[troutman]

Originally Posted by Ark2

This is in fact a very out-dated belief that has proven to be false. There was a baby boy that, due to an accident during his circumcision, lost his penis. At the time, Dr. John Money had the theory that gender was socialized and that within the first two years, a child's mind was malleable and one could be taught to grow up as either a boy or girl. Because of this, Bruce Reimer (the infant that had lost his penis) was castrated and his parents were told to raise him as a girl. He was given a surgically contructed vagina along with estrogen pills and Bruce became Brenda. If you know anything about this story, then you know that it was a complete failure. The child rejected the belief that he was a girl, displaying male "masculine" behaviour long before he was ever made aware that he was born a boy and he eventually had surgery to change his gender back. Gender is not socialized.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer