Besides being subjected to unnecessary cosmetic genital surgeries and lied to about his sex and medical history, David Reimer was forced by John Money to role play certain sex acts with his twin brother. According to Money this was supposed to help developing his “female gender identity”. Reimer rebelled against this when he was a teen. He re-identified as a man after being told the truth by his parents. But even if he hadn’t be sexually abused, it’s unlikely he would have never figured out his actual sex. It doesn’t exist any technology to actually change someone’s sex, so things like a lack of a menarche and lack of worry of his parents and doctors about this would likely had clued him. So, what was the point of raising him as a “girl”?

There is nothing to be inferred from Money’s experiment besides that medical and sexual abuse are bad.

Nevertheless, Money claimed his experiment with Reimer was successful and used it to implement the “optimal gender policy”, by which children with atypical or ambiguous genitalia would be assigned a sex of rearing and subjected to cosmetic genital surgeries. Feminization surgeries were preferred because of the difficulties of making a functional penis. Like Reimer, these children were lied about their medical histories.

David Reimer and John Money Gender Reassignment Controversy: The John/Joan Case

Changing attitudes to sex assignment in intersex

Deciding on Gender in Children with Intersex Conditions. Considerations and Controversies