The boy who was raised as a girl

Advanced lesson plan (B1 and above): The boy who was raised as a girl - BUY ME A COFFEE if you like my FREE ESL content

After a botched circumcision, doctors recommended baby Bruce be raised as a girl. He would be happier as a girl than as a boy without a penis, according to the family's psychologist Dr John Money. His true identity was to be kept a secret.

In this worksheet, students will discuss the line between nature and nurture, the patient-doctor relationship and a mother who did her best in an impossible position. 

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Lesson activities:

Part 1: The Accident. Students read the introduction to the medical case study. They must complete the sentences by choosing words from the purple box. There is then a discussion section, where they can practise second and third conditional structures: "If that happened to my son, I would feel devastated"; "If I had been in that position, I would not have followed the doctors' advice", etc.

Part 2: An Appointment With The Psychologist. Students must match underlined vocabulary with its definition from the purple box. Key vocabulary: to keep track, to determine, irrefutable, override, genuinely. 

Part 3: Becoming A Man And Forgiving His Mother. Next, students watch an interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show with the boy who was raised as a girl and his mother. Key vocabulary/phrases: Darned if you do and darned if you don't, tomboy, to go public with one's story.

Part 4: A Tragic End.