John Money | |
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![]() Money in 1996 | |
Born | John William Money 8 July 1921 Morrinsville, New Zealand |
Died | 7 July 2006 84) Towson, Maryland, U.S. | (aged
Alma mater | Victoria University of Wellington Harvard University |
Awards | James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award (1992) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Psychology |
Institutions | Johns Hopkins University |
John William Money (8 July 1921 – 7 July 2006) [1] was a New Zealand American psychologist, sexologist and professor at Johns Hopkins University known for his research on human sexual behavior and gender. Believing that gender identity was malleable within the first two years of life, Money advocated for the surgical "normalization" of the genitalia of intersex infants. [2]
Money advanced the use of more accurate terminology in sex research, coining the terms gender role and sexual orientation . [3] [4] Despite widespread popular belief, Money did not coin the term gender identity. [5] Money pioneered drug treatment for sex offenders to extinguish their sex drives. [6]
Since the 1990s, Money's work and research has been subject to significant academic and public scrutiny. [7] A 1997 academic study criticized Money's work in many respects, particularly in regard to the involuntary sex-reassignment of the child David Reimer. [8] [9] Money allegedly coerced David and his brother Brian to perform sexual rehearsal with each other, which Money then photographed. David Reimer lived a troubled life, ending with his suicide at 38 following his brother's suicide. [10]
Money believed that transgender people had an idée fixe , and established the Johns Hopkins Gender Identity Clinic in 1965. He screened adult patients for two years prior to granting them a medical transition, and believed sex roles should be de-stereotyped, so that masculine women would be less likely to desire transition. [11] Money is generally viewed as a negative figure by the transgender community. [12]
Money's writing has been translated into many languages and includes around 2,000 articles, books, chapters and reviews. He received around 65 honors, awards and degrees in his lifetime. [3]
Money was born in Morrinsville, New Zealand, to a Christian fundamentalist [13] family of English and Welsh descent. [14] His parents were members of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church. [13] He attended Hutt Valley High School [15] and initially studied psychology at Victoria University of Wellington, [16] graduating with a double master's degree in psychology and education in 1944. [17] [18] He was a junior member of the psychology faculty at the University of Otago in Dunedin.
Author Janet Frame attended some of Money's classes at the University of Otago, as part of her teacher training. Frame was attracted to Money, and eager to please him. [19] In October 1945, after Frame wrote an essay mentioning her thoughts of suicide, [20] Money convinced Frame to enter the psychiatric ward at Dunedin Hospital, where she was misdiagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia. [21] [22] Frame then spent eight years in psychiatric institutions, during which she was subjected to electroshock and insulin shock therapy. [23] [22] Frame narrowly missed being lobotomized. [24] [22] [23] In Frame's autobiography, An Angel at My Table, Money is referred to as John Forrest. [20]
In 1947, at the age of 26, Money emigrated to the United States to study at the Psychiatric Institute of the University of Pittsburgh. He left Pittsburgh and earned his PhD from Harvard University in 1952.
Money became a professor of pediatrics and medical psychology at Johns Hopkins University, where he worked from 1952 until his death.[ citation needed ]
Money proposed and developed several theories related to the topics of gender identity and gender roles, and coined terms like gender role [25] and lovemap. He popularised the term paraphilia (appearing in the DSM-III, which would later replace perversions) and introduced the term sexual orientation in place of sexual preference, arguing that attraction is not necessarily a matter of free choice. [3] [4] Although often misattributed to him, Money did not coin the term 'gender identity'. [5]
In 1960 and 1961, he co-authored two papers with Richard Green. [26] [27]
Money pioneered the use of drug treatment for sex offenders to extinguish their sex drives. [6] [28] According to a 1987 paper, he employed the drug Depo-Provera (medroxyprogesterone acetate) for use on sex offenders at Johns Hopkins beginning in 1966. The practice later spread in the United States and Europe. [29]
In 1966, a botched circumcision left eight-month-old Reimer without a penis. Money persuaded the baby's parents that sex reassignment surgery would be in Reimer's best interest. At the age of 22 months, Reimer underwent an orchiectomy, in which his testicles were surgically removed. He was reassigned to be raised as female and his name changed from Bruce to Brenda. Money further recommended hormone treatment, to which the parents agreed. Money then recommended a surgical procedure to create an artificial vagina, which the parents refused. Money published a number of papers reporting the reassignment as successful. David Reimer was raised under the "optimum gender rearing model" which was the common model for sex and gender socialization/medicalization for intersex youth. The model was heavily criticized for being sexist, and for assigning an arbitrary gender binary. [2]
According to John Colapinto's biography of David Reimer, starting when Reimer and his twin Brian were six years old, Money showed the brothers pornography and forced the two to rehearse sexual acts. Money would order David to get down on all fours and Brian was forced to "come up behind [him] and place his crotch against [his] buttocks". Money also forced Reimer, in another sexual position, to have his "legs spread" with Brian on top. On "at least one occasion" Money took a photograph of the two children performing these acts. [30]
When either child resisted Money, Money would get angry. Both Reimer and Brian recall that Money was mild-mannered around their parents, but ill-tempered when alone with them. Money also forced the two children to strip for "genital inspections"; when they resisted inspecting each other's genitals, Money got very aggressive. Reimer says, "He told me to take my clothes off, and I just did not do it. I just stood there. And he screamed, 'Now!' Louder than that. I thought he was going to give me a whupping. So I took my clothes off and stood there shaking." [30]
Colapinto speculates that Money's rationale for his treatment of the children was his belief that "childhood 'sexual rehearsal play' at thrusting movements and copulation" was important for a "healthy adult gender identity". [10] Brian spoke about the therapy "only with the greatest emotional turmoil", and David was unwilling to speak about the details publicly. [30]
At 14 years old and in extreme psychological agony, David Reimer was told the truth by his parents. He chose to begin calling himself David, and he underwent surgical procedures to revert the female bodily modifications. [30]
Despite the pain and turmoil of the brothers, for decades, Money reported on Reimer's progress as the "John/Joan case", describing apparently successful female gender development and using this case to support the feasibility of sex reassignment and surgical reconstruction even in non-intersex cases. [31]
By the time this deception was discovered, the idea of a purely socially constructed gender identity and infant Intersex medical interventions had become the accepted medical and sociological standard. [31]
David Reimer's case came to international attention in 1997 when he told his story to Milton Diamond, an academic sexologist, who persuaded Reimer to allow him to report the outcome in order to dissuade physicians from treating other infants similarly. [32] Soon after, Reimer went public with his story, and John Colapinto published a widely disseminated and influential account in Rolling Stone magazine in December 1997. [33] This was later expanded into The New York Times bestselling biography As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (2000), [34] in which Colapinto described how—contrary to Money's reports—when living as Brenda, Reimer did not identify as a girl. He was ostracized and bullied by peers (who dubbed him "cavewoman"), [35] [36] and neither frilly dresses [37] [38] nor female hormones made him feel female. [10]
In July 2002, Brian was found dead from an overdose of antidepressants. In May 2004, David committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with a sawed-off shotgun at the age of 38. According to his mother, "he had recently become depressed after losing his job and separating from his wife." [39]
Money argued that media response to Diamond's exposé was due to right-wing media bias and "the antifeminist movement." He said his detractors believed "masculinity and femininity are built into the genes so women should get back to the mattress and the kitchen". [40] However, intersex activists also criticized Money, stating that the unreported failure had led to the surgical reassignment of thousands of infants as a matter of policy. [41] Privately, Money was mortified by the case, colleagues said, and as a rule did not discuss it. [1]
Money had a particular interest in gender dysphoria and transgender people. [42] He believed transgender people had an Idée fixe; a preoccupation of the mind resistant to change. [42] : 107
According to Goldie, Money is seen as a "negative figure" among transgender people. [12] In one paper, Money described trans women as "devious, demanding and manipulative in their relationships with people on whom they are also dependent" and “possibly also incapable of love.” [43] [44]
Money believed that de-stereotyping sex roles might prevent people from wanting to transition, arguing “a tomboy-ish girl, prenatally androgenized, grows up to be a career-minded woman, not a transsexual who claims to need sex reassignment”. [11] [45]
In 1965, Money co-established the Gender Identity Clinic at Johns Hopkins with the endocrinologist Claude Migeon. Money screened adult patients for two years prior to granting them a medical transition, and argued that none regret the procedure as a result. [46] The hospital began performing sexual reassignment surgery in 1966, and was the first clinic in the United States to do so. [47] [48]
John Money was a leading proponent of the idea that human sexual orientation develops through learning and gendered socialization. [49] He believed that males, if surgically reassigned and raised as girls around birth, would grow up to be attracted to males and live as heterosexual women. [50] However, in the case of David Reimer, he grew up to be attracted to women. [49] A 2016 academic review found that in seven total cases of boys surgically reassigned and raised as girls (due to botched circumcision or cloacal exstrophy), all were strongly attracted to women, not men, inconsistent with this learning theory of homosexuality. [51]
Money coined the term chronophilia and nepiophilia (sexual attraction to toddlers and infants) in 1986. In two 1983 case study publications, Money stated that pedophilia, among other chronophilias, could be characterized as combining "devotion, affection, and limerence", "comradeship with a touch of hero-worship" and ultimately as "harmless... in most instances". [52]
He stated[ where? ] that both sexual researchers and the public do not make distinctions between affectional pedophilia and sadistic pedophilia. According to Colapinto, Money told ''Paidika'', a now defunct Dutch journal of pedophilia, that:
"If I were to see the case of a boy aged 10 or 12 who's intensely attracted toward a man in his 20s or 30s, if the relationship is totally mutual, and the bonding is genuinely totally mutual, then I would not call it pathological in any way." [53] [54]
Also in 1986, Money postulated the existence of multiple chronophilic forms of erotic age-roleplaying, or age impersonation, which he named "infantilism", "juvenilism", "adolescentilism", "gerontilism". [52]
This section needs additional citations for verification .(March 2015) |
Money co-edited a 1969 book, Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment , which helped bring more acceptance to sexual reassignment surgery and transsexual individuals. [1]
Money introduced numerous definitions related to gender in journal articles in the 1950s, many of them as a result of his studies of intersex morphology. His definition of gender is based on his understanding of sex differences among human beings. According to Money, the fact that one sex produces ova and the other sex produces sperm is the irreducible criterion of sex difference. However, there are other sex-derivative differences that follow in the wake of this primary dichotomy. These differences involve the way urine is expelled from the human body and other questions of sexual dimorphism. According to Money's theory, sex-adjunctive differences are typified by the smaller size of females and their problems in moving around while nursing infants. This then makes it more likely that the males do the roaming and hunting.[ citation needed ]
Sex-arbitrary differences are those that are purely conventional: for example, color selection (baby blue for boys, pink for girls). Some of the latter differences apply to life activities, such as career opportunities for men versus women. Finally, Money created the now-common term gender role which he differentiated from the concept of the more traditional terminology sex role. This grew out of his studies of intersex people.
In his studies of intersex people, Money alleged that there are six variables that define sex. While in the average person all six would line up unequivocally as either all "male" or "female", in an intersex person any one or more than one of these could be inconsistent with the others, leading to various kinds of anomalies. In his seminal 1955 paper he defined these factors as: [55]
and added,
"Patients showing various combinations and permutations of these six sexual variables may be appraised with respect to a seventh variable: 7. Gender role and orientation as male or female, established while growing up." [55]
He then defined gender role as;
"all those things that a person says or does to disclose himself or herself as having the status of boy or man, girl or woman, respectively. It includes, but is not restricted to sexuality in the sense of eroticism. Gender role is appraised in relation to the following: general mannerisms, deportment and demeanor; play preferences and recreational interests; spontaneous topics of talk in unprompted conversation and casual comment; content of dreams, daydreams and fantasies; replies to oblique inquiries and projective tests; evidence of erotic practices, and, finally, the person's own replies to direct inquiry." [55]
Money made the concept of gender a broader, more inclusive concept than one of masculine/feminine. For him, gender included not only one's status as a man or a woman, but was also a matter of personal recognition, social assignment, or legal determination; not only on the basis of one's genitalia but also on the basis of somatic and behavioral criteria that go beyond genital differences. In 1972, Money presented his theories in Man and Woman, Boy and Girl, a college level textbook. The book featured David Reimer as an example of gender reassignment. [56]
![]() | This section may be confusing or unclear to readers. In particular, there are terms in this section that require explanation as they are technical jargon used in Money's theoretical conceptualizing and do not have broad understanding.(March 2016) |
In his book Gay, Straight and In-Between: The Sexology of Erotic Orientation, Money develops a conception of "bodymind". [57] "Bodymind" is a way for scientists, in developing a science about sexuality, to move on from the platitudes of dichotomy between nature versus nurture, innate versus the acquired, biological versus the social, and psychological versus the physiological. He suggested that all of these capitalize on the ancient, pre-Platonic, pre-biblical conception of body versus the mind, and the physical versus the spiritual. In coining the term "bodymind", in this sense, Money wishes to move beyond these very ingrained principles of our folk or vernacular psychology.
Money also developed a view of "Concepts of Determinism" which, transcultural, transhistorical, and universal, all people have in common, sexologically or otherwise. [58] These include pairbondage, troopbondage, abidance, ycleptance, foredoomance, with these coping strategies: adhibition (engagement), inhibition, explication. Money suggested that the concept of "threshold" [59] – the release or inhibition of sexual (or other) behavior – is most useful for sex research as a substitute for any concept of motivation. Moreover, it confers the distinct advantage of having continuity and unity to what would otherwise be a highly disparate and varied field of research. It also allows for the classification of sexual behavior. For Money, the concept of threshold has great value because of the wide spectrum to which it applies. "It allows one to think developmentally or longitudinally, in terms of stages or experiences that are programmed serially, or hierarchically, or cybernetically (i.e. regulated by mutual feedback)." [57]
Money was briefly married in the 1950s and never had any children. [60] He was reportedly bisexual. [61]
According to his friends, Money lived an "eccentric lifestyle." He only bought secondhand clothing and rarely threw things away he deemed reusable. For over 40 years, Money lived in a house in Baltimore near the Johns Hopkins medical campus. His house had a collection of anthropological art from his travels abroad, including his studies of aboriginal communities in Australia. [62] Money was an early supporter and patron of many famous artists, including New Zealand artists Rita Angus and Theo Schoon, [63] and the American artist Lowell Nesbitt, whom he provided with an x-ray for one artwork. [64] Money was also acquainted with Yoko Ono, visiting her in London with Richard Green, and fashioning some of her sculptures. [61] [64]
In 2002, as his Parkinson's disease worsened, Money donated a substantial portion of his art collection to the Eastern Southland Art Gallery in Gore, New Zealand. [65] In 2003, the New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark opened the John Money wing at the gallery. [66]
Money died on 7 July 2006, one day before his 85th birthday, in Towson, Maryland, of complications from Parkinson's disease. [1] He was survived by eight nieces and nephews. [60]
The Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Identity" (2005) was based on David and Brian Reimer's lives and their treatment by Money. [67]
The Money and Reimer case was highlighted in the 2023 documentary Every Body , in which intersex individuals (aka individuals with Differences of Sexual Development) describe growing up and their struggles due to their gender being mis-identified. [68]
Gender includes the social, psychological, cultural and behavioral aspects of being a man, woman, or other gender identity. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social constructs as well as gender expression. Most cultures use a gender binary, in which gender is divided into two categories, and people are considered part of one or the other ; those who are outside these groups may fall under the umbrella term non-binary. A number of societies have specific genders besides "man" and "woman," such as the hijras of South Asia; these are often referred to as third genders. Most scholars agree that gender is a central characteristic for social organization.
Gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is a surgical procedure, or series of procedures, that alters a person's physical appearance and sexual characteristics to resemble those associated with their identified gender. The phrase is most often associated with transgender health care and intersex medical interventions, though many such treatments are also pursued by cisgender and non-intersex persons. It is also known as sex reassignment surgery (SRS), gender confirmation surgery (GCS), and several other names.
Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent and consistent with the individual's gender identity. Gender expression typically reflects a person's gender identity, but this is not always the case. While a person may express behaviors, attitudes, and appearances consistent with a particular gender role, such expression may not necessarily reflect their gender identity. The term gender identity was coined by psychiatry professor Robert J. Stoller in 1964 and popularized by psychologist John Money.
Heteronormativity is the concept that heterosexuality is the preferred or normal sexual orientation. It assumes the gender binary and that sexual and marital relations are most fitting between people of opposite sex.
Milton Diamond was an American professor of anatomy and reproductive biology at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. After a career in the study of human sexuality, Diamond retired from the university in December 2009 but continued with his research and writing until retiring fully in 2018. He died on March 20, 2024, at the age of 90.
Cloacal exstrophy (CE) is a severe birth defect wherein much of the abdominal organs are exposed. It often causes the splitting of the bladder, genitalia, and the anus. It is sometimes called OEIS complex.
Sex assignment is the discernment of an infant's sex, typically made at birth based on an examination of the baby's external genitalia by a healthcare provider such as a midwife, nurse, or physician. In the vast majority of cases (99.95%), sex is assigned unambiguously at birth. However, in about 1 in 2000 births, the baby's genitalia may not clearly indicate male or female, necessitating additional diagnostic steps, and deferring sex assignment.
The history of intersex surgery is intertwined with the development of the specialities of pediatric surgery, pediatric urology, and pediatric endocrinology, with our increasingly refined understanding of sexual differentiation, with the development of political advocacy groups united by a human qualified analysis, and in the last decade by doubts as to efficacy, and controversy over when and even whether some procedures should be performed.
The lovemap is a concept originated by sexologist John Money in his discussions of how people develop their sexual preferences. Money defined it as "a developmental representation or template in the mind and in the brain depicting the idealized lover and the idealized program of sexual and erotic activity projected in imagery or actually engaged in with that lover."
Richard Green was an American-British sexologist, psychiatrist, lawyer, and author known for his research on homosexuality and transsexualism, specifically gender identity disorder in children. He is known for his behaviorism experiment in which he attempted to prevent male homosexuality and transsexuality by extinguishing feminine behavior in young boys. He later came to favor biological explanations for male homosexuality.
Transgender rights in Iran are limited, with a narrow degree of official recognition of transgender identities by the government, but with trans individuals facing very high levels of discrimination, from the law, the state, and from wider society.
In behavioral science, androphilia and gynephilia are sexual orientations: Androphilia is sexual attraction to men and/or masculinity; gynephilia is sexual attraction to women and/or femininity. Ambiphilia describes the combination of both androphilia and gynephilia in a given individual, or bisexuality. The terms offer an alternative to a gender binary homosexual and heterosexual conceptualization of sexuality.
A micropenis or microphallus is an unusually small penis. A common criterion is a dorsal penile length of at least 2.5 standard deviations smaller than the mean human penis size for age. A micropenis is stretched penile length equal to or less than 1.9 cm in term infants, and 9.3 cm in adults. The condition is usually recognized shortly after birth. The term is most often used medically when the rest of the penis, scrotum, and perineum are without ambiguity, such as hypospadias. Traditionally, a microphallus describes a micropenis with hypospadias. Micropenis incidence is about 1.5 in 10,000 male newborns in North America.
A transsexual person is someone who experiences a gender identity that is inconsistent with their assigned sex, and desires to permanently transition to the sex or gender with which they identify, usually seeking medical assistance to help them align their body with their identified sex or gender.
David Reimer was a Canadian man raised as a girl following medical advice and intervention after his penis was severely injured during a botched circumcision in infancy.
Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality is a 2000 book by the sexologist Anne Fausto-Sterling, in which the author explores the social construction of gender, and the social and medical treatment of intersex people. Her stated goal is to "convince readers of the need for theories that allow for a good deal of human variation and that integrate the analytical powers of the biological and the social into the systematic analysis of human development."
Howard Wilbur Jones, Jr. was an American gynecological surgeon and in vitro fertilization (IVF) specialist. Jones and his wife, Georgeanna Seegar Jones, were two of the earliest reproductive medicine specialists in the United States. They established the reproductive medicine center that was responsible for the birth of the first IVF baby in the U.S. He wrote articles on the beginning of human personhood and testified before legislators on the same subject. He was one of the early physicians to perform sex reassignment surgeries.
Intersex people are born with sex characteristics that "do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies". They are substantially more likely to identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) than endosex people. According to a study done in Australia of Australian citizens with intersex conditions, participants labeled 'heterosexual' as the most popular single label with the rest being scattered among various other labels. According to another study, an estimated 8.5% to 20% experiencing gender dysphoria. Although many intersex people are heterosexual and cisgender, and not all of them identify as LGBTQ+, this overlap and "shared experiences of harm arising from dominant societal sex and gender norms" has led to intersex people often being included under the LGBT umbrella, with the acronym sometimes expanded to LGBTI. Some intersex activists and organisations have criticised this inclusion as distracting from intersex-specific issues such as involuntary medical interventions.
William G. Reiner is a urologist, psychiatrist and professor who worked and taught at Johns Hopkins Hospital and University of Oklahoma. He researched individuals with intersex conditions, cloacal exstrophy and bladder exstrophy.