Gender Identity – Nature v. Nurture

That has been argued over and over, and is just impossible to prove. But there is strong evidence that it mostly nature; however, I am willing to concede that there probably is a minor component that is nurture. One of the strongest arguments for nature is the result of research with intersex people; the researchers have found that when “corrective” surgery is performed on intersex babies that when they grow up they know their true gender. Dr. Reiner’s research has found that babies with ambiguous genitalia that were subjected to “corrective” surgery knew that their gender had been changed. He found that over 60% of the children identified as the opposite gender than they were raised as. In an interview in the New York Times he said, “That sexual identity is individual, unique and intuitive and that the only person who really knows what it is is the person themselves. If we as physicians or scientists want to know about a person's sexual identity, we have to ask them.”

This is a video of a documentary about David Reimer and what was done to him. He was born Bruce Reimer and due to a botched circumcision where they cut too much off. The doctors made him into a girl telling his parents, don’t worry, gender identity is all nurture. David proved them wrong, gender identity is mostly nature.

The video is a little long (46 minutes), so view it when you have the time and when you have taken your blood pressure medication. Because when you see what the doctors did in the name of research will make your blood pressure climb.