John Money

Money introduced numerous definitions related to gender in journal articles in the 1950s, many of them as a result of his studies of hermaphroditism.

Money's 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.

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 hermaphrodites. According to Money, the genitalia and erotic sexual roles were now, by his definition, to be included under the more general term "gender role" including all the non-genital and non-erotic activities that are defined by the conventions of society to apply to males or to females.

In his studies of hermaphrodites, Money found 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 hermaphrodites 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:[17]

1. assigned sex and sex of rearing
2. external genital morphology
3. internal reproductive structures
4. hormonal and secondary sex characteristics
5. gonadal sex
6. chromosomal sex

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."[17]

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."[17]

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 & Woman, Boy & Girl, a college-level, mainstream textbook. The book featured David Reimer (see below) as an example of gender reassignment.

In this book, Money develops a conception of "bodymind".[18] "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 suggests 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 develops a view of "Concepts of Determinism" which, transcultural, transhistorical, and universal, all people have in common, sexologically or otherwise.[19] These include pairbondage, troopbondage, abidance, ycleptance, foredoomance, with these coping strategies: adhibition (engagement), inhibition, explication.

Money suggests that the concept of "threshold"[20] – 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)."[18]

During his professional life, Money was respected as an expert on sexual behavior, especially known for his views that gender was learned rather than innate. However, it was later revealed that his most famous case of David Reimer was fundamentally flawed.[21] 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.

During subsequent appointments with Reimer and Reimer's twin brother Brian, Money forced the two to rehearse sexual acts, with David playing the bottom role as his brother "[pressed] his crotch against" David's buttocks. Money also forced the two children to strip for "genital inspections", occasionally taking photos. Money justified these acts by claiming that "childhood 'sexual rehearsal play'" was important for a "healthy adult gender identity".[4]

For several years, 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. Notes by a former student at Money's laboratory state that, during the yearly follow-up visits, Reimer's parents routinely lied to staff about the success of the procedure. Reimer's twin brother, Brian, later developed schizophrenia.[22] At 14 years old and in extreme psychological agony, Reimer's parents told him the truth. He chose to begin calling himself David, and he underwent surgical procedures to revert the female bodily modifications.[23]

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.[24] 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.[25] This was later expanded into The New York Times best-selling biography As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (2000),[26] 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"),[27][28] and neither frilly dresses[29] nor female hormones made him feel female.

On 1 July 2002, Brian was found dead from an overdose of antidepressants. On 4 May 2004, after suffering years of severe depression, financial instability, and marital troubles,[30] David committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with a sawed-off shotgun at the age of 38. Reimer's parents have stated that Money's methodology was responsible for the deaths of both of their sons.[31]

Money argued that media response to the 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".[32] 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.[33] Privately, Money was mortified by the case, colleagues said, and as a rule did not discuss it.[34] Money's own views also developed and changed over the years.[3]

John Money participated in debates on chronophilias, especially pedophilia.[35] He stated that both sexual researchers and the public do not make distinctions between affectional pedophilia and sadistic pedophilia. Money asserted that affectional pedophilia was about love and not sex.

If I were to see the case of a boy aged ten or eleven who's intensely erotically attracted toward a man in his twenties or thirties, if the relationship is totally mutual, and the bonding is genuinely totally mutual ... then I would not call it pathological in any way.[36][37]

Money held the view that affectional pedophilia is caused by a surplus of parental love that became erotic, and is not a behavioral disorder. Rather, he took the position that heterosexuality is another example of a societal and therefore superficial, ideological concept.[36][37]