Masculine and Feminine Energy, Nature vs. Nurture

Last night, while still under the horrible umbrella of insomnia, I came upon a very interesting documentary on TLC (The Learning Channel). It was called "Born a Boy, Raised a Girl".......it caught my eye because in last year's Law and Order SVU TV Series, there was an episode that was eerily similiar, so, curious, I began to watch.

What I found was, even though the TV Series stated the story was "fictional", it was based on the real life story of David Reimer.

David Reimer was one of a set of male twins born in 1965. During his circumcision there was an "accident"........due to the disfiguration of his genitalia, the doctors and his parents, decided to alter his gender.........raise him as a girl, give him hormone treatments and psychotherapy in order to "assign him a gender that would match his physical condition".

Dr. John Money used both David, and his twin brother as subjects for his study in "Nature vs. Nurture", (the title of the SVU episode). Money forced the twins into sexually oriented positions during the "counseling" in order to establish which was the female and which was the female twin. The twins were seven.

Money touted the study as a great success, published books on it and continued to pontificate about his great accomplishments in overcoming nature. It was all a lie.

David never adjusted to being a "girl". He grew up as a misfit in his own social circle, and by the age of thirteen he was threatening suicide.

At that time David's parents felt they needed to come clean and tell him his history......David IMMEDIATELY assumed the male gender he was born with, unfortunately, the psychological damage done to he and his brother could not be repaired.

David's brother Brian never accepted what had happened, and became a psychotic, he committed suicide shortly after he and David went public with their story.

David, upon becoming a male, wanted nothing more than to become a husband and father. He was physically unable to produce children as his testciles were removed during infancy, but he did meet and marry a woman with three children..........and for a time, he was happy.

Dr. Money continued to exploit the case of the gender assignment as a success, despite the obvious failure.......this forced David to encourage his brother to come out about the case with his brother Brian..........

Shortly after the exposure and Brian's suicide, David's marriage failed. On May 4, 2004, David also committed suicide.........

This is a sad story of how forcing a gender identity on a human being and going against nature destroyed a multitude of lives (thanks to Dr. Money), but this exemplifies the need for us as humans to live out our lives as nature "assigns" our gender.

It could mean that we are naturally inclined to have the traditional energies assigned to our sexes, or it could mean that we are "Masculine Females" or "Feminine Males". What it does prove without a doubt, is that if we try to go AGAINST our natural inclinations, to please our families, our loved ones, or our society, we will suffer great psychological and spiritual harm.

In my next post we will discuss masculine and feminine energies within relationships........how they can build or destroy any pairing if not defined and understood completely.

I truly believe that we must self-actualize by embracing who and what we are, no matter what that may be, in order to fulfill ourselves emotionally, pyschologically and spiritually. Any disruption of that process will lead to our unfortunate demise.



To read more about David Reimer here is one link to his story, and of course you can search him out on the web.



http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/reimer/