Donna Perry Personal Identity Analysis

When somebody asks you who you are, some might tie themselves with their appearance and their looks and some might link themselves with the characteristics of their personality and their memories. The idea of personal identity and how we identify ourselves as a being, has multiple theories and many possibilities. In the case of Douglas/Donna Perry, we face a situation of a man who undergoes a gender reassignment surgery that turns him into a female. Prior to his surgery, he was known as Douglas, a serial killer who is responsible for multiple murders of prostitutes. After the procedure, he is known as Donna, a woman who claims to have no links or connection to their previous self. The main conflict is not only debating whether the result of

She believes that the mind is the substance that does the cognitive thinking while the body is the extension but both are not functional without each other. They are united, like a sailor within his ship. The ship has nobody to steer it, therefore, making it useless while the sailor is not a sailor without his ship. This idea of an identity is known as dualism. Donna had a gender change, not a memory change. Many people have gender changes, such as Laverne Cox. People undergo surgeries and medical procedures to adjust and recreate their bodies, but their bodies are still their bodies. It is still the essence within the body that makes it a whole self. Regardless of any medical procedure that changes or enhances your appearance, that does not change your identity. From the evidence given in the court documents, the only thing that really changed was the sex of the person which then changes Douglas into Donna. It was not like she had brain damage or lost her mind, she simply had a gender change. This means that Donna still has the same brain as Douglas did. For Donna to deny any recollection or recognition of the prostitutes but being able to remember that she was previously Douglas, does not add up. She remembers being Douglas and she remembers enough about being Douglas when she was sentenced for 18 months for a separate charge. According to her cell mate, Donna remembered being a contract killer and she also remembered her gender reassignment surgery. Along with a few other confessions and recollections of her past, Donna admitted to being a sociopath and killing nine prostitutes as a result of “taking care of business”. This proves that she most likely lied about not remembering the prostitutes and it also proves that her