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Sexologist's Death Spotlights Lies Behind 'Gender Identity' Theories
Agape Press ^ | July 21, 2006 | Jim Brown and Jenni Parker

Posted on 07/24/2006 9:18:13 AM PDT by Sopater

(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.

© 2006 AgapePress all rights reserved.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: davidreimer; genderidentity; homosexualagenda
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1 posted on 07/24/2006 9:18:14 AM PDT by Sopater
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To: Sopater

Doesn't look like Bob Knight.


2 posted on 07/24/2006 9:19:14 AM PDT by cdga5for4
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To: Sopater

3 posted on 07/24/2006 9:22:41 AM PDT by demlosers
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To: Sopater

I know several girls who were born with both male and female organs. One was in my son's Lamaze class. They were waiting till she hit puberty to see if she was more male or more female, before they did the surgery. What a nightmare for her. But another little girl Bonnie was in my other son's third grade class. They decided she was more female than male and did the surgery on her as an infant. She looked like a little boy in a dress. She had big strong hands, she was very muscular and got into fights all the time. She was a major behavior problem. She was a very angry little girl. A friend of mine who is a doctor said if a baby isn't totally male it is considered female. That is sad. I also know a girl who was born without a uterus, and another one who was born with two. There are so many birth defects. It is a wonder anyone is ever born normal and physically perfect.


4 posted on 07/24/2006 9:23:02 AM PDT by buffyt (America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people. Pres. George Bush)
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To: Sopater

David Reimer (August 22, 1965 – May 5, 2004) was a Canadian man who was born as a mentally and biologically healthy boy, but was sexually reassigned and raised as a girl in an attempt to improve his life after his penis was inadvertently destroyed during circumcision. The reassignment was ultimately unsuccessful and as an adult he resumed a male gender role and went public with his story to discourage similar medical practices. He committed suicide at the age of 38.
Overview
David Reimer was born as a male identical twin, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His birth name was Bruce; his twin brother was named Brian. At the age of 6 months, after concern was raised about how Bruce and Brian urinated, both boys were diagnosed with phimosis. They were referred for circumcision at the age of 8 months (it is not known whether alternative therapies were tried). On April 27, 1966, the surgeon, Jean-Marie Huot, and the anaesthesiologist Max Cham performed the circumcision with the aid of a Bovie cautery machine (which is not intended for use on the extremities or genitals). Bruce's penis was destroyed. After this, Brian's circumcision was cancelled, and he made a full recovery from his condition without further treatment.[1]

Bruce's parents, concerned about his prospects for future happiness and sexual function without a penis, took him to Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore to see John Money, a psychologist who was developing a reputation as a pioneer in the field of sexual development and gender identity, based on his work with intersex patients. Money was a prominent proponent of the theory that gender identity was relatively "plastic" in infancy and developed primarily as a result of social learning from early childhood; some academics in the late 1960s felt that all psychological and behavioral differences between males and females were learned. He and the physicians working with other young children born with abnormal genitalia felt that a penis could not be replaced but that a functional vagina could be constructed surgically and that he would be more likely to achieve successful, functional sexual maturation as a girl than as a boy.

They persuaded his parents that sex reassignment would be in Bruce's best interest, and at the age of 22 months, surgery was performed to remove his testes. He was "reassigned" to be raised as a female and given the name 'Brenda'. Psychological support for the reassignment and surgery was provided by John Money, who continued to see Brenda for years, both for treatment and to assess the outcome. This reassignment was considered an especially valid "test case" of the social learning concept of gender identity for two reasons. First, Bruce/Brenda had a twin brother, Brian, who made an ideal "control" since he had shared not only the genes, but also the intrauterine and family environments. Second, this was reputed to be the first reassignment and reconstruction performed on a male infant who had no abnormality of prenatal or early postnatal sexual differentiation.

For several years, Money reported on Brenda's progress as the "John/Joan case", describing apparently successful female gender development, and using this case to support the feasibility of sex reassignment and surgical reconstruction even in non-intersex cases. Estrogen was given to Brenda when she reached adolescence to induce breast development. However, Brenda had experienced the visits to Baltimore as traumatic rather than therapeutic and her family discontinued the follow-up visits. John Money published nothing further about the case to suggest the reassignment had not been successful.

Reimer's later account, written with John Colapinto, described how, contrary to Money's reports, Brenda did not feel like a girl. She was ostracized and bullied by peers, and neither frilly dresses nor female hormones made her feel female. By the age of 13, Brenda was experiencing suicidal depression, and told her parents she would commit suicide if they made her see John Money again. In 1980, Brenda's parents told her the truth about her gender reassignment, following advice from Brenda's endocrinologist and psychiatrist. Now 15, Brenda decided to assume a male gender identity, calling himself David. After learning of the new relationship with his ex-sister, Brian began to experience a pattern of mental disturbance that would develop into schizophrenia. By 1997, David had undergone treatment to reverse the reassignment, including testosterone injections, a double mastectomy, and two phalloplasty operations. He had married a woman and become a stepfather to her 3 children.

His case came to international attention in 1997 when he told his story to Milton Diamond, an academic sexologist who persuaded David to allow him to report the outcome to dissuade physicians from treating other infants similarly. Soon after, David went public with his story and John Colapinto published a widely disseminated and influential account in Rolling Stone magazine in December, 1997. They went on to elaborate the story in a book.

Although the book gave David Reimer more financial comfort, he had many other problems in his life, including a separation from his wife, severe problems for his parents, and the death of his twin brother Brian, in 2002, from an overdose of schizophrenia medication. David Reimer took his own life with a sawed-off shotgun in 2004.

The "Identity" episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit that aired on January 18th, 2005, was based on Reimer's life.


5 posted on 07/24/2006 9:24:41 AM PDT by COUNTrecount
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To: buffyt

One was in my son's Lamaze class.

---

What was he / she doing in a Lamaze class?


6 posted on 07/24/2006 9:26:13 AM PDT by FearlessFreep (Excuse me. But are those your legs or are you riding a chicken?)
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To: Sopater; neverdem

But, like the fake "10% of the population is homosexual" this will never be reported or analyzed.

It doesn't fit the goals of the MSM culture wars.


7 posted on 07/24/2006 9:29:06 AM PDT by Robert A Cook PE (I can only donate monthly, but Hillary's ABBCNNBCBS continue to lie every day!)
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To: buffyt
There are so many birth defects. It is a wonder anyone is ever born normal and physically perfect.

Actually, it is a miracle.

Shalom.

8 posted on 07/24/2006 9:30:38 AM PDT by ArGee (The Ring must not be allowed to fall into Hillary's hands!)
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To: buffyt

I would think a chromosomal test would be very informative --- with the exception of an XXY or something.


9 posted on 07/24/2006 9:32:25 AM PDT by MeanWestTexan (God Protect Israel.)
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To: COUNTrecount

Man, what a story. What a sad, sad situation.

I wonder how many circumcisions were botched in the bible days and how they handled it then. I seriously doubt any were raised as women.


10 posted on 07/24/2006 9:33:33 AM PDT by Sopater (Creatio Ex Nihilo)
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To: FearlessFreep

My guess is, she was fertile, despite having more prominent external sexual characteristics than most women.


11 posted on 07/24/2006 9:34:50 AM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: COUNTrecount

Succumbing to the siren song of modern pseudo-science as more dangerous than believing the earth is flat. While the latter is a theory based on ignorance and fear, the former is an outright lie.


12 posted on 07/24/2006 9:40:51 AM PDT by IronJack
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To: buffyt
I know several girls who were born with both male and female organs. I also know a girl who was born without a uterus, and another one who was born with two.
I'm a leading edge baby boomer and have met a LOT of people in my life. Yet, I've never met any one person, let alone many, like you describe above.
Just how or what is it you do (a nurse?) that brings you that kind of contact?
13 posted on 07/24/2006 9:45:56 AM PDT by oh8eleven (RVN '67-'68)
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To: Sopater

Money lived 40 years too long.


14 posted on 07/24/2006 9:47:07 AM PDT by darkangel82 (Higher visibility leads to greater zottability.)
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To: oh8eleven

I don't know about the other person, but I work in hospital and have only occassionally seen this phenomenon. Instead of a pink or blue card, they will have a white card. But where I work, they do genetic testing to verify the sex.


15 posted on 07/24/2006 10:09:07 AM PDT by mel
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To: Sopater; AFA-Michigan; Abathar; AggieCPA; Agitate; AliVeritas; AllTheRage; ...
HA bump and ping. More on David Reimer below.

 
2004
Tragic Twins Doomed by Cruel Sex Swap
    David Reimer, 38, Subject of the John/Joan Case, Dies
    David Reimer - The boy who lived as a girl
 
2000
The Boy who was Turned into a Girl

16 posted on 07/24/2006 10:09:09 AM PDT by scripter ("You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body." - C.S. Lewis)
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To: buffyt
I know several girls who were born with both male and female organs.

Actually, this is a physical impossibility since the penis and clitoris come from the same embryonic anlage, and the scrotum and labia also share the same embryonic origin.

17 posted on 07/24/2006 10:28:18 AM PDT by Rudder
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To: Sopater
This is new info for me. Thanks. Although the story of the little boy makes me sick to my stomach.

Did this guy start the sex change phenomenon?

18 posted on 07/24/2006 10:29:42 AM PDT by Aquinasfan (When you find "Sola Scriptura" in the Bible, let me know)
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To: Sopater
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.

Sexologist? Talk about putting euphemistic lipstick on a pig. Kinsey was nothing but a filthy pervert/ pedophile.

19 posted on 07/24/2006 10:57:33 AM PDT by lesser_satan (EKTHELTHIOR!!!)
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To: Sopater

Seems to me that one should just take the body God gave you and make the best of it. Has there been ANY "sex reassignment" that made a person happy with themselves and successful? Seems to me that all of these are sad cases and those who have gone through the trouble to "change" their gender probably end up realizing they should have stayed the way they were.


20 posted on 07/24/2006 10:58:22 AM PDT by SamAdams76 (I am a big fan of urban sprawl but I wish there were more sidewalks)
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