John Money
John William Money was a New Zealand American psychologist, sexologist and professor at Johns Hopkins University known for his research on human sexual behavior and gender.
Money researched unusual sexual interests including pedophilia, and pioneered the use of drug treatment to extinguish the libido of sex offenders. He advanced the use of new terminology in sex research, coining the terms gender role and sexual orientation. Despite popular belief, Money did not coin the term gender identity.
Money was a proponent of genital surgeries for children with intersex conditions, based on his belief that gender was malleable during the first two years of life and that raising a child outside the male–female binary was harmful. The practice proved controversial when many intersex people later rejected the gender assigned to them. Money also applied the protocol to David Reimer, who lost his penis in a botched circumcision, and advised his parents to raise him as a girl. Reimer struggled and exhibited masculine behavior, reverted to living as a male when he became aware of the treatment, and later died by suicide following his brothers suicide.
Money believed that transgender people had an idée fixe, and established the Johns Hopkins Gender Identity Clinic in 1965. Money 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. His views have been criticized by transgender scholars and activists.
Today, Money is a subject of academic scrutiny among psychologists, ethicists, and intersex rights activists for his handling of the Reimer case. Money was defended by his colleague Richard Green, who believed Money aimed to help rather than "experiment" on Reimer, and operated under accepted medical knowledge of the time. 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.
Early life
Money was born in Morrinsville, New Zealand, to a Christian fundamentalist family of English and Welsh descent. His parents were members of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church. He attended Hutt Valley High School and initially studied psychology at Victoria University of Wellington, graduating with a double master's degree in psychology and education in 1944. 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. In October 1945, after Frame wrote an essay mentioning her thoughts of suicide, Money convinced Frame to enter the psychiatric ward at Dunedin Hospital, where she was misdiagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia. Frame then spent eight years in psychiatric institutions, during which she was subjected to electroshock and insulin shock therapy. Frame narrowly missed being lobotomized. In Frame's autobiography, An Angel at My Table, Money is referred to as John Forrest.
Career and views
In 1947, at the age of 26, Money emigrated to the United States to study at the Psychiatric Institute of the University of Pittsburgh. In 1948, he became a doctoral candidate at Harvard University, and earned his PhD in 1952.Money became a professor of pediatrics and medical psychology at Johns Hopkins University, where he worked from 1952 until his death.
Money proposed and developed several theories related to the topics of gender identity and gender roles, and coined terms like gender role and lovemap. He popularized the term paraphilia and introduced the term sexual orientation in place of sexual preference, arguing that attraction is not necessarily a matter of free choice. Although often misattributed to him, Money did not coin the term
In 1960 and 1961, he co-authored two papers with Richard Green. 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.
Sex offenders
Money pioneered the use of drug treatment for sex offenders to extinguish their sex drives. According to a 1987 paper, he employed the drug Depo-Provera for use on sex offenders at Johns Hopkins beginning in 1966. The practice later spread in the United States and Europe.Sex reassignment of David Reimer
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.According to John Colapinto's biography of David Reimer, when Reimer and his twin Brian were six years old, Money showed the brothers pornography and instructed the two to rehearse sexual acts. Money instructed David position himself on all fours, and Brian was told to "come up behind and place his crotch against buttocks". Money also forced Reimer, in another sexual position, to have his "legs spread" with Brian on top. Reimer alleged that on "at least one occasion" Money took a photograph of the two children performing these acts. Colapinto speculated 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". Money was reportedly angered when they resisted. The Reimers recalled that Money was mild-mannered around their parents, but ill-tempered when alone with them. They also alleged that Money made the two children undergo "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."
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.
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.
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.
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. 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. This was later expanded into The New York Times bestselling biography As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl, 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, and neither frilly dresses nor female hormones made him feel female.
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."
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". 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. Privately, Money was mortified by the case, colleagues said, and as a rule did not discuss it.
Money's colleague, Richard Green, defended Money's handling of the Reimer case, as a decision made under accepted medical knowledge of the time.
Transgender people and the Johns Hopkins gender clinic
Money had a particular interest in gender dysphoria and transgender people. He maintained that transgender people had an Idée fixe which was unlikely to resolve on its own, and that psychotherapists had failed to alleviate gender dysphoria with therapy.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 reported that none regret the procedure. The hospital began performing sexual reassignment surgery in 1966, and was the first clinic in the United States to do so.
According to Goldie, Money is seen as a "negative figure" among transgender people. 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.”
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”.