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Book Reviews of As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.)

As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.)
As Nature Made Him The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl - P.S.
Author: John Colapinto
ISBN-13: 9780061120565
ISBN-10: 0061120561
Publication Date: 8/1/2006
Pages: 336
Rating:
  • Currently 4/5 Stars.
 16
4 stars, based on 16 ratings
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Book Type: Paperback
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

45 Book Reviews submitted by our Members...sorted by voted most helpful

 erdoc avatar reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 9 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 16
This was an interesting book. It was well written by the author who did a good job researching the subject and trying to be objective about the various physicians, procedures and even the person the book was written about. It amazes me that physicians could get away with so much with their "god complexes" and it makes me understand why there is such a strong swing of the pendulum towards informed consent etc. It always makes me wonder how many other treatments and theories we practice today that we will look back on and wonder who could of that it was a good idea.
tarynissuper avatar reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 4 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 13
I picked this book up on a whim at a local used bookstore. I'd never heard about the case of David Reimer before, but thought it sounded interesting. I've always been interested in psychology, but I think anyone would find this book to be a quick easy read. The book is really well written, and even though you are reading medical transcripts through out, the book flows like a story opposed to a factual account of something that happened (which sometimes can be tedious). The book is around 300 pages and can easily be read in 1-2 days at a leisurely pace. I was interested in finding out more about the Reimer case after reading this book and found a TLC special that came out a few years ago (on youtube) about what happened. I highly recommend reading the book opposed to just watching the documentary. Although well made, I found the documentary to seem disjointed because the book went into so much more detail. Overall, this is a great story and a well written book. Two thumbs up!
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 106 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 9
A great read for anyone interested in the psychology of gender and/or the politics of mental health treatment. Also thought-provoking if you are a parent or contemplating being one. An excellent read, written by a journalist who investigated a case where psychologists convinced parents to raise their boy (an identical twin) as a girl, after a botched circumcision.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on
Helpful Score: 9
This book is a page turner. It is hard to believe that this actually happened and treatment was being performed at a prominet hospital in the US. It is so sad what emotional turmoil that this family and this young man had endured. It's amazing what parents will do thinking it's the best thing for their child. Highly recommend this book.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 412 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 6
I saw a documentary on this, so was very interested to read the book. Very well-written, especially considering that there is almost no embellishment to the narrative to make it more readable. The book concerns the case of David Reimer, who lost his penis during infancy due to a botched circumcision, after which he was raised as a girl. Even more interesting is the fact that he had an identical twin brother. It was an experiment that failed miserably and caused David to have a horrible life. Though it ends on a somewhat optimistic note, the fact is that David committed suicide after the publication of this book.
debs avatar reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 650 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 4
Wow, this story was so sad! Incredible to believe that doctors would ever think that gender identity is anything BUT biological! It does get very technical in parts; the best parts of the story are the ones where David himself is recounting his tragic story.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 287 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 4
I found this book absolutely fascinating and very hard to put down. New ideas about gender are swirling around in my head.
tish avatar reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 384 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
OH MY..this story left me shaking and very angry at the medical profession.What this poor child and family had to endure all because of medical botching. a very good but disturbing read. i heard just recently that the person the story is about died. what a sad life.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 25 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
A painful but inspiring read that shows the need for humility over even our most "educated" beliefs. Journalist John Colapinto dives into the memories and medical records of a child who, having lost his penis during a botched surgery as an infant, was assigned a female gender identity. With the child's twin brother serving as a control, his family becomes part of a cruel and famous experiment on the formation of gender identity. This is required reading for every feminist who, like myself, was trained in the primacy of socialization over biology in the construction of gender identity -- not necessarily to change your mind about the issue, but to understand where those ideas developed and whose lives were destroyed in the process.
Debisbooked avatar reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 136 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
David Reimer started life as a boy but due to a medical accident at the age of eight months (one very good reason NOT to circumsize boys!)he was surgically refashioned into a girl. He grew up feeling like there was something wrong with him since he felt like a boy trapped in a girl's body. In raising David female his parents followed the advice of a famous sex researcher, Dr. Money, who believed that gender was acquired through nurture, not nature. The child was finally told of his true sex when he reached 14 years of age and immediately abandoned any pretense of femaleness, from long hair to dresses to hormone replacement therapy. The story also details how destructive this tissue of lies became over the years to the parents, David's brother Brian, the other relatives, and even his school teachers and therapists. This story, unfortunately, is not an isolated incident. A certain number of babies are born each year with ambiguous genitalia and are subjected to this "sex reasignment" program. The author details how many researchers are coming to another view, that of letting the child determine its sex (leaving the child intact) until old enough to decide if any surgeries are necessary. Though the subject of homosexuality was not addressed in this book, it does leave one to question the long held belief that sexual orientation is a choice.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 15 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
A great book. When I was reading it, I couldn't believe that something like this could actually happen to a child.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 102 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
Unbelievable true story. Hard to believe this happened so recently.
PrettyPinkBows avatar reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 2 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
the author does a great job of conveying the trials and tribulations this man went through. the things that happened to him were horrible, and it is sad that they still go on today. a very emotional read.
jazzysmom avatar reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 907 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
I'm not really sure how i feel about this book--oh it is a good read, but the material is thought provoking to say the least. A surgery "botched" what the heck??? What was with that Doc?? Was he drunk?? I still don't know what to think-i suppose the family did what they had to do to raise the child--but still have thoughts on this--glad it wasn't my decision to make.
cesprinces avatar reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 32 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I really enjoyed parts of this book! The biographical portions were most interesting to me. I was not as interested in the literature review of ALL of the studies and backgrounds of all of the doctors. However, I would still recommend this book! It was a quick read.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 6 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This book was haunting. I stayed up late reading it and could not believe what had been done to that poor kid. It is a riveting tale of academic arrogance that damaged the lives of young children.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on
Helpful Score: 1
I thought this book started out really strong, but lost my interest in the last few chapters as it strayed away from David and went in to tiresome details. The first three quarters of the book were great though.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 44 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I was going to start this review by listing categories of people that should read this book: people interested in gender roles, people interested in family, people interested in science, people interested in human folly, women, men... I couldn't stop listing. Everyone should read this book. It is a fascinating chronicle of of one man's life that serves as an allegory for the hubris of science and all sorts of other trouble. It's also an indictment of Freud, which I like, too.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 2 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This book was really intriguing. It is a look into a part of science and medicine and psychology that few people see. It is at once sad, touching and infuriating. The child's struggle against his own identity, the love and confusion of the parents, and the selfish, blind force of the therapist all combine to make this book a memorable read.
flatlan avatar reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 25 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This was an interesting and well written book about a true life case of a boy who, after an accident, was raised a girl. This is the same author that wrote about this case in Rolling Stone Magazine.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 21 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This true story is so amazing it is hard to believe that it is real and not fiction. Great read.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 141 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I really enjoyed this book. Very interesting, very accessible. A page-turner of its own kind.

----

Once you begin reading "As Nature Made Him," a mesmerizing story of a medical tragedy and its traumatic results, you absolutely won't want to put it down. Following a botched circumcision, a family is convinced to raise their infant son, Bruce, as a girl. They rename the child Brenda and spend the next 14 years trying to transform him into a her. [...] Equally fascinating is the latest segment of the longtime nature/nurture controversy, and the interviews of various psychological researchers and practitioners form a larger framework around David's struggle to live as the gender he was meant to be.

--Jill Lightner, Amazon.com
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 15 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Some times a bit of a hard read, but very interesting case.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 48 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Not the best book I've ever read. To technical, not enough personality.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 13 more book reviews
The true story of a man who, because of a tragic circumcision accident, was sexually reassigned as a girl. Lots of medical background, but also personal info also.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 83 more book reviews
harrowing.
MorganFire avatar reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 7 more book reviews
Well written account that rings true.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 5 more book reviews
Very moving, the way that it is told makes you really feel for him!
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 209 more book reviews
This was an excellent book that went into the psychology of the hermaphordite and other problems that plague the new borns. I was quite appalled that some of these things still are practiced today. This in an outstanding book for someone who is studying social/physiological structures in development of children!
Tipppytoes avatar reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 24 more book reviews
Fabulous audio book. I remember when this happened as I am from Winnipeg. I didn't know them but I heard about it. He is about the same age as my son. This poor child was the experiment of the century. I give it 5 stars.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on
Very interesting read .After having heard so much about this story , I was glad to finally read the book.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 3 more book reviews
I loved reading about this family and what had happened to them.When I had first saw the book I was extremely curious and fascinated and wanted to know could something like this could ever happen.It was courageous of the family to come forward and to tell the whole story.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 10 more book reviews
Amazing and sad story, very well written.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 10 more book reviews
Very good.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 148 more book reviews
Heartwrenching.
jozimc avatar reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on
interesting topic, but poorly written
SouthWestZippy avatar reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 265 more book reviews
This is about a healthy baby born a boy. On the morning of April 27, 1966 a circumcision goes horribly wrong. Adults and Doctors make a decision to change the boy into a girl. This book is both fascinating and heartbreaking.
Claudielou avatar reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 77 more book reviews
This is a fascinating look into the life of a transgender person.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 38 more book reviews
A heart-wrenching tale of what happens when someone decides to play God.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 3 more book reviews
This was very interesting!
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 109 more book reviews
My book review of Davids story, AS NATURE MADE HIM, by John Colapinto :

The medical arrogance is at its peak in this true story. A doctor bauches a circumcision, followed by a psychologist who tries to make David into a girl emotionally, psycologically, and physically with disasterous results. I could not put this book down. Usually I mark important information or particular lines that moved me, except for pages 79-90 when I was completly shocked that this kind of treatment of children could even happen let alone be sanctioned by John Hopkins University. The whole book moved me and all I can say is read it for yourself. Consider the fact that even worse things happen every day on school campuses in this country by so professionals.
I wish I had met David and shared my story with him and encouraged him to keep going and keep speaking out its the only way to stop them. I have found that right after you tell your story you fall apart emotionally, psychologically, physcially and the only way to get your momentum and structure back is to keep telling your story, that has been my personal experience anyway. I think David needed more support and needed to keep telling his story until he found the peace of justice.
The first time I told my story I felt such shame and guilt as though I had somehow caused my attackers to come up with their cruel concoction against me. What they did destroyed my life in everyway, and left with a broken spirit, a defiled heart and mind. It gets easier everytime I tell it and I get stronger everytime I refuse to be ashamed of what I am not responsible for and now peaceful that I am doing all I can to stop them too David.
I wish I could have told David these things and maybe he would not have felt so ashamed,after all, it wasnt his fault anymore than it was my fault in what happened to me and my family. God is our justice David and Justice has come! And that justice being David that our stories are being read and heard and being reviewed for ethics and more and more of us who have suffered under the intentions of professionals, who in my opinion have to look up to even see the shadow of some common street thugs, are triumphing in mass numbers to numerous to discount. All because of the bravery of men like David who tell their stories inorder to prevent this perversion upon others.
I felt for David and his entire family what a horrific ordeal. I could not put this book down, I cried, I got angry, and I am more resovled to keep speaking out about what happened to me.
How come Dr. Money did not go to prison for what he did to children but got away with it and even flaunted it for years? I wish David could see that his opening up and telling what happened by Dr. Money that he has protected other kids from this madness and exposed this man for his twisted methods.
Just to think that if Dr. Diamond and others had not persued what happened to David none of us would have found out about it. Information is truely power and there is a change a happening, not just in the medical field, but in our country that says we will no longer stand by and be silent about atrosities that allow our children to be hyjacked by activists in public schools or in our supreme courts and yes even in doctors offices across this country.
I would like to see those in professional positions that abuse that power given to Dr. Kavorkian and taken the brink of death and revived over and over again. Well at least loose their licenses and respectability.
Thank you David,you helped me be braver in telling my story, I am praying for you and I hope to see you in heaven.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 42 more book reviews
"Some studies affirm that the sexual behavior and orientation as male or female does not have an innate, instictive basis." This books tells a different story. A macabre tale of medical arrogance. "This is the drama on one man´s amazing survival in the face of terrible odds."
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 5 more book reviews
While it's an interesting book, it's not one I would choose to read. Colapinto tells the tragic story of a boy who was raised as a girl due to medical complications during a circumcision. The author tells the difficulties the child faced growing up.
reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 45 more book reviews
couldn't really get into this story. The documentary on TV was interesting though.
jodimferris avatar reviewed As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (P.S.) on + 2 more book reviews
This is a paperback although the ISBN says it's a hardcover. Is a quality paperback, not mass market.

Really LOVED this and highly recommend it.

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