In the early and mid 1900s, there was a huge debate regarding whether human personality/identity is predetermined at birth or is developed as a result of social learning. In effect, this was a “Nature vs. Nurture” debate. Many social experiments were conducted in hope of proving one theory over another; the most famous experiment involved a young infant boy named David.
Shortly after he was born, the young David was accidentally castrated during a circumcision procedure. A famous psychologist at John Hopkins Medical Center found the unfortunate child a prime candidate for his experiment on gender identity. He was able to convince David’s parents to allow the child to participate in the experiment.
David was made to believe early in his life that he was a girl and not a boy. The psychologist had him wearing female clothes and going to an all-girl school. The young child was ‘encouraged’ by the award-winning researcher to take part in various feminine activities. As a result of the doctor’s extraordinary effort, David lived through most his childhood convinced that he was a female. The psychologist was very satisfied with the progress as he believed it proves that nurture is the dominant force and not nature.
The actual truth was that David had always struggled with his female gender; he never felt comfortable being part of the feminine world. But it was not until his 14th birthday that the young person finally realized ‘she’ was actually born of different gender; this was later confirmed by his suicidal parents. The tragic young man decided to publicize what the mind doctor had done to him so as to put an end to similar unethical experiments. He would end his own life some years later.
Intriguingly, both David’s mother and brother suffered from serious mental disorders following the revelation; the brother took his own life subsequently. The famous psychologist, on the other hand, continued to win accolades for his work in the field. He lived happily to his 80s.
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What a horrible story. The horrors man visits upon man. An interesting snapshot of history, Simon; thank you.
I read about similar cases in Steven Pinker’s book The Blank Slate. It seems no one can be turned into the opposite gender like that. I almost wish that psychologist would have had the decency to kill himself. You know, Japanese style.
Personality psychologists, who seem to know more about human nature than most of their colleges, say that parents believe in the power of the environment when they have their first child but in heredity when the second child gets the same upbringing and turns out completely different.
This is just… so sad. So horribly sad. This is such an unethical experiment, so obviously doomed to having bad results that I simply can’t imagine a pair of parents allowing it. If they had their own mental health problems, then I can understand it I suppose, but I mean this is just so obviously a scarring experience…
I’ve seen this story reported on TV. It was a tragedy all around. The psychologist duped the parents into thinking the “retraining” was a good idea and used the unfortunate boy as a human guinea pig to test his theory. I suppose society learned a lot from this case, but the cost was huge.
What an amazing story and such a tragic end for all but the doctors. Hmmmm, I will be thinking about this for a while.
so sad it had to end that way for david and his family or perhaps because they already had mental illness but still what the doctor did was very horrible. As a Christian, we believe that if he did not pay his dues here on earth.. oh well im not judging but what he did badly affected the emotional, mental, and psychological state of a person.
It’s so terrible!
I wish these unethical people put an end to “experiementing” with others’ lives!
Oh I read this book last year, it was horrifying and shocking. All the while it must have been obvious he was gentically a boy and I really felt for his parents having little eductaion and no resource to any just caving to the words of the great doctor.
Seems I remember that there were really quite a lot fo cases too. Stepping aside form the nature/nuture argument we could get into circumcision and it’s point in today’s society???