ABSTRACT
The expertise that John Money and his colleagues thereby acquired was quite outstanding. It was his study of the intersexed that led Money to introduce the idea of gender. The idea of “gender” appeared, followed by that of “gender identity”. When his opinion was sought, Money’s advice was that the child should be raised as a girl; his account of the case claims that the child adjusted perfectly to his/her new identity as a girl—he/she was henceforth Joan. The claim that sexual choice constitutes one’s identity can be challenged. Gender identity seemed simply to be the awareness of the sex to which nature and society, in complete agreement one with the other, ascribed to the child. Robert Jesse Stoller coined the term “core gender identity” to denote the feeling of being either male or female; “gender identity”, the feeling of being masculine or feminine—more or less masculine or feminine—can be modified throughout one’s life.
