The Boy Without a Penis: How Dr John Money’s Gender Experiment Ended in Tragedy
- dthholland
- May 4
- 5 min read
On 22 August 1965, in the Canadian city of Winnipeg, Janet Reimer gave birth to twin boys, Bruce and Brian. It was, by all appearances, a joyful and healthy delivery—Janet’s deepest wish fulfilled. But less than two years later, a tragic medical mishap and a radical psychological theory would turn the life of one of those boys into a tale that continues to haunt both medical ethics and gender theory. What began as a bid to salvage a future became one of the most controversial human experiments in modern history.
This is the story of Dr John Money and the so-called “John/Joan” case, an attempt to prove that nurture could override nature, that gender identity could be reassigned in early life. But behind the academic triumphalism lay trauma, manipulation, and a lifelong struggle with identity.
The Circumcision That Changed Everything
When Bruce and Brian were seven months old, their parents took them to a local hospital for a circumcision. The equipment used by the attending physician was experimental, an electrocautery device rather than the usual surgical blade. It malfunctioned. During the final attempt, the procedure went catastrophically wrong: Bruce’s penis was burned beyond repair. Brian, mercifully, was not subjected to the same procedure.
The Reimer family were devastated. In the 1960s, reconstructive surgery for such a severe injury was not feasible, especially for infants. Faced with the unimaginable, Janet and Ron Reimer searched for hope—and found it, unexpectedly, on television.
They watched a programme featuring Dr John Money, a New Zealand-born psychologist and sexologist based at Johns Hopkins University. Dr Money was then at the height of his reputation. Charismatic, articulate, and authoritative, he had gained international attention for his work with intersex individuals. On the show, he presented a trans woman whom he had treated, who appeared confident and feminine. For the Reimers, this was a lifeline. They wrote to him.
Dr Money responded promptly, inviting the family to his clinic in Baltimore, Maryland. There, he proposed a radical solution: raise Bruce as a girl.
The Birth of “Brenda”
At 18 months old, Bruce Reimer underwent castration. Surgeons constructed a rudimentary vulva, and from that day onward, he was to be raised as a girl. His new name was Brenda.
Dr Money advised the family to never tell Brenda about the accident. He emphasised the importance of early and consistent gender socialisation, arguing that identity was not rooted in biology but in upbringing. This aligned perfectly with his theory of a “gender gate”—a critical window of early childhood in which gender identity could be determined by environment and parental influence, rather than chromosomes or genitalia.
Brenda became, for Dr Money, the centrepiece of a landmark case study. In academic journals, he referred to her pseudonymously as “Joan,” and presented the case as empirical proof that nurture—not nature—was the key to gender identity. The twins were ideal subjects: genetically identical, but raised as different genders. For feminists and social theorists eager to challenge the notion of biological determinism, the case was nothing short of revolutionary.
What the literature omitted, however, were Brenda’s daily realities.
Growing Up in Discomfort
Despite her new identity, Brenda displayed persistent masculine traits. She liked rough play, refused to wear dresses, and resisted every attempt to conform to a stereotypically feminine role. She was a target of teasing at school, became socially isolated, and struggled with profound confusion.
Her twin brother, Brian, also suffered. Their bond fractured under the strain of secrecy and conflicting roles. Brenda was being forced into a mould that simply did not fit.
Meanwhile, Dr Money remained committed to his theory. During annual visits to Baltimore, he conducted “therapy sessions” that, in retrospect, were deeply troubling. These included forcing the twins to examine each other’s genitals, having them pose nude for photographs, and exposing Brenda to graphic images of childbirth in an attempt to convince her to undergo further surgery. He strongly advocated for the creation of a neovagina using intestinal or thigh tissue and began urging hormone treatments as Brenda entered puberty.
Brenda found these visits distressing, even traumatic. By the age of 11, she was deeply depressed, isolated, and suicidal.
The Truth Emerges
Finally, at the age of 13, Brenda’s parents told both twins the truth. The revelation brought Brenda a measure of relief, she had long felt something was fundamentally wrong and now had confirmation that her instincts were not misplaced.
She rejected the identity forced upon her, adopted the name David, and began the long process of transitioning back to male. With the aid of compensation from the original circumcision mishap, David underwent surgery to construct a penis and began taking testosterone. Though the results were imperfect, he finally felt a sense of alignment between his mind and body.
In his early twenties, David met Jane Fontane, a mother of three. They married, and for a time, David seemed to find some peace. Yet the shadows of the past lingered.
A Tragic Aftermath
Brian, David’s twin, struggled with the impact of his brother’s transition. He resented the attention Brenda had received during childhood and now felt destabilised by David’s re-emergence as his male equal. He developed severe mental health issues, including schizophrenia, and ultimately died from what appeared to be a drug overdose in 2002, believed by some to be suicide.
David’s own life was far from easy. He never completed his education and worked in various low-paid jobs. Financial hardship compounded his emotional burden. At one point, he sold the rights to his story to a filmmaker, only to lose the proceeds to fraud.
His marriage to Jane began to unravel under the weight of accumulated trauma. In May 2004, shortly after Jane requested a brief separation, David drove to a car park and took his own life with a shotgun. He was 38 years old.
The Legacy of a Theory
To the end, Dr John Money defended his actions. He maintained that the Reimers had delayed too long in reassigning gender and denied any wrongdoing. Yet critics point out that he continued to publish the “Joan” case as a success story long after David had rejected the female identity. He made no public retractions and allowed his theory to influence textbooks and debates for decades.
In the wake of the tragedy, David Reimer’s story became a powerful counter-narrative. It challenged the dominant view that gender could be reshaped at will during early childhood and cast a long shadow over attempts to oversimplify human identity.
More broadly, it stands as a reminder of the ethical boundaries that must guide scientific experimentation, particularly when real human lives are involved. When theory takes precedence over evidence, the consequences can be devastating.
