John Money facts for kids

Quick facts for kids John Money
Money in 1996
Born	John William Money (1921-07-08)8 July 1921 Morrinsville, New Zealand
Died	7 July 2006(2006-07-07) (aged 84) Towson, Maryland, U.S.
Alma mater	Victoria University of Wellington Harvard University
Awards	James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award (1992)
Scientific career
Fields	Psychology
Institutions	Johns Hopkins University

John William Money (8 July 1921 – 7 July 2006) was a New Zealand American psychologist and professor at Johns Hopkins University.

Money coined the terms gender role and sexual orientation. Despite widespread popular belief, Money did not coin the term gender identity.

Since the 1990s, Money's work and research has been subject to significant academic and public scrutiny. A 1997 academic study criticized Money's work in many respects, particularly in regard to the involuntary sex-reassignment of the child David Reimer.

Money believed that transgender people had an idée fixe, and established the Johns Hopkins Gender Identity Clinic in 1965. He screened adult patients for two years prior to granting them a medical transition, and believed sex roles should be de-stereotyped, so that masculine women would be less likely to desire transition. Money is generally viewed as a negative figure by the transgender community.

Money's writing has been translated into many languages and includes around 2,000 articles, books, chapters and reviews. He received around 65 honors, awards and degrees in his lifetime.

Early life

Money was born in Morrinsville, New Zealand, to a Christian fundamentalist family of English and Welsh descent. His parents were members of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church. He attended Hutt Valley High School and initially studied psychology at Victoria University of Wellington, graduating with a double master's degree in psychology and education in 1944. He was a junior member of the psychology faculty at the University of Otago in Dunedin.

Author Janet Frame attended some of Money's classes at the University of Otago, as part of her teacher training. Frame was attracted to Money, and eager to please him. In October 1945, Money convinced Frame to enter the psychiatric ward at Dunedin Public Hospital, where she was misdiagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia. Frame then spent eight years in psychiatric institutions, during which she was subjected to electroshock and insulin shock therapy. Frame narrowly missed being lobotomized. In Frame's autobiography, An Angel at My Table, Money is referred to as John Forrest.

Career and views

In 1947, at the age of 26, Money emigrated to the United States to study at the Psychiatric Institute of the University of Pittsburgh. He left Pittsburgh and earned his PhD from Harvard University in 1952.

Money became a professor of pediatrics and medical psychology at Johns Hopkins University, where he worked from 1952 until his death.

Money proposed and developed several theories related to the topics of gender identity and gender roles, and coined the term 'gender role'. Although often misattributed to him, Money did not coin the term 'gender identity'.

In 1960 and 1961, he co-authored two papers with Richard Green, "Incongruous Gender Role: Nongenital Manifestations in Prepubertal Boys" and "Effeminacy in Prepubertal Boys: Summary of Eleven Cases and Recommendations for Case Management."

Transgender people and the Johns Hopkins gender clinic

Money had a particular interest in gender dysphoria and transgender people. He believed transgender people had an Idée fixe; a preoccupation of the mind resistant to change.

According to Goldie, Money is a seen as a "negative figure" among transgender people. In one paper, Money described trans women as "devious, demanding and manipulative in their relationships with people on whom they are also dependent" and “possibly also incapable of love.”

Money believed that de-stereotyping sex roles might prevent people from wanting to transition, arguing “a tomboy-ish girl, prenatally androgenized, grows up to be a career-minded woman, not a transsexual who claims to need sex reassignment”.

In 1965, Money co-established the Gender Identity Clinic at Johns Hopkins with the endocrinologist Claude Migeon. Money screened adult patients for two years prior to granting them a medical transition, and argued that none regret the procedure as a result. The hospital began performing sex reassignment surgery in 1966, and was the first clinic in the United States to do so.

Personal life

Money (right) with Romano Forleo [it] and his wife in Rome, 1996

Money was briefly married in the 1950s and never had any children. He was reportedly bisexual.

According to his friends, Money lived an "eccentric lifestyle." He only bought secondhand clothing and rarely threw things away he deemed reusable. For over 40 years, Money lived in a house in Baltimore near the John Hopkins medical campus. His house had a collection of anthropological art from his travels abroad, including his studies of aboriginal communities in Australia. Money was an early supporter and patron of many famous artists, including New Zealand artists Rita Angus and Theo Schoon, and the American artist Lowell Nesbitt, whom he provided with an x-ray for one artwork. Money was also acquainted with Yoko Ono, visiting her in London with Richard Green, and fashioning some of her sculptures.

In 2002, as his Parkinson's disease worsened, Money donated a substantial portion of his art collection to the Eastern Southland Art Gallery in Gore, New Zealand. In 2003, the New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark opened the John Money wing at the gallery.

Money died on 7 July 2006, one day before his 85th birthday, in Towson, Maryland, of complications from Parkinson's disease. He was survived by eight nieces and nephews.