Imprinting and the Establishment of Gender Role said:With rare exceptions, it was found that the sexual psychology of these patients (hermaphrodites) - their gender role and orientation—was consistent with their sex of assignment and rearing, even when the latter contradicted chromosomal sex, gonadal sex, hormonal sex, the predominant internal accessory reproductive structures, and the external genital morphology. Though the sex of rearing could transcend external gen¬ ital morphology in psychologic importance, absence or correction of ambiguous genital appearance was psychologically beneficial.
The True Story of John/Joan said:This theory was the foundation on which Money based his recommendation to pediatric surgeons and endocrinologists that they surgically and hormonally stream intersexual newborns into whichever sex the doctors wished. Such surgeries would duly range from cutting down enlarged clitorises on mildly intersexual girls to performing full sex reversals on intersexual boys born with testicles but a penis deemed too small. Money's only provisos were that such "sex assignments" be done as early as possible - preferably within weeks of birth - and that once the sex was decided on, doctors and parents never waiver in their decision, for fear of introducing dangerous ambiguities into the child's mind. In terms of the possible nerve destruction caused by the amputation of genital appendages, Money assured doctors that according to studies he had conducted with the Hampsons, there was no evidence of loss of sensation.
"We have sought information about erotic sensation from the dozen non-juvenile . . . women we have studied," he wrote in a 1955 paper. "None of the women . . . reported a loss of orgasm after clitoridectomy."
The True Story of John/Joan said:According to the operating-room record, Dr. Howard W. Jones Jr. slit open the baby's scrotum along the midline and removed the testes, then reclosed the scrotal tissue so that it resembled labia. The urethra was lowered to approximate the position of the female genitalia, and a cosmetic vaginal cleft was made by forming the skin around a rolled tube of gauze during the healing.
The True Story of John/Joan said:Linda and Frank did their best to do just that. When Joan's brother, Kevin, at age 4, was watching Frank shave and asked to shave, too, Frank gave him an empty razor and some shaving cream to play with. But when Joan also clamored for a razor, Frank refused. "I told her that girls don't shave," Frank recalls. "I told her girls don't have to." Linda offered to put makeup on her. But Joan didn't want to wear makeup.
"I remember saying, 'Oh, can I shave, too?' " John says of this incident, which forms his earliest childhood memory. "My dad said, 'No, no. You go with your mother.' I started crying, 'Why can't I shave, too?'
The True Story of John/Joan said:Joan was then ushered into the presence of a person whom she immediately identified as a man wearing makeup, dressed in women's clothing, with a woman's hairstyle. When the person spoke, it was in a breathy, artificially high-pitched voice.
"He's telling me about the surgery," John says, "how fantastic it was for her and how her life turned out beautifully."
Joan sat immobile, silent, apparently listening. But the words reached her through a clamoring, rising panic in her mind: "I was thinking, 'I'm gonna end up like that?' "
Today, John cannot remember bolting from the room. "I remember running," John says. "That's all."
Joan ran, blindly, until she reached a set of stairs, which she dashed up. She emerged onto a rooftop, where she tried to hide. But the transsexual had followed - only increasing Joan's panic. Coaxed down from the roof, Joan told her mother that if forced to return to see Dr. Money, she would kill herself.
