Be Who You Are
The Book As Nature Made Him Written by John Colapinto is about a boy, which until he was 14 years old, grew up as a girl. His name was Bruce. Bruce was a boy until a few months after he was born the doctors had an accident while Brian was getting a circumcision and burned off his penis. The parents were very distressed for months. Most doctors said there was little hope for Bruce. The only hope at the time was a phallic reconstruction. His penis wouldn't resemble a normal organ nor have the sexual capability that normal penises have. When the parents were almost about to quit, hope came from a man named Dr. John Money. He was a psychiatrist that had a theory on sex identity. He said that if you were a boy but were raised as a girl that the child would think of himself as a girl even though he was born a boy. The parents thought this would be the best life for Bruce, instead of not fitting into a specific sex. This book shows the will of a boy not wanting to give in to what everyone is telling him. Shortly after the operation to give Bruce a external female genitals he was given the name Brenda. Even at the age of two, Brenda was showing her parents that she didn’t want to be a girl. The parents often times put Brenda into dre
sses, but not long after Brenda would be scratching and tearing them off. They would buy her dolls and stuffed animals, but she would always rather play with her brother’s car instead. Dr. Money would write this off as Brenda being a tomboy and trying to act like her brother, which would happen a lot when you had twins. Many relatives and close friends of Brenda’s parents began to notice that Brenda wasn't the typical girl. They would notice that Brenda’s brother, Brian wasn't the dominant twin. Brian was usually the follower and Brenda the leader. Brenda didn't really know what she was doing was un-girl-like; he was too young to distinguish that. He just did what he thought felt like, even if it was beating up his brother. When Brenda started school, she immediately realized that she didn't fit in with the girls. She would look at them combing their hair and holding dolls and say to herself “that's not me.” One time she even had a dream of being a garbage man. She didn't know that being a garbage man was only for boys, she only said what she felt. School was very hard for Brenda she didn't know where she belonged. She knew she didn't feel like a girl, but didn't look like a boy. So she would often time be teased. Not by just one person but the whole class. She was an outcast. Its ironic that the reason her parents made her a girl was so wouldn't be an outcast. David best sums up what he felt when he said “ you know generally what a guy is like, and you know generally what a girl is like. And everyone is telling you that you are a girl. But you say to yourself, I don't feel like a girl. I like to do guy stuff. It didn't match. So you figure, well, there’s some
Some topics in this essay:
Brenda’s Brian,
Dr Money,
John Money,
Suddenly Brenda’s,
Bruce Bruce,
Brenda March,
John Colapinto,
brenda didn't,
born boy,
dr money,
telling act,
feel girl,
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Approximate Word count = 1137
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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