Response to the Reading of 09/30/2010

“With great delight, Money quoted Joan’s mother to the effect that Joan had grown to love wearing dresses, that she hated being dirty, and that”she just loves to have her hair set.”Money concluded that his case demonstrated that”gender dimorphic patterns of rearing have an extraordinary influence on shaping a child’s psychosexual differentiation and the ultimate outcome of a female or male gender identify.”” (67.)See? How did Money come to the conclusion that Joan/John’s sex change was successful? Because Joan/John’s mother said that s/he behaved in “feminine” ways: loved dresses, liked cleanness and similar misunderstandings about female. (Let’s first ignore the possibility that Money’s statement about what Joan/John’s mother said maybe fabricated either by Money or by Joan/John’s mom. Because later it was exposed by Diamond and Sigmundson that in 1980, Joan/John actually had had masculizing surgery and adopted a new life as a husband and father becoming John/Joan. So it was doubtful that Joan/John had really behaved in they “feminine” ways.) So, does that means if a girl likes to be dirty she must be he? It also makes me feel frustrated that Milton Diamond (interestingly, women are usually portrayed as fanatics of Diamond and Money) first agreed with Money that Joan/John’s sex change was a success for the same reasons. And when looking for “evidence of unusual masculinity in CAH girls”(74), preference of toys and interests in “play rehearsal of mothering” become determining facts in declaring girls “normality”. Because they believe that normal girls must like girls’ toys and enjoying playing mothering roles, and these girls fail to do so must be abnormal. None these scientists, who usually represented the most intelligent minds of their times, had escaped the false programming about women. In fact, I have never had a Barbie toy in my life and I like to play fathering role rather than mothering role. So, am I abnormal?