Archives of Sexual Behavior (2023) 52:2717–2718

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-023-02694-4

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

On the Origins of Gender Identity

David Haig1

Received: 13 August 2023 / Revised: 23 August 2023 / Accepted: 24 August 2023 / Published online: 11 September 2023
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2023

Haig (2000) documented a rapid increase in the use of “gen- Partisan feeling waxed high in the week preceding the
der” in the Science Citation Index from 1988 to 1999. Haig Town Meeting of 1843 in Salisbury, Connecticut.…
(2004) followed this with a more detailed historical analysis The Whigs presented one Levi Suydam for registration
of modern uses of “gender.” Although “gender” had long as an enfranchised freeman. Persistently and heatedly
been used as a synonym for “sex,” my focus was on the his- the Republicans disputed Suydam’s status on the tech-
tory of “sex” and “gender” as contrasted terms. Both analy- nicality of gender.
ses were based on changes in the frequency of the words
The thesis was submitted to the Department of Social
“sex” and “gender” in the titles of academic articles. This
Relations at Harvard University. Money assumed that his
was because the major citation indexes were the only search-
examiners (George E. Gardner, Marvin K. Opler, Howard
able databases to which I had access and, for many articles,
I. Suby, and Robert W. White) would understand his use of
the only thing included in the databases were titles with
“gender.” This is consistent with Janssen’s suggestion that
references. After this initial search of article titles, my pro-
well-read social scientists of the 1950s would have known
cedure was the old-fashioned method of working backward
of Bentley’s and Hinsie’s earlier uses of “gender.” (In 1952,
by reading articles and looking at who had been cited for
Suydam would have been classified as a hermaphrodite. We
particular ideas. In these readings, all citations led back to
would now say that Suydam was intersex.)
John Money and his collaborators, with no citations to ear-
The recent correspondence between Byrne (2023) and
lier technical uses of “gender.” Book titles and the contents
Janssen (2023) concerns the origins of “gender identity.”
of articles and books were not electronically searchable at
Haig (2004) wrote that Stoller and Greenson, in separate
the time, and few articles were available electronically. Most
papers, “together introduced the term gender identity at the
articles, and all books, had to be consulted in hard copy.
23rd International Psycho-Analytical Congress in Stockholm
Google Books and Google Scholar were launched late in
(July–August 1963).” “Introduced” was intended in the sense
2004 and revolutionized search. In particular, powerful algo-
of a term already in use within restricted circles that needed
rithms could now search the contents of books and articles.
to be “introduced” to a wider audience of psychoanalysts.
These capabilities have enabled the discovery of earlier tech-
Greenson (1964) and Stoller (1964) claimed shared respon-
nical uses of “gender.” In particular, Janssen (2018, 2020) has
sibility for “gender identity:” The term was formulated in
found that Bentley and Hinsie used “gender” in the 1940s in
collaboration with Stoller, whose presentation deals with
sources that were probably available to Money. Nevertheless,
another aspect of this subject (Greenson, 1964). The term
I believe the general conclusion of Haig (2004) still stands:
“gender identity” was arrived at in joint discussions of a
The modern distinction of gender from sex can be traced to
research project on this and allied problems by Greenson
John Money and his collaborators in the 1950s. Whether or
and Stoller during which many of the formulations in this
not Money had earlier sources, he did not cite them nor did
paper were worked out (Stoller, 1964).
anyone else.
Haig (2004) cited reminiscences of Money (1973, 1985a,
The only use of “gender” in Money’s (1952) doctoral the-
1995) in which Money claimed priority for developing the
sis occurs in the first paragraph:
concept of gender. Because the early history of “gender iden-
tity” has come into question, it is worth reviewing Money’s
* David Haig various statements on this subject. Money (1973) took credit
dhaig@oeb.harvard.edu
for gender role which he intended as a unitary concept that
1
Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, included how an individual was perceived by society and how
Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, they perceived themselves. He wrote that gender identity was
MA 02138, USA

13
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2718
soon introduced to separate aspects of behavior and mind
and ascribed the concept of core gender identity to Robert
Stoller. Money (1985a) presented gender role and identity as
two sides of a single coin which he named gender-identity/
role. In a passage quoted by Byrne (2023), Money (1985b,
p. 282) wrote:
Gender identity, to the best of my knowledge, was first
proposed by Evelyn Hooker. I recall its appearance in
an exchange of correspondence I had with her in refer-
ence to her homosexual studies.…Gender identification
posed a problem for psychoanalytic theory that Robert
Stoller (1964) solved by proposing the concept of core
gender identity…
At some time before his death in 1991, Stoller called
Money, possibly in response to Money (1985b). Money
(1995, p. 23) wrote:
I first encountered the term gender identity early in
the 1960s, in correspondence with Evelyn Hooker…
Many years later, in a telephone call with the late Rob-
ert Stoller…I learned that gender identity had been
split off from gender role by the participants of a Los
Angeles-based psychoanalytic group that met regularly
from the late 1950s…
In summary, Money claimed priority for gender role but
was ambivalent about the separation of gender identity from
gender role. He first encountered gender identity in corre-
spondence with Evelyn Hooker in the early 1960s. Green-
son and Stoller claimed to have developed the concept in
“joint discussions.” Multiple references can be found to a
Los Angeles-based group that met from the late 1950s and
discussed questions related to gender identity. This group
undoubtedly included Greenson and Stoller and was, at some
stage, joined by Hooker who is listed as a member of the
Gender Identity Group which had been “meeting intermit-
tently for about 20 years” in 1979 (McWhirter & Mattison,
1984, p. xiv). Haraway (1991, p. 133) stated that the Gender
Identity Research Project was established at UCLA in 1958,
although the source of her information is unclear. Green
(2010) distinctly remembered entering a “gender identity”
program when he arrived at UCLA in 1962.
Acknowledgements I thank Alex Byrne and Diederik Janssen for dis-
cussions of these questions.
Funding None.
13
Archives of Sexual Behavior (2023) 52:2717–2718
Data Availability Not applicable.
Code Availability Not applicable.
Declarations
Conflict of interest The author declares that he has no conflict of inter-
est.
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