Abstract
John Money offered “gender” as a new conceptual realm of sex in the mid-1950s. He initially did so as part of a framework for understand-ing the phenomenon of human hermaphroditism. That framework was first and foremost a rationale for clinical practices designed to habilitate the intersexed into girlhood and boyhood, womanhood and manhood. It would become so much more. To contextualize Money’s ideas I begin by tracing his early academic training; the professional context in which he first became interested in the subject of hermaphroditism; and some of the key theoretical influences on his work. His research stands within a long tradition in sexology and medical science but was also heavily influenced by the then-dominant paradigm of the social sciences. What began as a doctoral research project became a life’s work for Money as he built his oeuvre over the next 50 years. Following the completion of his doctoral studies, Money was invited by the esteemed pediatric endocrinologist Lawson Wilkins to take up a position as codirector of a newly created research unit at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore. Under the auspices of that unit Money continued his research, gathering increasing numbers of case reports and data with which to evidence his claims. It was in that context that Money identified a need for a single overarching term that would enable him to discuss the masculinity and femininity of the intersexed. The term he eventually settled on was gender.
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Notes
Anke Ehrhardt, “John Money, Ph.D. (Biography),” The Journal of Sex Research 44, no. 3 (2007), 223.
John Money, Venuses Penuses: Sexology Sexosophy, and Exigency Theory (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1986), 5. Beaglehole had worked with Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and other founders of psychological anthropology while on a Commonwealth Fellowship at Yale University during the 1930s.
James Ritchie and Jane Ritchie, “Beaglehole, Ernest 1906–1965,” in Dictionary of New Zealand Biography Volume Five (1941–1960) (Wellington: Ministry for Culture and Heritage, 2000), 42–43. Money has often drawn on anthropological data (his own and the work of others) to support his theories of gender and of sexuality.
See, for example, John Money, et al., “Sex Training and Traditions in Arnhem Land,” British Journal of Medical Psychology 47 (1970): 383–399.
John Money, Lovemaps: Clinical Concepts of Sexual/Erotic Health and Pathology, Paraphhilia, and Gender Transposition in Childhood, Adolesence, and Maturity (New York: Irvington, 1986), 6.
Anne Fausto-Sterling, Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 38.
See also Alice Domurat Dreger, “Doubtful Sex: The Fate of the Hermaphrodite in Victorian Medicine.” Victorian Studies 38, no. 3 (1995): 335–370;
Dreger, “Hermaphrodites in Love: The Truth of the Gonads,” in Science and Homosexualities, ed. V. A. Rosario (New York: Routledge, 1997), 46–66.
Kenneth Zucker, “Intersexuality and Gender ldentity Differentiation,” Annual Review of Sex Research 10 (1999), 5.
Bernice Hausman, Changing Sex: Transsexualism, Technology and the Idea of Gender (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995).
Dreger, Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 149.
Franz von Neugebauer, “Hermaphrodism in the Daily Practice of Medicine Being Information Upon Hermaphrodism Indispensable to the Practitioner,” British Gynaecological Journal 19 (1903): 226–263. Yet as one of Neugeberger’s British contemporaries, David Berry Hart, noted, if there were no such thing as a “true hermaphrodite,” the category “pseudo hermaphrodite” was a logical impossibility, being derived from a now nonexistent category. Thus he advocated in 1914 that hermaphrodite should be abolished completely from the medical lexicon (Dreger, Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex, 156).
See, for example, J. R. Batanian et al., “Two Unbalanced Translocations Involving a Common 6p25 Region in Two Xy Female Patients,” Clinical Genetics 59, no. 1 (2001): 52–57;
M. Fernandez-Cancio et al., “Compound Heterozygous Mutations in the Srd5a2 Gene Exon 4 in a Male Pseudohermaphrodite Patient of Chinese Origin,” Journal ofAndrology 25, no. 3 (2004): 412–416.
John Money, Joan Hampson, and John Hampson, “Sexual Incongruities and Psychopathology: The Evidence of Human Hermaphroditism,” Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital 98, no. 1 (1956): 44. Money eventually dropped the prefix pseudo- in an attempt to lay to rest the idea that the gonads would or could reveal the truth of a person’s sex and because in his view, it failed to account for those individuals whose gonadal tissue was undifferentiated. A similar rationale of expediency in the interests of dialogue is offered today by those mainstream North American advocacy groups who have adopted the acronym DSD—or disorders of sex development—in place of “intersex.”
John Money, The Lovemap Guidebook: A Definitive Statement (New York: Continuum, 1999), 4.
Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy, and Clyde Martin, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (Philadelphia: Saunders, 1948);
Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin, and Paul Gebhard, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (Philadelphia: Saunders, 1953).
Evelyn Hooker, “A Preliminary Analysis of Group Behavior of Homosexuals,” Journal of Psychology 42 (1956): 217–225;
Hooker, “The Adjustment of the Male Overt Homosexual,” Journal of Projective Techniques 21 (1957): 18–31;
Hooker, “Male Homosexuality in the Rorschach,” Journal of Projective Techniques 23 (1958): 278–281.
William Masters and Virginia E Johnson, Human Sexual Response (Boston: Little, Brown 1966). Although not published until the mid-1960s, Masters and Johnson began their research during the period under discussion.
William Simon, Postmodern Sexualities (London: Routledge, 1996), 23.
Money, Venuses Penuses, 8; Money, The Adam Principle. Genes, Genitals, Hormones and Gender: Selected Readings in Sexology (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1993), 94–95.
Lawson Wilkins et al., “Hermaphroditism: Classification, Diagnosis, Selection of Sex and Treatment,” Pediatrics 16, no. 3 (1955): 287–302.
Money, Gay, Straight and In-Between: The Sexology of Erotic Orientation (New York: Continuum, 1988), 53.
Money, “Hermaphroditism, Gender and Precocity in Hyper-Adrenocorticism: Psychologic Findings,” Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital 96, no. 3 (1955): 258.
Jerzy Szacki, History of Sociological Thought (London: Aldwych, 1979), 503.
Talcott Parsons and Robert Freed Bales, Family: Socialization and Interaction Process (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1955), 16. The stabilization of adult personality was another key role Parsons attributed to the family unit.
Albert Ellis, “The Sexual Psychology of Human Hermaphrodites,” Psychosomatic Medicine 7 (1945), 109.
These are the diagnostic terms accorded by the American Psychological Association to people whose identity as male or female is at odds with their morphological status. Until 1973, homosexuals, lesbians, and bisexuals were deemed dysphoric with respect to their gender along with transsexuals, transvestites, and individuals with unusual sexual proclivities (or “paraphilias”). For an example of contemporary debates in psychiatric circles about whether GID constitutes a mental illness see Ken Hausman, “Controversy Continues to Grow over DSM’s GID Diagnosis,” Psychiatric News 38, no. 14 (2003): 25–26.
Patrick Bateson and Paul Martin, Design for a Life: How Behavior Develops. (London: Vintage, 2000).
John Money, Gendermaps: Social Constructionism, Feminism and Sexosophical History (New York: Continuum, 1995), 95.
John Money, “Propaedeutics of Deicious G-I/R: Theoretical Foundations for Understanding Dimorphic Gender-Identity/Role,” in Masculinity/Femininity. Basic Perpectives, ed. June Reinisch, et al. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 14. See also Money Gendermaps, 95–108.
Money and Patricia Tucker, Sexual Signatures: On Being a Man or a Woman (London: Sphere Books, 1977), 91.
It is not my intention to refute the idea that learning is a function of biology per se. However I do take issue with the immutability aspect of Money’s claim with respect to gender. Gendering is an aspect of subjectivity that is continually reinforced and reiterated over the entire life course. For analyses of the selffulfilling effects of the gendering process see, for example, Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990);
Erving Goffman, “The Arrangement between the Sexes,” Theory and Society 4 (1977): 301–331;
Candace West and Don Zimmerman, “Doing Gender,” in The Gender and Psychology Reader, ed. Blyth McVicker Clinchy and Julie Norem (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 104–124.
In the nonintersexed, incomplete coding was said to manifest in transsexualism (John Money and Anke Ehrhardt, Man and Woman Boy and Girl: The Differentiation and Dimorphism of Gender Identity from Conception to Maturity [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972], 20).
Money and Ehrhardt, Man and Woman; Money and Tucker, Sexual Signatures; Money, “Gender: History, Theory and Usage of the Term in Sexology and Its Relationship to Nature/Nurture,” Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy 11, no. 2(1985): 71–79; Money, Gendermaps.
The hardwiring thesis has become increasingly undermined over the past decade as research by developmental neuroscientists has shown that neural pathways continue to respond to new stimuli over the entire life course. For an overview of some of the theoretical shifts in neuroscience since the late 1950s, see Guy McKhann, “Neurology: Then, Now, and in the Future,” Archives of Neurology 59, no. 9 (2002): 1369–1373.
Agenesis is the medical term for the failure of a body part to develop. In the context of this discussion, ovaries are the body part in question (Peter Walker, ed. Chambers Science and Technology Dictionary [Edinburgh: Chambers, 1991], 17). It is with a certain amount of tongue in cheek that I want to point out that large numbers of people with a Y chromosome could be said to be gonadally agenesic for having failed to develop ovaries.
Morgan Holmes, “Mind the Gaps: Intersex and (Re-Productive) Spaces in Disability Studies and Bioethics,” Bioethical Inquiry 5, no. 2–3 (2008): 169–181;
Vernon Rosario, “From Hermaphrodites to Sox9: The Molecular Deconstruction of Sex,” Paper presented at the Presentations in the History of Medicine Series, Royal Australasian College of Physicians, Sydney, August 1, 2005; Rosario, “This History of Aphallia and the Intersexual Challenge to Sex/Gender,” in A Companion to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007) 262–281;
Eric Vilain, “Genetics of Sexual Development,” Annual Review of Sex Research 11 (2000): 1–24.
Money, Hampson, and Hampson, “An Examination of Some Basic Sexual Concepts: The Evidence of Human Hermaphroditism,” Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital 97, no. 4 (1955): 308–309.
Money, Hampson, and Hampson, “Hermaphroditism: Recommendations Concerning Assignment of Sex, Change of Sex, and Psychologic Management,” Bulletin of the johns Hopkins Hospital 97, no. 4 (1955): 285.
When faced with cases that challenged the weight Money et al. gave to assigned sex, these two elements were often found to be wanting. See Robert Stoller, Sex and Gender: On the Development of Masculinity and Femininity. (London: Karnac Books, 1968).
Parsons attempted to synthesize a general science of society with a set of universal categories that effectively transcended both space and time, leaving him open to charges of ahistoricism. For one of the most rigorous critiques of Parsons’s theoretical project see C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (London: Oxford University Press, 1959).
Until recently very little was known—though much was assumed—about the actual structure of the clitoris. Urological surgeon Helen O’Connell’s groundbreaking research using MRI technology has changed all that. See Helen O’Connell and John O DeLancey, “Clitoral Anatomy in Nulliparous, Healthy, Premenopausal Volunteers Using Unenhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging,” Journal of Urology 173 (2005): 2060–2063.
Jillian Lloyd et al., “Female Genital Appearance: ‘Normality’ Unfolds,” British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology 112 (2005): 643–646.
Iain Morland, “The Glans Opens Like a Book: Writing and Reading the Intersexed Body,” Continuum: Journal of Mediu & Culture Studies 19, no. 3 (2005): 345.
See Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1968).
See also, Money’s critiques of antisexualism in the North American context (John Money, “Sexual Reformation and Counter-Reformation in Law and Medicine,” Medicine and Law 4 [1985]: 479–488;
Money, “The Conceptual Neutering of Gender and the Criminalisation of Sex.” Archives of Sexuctl Behcaviour 14, no. 3 [1985]: 279–291).
Lewis M. Terman and Catherine C. Miles, Sex and Personality: Studies in Masculinity and Femininity (New York: Russell and Russell, 1936/1968), 6.
Barbara Fried, “Boys Will Be Boys Will Be Boys: The Language of Sex and Gender,” in Women Look at Biology Looking at Women: A Collection of Feminist Critiques, ed. Ruth Hubbard, Mary Sue Henifin, and Barbara Fried (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1979), 37–59; Jerzy Szacki, History of Sociological Thought.
Kay Deaux, “Psychological Constructions of Masculinity and Femininity,” in Masculinity/Femininity. Basic Perspectives, ed. June Reinisch, Leonard Rosenblum, and Stephanie Sanders (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 301.
John Money, “Gender: History, Theory and Usage of the Term in Sexology and Its Relationship to Nature/Nurture,” Journal of Sex and Mczrital Therapy 11, no. 2 (1985): 71–79.
Recent findings in genetic research indicate that chromosomal variation is in fact much greater in the general population than has historically been assumed. See Janine Cohen, “The Gender Puzzle,” Four Corners: Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 2005; Pheobe Dewing et al., “Sexually Dimorphic Gene Expression in Mouse Brain Precedes Gonadal Differentiation,” Molecular Brain Research 118, no. 1–2 (2003): 82–90; Rosario, “From Hermaphrodites to Sox”.
The examples he offered were the impact of rickets and cretinism on bone development prior to maturation (Money, Hampson, and Hampson, “Imprinting and the Establishment of Gender Role,” AMA Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry 77 [1957]: 335).
Konrad Lorenz, King Solomon’s Ring: New Light on Animal Ways (London: Methuen, 1961). It is worth noting that Lorenz did not have the same success with any other bird species on which he attempted the same experiment.
Money, Love and Love Sickness: The Science of Sex, Gender Difference, and Pair-Bonding (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), 137.
John Money, “Gender: History, Theory and Usage of the Term in Sexology and Its Relationship to Nature/Nurture,” Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy 11, no. 2 (1985), 75–6.
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© 2009 Jennifer Germon
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Germon, J. (2009). Money and the Production of Gender. In: Gender. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230101814_2
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