The boy who was turned into a girl.

In Canada, 1965, baby Bruce Rhymer suffered a circumcision accident which destroyed his penis. His mother thought she could give him the chance of a normal life by having him surgically changed into a girl. The operation was carried out in 1967 by Dr. John Money who disagreed with the traditional view that gender was unchangeable. He was experienced in carrying out gender identity. The operation on Bruce Rhymer, however, was the first time that gender assignment surgery had been carried out to change the sex of a normal child. Bruce became Brenda. Dr. Money monitored the child's progress until 1972, by which time he believed he had enough evidence to announce that gender changing surgery was successful. However, as 'Brenda' grew up she became increasingly unhappy in her female role. She was reported as disturbed and unhappy by a psychiatrist who last saw her at the age of 13, after which there was no record of her progress until 1995 when she was found to be living in Winnipeg, as a man - David. When she was 14 her parents had told her the truth about her original identity. Not until David publicised his story did scientists know of the failure of this attempted gender change. David's penis was surgically reconstructed and he was able to marry. Dr. Money's reputation was undamaged by this failure although his theory that gender is undecided until the age of 2 years is out of favour. Experiments with laboratory rats provided the first proof of a brain difference between the sexes. The programme contains film of these rats and commentary on rat experiments with testosterone which proved that this hormone is effective before birth in deciding sexual orientation.