As Nature Made Him

In the 1980s, Dr. Milton Diamond places an advertisement in the American Psychiatric Society newsletter seeking “whoever is treating the twins” (199). Dr. Sigmundson is scared to answer it, just as he had been scared to publish a paper outlining the outcome of Brenda/David’s case. He is afraid “to challenge a man of Money’s power” (199).

But after the BBC documentary, Money ceases to mention the case in his papers, books, and lectures. Transgender activist Virginia Prince is just one of many who are curious about the outcome of the case, which Money presents in her presence at a Society for the Scientific Study of Sex meeting in 1972. She had been encouraged by the idea that “sex and gender were not an immutably preordained biological phenomenon” (201). A decade later, at another meeting, Money avoids her questions where he had previously discussed the twins actively.

Janet continues to write to Money, but she remains firm that David and Ron are not interested in speaking with him. At the same time, he insists to others that he is respecting the family’s need for privacy by staying distant; they are “lost to follow up” (202).

Even after Mel Grumbach invents an alternative to sex-reassignment surgery for boys born with abnormal penises, Money defends his technique.