Volume 50, Number 6 · April 10, 2003
Correction
By Andrew Hacker
In response to Gays and Genes (March 27, 2003)
To the Editors:
In my article "Gays and Genes" [NYR, March 27], John Colapinto should have been identified not as an "intersex" child who was made into a girl shortly after birth and decided in his teens that he was really a boy, but as the author of a book about such a case, As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl. I regret these errors.
I should add that, according to Mr. Colapinto, the subject of the book suffered from a botched circumcision in which his penis was burned off. Doctors suggested to his parents that he be raised as a girl. On finally being informed of his medical history, he decided from his teens on to live as a man.
Andrew Hacker