As Nature Made Him

In 1967, after a baby boy suffered a botched circumcision, his family agreed to a radical treatment. On the advice of an expert in gender identity and sexual reassignment at Johns Hopkins Hospital, the boy was surgically altered to live as a girl. This landmark case, initially reported to be a great success, seemed all the more remarkable since the boy had been born an identical twin. But the case was a failure from the outset. At fourteen, the boy made the decision to live as a male. With uncommon insight, intelligence and compassion, he tells this extraordinary story for the first time.