Biological Imperatives

In October 1963, a young rural couple took their identical twin boys to a physician to be circumcised. During the first operation, performed with an electric cauterizing needle, a surge of current burned off the baby's penis. Desperate for a way to cope with this tragedy, the parents took the advice of sex experts: "Bring the baby up as a girl." The experiment has apparently succeeded. Aided by plastic surgery and reared as a daughter, the once normal baby boy has grown into a nine-year-old child who is psychologically, at least, a girl.

This dramatic case, cited by Medical Psychologist John Money last week at the Washington meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, provides strong support for a major contention of women's liberationists: that conventional patterns of masculine and feminine behavior can be altered. It also casts doubt on the theory that major sexual differences, psychological as well as anatomical, are immutably set by the genes at conception. In fact, says Money, there are only four imperative differences: women menstruate, gestate and lactate; men impregnate. Many scientists believe that crucial psychological imperatives follow from these biological facts, limiting the flexibility of sexual roles. Money, however, is convinced that almost all differences are culturally determined and therefore optional. The Johns Hopkins psychologist further spells out his views on sex-role learning in a book published last week. Its title: Man & Woman, Boy & Girl (Johns Hopkins; $12.50).

In the normal process of sexual differentiation, Money explains, if the genes order the gonads to become testes and to produce androgen, the embryo develops as a boy; otherwise it becomes a girl. Androgen not only shapes the external genitals but also "programs" parts of the brain, so that some types of behavior may come more naturally to one sex than to the other. For instance, both men and women can mother children--the necessary circuits are there in every brain--but the "threshold" for releasing this behavior is higher in males than in females. The same phenomenon is demonstrated by laboratory animals. If a mature female rat is put into a cage with newborn rats, she begins mothering them at once. In a similar situation, a male rat does nothing at first, but after a few days he too begins to display maternal behavior.

Chain. Money nonetheless believes that hormones secreted before and after birth have less effect on brain and behavior in human beings than the "sex assignment" that takes place at birth with the announcement: "It's a boy!" or "It's a girl!" This exultant cry tells everyone how to treat the newborn baby, and sets off a chain of events, beginning with the choice of a male or female name, that largely determines whether the child will behave in traditionally masculine or feminine ways.

Money's evidence for this familiar thesis comes largely from cases in which accidents before or after birth made it impossible to raise children according to their genetically determined sex. In each of his examples, youngsters learned to feel, look and act like members of the opposite sex.

For the little boy who lost his penis, the change began at 17 months with a girl's name and frilly clothes. An operation to make the child's genitals look more feminine was done, and plans were made to build a vagina and administer estrogen at a later age. The parents, counseled at the Johns Hopkins psychohormonal research unit, began to treat the child as if he were a girl. The effects of the parents' changed attitude and behavior were marked. "She doesn't like to be dirty," the mother told the clinic in one of her periodic reports. "My son is quite different. I can't wash his face for anything. She seems to be daintier. Maybe it's because I encourage it. She is very proud of herself when she puts on a new dress, and she just loves to have her hair set."

In another case, a newborn infant with only a rudimentary penis and other genital defects was "assigned" as a boy because he had two testes and the chromosome makeup of a male. With the realization that he could never be a normal man, experts decided when the boy was 17 months old to give him a chance at happiness by reassigning him as a girl. A brother, two years older, was instrumental in helping the child develop a new feminine identity. To help the older boy accept the change, his parents explained that the doctors had made a mistake and that his little brother was really a little sister. Not long afterward, the big brother began to display a newly protective attitude. Reported the father: "Before, he was just as likely to stick his foot out and trip her as she went by; now he wants to hold her hand to make sure she doesn't fall."

The experience of two hermaphrodites, from different families, further bolsters Money's view. Each was born with the female chromosome pattern,* and each had internal female organs but a penis and empty scrotum outside. One set of parents believed they had a boy and raised their child accordingly; the other set assigned their offspring as a girl. (Surgery and hormones made the youngsters' appearance conform to the chosen sex.) According to Money, the children's "antithetical experiences signified to one that he was a boy and to the other that she was a girl." The girl therefore reached preadolescence expecting to marry a man; in fact, she already had a steady boy friend. The boy, by contrast, had a girl friend and "fitted easily into the stereotype of the male role in marriage," even though "he and his partner would both have two X chromosomes."

Despite his evidence of the importance of environment in molding sex roles, Money holds out little hope to feminists that there can be any significant breakdown of sex-role stereotypes in the current generation of adults. The reason: few changes in male-female attitudes and behavior are possible after the first four years of life. Beyond that age, even sincere attempts at change make most people uncomfortable. By way of illustration, Money describes "a rather prominent psychiatrist" who explained at a seminar that he and his wife had worked out a division of labor on housekeeping and children. Then he added, "And I hate it, I just hate it; I have no training or experience for it." That kind of reaction is typical, Money explains, and consequently "a liberated woman today is almost painted into a corner because there are so few liberated men she can marry."

* Both boys and girls inherit 44 chromosomes that determine nonsexual characteristics, plus two sex chromosomes: XY for males and XX for females.

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