An Objective Look At Gender Reassignment Crises: A Case of John.

John was born an identical twin and had a hard time urinating due to phimosis, a condition where the foreskin of the penis cannot retract. John's doctor said the child’s penis needed to be corrected by circumcision. However, John's circumcision went wrong because his penis burned in the process. After seeking help from Dr. Money, John's parents decided to reassign his sex. “John could become a girl”, they thought.

Dr. Money advised never to tell John that he was a boy. His parents agreed and John became Joan. Unfortunately, Joan never adapted to being a girl and had a very difficult childhood. She never liked to do feminine things. Dr. Money was a psychologist who thought children were born without the “concept of gender differences". He believed that children could be reassigned gender and that females were easier to establish than males. For Dr Money, children learn gender roles through education and environment. The true story of John/Joan is a famous case the traumatic aspect of gender identity, which is closely associated with Dr. Money.

He had published a book about this story and thought it would be the first successful case of gender reassignment. He wanted to make use of John’s case to support his attitude of intersex. However, he lied because he knew that John was never happy to become a girl, and he also understood many other things that happened in John’s life. Therefore, his perpective was a false one. Joan had a terrible childhood. “Her brother saw all the other girls doing their thing- combing their hair, holding their dolls. Joan was not at all like that (Colapinto, 1997)”. This showed that Joan did not really behave like a girl as a teenager and but on the opposite, preferred doing boys things. His brother was however genuinely worried that Joan did not like getting involved in girl’s activities. He thus wondered many times if Joan was a tomboy.

Joan “became the object of instant ridicule from her classmates, both male and female (Colapinto, 1997)”. She didn’t have friend in the school and the whole schoo usually made fun to her. “Her personal difficulties were obvious in her functioning in the classroom (Colapinto, 1997)”. Although her intelligence range was normal, but the difficulty she faced was obvious. Dr. Money wrote a detailed letter to explain her emotional stress when her mother complained to him about the challenges that Joan was going through. Although Dr. Money knew her painful situation in the school, he still went ahead to publish his book. Joan continued her experience with her difficult academic environment.

Her teacher later reported to the district's Child Guidance that Joan “has been doing just the opposite of anything the other children were doing (John, 10)” and described the girl as “very negativistic”. It was most likely that her teacher perceived her as been troublesome. In her high school years, both girls and boys never allowed her to use either the male or female bathroom. When she tried to make use of the male rest room “the boys would kick her out and threaten her with a knife.” So, she became more secretive. She went whenever no one was around. Her frustration kept on increasing so much so that later, she refused going school. This clearly explains the level of her emotional turmoil and identity challenges.

Joan had great difficulty adopting to her gender. She didn’t like playing with girls, neither did the boys like playing with her, rather they always made fun of her. Inside of her, she knew that she was different from other girls. When Dr. Money met with Joan and Kevin. Dr. Money always asked questions about sex, playing romantic movies and stripping. However, Joan was always scolded for disagreeing with these practices. Joan usually would feel stressed from Dr. Money’s experiment. Dr. Money thought it was urgent to perform vaginal surgery because “genital appearance was critical to Money’s theory of how one “learns” a sexual identity (Colapinto, 1997).” Dr. Money only thought and lived with his own ideas. He was not concerned about Joan’s personal views. Joan refused to do the surgery. She told her mom that if she was forced to see Dr. Money again, she world take her life by herself.

Later, when she knew that she was a boy, she attempted to change his gender and name. He married to a single mother and step-fathered three children. His concerned brother later died without completing his education. John later lost his job and separated from his wife. The mental pains and stress he underwent was extremely frustrating that he chose to commit suicide.