Dr. John Money, 1921-2006
Dr. John Money 1921-2006
Hopkins pioneer in gender identity
By Kelly Brewington
Sun reporter
Originally published July 9, 2006
Dr. John Money, one of the nation's pre-eminent sex researchers who pioneered the study of gender identity and helped establish Johns Hopkins as the first hospital in the country to perform adult sex-change operations, died Friday. He was 84.
The controversial scholar, who coined the term "gender role," died a day before his 85th birthday at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson of complications from Parkinson's disease, which he had battled for several years.
Dr. Money did groundbreaking research as director of the Psychohormonal Research Unit at Johns Hopkins University Hospital. He developed hormonal treatment to improve self-control of sex offenders and dedicated research to the virtually unexplored topic of infants born with ambiguous sex organs...
"But he taught us gender is much more significant than having two sexes," Dr. Lehne said yesterday. "He identified what it means to be male and what it means to be female, and what it means to be in-between."
Dr. Money's theories also challenged taboos of 1950s-era sexuality, establishing the notion of gender roles and gender identity, terms that helped shape modern gender studies.
His most memorable and criticized work was advocating sex-change operations for patients confused over their gender, a position that was denounced by some colleagues who favored counseling instead of surgery. In 1979, Hopkins announced that it no longer would perform the operations.
His belief that gender could be assigned to a child before age 3 played out in a radical experiment that proved devastating for him and the child upon whom it was performed.
Canadian parents of twin boys sought Dr. Money's advice in 1967 after one of their sons suffered a botched circumcision. Dr. Money advised them that with hormones and sex-change surgery, the child could be raised as a girl.
But by the time Brenda was a teen, it became clear the plan wasn't working. Brenda became known as a boy, David Reimer, who later was the subject of the 2000 book As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl, by John Colapinto. In the book, Mr. Reimer decried the experiment and spoke of his anguish. Mr. Reimer committed suicide in 2004.
Dr. Money refused to speak publicly on the subject, said niece Sally Hopkins of Baltimore.
"I think it devastated him," Dr. Lehne said. "The controversy led to him being kind of withdrawn and somewhat bitter after seeing himself as misinterpreted and not being able to do anything about it."
Dr. Money believed that infants were born gender-neutral and that environment and upbringing were part of several complex factors, including biology, that determined gender...
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