I’ve studied the Reimer case before in my high school psychology class and i’m super excited to dive into it again. After reading some of As Nature Made Him: The Boy who was Raised a Girl, I’ve realized that it has an uncanny resemblance to the structure of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. John Colapinto takes the same route as Rebecca Skloot did. In his preface, he clarifies that the work is a true non-fiction account. He also recalls his story of how he was able to contact David Reimer and the lengths he went through to convince Reimer to expose his true identity and the identity of his family to the world. He also includes details of how great of challenge it is for Reimer to recall events from his stage as Brenda Reimer, similar to the situation with Skloot and the character Deborah Lacks and the rest of her zany family.
Getting into the story, Colapinto provides a back story to the Reimer case and structures his book like Skloot had. He shows the relationship between the parents Ron and Janet (similarly to Henrietta and David), the event that changed everything, the botched circumcision (similarly to the taking of cancer cells), and the involvement of Dr. Money (similarly to Dr. Gey). When I read the involvement of John Hopkins Hospital in the Reimer case, I wasn’t shocked. But, I can tell you I will never, ever go to that hospital if my life depended on it.
I’m super excited to hear David’s part of the famed case. In psychology, you never really get a chance to hear the patients perspective in the case because you’re dealing with scientist and a majority of the patients are always anonymous. Even though I greatly enjoyed the Henrietta Lacks, I think I’ll enjoy this one more because I have a greater interest in it.
SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!
I found the BBC Documentary on David Reimer’s case on Youtube so check it out so you can put a face and voice to the name if my featured picture doesn’t do it for you 🙂