As Nature Made Him

Testimony is a central plot point and mode of Colapinto’s writing. Throughout her childhood, Brenda’s testimony to doctors—including, but not exclusive to, John Money—is inconsistent and difficult to follow. That testimony is the bedrock of Money’s research, but it is largely vague and unreliable.

When Brenda is able to speak clearly about her life, to Mary McKenty, McKenty sees that Brenda most deeply desires the truth about her childhood. Testimony, from all parties involved, later becomes a central part of Colapinto’s storytelling. Implicitly, the absence of Brenda/David’s perspective from Dr. Money’s research is the source of its danger; Colapinto’s work seeks to rectify this danger by countering obscure references with specific detail.

As David learns to live as a man, his friends work to pull him out of his deep depression. When he voluntarily raises “the secrets of his past” to a friend on the airplane to Hawaii, his friends come to feel that David is prepared to move into his future (189). One of the remarkable features of David, as an adult, is his desire to speak for others. His testimony becomes powerful, but it is gradually produced once it emerges voluntarily, without a doctor’s