A boy without a penis

During the 1960s -1970s the population tends to believe that nurture is more important than nature in determining gender role. “Catch them early enough and you can make them anything you want”.

A boy without a penis is as tragic story of a boy who was raised up as a girl. For many years, this case was considered a ultimate “psychosexual neutrality at birth” (quote from “ The new England journal of medicine”) Early case studies has shown that in contrast to him twin brothers, he seemed to develop as a “real girl”. When she reached the aged of 14, he was pretty sure that she was a boy through all her tomboyish acts. (Such as: “urinating standing up, which usually made a mess in girl public toilets”) After being told the real story of her birth and sex change, she immediately decided to live as a boy again. Her reaction has invalidated the theory of psychosexual neutrality at birth.

I believed that the Diamond and Dr. Keith ruin the boy’s entire life. He was teased about her tomboyish acts and behaviors (her behaviors showed the dominance of nature over nurture). Diamond should have never concluded his incorrect hypothesis and conduct the experiment on the boy turning him from a boy to a girl. Without proving that his hypothesis was valid, he should have never conducted this sex-change procedure.

In this tragic story “a boy without a penis” clearly identifies the fact that nurture could never over come the power of nature. I believe that nature is much more important than nurture. A person’s behavior could not be influenced by the outside world; his or her behavior is control by his/her genetic traits.