As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl by John Colapinto

Paperback: As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl (2000) is a true story about the "twins case" and a riveting exploration of medical arrogance, misguided science, societal confusion, gender differences, and one man's ultimate triumph.

In 1967, after a twin baby boy suffered a botched circumcision, his family agreed to a radical treatment that would alter his gender. The case would become one of the most famous in modern medicine—and a total failure. The boy's uninjured brother, raised as a boy, provided to the experiment the perfect matched control. As Nature Made Him tells the extraordinary story of David Reimer, who, when finally informed of his medical history, made the decision to live as a male.

Writing with uncommon intelligence, insight, and compassion, John Colapinto sets the historical and medical context for the case, exposing the thirty-year-long scientific feud between Dr John Money and his fellow sex researcher, Dr Milton Diamond - a rivalry over the nature/nurture debate whose very bitterness finally brought the truth to light. 

A macabre tale of medical arrogance, it is first and foremost a human drama of one man's - and one family's - amazing survival in the face of terrible odds.

As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl is a New York Times Bestseller.

Sadly and tragically, David Reimer died by suicide at age 38 in 2004. His parents state that Dr John Money's methodology was responsible for his death as well as the death of his twin brother, Brian, who was found dead of a drug overdose at age 36 in 2002.

About the author: Toronto-born John Colapinto is an award-winning staff writer and journalist at The New Yorker, author and novelist. His articles appeared in Vanity Fair, Esquire, Mademoiselle, Us, New York and The New York Times Magazine. Before joining The New Yorker, Colapinto was a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, where he contributed feature stories. John Colapinto is married to fashion illustrator, artist and author, Donna Mehalko. They have one son and live in New York City.