wider problem in the mental health field. Fundamentally, Certain professionals in the field of mental health seem to utterly lack normal levels of self-reflection and worse, are seen as “untouchable” by the rest of the professional class.

The same problem as with children referred to gender services: lack of follow-up through adulthood.

^By and large, though, the U.S. doctors who dispense Lupron to children are not in a position to see problems that may emerge a decade later, said E. Kirk Neely, a Stanford professor and pediatric endocrinologist. He noted that studies done in Europe haven’t identified long-term joint dysfunction or depression as problems.
“I’m concerned. There’s a very fundamental problem. We treat these kids, they disappear and we never see them again,” Neely said. “We don’t have good follow up, particularly in the U.S.”^

From https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/khn.org/news/women-fear-drug-they-used-to-halt-puberty-led-to-health-problems/amp/, an article annoy the effects of Lupron on girls treated with it for precocious puberty or short height. It makes the point that these girls, now women, suffer the same side-effects and life-long consequences as women treated with it during mature adulthood.

The long-term harms on children are ignored in David's case, in the subsequent surgeries on intersex children, and in the medicating of precocious girl children. (Does anything parallel happen to boys with precocious puberty?) It smacks of forcing children into conforming to a very rigid world view.

Oh... sounds familiar.

These are well worth a watch.

Quentin van Meter was involved with the Reimer case and discusses it in this video:

"The terrible fraud of 'transgender medicine' "

The BBC seems to have removed several old programmes about the Reimer case.

"BBC - Horizon - 2000 - The Boy Who Was Turned Into a Girl"

www.dailymotion.com/video/x225vd0

Programme Description:
www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2000/boyturnedgirl.shtml

Transcript:
www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2000/boyturnedgirl_transcript.shtml

"Case Study: John/Joan - The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl"

Radio 4: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t97xf

"Dr Money and The Boy with No Penis"
Horizon - 4 Nov 2004

vimeo.com/89934128

This was on the BBC website until not long ago but not in the same "topic" as everything else in the "transgender" topic - which does not even seem to exist as a topic any more. All that is left on the BBC site now are various radio programmes and archived descriptions. This same video is on YouTube but is blocked by the BBC for viewers in the UK.

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

Questions and answers about sexology and the Reimer case:
www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dr_money_qa.shtml

Programme transcript:
www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dr_money_trans.shtml

"BBC Health Check: The boy who was raised a girl"
23 November 2010
Health News:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11814300

22/11/2010
Podcast:
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00bxqfg

It concerns me is that one reason the scandal broke is that the outcome for the children often became disastrous once they went through puberty (of their sex). This seemed to lead to crisis and led to lies being uncovered. I'm assuming puberty blockers weren't available then to keep things confused/hidden.

It looks like some of the realisations made in the 90s have been lost. I'm wondering what part in this was played by puberty blockers and how they mask the evidence that something wrong is taking place.

extract from article in OP

"In an April 14, 1980, article in Time, Money was sharply criticized for what looked dangerously like an endorsement of incest and pedophilia. "A childhood sexual experience, such as being the partner of a relative or of an older person, need not necessarily affect the child adversely," Money told Time. And according to a right-wing group critical of his teachings, Money reportedly told Paidika, a Dutch journal of pedophilia, "If I were to see the case of a boy aged 10 or 12 who's intensely attracted toward a man in his 20s or 30s, if the relationship is totally mutual, and the bonding is genuinely totally mutual, then I would not call it pathological in any way." (continues)

There will have been plenty of people who didn't believe it meant they were entitled to sexually abuse children.

I don't think he likely thought that was what he was doing.

That view of sex and sexuality that came out of the sexual revolution had a very particular character. In a lot of ways it saw it as just another bodily function, not more significant than other bodily functions. Sexual problems came out of sexual repression and sexual taboos. Freedom from repressive moralism that places special significance on sexual pleasure was what would make for a healthy adult sexuality. A lot of the writings of the time on sexuality were interested in things like bonobos as a model for human sexuality.

Recommendations for kids, how to rase them, sex education, very much came out of that way of thinking. And yes, lots of normal people didn't go so far, and conservatives opposed it (and were generally thought of as square because of it) but everything that article talks about Mornay's personal life suggests to me that he was completely immersed in that way of thinking.

most here will recognise some key issues

Of note for me, was that Money, with no evidence whatsoever, extrapolated from the theory that because patients with DSDs appeared to sometimes feel an identity that was not necessarily in line with their chromosomes or appearance, that those with normal sexual development must be equally able to change between male and female through socialisation.

Gender identity theory/belief stems from exactly the same type of dangerous extrapolation: that because we should listen to and accept the feelings of patients with DSDs, regarding the sex with which they feel the most affinity’ we should therefore listen to and accept the feelings of those with normal sexual development if they claim to feel an affinity to the opposite sex.

A psychiatrist summarized John's emotional future this way: "He will be unable to consummate marriage or have normal heterosexual relations; he will have to recognize that he is incomplete, physically defective, and that he must live apart...."

and that he must live apart

Why? Emotionally, perhaps, as he would be unable - as the knowledge stood at that time - to access one physical aspect of adult life. But medicine moves forward constantly. Reconstructive surgery was developing at incredible speed - could they not imagine the possibilities for him?

That whole sentence is penis-focused. You don't need a penis to have sex. You don't need a penis to sexually satisfy your wife. You don't need a penis to have biological children.

It is almost fear-driven. The speaker's own fear, own horror, presented as 'compassion' for the infant. The same fear and horror that kept anyone different hidden from public view, except as entertainment.

If he had no penis he was an un-man. Either he remained an un-natural, un-human, un-man, or he became the only other human un-man: a woman. Next best thing to being a man, after all.

The Sexual Revolution being an umbrella term of course covering lots of different activities and people having different motivations. There will have been plenty of people who didn't believe it meant they were entitled to sexually abuse children.

What really struck me was the fact that Money was abusing 2 boys via his 'therapy' through 12 years of experimentation to try & prove his theory to the point of 2 attempts at suicide for one teenage boy. But I guess we all see different things when reading about this.

This ^^

It's a catalogue of horrible and grotesque child abuse.

Yes

See also Dr. Alfred Kinsey, Dr. Harry Benjamin etc

What really struck me about Money was how much he was a product of the sexual revolution in his thinking.

Look at the first prophet of the gender identity ideology movement and bear in mind that Joan/John and Kevin are young (twin) children:

"Dr. Money would ask me, 'Do you ever dream of having sex with women?' " Kevin recalls. "He'd say, 'Do you ever get an erection?' And the same with Joan. 'Do you think about this? About that?'"

While attempting to probe the twins' sexual psyches, Money also tried his hand at programming Kevin's and Joan's respective sense of themselves as boy and girl. One of his theories of how children form their different "gender schemes" - Money's term - was that they must understand, at an early age, the differences between male and female sex organs. Pornography, he believed, was ideal for this purpose. "Explicit sexual pictures," he wrote in his book Sexual Signatures, "can and should be used as part of a child's sex education"; such pictures, he said, "reinforce his or her own gender identity and gender role."

"He would show us pictures of kids, boys and girls, with no clothes on," Kevin says. John recalls that Dr. Money also showed them pictures of adults engaged in sexual intercourse: "He'd say to us, 'I want to show you pictures of things that moms and dads do.' "

During these visits, the twins discovered that Money had two sides to his personality. "One when mom and dad weren't around," Kevin says, "and another when they were." When their parents were present, they say, Money was avuncular, mild-spoken. But alone with the children, he could be irritable or worse. Especially when they defied him. The children were particularly resistant to Money's request that they remove their clothes and inspect each other's genitals. Though they could not know this, such inspections were central to Money's theory of how children develop a sense of themselves as boy or girl - and thus, in Money's mind, were crucial to the successful outcome of Joan's sex reassignment. As Money stressed in his writings of the period: "The firmest possible foundations for gender schemes are the differences between male and female genitals and reproductive behavior, a foundation our culture strives mightily to withhold from children. All young primates explore their own and each others' genitals . . . and that includes human children everywhere.... The only thing wrong about these activities is not to enjoy them."

If you read the article, you'll see nastier stuff that follows. It's a catalogue of horrible and grotesque child abuse. In the end both John and Kevin committed suicide. I hope, but doubt, that after the story broke (before the article was published) Money was overcome with shame every day for what he did.