David Reimer death

[Betsy]

http://winnipeg.cbc.ca/regional/serv...reimer20040507

May 07 2004 04:11 PM CDT

Man raised as girl dies

WINNIPEG - A Winnipeg man who was the subject of a ground-breaking sex-change experiment died this week.

David Reimer's parents were advised to raise their baby boy as a girl after a failed circumcision in 1966. Reimer was clinically castrated and was subject to mental, social and hormonal conditioning to help him live his early life as a girl named Brenda.

Medical experts from around the world quietly monitored the experiment, which was thought to be of particular interest because Reimer had a twin brother.

Reimer was a social outcast as a child and suffered extreme depression. He discovered the truth about himself when he was a teenager and decided to life as a male. He underwent testosterone injections, a painful double mastectomy and a phalloplasty and started a new life as a man.

Reimer eventually married and raised three stepchildren in Winnipeg.

The flawed experiment later received worldwide publicity, and Reimer stepped out of anonymity in 2000 to reveal his story in the book As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl.

Reimer was 38 years old.

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© CBC 2004