ESSAY How ‘Sex’ Undid John Money

VERNON ROSARIO DAM WAS TORN between male and female. does. While Adam’s identity, , and his sexual- He was born a perfectly healthy boy and grew ity remain a work in progress, he is not overwhelmed with shame up in a middle-class family in a small city in and has even shared his secret with a few close friends. They have central California. His father was a contractor been surprised but sympathetic. Gender diversity is not so shock- and his mother a nurse; Adam described her as ing to a new generation that is used to seeing transgender people, an “angel.” He excelled in academics and was like Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner, on television. Aa star runner in high school and college—tall, lean, and blond. Describing Adam’s experience requires concepts introduced He was gregarious and funny, so he was equally popular with by psychologist John Money (1921-2006), who is the subject of boys and girls. He dated and had sex with girls in high school the two books under review here: Terry Goldie’s The Man Who and college. Invented Gender: Engaging the Ideas of John Money and Fuck- But Adam had a secret side. In adolescence he had discov- ology: Critical Essays on John Money’s Diagnostic Concepts. ered internet porn. (What kid hasn’t in the past two decades?) But Goldie is an English professor at York University in Toronto and he had rapidly gravitated to porn with “she-males” (biological author of several works of literary criticism and gay studies, most males who have breasts and a penis, and present themselves so- recently Queersexlife: Autobiographical Notes on Sexuality, Gen- cially as female). At first it was a kinky supplement to dating and der and Identity (2008). The provocatively titled Fuckology is a sex with women, but it grew into a more confusing and time-con- collection of essays by a troika of queer theorists: Lisa Downing, suming obsession. Initially, he just fantasized that he played the , and Nikki Sullivan from the disciplines of literary female role in these porn scenes, but after a few years he started criticism, cultural criticism/medical ethics, and cultural studies, cross-dressing to get turned on. After college (and thanks to respectively. None of these four authors is a clinician. Goldie, phone apps), he started hooking up with men while cross-dressed however, is keenly appreciative of the clinical context for to engage in anal sex as a bottom. All the while he was still dat- Money’s scientific publications and interweaves his own personal ing women. Leading a double life—plagued experiences of grappling with issues of sexu- by guilt—was painful enough, but he also Money trumpeted Brenda’s ality and gender. Goldie’s book is the place to found himself squandering vast amounts of case as demonstrating that start for a broad, balanced overview of time masturbating to on-line porn or driving could be Money’s long career in . His central around trying to hook up with men. He would (basically psychoanalytic) interpretation is leave his job early or not show up at all, until completely molded by that Money’s sexological radicalism was in he was fired. Utterly distraught and finan- appropriate surgery and reaction to his religiously conservative up- cially crippled, he attempted suicide. He was parenting. But Brenda’s bringing in his native New Zealand. Through- unsuccessful and promptly returned home for experience was not so rosy. out Money’s subsequent career in the U.S., he several months to recover. His parents were countered all forms of sexual prudery and Pu- stunned and confused when he revealed his gender conundrum, ritanism with a call for more scientific research on sex and greater but they were generally supportive—even about his decision to acceptance of erotic diversity. return to Los Angeles. For those already familiar with Money’s work, Fuckology pro- Adam soon made his way to my office. I made it clear from vides a focused theoretical and political analysis of Money’s pub- the outset that I had no investment in what gender or sexuality he lications as “texts” to be interpreted. The authors’ critical essays was. I was just there to help him figure out what suited him best (assaults may be more accurate) lose sight of the fact that Money and how to build a happy, stable life around these aspects of his was trying to help real people and allay their suffering. Money’s persona. It has been a rocky couple of years. Adam still enjoys personality and research were certainly problematic, but he strug- dating and having sex with women, and this always reinforces gled to develop care for a variety of people whose medical and his male identification. While he has tried to suppress the female psychological needs had been largely ignored or stigmatized. His side for periods, he also indulges it from time to time, but now work spanned half a century, from the culturally conservative with guilt-free pride in his feminine persona. He even tried fe- 1950s, through the 1960s “sexual revolution,” the AIDS era, and male hormones for several months when he was convinced he into the 1990s. In no small part, he fomented that revolution. wanted to change sex, but then decided against it. He realized Money is widely credited with distinguishing “gender” from that sex with men reinforces his femininity more than estrogen “sex” in his 1955 publication on hermaphroditism: the topic of his career, launching his 1952 dissertation in Harvard’s Department Vernon Rosario, MD, PhD, is a historian of science and Associate Clin- of Social Relations. This conceptual distinction has become so ical Professor in the UCLA Dept. of Psychiatry. He is a child psychi- ubiquitous (primarily thanks to its adoption by feminist theorists atrist in the Los Angeles Department of Mental Health. in the 1960s) that it seems like a fact of nature. Conventionally,

18 The Gay & Lesbian Review / WORLDWIDE