John William Money (8 July 1921 – 7 July 2006) 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 paraphilia, 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 to adapt, exhibiting masculine behavior in childhood, and reverted to living as a male when he became aware of the treatment. He later died by suicide following his twin brother's 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, and his views continue to generate significant controversy. 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. 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. and lovemap. He popularized 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. 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 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 [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. 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".
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. 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 (2000), 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"), and neither frilly dresses nor female hormones made him feel female.
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. He maintained that transgender people had an Idée fixe which was unlikely to resolve on its own,
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”.
Homosexuality and sexual orientation
John Money was a leading proponent of the idea that human sexual orientation develops through learning and gendered socialization. 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. However, in the case of David Reimer, he grew up to be attracted to women.
Money proposed that sexual rehearsal and play between children may be important for a healthy heterosexual development. He referred to aboriginal tribes where he apparently observed sex rehearsal between prepubescent children, and speculated that homosexuality could be prevented entirely if such a practice was embraced. In a 1975 opinion piece published in The New York Times, Money argued that "The forces of antisex cry in moral outrage when confronted with the evidence of sexual disabilities, and blame the new freedom. In fact they should blame the excess of inhibition and punishment regarding sex during the child hood of those whose sexuality is now disabled."
Chronophilias
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".'
He stated that both sexual researchers and the public do not make distinctions between affectional pedophilia and sadistic pedophilia. According to Colapinto, Money told <nowiki></nowiki>Paidika<nowiki></nowiki>, a now defunct Dutch journal of pedophilia, that:
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".
- assigned sex and sex of rearing
- external genital morphology
- internal reproductive structures
- hormonal and secondary sex characteristics
- gonadal sex
- chromosomal sex
and added: