Sexologist's Death Spotlights Lies Behind 'Gender Identity' Theories
by Jim Brown and Jenni Parker
July 21, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A pro-family leader says the recent death of prominent psychologist and sexologist Dr. John Money, Ph.D., of Johns Hopkins University highlights the faulty foundations of the so-called "gender identity" movement.
After Dr. Alfred Kinsey, Money -- who died earlier this month, one day before his 85th birthday -- was perhaps the best known and most influential sexologist ever. He is said to have laid the foundation for the transgender movement by starting the gender identity program at Johns Hopkins.
Bob Knight | |
But critics like Bob Knight of the Culture and Family Institute claim both Kinsey and Money relied on faulty research and had a "no limits" view of human sexuality. And both, the pro-family spokesman notes, have left an unfortunate legacy of medical misinformation and misguided psychological theories, all based on falsehoods with tragic consequences for modern society. Knight says Money is particularly notorious for his role in the case of David Reimer, a baby boy whose parents were convinced, after a seriously bungled circumcision, to turn their son into a daughter. At the sexologist's urging, the parents agreed to have their son surgically rendered anatomically female.
Later, the child received estrogen injections and was raised as a girl under Money's supervision at the Psychohormonal Research Unit at Johns Hopkins. This so-called "gender reassignment," which was a tragedy for the child, was touted as a triumph by the doctor, Knight points out. "John Money," he notes, "for 14 years reported in scientific journals that it had been a complete success, proving that biology has nothing to do with your sexual identity."
Only years afterward was the sad truth revealed, the Culture and Family Institute spokesman explains. "All along, this little boy was yearning to be a boy, did not want to wear dresses, rejected his female identity," he says. "And this came out later in Rolling Stone magazine, and then in a book called As Nature Made Him by John Colapinto -- how Money falsified the findings in order to prove that gender is just a construct in your head."
Unfortunately, Knight points out, the doctor's deception proved widely influential. "The feminists quoted John Money's articles extensively, saying that maleness and femaleness had nothing to do with your biological self -- it's just who you think you are," he says.
"So it paved the way," the pro-family advocate continues, "for a couple generations of confused people [to be led into] believing that they were born in the wrong bodies." Many of these confused people were "encouraged to undergo even surgery," Knight says. "This is a tragedy."
According to some sources, Money's misrepresentations of his findings and his unreported failure with David Reimer have led more or less directly to the surgical reassignment of thousands of infants as a matter of policy at many medical institutions. The well-known sexologist's ideas have also influenced many teens and adults to try to address their psychological gender-identity confusion with drastic sexual reassignment surgery.
Two year's ago, Paul McHugh, chief psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins, expressed distaste for the way many in the psychiatric community have encouraged patients to pursue sexual reassignment. He observed that psychiatrists, instead of counseling people who were questioning their gender identity to visit a surgeon, should have been helping clients restore their actual gender identity.
