In 1966, a routine circumcision at St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg turned catastrophic when an electric cautery needle malfunctioned and completely destroyed the genitals of eight-month-old Bruce Rhymer. His parents, Janet and Ron, were told their son would never live a normal life as a man. Desperate for a solution, the working-class couple reached out to Dr.
John Money, a prominent psychologist at Johns Hopkins University who had gained fame for his theory that gender was learned, not biological. Money saw the Rhymer twins as the perfect experiment: identical DNA, same environment, and one child whose genitals had been destroyed. Money convinced the grieving parents that the only path to happiness for their son was to castrate him, surgically construct female anatomy, and raise him as a girl. At 22 months old, Bruce became Brenda.
The family returned to Winnipeg with a fabricated cover story and a strict protocol: purge all traces of Bruce, enforce femininity, and never reveal the truth. From the beginning, the experiment failed. Brenda rejected dresses, gravitated toward her brother’s toys, fought like a boy, and mimicked her father’s shaving routine. Money dismissed the parents’ concerns, blaming them for not trying hard enough.
Behind closed doors during annual visits to Baltimore, he subjected the twins to what he called “sexual rehearsal play,” forcing them to undress, inspect each other, and simulate sexual acts while he took photographs. By age 13, Brenda was suicidal. When the family prepared for another trip to Baltimore, she threatened to kill herself if forced to go. Her father finally broke from Money’s authority and agreed they would never return.
At age 14, Brenda made the decision to reclaim her male identity. She chose the name David, after the biblical king who slew a giant. David underwent a double mastectomy, testosterone therapy, and multiple phalloplasty surgeries. In 1990, he married a woman named Jane, becoming a devoted stepfather to her three children.
But the secret of his past weighed on him, and the medical world still believed Money’s claim that the case was a success. Dr. Milton Diamond, a biologist who had long disputed Money’s theories, tracked David down in the mid-1990s. He told David that doctors were still performing similar surgeries on infants based on the belief that the experiment had worked.
David agreed to go public, telling his story to journalist John Colapinto for Rolling Stone in December 1997. The article, titled “The True Story of John/Joan,” exposed the experiment as a catastrophic failure. Money’s reputation collapsed, but the cost of coming forward was immense. David was forced to relive his trauma constantly, and his family crumbled under the pressure.
His twin brother Brian, who had been forced to participate in Money’s abusive sessions, struggled with schizophrenia, drug abuse, and survivor’s guilt for the rest of his life. In July 2002, Brian died of an overdose of antidepressants, ruled a suicide. David was shattered. In the following years, he lost his savings in a bad investment, lost his job, and his marriage fell apart.
On May 4, 2004, in a grocery store parking lot in Winnipeg, David Rhymer, age 38, took his own life with a sawed-off shotgun. Dr. John Money never expressed remorse. He died in 2006 at age 84, blaming the family for the experiment’s failure.
But David’s story had already changed medicine. Blank-slate theories of gender were discredited, protocols for infant genital surgery were rewritten, and the intersex community gained a powerful voice against non-consensual procedures. David Rhymer spent 38 years fighting to exist as himself.
Though his life ended in tragedy, his decision to reveal the truth saved countless children from experiencing the same fate.