Art Imitating Life

      In the story, Frank was born a healthy female and is given hormone treatments by hir father to make hir male; gender identity and gender portrayal is an emphasized theme (as I mentioned in the previous post), and Frank’s discovery of this secret provides the book’s climax. I was actually able to predict the plot’s major twist, because it reminded me so much of a story I’d heard about in the news several years ago. David Reimer was born as a male, but was raised as a female after his penis was unintentionally destroyed during a circumcision; David’s parents talked about with psychologist John Money about his idea that gender identity is learned behavior, and with his encouragement opted to have David (given the birth name Bruce) undergo sexual reassignment surgery and changed her name to Brenda. Eventually, it was revealed to Brenda that she had been born a male, which came as a relief to her because she never truly identified as female despite never knowing anything about being born a male.  BBC has a more in-depth synopsis of the case here, and it’s definitely worth a read; according to the article, this case provided “the ultimate test [to see if] nurture could override nature” (BBC). What the article doesn’t say, however, is that David eventually committed suicide after years and years of severe depression (Slate).