John Money

Biography

John William Money was born on 8 July 1921 in Morrinsville, New Zealand. He earned his doctorate at Harvard in 1952 and built his career at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. There, in 1966, he founded the Gender Identity Clinic — the first of its kind in the world. He published more than 2,000 articles and books. He died on 7 July 2006 in Towson, Maryland.

The term gender

Before Money, “gender” in English was used almost exclusively in linguistics (masculine/feminine grammatical gender). In his dissertation and subsequent publications from 1955 onward, Money introduced “gender role” for the social-psychological counterpart of anatomical sex. His student Robert Stoller added “gender identity” in 1968. These pairs of concepts were then adopted by DSM, ICD, WPATH and activist frameworks.

The Reimer experiment

On 27 April 1966, seven-month-old David Reimer suffered severe damage to his penis during a botched electrocauterisation. Money advised the parents to raise the child as a girl from then on. At 22 months, David underwent castration and surgical construction of female genitalia. He was given the name “Brenda”. His identical twin brother Brian remained untreated and served Money as an ideal natural control group.

The 1972 publication

In Man & Woman, Boy & Girl (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972), Money presented the case as proof that gender is almost entirely socially learned. “Brenda” was said to behave in a fully feminine way. The New York Times called the work the most important in the social sciences since the Kinsey reports. The scientific acceptance of gender doctrine was built on this single case.

The sexual abuse

Money required annual visits from David and Brian. During these, he had the twins — at the peak six to eight years old — undress, inspect each other's genitals and adopt sexual positions. Money described this in his publications as “childhood sexual rehearsal play” and defended it as scientifically necessary. David later spoke of it in interviews and to Colapinto as severely traumatising.

Detransition and exposure

At fourteen, David was told the truth by his father. He immediately stopped living as a girl and began testosterone, mastectomy and phalloplasty. In 1997, Milton Diamond and Keith Sigmundson published Sex reassignment at birth in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. It documented incontrovertibly that David had never functioned as a girl and that Money had concealed the failure for years. John Colapinto reconstructed the case in As Nature Made Him (2000). Money published no correction up to his death in 2006.

Deaths

Before the age of twenty-one, David Reimer made two suicide attempts. His twin brother Brian Reimer developed schizophrenia and died in 2002 of an antidepressant overdose. David Reimer took his own life on 4 May 2004, aged 38.

Legacy

Money's core premise — gender as a socially malleable phenomenon, with the body as the target of correction — forms the theoretical basis of: the modern concept of “gender identity”, the WPATH Standards of Care (since 1979), the Dutch Protocol (Cohen-Kettenis, 1990s), puberty blockers in minors, and the legal concept of “gender by self-declaration”. None of these later developments has since empirically substantiated Money's premise. The Cass Review (2024), NICE (2020, 2021), SBU (Sweden, 2022) and COHERE (Finland, 2020) conclude that the evidence base for medical transition treatment in minors is weak.

Other case material

The Reimer case was not the only failure. Money treated several children with DSD (Disorders of Sex Development) according to the same protocol — early castration or clitorectomy and social assignment to the other sex. A considerable proportion of these patients resumed their original sex in adulthood or suffered from severe psychological problems. Money published mainly about his supposed successes.

1. Diamond M, Sigmundson HK. Sex reassignment at birth: long-term review and clinical implications. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 1997;151(3):298-304.
2. Colapinto J. As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl. New York: HarperCollins; 2000.
3. Money J, Ehrhardt AA. Man & Woman, Boy & Girl. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press; 1972.
4. Money J. Gender: history, theory and usage of the term in sexology and its relationship to nature/nurture. J Sex Marital Ther. 1985;11(2):71-79.
5. Cass H. Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People: Final Report. London: NHS England; 2024.
6. Biggs M. The Dutch Protocol for Juvenile Transsexuals: Origins and Evidence. J Sex Marital Ther. 2023;49(4):348-368.