David Reimer

He was also mentioned in the 2017 documentary Gender Revolution: A Journey with Katie Couric.

"Hymn of the Medical Oddity", a song by the Winnipeg-based indie rock band The Weakerthans, is about Reimer. The Ensemble Studio Theatre produced the play Boy (2016) inspired by Reimer's story.

The case has also been treated by Judith Butler in her 2004 book Undoing Gender, which examines gender, sex, psychoanalysis, and the medical treatment of intersex people.

In addition to his difficult lifelong relationship with his parents, Reimer had to deal with unemployment and the death of his brother Brian from an overdose of antidepressants on July 1, 2002. On May 2, 2004, his wife Jane told him she wanted to separate. On the morning of May 4, 2004, Reimer drove to a grocery store's parking lot in his hometown of Winnipeg and took his own life by shooting himself in the head with a sawed-off shotgun. He was 38 years old. He was buried in St. Vital Cemetery in Winnipeg.

A 2001 episode of the PBS documentary series Nova entitled "Sex: Unknown" investigated David's life and the science behind the decision to raise him as female.

This was later expanded into The New York Times best-selling biography As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (2000), in which Colapinto described how—contrary to Money's reports—when living as Brenda, Reimer did not identify as a girl. He was ostracized and bullied by peers (who dubbed him "cavewoman"), and neither frilly dresses, nor female hormones made him feel female.

The BBC science series Horizon based two episodes on his life. "The Boy Who Was Turned into a Girl" aired in 2000 and "Dr Money and the Boy with No Penis" in 2004.

The Chicago Hope episode "Boys Will Be Girls" (2000) was based on Reimer's life. The episode explored the theme of a child's right not to undergo sexual reassignment surgery without consent. The Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Identity" (2005) was based on David and Brian Reimer's lives and their treatment by Money.

His case came to international attention in 1997 when he told his story to Milton Diamond, an academic sexologist who persuaded Reimer to allow him to report the outcome in order to dissuade physicians from treating other infants similarly. Soon after, Reimer went public with his story and John Colapinto published a widely disseminated and influential account in Rolling Stone magazine in December 1997. The article won the National Magazine Award for Reporting.

Reimer worked in a slaughterhouse and then worked doing odd-jobs. On September 22, 1990, he married Jane Fontane and would adopt her three children. His hobbies included camping, fishing, antiques and collecting old coins.

By the age of 13 years, Reimer was experiencing suicidal depression and he told his parents he would take his own life if they made him see Money again. Finally, on March 14, 1980, Reimer's parents told him the truth about his gender reassignment, following advice from Reimer's endocrinologist and psychiatrist. At 14, having been informed of his past by his father, Reimer decided to assume a male gender identity, calling himself David. He underwent treatment to reverse the reassignment, including testosterone injections, a double mastectomy, and phalloplasty operations.

The parents, concerned about their son's prospects for future happiness and sexual function without a penis, took him to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore in early 1967 to see John Money, a psychologist who was developing a reputation as a pioneer in the field of sexual development and gender identity, based on his work with intersex patients. Money was a prominent proponent of the "theory of gender neutrality"—that gender identity developed primarily as a result of social learning from early childhood and that it could be changed with the appropriate behavioural interventions. The Reimers had seen Money being interviewed in February 1967 on the Canadian news program This Hour Has Seven Days, during which he discussed his theories about gender.

David Reimer (born Bruce Peter Reimer; 22 August 1965 – 4 May 2004) was a Canadian man born male but reassigned female and raised as a girl following medical advice and intervention after his penis was severely injured during a botched circumcision in infancy.

David Reimer was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on August 22, 1965, the elder of identical twin boys. He was originally named Bruce and his identical twin was named Brian. Their parents were Janet and Ron Reimer, a couple of Mennonite descent who had married the previous December. At the age of six months, after concern was raised about how both of them urinated, the boys were diagnosed with phimosis. They were referred for circumcision at the age of seven months. General practitioner Dr. Jean-Marie Huot performed the operation using the unconventional method of electrocauterization, but the procedure did not go as doctors had planned, and David's penis was burned beyond surgical repair. The doctors chose not to operate on Brian, whose phimosis soon cleared without surgical intervention.