Thanks to Pam Rosenthal for her insightful review of John Colapinto's "As Nature Made Him." The outcome of this case indeed has no clinical value in the specious nature/nurture turf war over sex identity.

As one of John Money's former intersexed "non-human" experimentees I speak from personal experience to assert that the outcomes of highly anomalistic cases of children who are deemed available for experimentation, for whatever reason, actually provide no useful data. Unless of course there are still some holdouts who require more evidence of the strength of the human spirit.

-- Kiira Triea
Coalition for Intersex Support Activism & Education

I read with more than casual interest "Forced Crossing," by Pam Rosenthal. I was born in 1952, a hermaphrodite with ambiguous genitalia. I know several people who were born intersexed and assigned a sex they later changed. I think it is obvious that gender is innate and influenced somewhat by socialization.

The etiology of gender is extremely complex and impossible to predict. Only we know what gender we are. I predict though, that some die-hard gender theorists will seek to reestablish Dr. Money's false theory.

I am glad that Rosenthal is so forgiving of Dr. Money. I, however, and the thousands of other intersexuals who have had their lives so adversely affected by him are not so forgiving.

-- Tasha L. Thompson

The only difference between me and Brenda/David is that there is no reassuring gender fuckup in my life to explain my homing-pigeon fascination for all things mechanical and monetary and all manner of firearms, as well as kittens, quilts and handspinning my own yarn. No one had to teach me to take everything in my house apart because it was "feminist." My parents just learned to hide the Allen wrenches if they didn't want the phone in pieces.

Gender behavior and gender identity are unrelated. This is the core message of feminism -- and I don't see how David's experience as a child challenges this. My basic gender identity as a woman isn't undone by my dislike of ruffles and bows any more than David's identity as a man was undone by his dislike of them.

-- Janis Cortese

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