What David Reimer's Story Really Demonstrates

Over at LifeSite, we find one of their editorial staff grossly misunderstanding the tragic story of David Reimer.  

His tragic death emphasized the total failure of one of the most famous gender alteration cases in modern medicine....David Reimer’s traumatic life and horrific death testify that no matter what elaborate theories the unscrupulous attempt to justify in the name of science, nature will always have the upper hand, often at the expense of human life.

The story of David Reimer is important in the canon of understanding gender identity, but not in the way that LifeSite's commentators seem to think:

Parents have a duty to raise their children properly, to demonstrate and teach them what is acceptable and what is not; what is normal and what is not. When parents fail in their duty (often purposely), you end up with the all too common case like the raised-by-lesbians pitiful child TwinCrier links to. 

While they may not be "burning off" anatomy as they (accidentally) did to Mr. Reimer, they are indeed prepping these unfortunate children to make that leap as soon as they reach the age of majority required by most "sex-change" surgeons. Don't mistakenly think the latter is any less insidious than the former: they are all child abuse.

While LifeSite's acolytes try to twist the story of David Reimer as a combination of "liberal science run amok" and evidence that treatment for transgender people is in fact unnecessary, it actually presents something quite different.

Let's consider a few facts.  First, David's cross-gender story starts when his penis was burned off in a botched circumcision.  Then, on the advice of Dr. Money, his parents chose to raise him as Brenda.  Then, as an adult Brenda transitioned to be David.

At no point in this story is there ever any evidence that David identified as female.  In fact, in John Colapinto's biography of David, there is reason to suspect that in fact Brenda fought against being treated as a girl quite strongly.

It is the fact that there is no evidence of David having ever identified as female is ironically consistent with the often described experiences of transgender people.  Where Brenda consistently fought against being raised as a girl, the trans experience of childhood is often analogous in that trans people are similarly persistent in fighting against the gender role that has been assigned to them.

The David Reimer story demonstrates more clearly than anything else that gender identity is not simply a social construct as Dr. Money suspected, but that it has much more fundamental dimensions to it that reach beyond learned constructs.

One of the accusations that the anti-Trans crowd likes to throw around is that Trans people are merely "making a choice".  Yet, if we consider David's struggle a validation of the foundational nature of gender identity, there is a problem with their logic.  If it was "just a choice", would Trans people be so consistent in describing an awareness of being Trans as part of their earliest memories?

The David Reimer case demonstrates the persistence of gender identity, and its fundamental intransigence to attempts to change it.  

No, Transition Does Not Absolve You Of Your Past

I'm sure that the far right is going to use this story in the war currently being conducted on transgender rights in both Canada and the United States.  

Transgender Defense: 'Donna' Says 'Doug' Is the Spokane Serial Killer

In fact, LifeSite has already picked up on the story:

Transsexual accused of serial killing: I didn’t kill those women because I’m a new person

According to the ABC News story, Donna Perry is trying to claim that she cannot be held accountable for murders that she committed prior to undergoing gender reassignment surgery.

When detectives interviewed Perry and asked why the murders had stopped, she replied, "Douglas didn't stop, Donna stopped it," according to the affidavit. 

... 

The accused's reported defense that it was not Donna Perry but Douglas Perry who killed the women is headline-grabbing, but not necessarily a true reflection of how transgender people view their nonconforming identity, according to mental health experts.

I have enormous problems with this as any kind of defence in a court, and I would hope that her lawyers would advise against it as well.  Simply put, although it is hardly uncommon for transsexuals to talk about their pre-transition lives in a somewhat dissociated manner, transition does not produce a "whole new person".  More realistically, one is the sum of their experiences before and after transition.  Transition is an opportunity for enormous personal growth, but it hardly absolves one of what happened before transition.

"For some people, it's a metaphor: 'I was a different person before I came out,'" said Dr. Jack Drescher, a New York City psychiatrist who sat on the work group on sexual and gender identity disorders contained in the DSM-5 -- the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. 

"It's a certain way that they use the metaphor when transitioning for those who were very unhappy before and now are happy," he said. "But it's different when a person makes a claim that somehow they have no linkage to the person they used to be –- that would be more of a disturbed presentation." 

Having what is now called gender dysphoria in the DSM-5, does not necessarily mean that a person has impaired judgement, which is often a legal defense, according to Drescher. 

"It's wrong to generalize from this person's life – it's not typical of the transgender experience," said Drescher, who does not know Perry and is not connected to the case. 

Dr. Drescher makes some very clear points, and his second statement is in fact what I thought when I first read the article.  If Ms. Perry in fact thinks of "Doug" as a distinct entity quite separate from herself today, there could well be a much more serious psychological issue over and above Gender Dysphoria.

Regardless, I would very surprised if any court would accept core of the argument that is being made by Ms. Perry.  At its core, it implies that because she underwent gender transition that she cannot be held accountable for criminal acts which occurred before transition.

My concern is twofold.

First, I do not believe that Gender Dysphoria should be seen as sufficiently debilitating to result in a "not criminally responsible" finding.  It is a serious condition, to be sure, but I would find it extremely difficult to swallow the notion that someone who is transsexual is not capable of understanding the difference between right and wrong in making their day to day decisions.

Second, such a finding would effectively undo any equality rights gains that have been made in the last thirty years.  While I have no doubt that the writers at LifeSite News would be positively ecstatic with such an outcome, the consequences for the real lives of a lot of people would be devastating.

Most likely, I expect Ms. Perry will find that she is found guilty of murder, and locked away for the remainder of her life for actions done long before she transitioned.

LSN Lies About PEI Sexual Development Guide

Apparently PEI has published a guidebook for parents as to what is normal sexual development for children, and the folks over at LifeSite News don't like it very much.   

Link to the actual guidebook: http://www.gov.pe.ca/photos/original/CSA_Healthy.pdf

According to LifeSite:

A new guide from the government of P.E.I. is telling parents that it is “natural and healthy” for young children to “touch the ‘private parts’ of familiar adults” and to look at “nude pictures on the Internet, videos, magazines”. Parents are also being told that they should not discourage their children from masturbating. 

Of course, what LifeSite quietly chooses not to tell the readers is that the guide does give parents some fairly sensible guidelines as to appropriate responses to those behaviours where they would be inappropriate.

For example, the bit about young children touching the private parts of familiar adults occurs in a table with three columns:

Under Normal and Healthy:

Touches the “private parts” of familiar adults and children with hand or body .

Under Of Concern:

Touches/rubs the “private parts” of familiar children or adults after they have been told consistently not to do so . 

Seek Professional Help:

Sneakily touches/rubs the “private parts” of adults or children and, if questioned, deny it . 

Notice anything?  The PEI guide does point out that curiosity driven behaviours are perfectly normal, and only become a matter of concern if the child doesn't respond to appropriate guidance from the parents.

Of course, LifeSite is so concerned about regulating other people's morality that they won't let a few obvious facts get in the way of a good tirade.

The experts state that a child should not be discouraged from masturbating and “should not be told that it is 'bad,' 'dirty,' or 'nasty’”. “It is important to keep in mind that there are no absolutes,” the guidelines state. “Normal, healthy behaviour covers a wide range and may not be expressed the same, or to the same extent, in every child.”“I don’t know what ‘children’ they are referring to, but no normal children do these things at those age groups,” said Landolt who is a lawyer, mother of five children, and grandmother of nine. 

I somehow imagine that Ms. Landolt's household had so many implicit taboos around sexuality that she never saw her children do any of these things.  They were no doubt smart enough to keep it well out of her sight after seeing one of their older siblings disciplined.

Children are naturally curious about all things, and anybody who believes that they won't be curious about their bodies (and the bodies of others) is blind to reality.

Landolt called the guidelines “permissive” and said that parents operating by them will only encourage their children to become “sexually involved at a prepubescent age.”  

“It sets them on a dangerous journey when they are not ready for it,” she said. 

Frankly, after reading the PEI book, there is nothing in it that strikes me as either particularly licentious or unreasonable.  It lists a series of fairly normal developmental moments and when they are likely to occur.  It then gives parents a general guideline as to when problems may be developing.

The pamphlet's advice bears echoes of the views of the 1940-50s researcher Alfred Kinsey, a controversial and highly influential figure considered by many as the “father of the sexual revolution,” who claimed that his research found that infants were sexual. While Kinsey is still widely cited and used in many circles, researcher Judith Reisman famously exposed his abhorrent research methods, which included sexually molesting babies as young as five months old to collect data on children’s “orgasms.”  

Pointing to the guideline about adults allowing children to “touch” their “private parts”, Landolt called it a “diabolic attempt” to make children “vulnerable to sexual activity” and “acquiesce to sexual acts of adults.”  

Landolt said that P.E.I parents should be outraged that their tax dollars were used to fund a guide that promotes a “misleading destructive journey” for children. 

Trust LSN to use every opportunity to slag Kinsey's work.  Of course, the booklet doesn't cite Kinsey.  Apparently, in the LSN bubble, whatever Kinsey did was bad because they don't like his research methods.

The good news for the rest of the world is that Kinsey opened the door to an open discussion of human sexuality at all levels, and that's a genie that's proving very difficult for them to put back into the bottle.