Author: J. Michael Bailey Publisher: Joseph Henry Press So this is the book causing all the controversy, the one pitting trannies and fundamentalists on one side against the author and his collaborators on the other. The book where even the research subjects are suing, the scientific argument about sexuality that has the head of the Kinsey Institute saying it's not science, the book that has launched the author as the head of the derogatorily-termed 'Baileyism' and has one critic referring to him as the Joseph McCarthy of sexuality studies. What's all the fuss about? Bailey, a psychology professor, mounts two basic arguments. The first, which has strangely infuriated the identity politicians of the gay world, is that most gay men were feminine as kids and therefore there's a likelihood that a feminine boy will grow up to be gay. Bailey is a strong supporter of the gay gene notion, and the idea that homosexuality is to a large extent biologically determined. This is exactly what the gay lobby has been saying for years - we're born this way, we don't choose. Personally I find the idea specious, its easy answer refusing to account for the fluidity of not just sexualities but also gender performances in the world at large. Bailey admits to proudly being an essentialist and takes a misfired shot at cultural relativists who look at identity being a cultural product and producer, as opposed to a fixed, biologically-produced unalterable entity. When Bailey talks of statistics and proof, mostly he's talking of small studies, inconclusive tests and uncertifiable hypotheses, and he admits to such at several times in his book. Nevertheless he gives the overwhelming idea that what he writes is scientific fact, provable, not socially specific, and beyond reasonable doubt. It's here, leading into the book's second assertion, that Bailey get himself into trouble. Using a model developed in the eighties, Bailey posits there are two types of transsexuals - homosexual transsexuals (feminine boys who feel wrong in their body and move towards gender realignment) and autogynephilic transsexuals, who are 'unfeminine' men who get turned on by the idea of having a vagina (often developed after wearing women's clothing) and who decide in their thirties and forties to live, at least partly, as women. To fully comprehend the hoopla that has arisen, I suggest you read the book and then refer to tsroadmap.com's clearinghouse site which comprehensively sets forth the arguments against. What's imperative in understanding the controversy is the way Bailey uses his language, asserting his points on transsexualism as if they were accepted scientific discourse, instead of the obscure and contested theories that they are. I checked three other authoritative tomes on transgender issues and psychology and none listed the scientists who Bailey uses as his framework. Is the book homophobic? Hardly. Bi-phobic? Extremely, with Bailey using his gay friends' reasoning that most bi's are liars as refutation on attacks to his essentialist binary arguments. Is it transphobic? Most likely, and if not, it's reductionist to the extreme. Is Bailey's book important? Absolutely, for it forces us to examine our own conceptions of gender, sex and sexuality, of identity and how it is formed, and to come up with comprehensive and cohesive arguments against theorists like the ones Bailey quotes from. The Man Who Would Be Queen is a work of polemic, of poor science, but one that should be considered of significant import to debate, challenge and interact with without resorting to hysterical language and unprovable assertions. In the meantime, I'd like to take this opportunity to call on the science world to start searching for the straight gene - one day you may just find the cure for renovation lifestyle programming.
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Title: The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science
of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism
