Remembering all the David Reimers, whoever they might have been or will be.
Back in the day, I forget which year it actually was, I saw a man make headlines. But he wasn't an ordinary man. He was a man who had been born a boy, raised a girl, and then reclaimed his gender identity and reverted back to being a boy - what nature made him. He had come full circle. In 2004, he put a gun to his head and ended his life. His name was David Reimer.
I took interest in this case because of Sleepaway Camp (1983). Naturally I was all too fascinated. A real life case of a boy who was raised as a girl. Although it happens alot, how often does one actually read about it.
Sleepaway Camp fuled my interest in gender identity. What Sleepaway Camp does is portray gender bending as one dimensional. After all, it is a horror movie, not a documentary on The Learning Channel. Still, as I've mentioned before, we never see the effects the experience has on Peter Baker. It almosts masks the true culprit. Peter Baker, raised as a girl, goes to camp, gets made fun of, and then kills everybody because of it. But it's more than that. Peter Baker didn't kill everybody as a direct result of being picked on. He was going through psyhcological warfare.
I believe this is barely visible in a scene from Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland when Angela is changing into her camp sweatshirt and the other girls make fun of her undergarmet, "How do you get that thing off, with a can opener?". The look on Angela's face conveys a deep humiliation, almost shame.
The same sort of humiliation and shame that David Reimer felt his entire life, especially in school.
What Peter Baker did can on some level be considered brave. Instead of allowing his childhood trauma to destroy his spirit, he chose to destroy others.
Fortunately, Peter Baker is a fictional character. Unfortunately, there are children in the world who are not fictional. They live very real and very unhappy lives. Children like David Reimer who grow up into lonely, depressed, unhappy men with low self esteem and a nagging memory that never goes away. Until they put bullets in their brains.
When this man, born Bruce, raised Brenda, reclaimed his natural gender he decided to give himself a new name. He chose David. David, because of the bible story when little David battled the giant Goliath and won.
I only wish that David could have lived up to his name. But I understand why his Goliath won. From the moment his penis was destroyed during that circumcision, it sealed his fate. He lived through a confusing and unhappy childhood, an abhorrent adolescence and ultimately a miserable adulthood. Although marked with periods of joy and happiness, it all ended during a series of unfortunate events which eventually led to his death.
In the suicide note of Harold Smith (Twin Peaks), the only words written were "J'ai une âme solitaire." I Am A Lonely Soul. This reminds me of David.
I have never forgotten David Reimer or the many people and events which made up his Goliath. I only hope that in death he found peace and an everlasting dignity he was never granted in his life.