ABSTRACT
Among the many pioneering findings of John Money, one of the most frequently cited was that concerning children whose sex had been “reassigned” and who subsequently assumed the sex to which they had been assigned. A parallel case involved a twin boy whose botched circumcision required amputation of the penis: he was transformed into a girl and subsequently behaved like one. This is known as the “Pirandello effect,” in which a child becomes what he is asked to become. The Pygmalion effect’s reputation was short-lived. The fact that gender identity or experience can be changed by a surgical operation or by injections of hormones can no longer pass for proof of the absence of genetic determinism—quite the contrary. For if sex differences exist, even relatively minor ones, and if they arise from a biological imperative, then it is normal for society and culture to take them into consideration and potentially to amplify them.
