Christopher Richard Brand was born June 1, 1943 in Preston, England.
Brand taught at Edinburgh University from 1970â1997. In 1996 Brand published the book The g Factor, claiming that general intelligence correlates with life outcomes. Brand claimed people of African descent had lower general intelligence as a group, which affected their success.
Brand was fired following an investigation into his 1996 comments about age of consent following child molestation charges brought against medical researcher Daniel Carleton Gajdusek. Brand’s firing became a rallying cry for “academic freedom” extremists.
Brand had three children and married spouse number three in 2001. Brand died May 28, 2017.
Comments on trans issues
Here’s what Brand had to say in 2003 when trans people began criticizing J. Michael Bailey’s The Man Who Would Be Queen:
Dr Sexâ VERSUS ANTI-HOMOPHOBISTS AND ASSORTED FAGGOTS
A book-burning witch-hunt began against psychologist J. Michael Bailey, of Northwestern University, near Chicago, who claimed from his research that some transsexuals are homosexuals, thus apparently managing to annoy representativesâ of both these hyper-sensitive groups at the same time. Fortunately, Chronicles of Higher Education (20 vi) gave Bailey, a Texan nerdâ, a friendly write up, saying he had plenty of transsexual/friends, did a good job on the dance floor and bought a round of drinks, so there was a possibility that he and his book, The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism, might survive.
See also the Chris Brand information on Lynn Conway’s site, which Brand responded to thus:
HUMAN BIODIVERSITY GROUP (HBDG) âNAMED AND SHAMEDâ  Opponents of J. Michael Bailey, the Texan sexologist (who has âcontroversiallyâ suggested that some transsexuals are actually homosexuals), managed to discover the names on Steve Sailerâs private list of experts (and gifted amateursâŠ.) on the subject of âhuman biodiversityâ i.e. racial differences. They set up a website to denounce selected and possible HBDG members:
Andrews, Lewis R. (âpromotes an array of neoconservative (mostly racist) theoriesâ) {Normally called Louis Andrews}
Bailey, Michael (âunder investigation here {i.e. by transsexuals} regarding his HBDG affiliationsâ)
Brand, Chris (âinfamous âscientific racistââ)
Brimelow, Peter (âprominent and active member and contributor to {anti-immigration} VDARE)
Burr, Chandler (believes âbiological cause of male homosexuality as a “defect in development”â)
Buss, David M.(has ânotions of rigidly bi-polar genders in humansâ)
Cochran, Gregory M. (actually environmentalistic but âhighly extolled for his racial-genetic-profiling science and homosexual-causation-science by various neoconservative and far-right groups, such as the British National Partyâ)
Derbyshire, John (âvirulently homophobicâ)
Entine, Jon (âcondescending toward Asians, like a comical stereotype, and believe[s] blacks are uncivilized animals who are mentally inferior and only suitable for athleticsâ)
Hausman, Patricia (âpart of a neoconservative organization that makes a special point of trashing trans womenâ)
Miller, Edward M. (âmade strongly racist “scientific” statements in 1996 about the intelligence of black peopleâ)
Murray, Charles (âwidely perceived as racist by most moderate peopleâ)
Pinker, Steven (âbiology-is-destiny theoryââŠ.âactive participant in the Baileyan defamation of transsexual womenââŠ.âCould he be a Fourattist-type gay man?…â)
Pitchford, Ian (actually a keen leftist but called âanother of the HBDG’ers known to have supported Baileyâ)
Rushton, J.P. (âmisrepresented the entire evolutionary theory simply for the shock valueâ)
Sailer, Steve (âhas long exploited the works of racial-profiling scientists and pundits such as Brand, Cochran, Entine, Miller, Murray, Rushton, etc., to justify his positionsââŠ.”one of a handful of extreme “scientific racists”, affiliated with and often paid by extreme right-wing groups like VDare”)
Seligman, Dan (âpromoting HBDG’s vain hope that Bailey could somehow be anointed as the national expert on homosexuality and transsexualismâ)
What a wonderful display of leftistsâ willingness to caricature scholarly opponents! And such hypersensitive leftists have the temerity to complain I jest about them as ANTI-HOMOPHOBISTS AND ASSORTED FAGGOTS! (Of course, it was a pity that members of the HBDG list did not all plainly announce their scientific racism / race realism seven years ago when they might collectively have made a mark and defended me in Edinburgh. Sadly, still in 2003, the worldâs only declared academic race realists (Glayde Whitney having sadly died) were Philippe Rushton, Richard Lynn and myself. The unwillingness of race realists to pull together reflected the non-emergence of national neoliberealism or any comparable liberty-respecting realism with which academics could be happy.
Egan V, Brand N, Brand T (2018). Obituary of Chris Brand (1st June 1943â28th May, 2017). Personality and Individual Differences Volume 122, 1 February 2018, Pages 206-207. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.08.011
Wotjas, Olga (27 March 1998). ‘Racist’ Brand loses dismissal appeal. Times Higher Education http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=106530§ioncode=26
Allen Rosenthal is an American psychologist and anti-transgender activist who published pathologizing research on transgender people and trans-attracted people with advisor J. Michael Bailey at Northwestern University.
Rosenthal is based in Vallejo California. Do not go to Rosenthal for therapy of any kind, especially if you are trans or gender diverse.
Background
Allen Michael Rosenthal was born December 10, 1979. Rosenthal graduated in 1997 from Robinson Secondary in Fairfax, Virginia, then attended Brigham Young University from 2004 to 2006. Around that time, Rosenthal earned the first of two Bachelor’s degrees.
Rosenthal earned a second Bachelor’s Degree in psychology from University Of Utah in 2006, where he was a member of Psi Chi, Phi Kappa Phi, and Golden Key Honor Society. He then came to Northwestern University for his PhD.
Rosenthal wrote in 2008:
I moved to Chicago in July of 2007 after having spent ten bittersweet years in Utah. While there, I started college at Brigham Young University, came out of the closet at the ripe ol’ age of 18, left BYU, moved to Salt Lake City, and met my partner (now of nine years). Together, we became ‘New Agers’ for several years, were heavily involved with life enhancement trainings, and then became anti-‘New Agers’ (read: realists). Finally, beginning in 2004, I discovered psychology–the ‘science of the mind’–and completed a BS (my second) in Psychology at the University of Utah.
The Northwestern University psychology department profiled him in 2011:
Originally from the suburbs of Washington, DC, Allen Rosenthal completed his undergraduate work at the University of Utah, where he graduated with a major in psychology in 2006. Before he began attending graduate school, he worked in three psychology labs and gained clinical experience doing psychological assessments of sex offenders. Allenâs primary research area is sexual orientation and the paraphilias (i.e., uncommon / unusual sexual interests). Although his interests within this field are many, he is especially interested in the relationships between sexual arousal, behavior, and orientation. His lab has recently published two papers on a study of the sexual arousal of bisexual men. Contrary to earlier controversial findings which suggested that bisexual men are only aroused by men, they found that a subpopulation of bisexual men are aroused by both men and women (in the lab). Currently, Allen is conducting two studies of men who are sexually attracted to partially transitioned male-to-female transsexuals. This phenomenon is referred to as gynandromorphophilia (GAM), which roughly translates to woman-man-form-lover. Very little is known about men with GAM. Perhaps of greatest interest is whether they are otherwise primarily sexually attracted to men or women; one could easily tell the story either way. In another ongoing study, they are assessing the genital arousal of some of these men in the lab. When Allen is not doing research or clinical work, he enjoys being with his partner of twelve years and their two cats. He and his partner enjoy good food, movies, and gardening. His idea of heaven is making dinner with him using their own produce while Frank Sinatra plays in the background. He is also an avid cyclist and is oft to be found on the lakeshore trail bordering Lake Michigan. He gets some of his best thinking done while biking to and from Northwestern everyday. After graduate school, he plans on finding an academic job that will allow him to continue to wear his three favorite hats: researcher, clinician, and teacher.
Rosenthal interned from 2015-2016 at the West Virginia University School of Medicine in Charleston. That school says he then worked in the Department of Psychiatry at a Kaiser Permanente facility in Vallejo, California.
Rosenthal was reportedly subjected to sexual orientation change efforts by NARTH.
Anti-transgender activism
Rosenthal diagnoses the common attraction to trans women as “gynandromorphophilia” (GAMP), which he and his colleagues describe as “sexual interest in gynandromorphs (GAMs; colloquially, shemales).”
Rosenthal and Bailey also magically “discovered” that bisexual men exist after receiving money from the American Institute of Bisexuality. Before the payment, Bailey had proclaimed in the press that bisexual men do not exist, saying males are “gay, straight, or lying.”
Hsu KJ, Rosenthal AM, Miller DI, Bailey JM (2015). Who are gynandromorphophilic men? Characterizing men with sexual interest in transgender women. Psychological Medicine. 2016 Mar;46(4):819-27. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291715002317 Epub 2015 Oct 26.
Rosenthal AM, Hsu KJ, Bailey JM (2017). Who are gynandromorphophilic men? An internet survey of men with sexual interest in transgender women. Archives of Sexual Behavior [17 Nov 2016, 46(1):255-264] https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-016-0872-6
Ethan B. Boatner, also known as E.B. Boatner, is an American author and photographer.
Background
Boatner was born 1941 and made a gender transition around age 60.
Man Who Would Be Queen review (2003)
Boatner is a longtime book reviewer for Minnesota queer publication Lavender. In the “Page Boy” column for the publication, Boatner published a positive review of The Man Who Would Be Queen when it came out in 2003, writing in part:
…a highly readable and well-researched book… Most interesting: his differentiation of the autogynephilic and homosexual transsexual; and his examination of the latest theories of the roles biology and genetics may play in gender determination. Detailed, but never dry. A fascinating book.
Page Boy column, Lavender
Boatner’s review was cited in promotional materials by publisher Joseph Henry Press.
Boatner also self-published a murder mystery and wrote a dramatic trilogy on trans topics called Changes in Time that was performed in 2013. Boatner also teaches at University of Minnesota.
Bailey’s publisher Joseph Henry Press has been using an excerpt of this review in its publicity, including an ad that ran in The Advocate. The bold part is the selective quotation they use, wisely avoiding the critical part after.
An associate professor of psychology at Northwestern University, Bailey writes with assuredness that often makes difficult, abstract material-the relationship between sexual orientation and gender affect, the origins of homosexuality and the theoretical basis of how we discuss sexuality-comprehensible. He also, especially in his portraits of the women and men he writes about, displays a deep empathy that is frequently missing from scientific studies of sexuality. But Bailey’s scope is so broad that when he gets down to pivotal constructs, as in detailing the data of scientific studies such as Richard Green’s about “feminine boys” or Dean Hamer’s work on the so-called “gay gene,” the material is vague, and not cohesive. Bailey tends towards overreaching, unsupported generalizations, such his claim that “regardless of marital laws there will always be fewer gay men who are romantically attached” or that the African-American community is “a relatively anti-gay ethnic minority.” Add to this the debatable supposition that innate “masculine” and “feminine” traits, in the most general sense of the words, decidedly exist, and his account as a whole loses force.
Heike Susanne Bödeker (also known as Heike Spreitzer) is a German writer and “autogynephilia” activist. Heike claimed to have been in a relationship with Denise Magner (aka “Kiira Triea”) and was involved in the transkids.us hoax site.
Background
Heike claims to be born in 1963 and âadopted by the family of a psychotic woman.â Heike described family life in Heidelberg as a concentration camp: âlike being at the hands of some torturer or KZ-Waechter resp. like living in a death row.â Heike has very little good to say about one adoptive parent. Heike allegedly got a break when the parent was hospitalized in 1969. Heike says, âoccasionally she beat me really seething with hatred.â and â I will spit on her grave rather go to hellâŠâ
Heike has reported being diagnosed with mixed gonadal dysgenesis. Heike claims to have been assigned female at birth but was reassigned male in 1968 around age 5. Around age 12, Heike was reportedly put on testosterone (from November 1975 âuntil shortly before my attempt at suicide around the time of my 14th birthday in May â77.â). This gave Heike what âmany contemporaries due to their lack of any musical education mistake for a male voice.â In 1977, Heike dropped out of a school program, then âhad a major breakdownâ at age 18.
After living as male for about 16 years starting at age 5, Heike was reportedly reassigned female at age 21 in 1984. Heike’s turning point came in 1993. Heike spent time learning about the Siksika, Piikani, Kainaa, Tsuutâina, and Nakoda First Nations, and became aware of ISNA.
âI experienced another breakdown only a few weeks after [2 years of psychotherapy] had ended.â Heike was reportedly later adopted by Anna Boedeker and got in a relationship with Denise Magner (aka “Kiira Triea”). Between 1998 and 2000 Heike Bödeker self-identified as âKiiraâs partner,â at one point writing, âThis is what happens when oneâs gf lives in Germany.â
Activism
Heike and Magner had many connections prior to Magner’s death in 2012:
CISAE [Coalition for iIntersex Support Activism and Education] and GMSSG [Genital Mutilation Survivors’ Support Network] and EZKU were hosted on the same domain
Wrote pro-“autogynephilia” piece in response to Becky Allison
Wrote article on Native v. White gender diversity with Magner and Teresa BinstockÂ
Boedeker has gone to considerable effort to erase all online presence.
Selected publications
Michal Rachel Nahman (2000). Embodied Stories, Pragmatic Lives: Intersex Body Narratives on the Net. Unpublished thesis, York University.
The EZKU website is run by Heike Boedeker, from Germany, who used to run the Genital Mutilation Survivorsâ Support Network website (which is no longer in existence). As opposed to GMSSN, EZKU is not a support network; rather, it is an online journal (the offline version of which dates back to 1981 -1985) devoted to intersexual and transsexual traumatization issues. Through this website Heike has demonstrated dissatisfaction with the exclusion of transsexual issues frorn the intersex movement. The EZKU website contains Heikeâs life history. It focuses specifically on traumatization caused by surgeries, hormone therapies and the mistreatment s/he received. I use Heikeâs cornments and hir online testimonials in the next section where I compare the different intersex websites⊠For Heike, a functioning body is just as important or even more important than a body that can âpassâ for mate or female. Here we see a key difference amongst people in the movement. Some equate normalcy with function, others with appearance.
For exarnple, in her online testimonial, Heike describes her feelings at the age of 15, stating that she could not identify as anything: 1 canât be male, I canât not be male, 1 canât be female, I canât not be fernale, I canât be intersexed, 1 canât be not intersexed, i canât betranssexual, I canât be not transsexual.. . likewise, I canY have râships [sic] and I canât have no râships.. .sounds crazy, right? [Heike Boedeker, GMSSN website (no longer available online)]
When she wrote this Heike was feeling rejected by various different communities and found herself in a double bind. While others have constantly identified Heike as an intersexual, she sees herself as just as much a transsexual, or rather she is frustrated by the need to identify as anything at all.
References
Boedeker, Heike (Janunary 24, 1998). âPortrait of the Artist as a Young Herm.â Real Intersexed People, via CISAE
Spreitzer, Heike (1994). enthĂ€lt: Zur PhĂ€nomenologie der DirektionalitĂ€t (“inverse Flexion”). Sprache & Sprachen
Spreitzer, Heike; Nieragden, Göran; Chapado, Olga; Wilbertz, Veronika; Weyerts, Helga (1994). Versuch einer historischen Lautlehre des Arbore. Sprache & Sprachen 14/15 (1994), 35-69.
Suzanne Haley “Sue” Woolsey was born in 1941. Woolsey is spouse of James Woolsey, who, among other things, served as Jimmy Carter’s first director of the CIA. James Woolsey is also a notable neoconservative, reaching that philosophy via a circuitous route through the corridors of liberal power.
Suzanne Woolsey’s 1970 dissertation was titled “Effects of experimenter race and segregated or desegregated school experience on some aspects of the social interaction of white and negro children.” Interestingly, experimenter effect is one of the chief scientific criticisms of the methodology used by Bailey, Ray Blanchard, and Anne Lawrence.
During the Carter Administration Woolsey served in high level positions in the Office of Management and Budget. During the Reagan Administration Woolsey worked outside of the government.
Woolsey began work at the National Academy of Sciences in 1989 as Executive Director of the Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences, responsible for oversight of all of the boards in those fields. Later Woolsey became chief operating officer of the NAS and then Chief Communications Officer whose responsibilities included National Academies Press and Joseph Henry Press.
Woolsey’s canned response
Woolsey sent the following form letter to anyone who wrote to express concern about the lack of science in J. Michael Bailey’s The Man Who Would Be Queen. I received my copy on 22 May 2003.
We have received your message about the book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, by J. Michael Bailey, and I am responding on behalf of the National Academies. We appreciate knowing of your concerns and recognize that the contents of this book are controversial. The copyright page of the book carries the following notice: “Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this volume are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Academy of Sciences or its affiliated institutions.” This statement applies to all books published by the Joseph Henry Press. Joseph Henry Press publications are not reports of the National Academies, but are individually authored works on topics related to science, engineering, and medicine.
In our opinion, the best response to writing with which one disagrees is more writing. Those who hold views contrary to those expressed in this book are encouraged to present and publish the evidence and reasoning in support of their conclusions.
Sincerely, Suzanne H. Woolsey, Ph.D. Chief Communications Officer
After the book controversy
In January 2004, Woolsey became a director of Fluor Corporation, which has $1.6 billion in Iraq related contracts. Woolsey also served as a director of the Institute for Defense Analyses which also has war interests, and received modest compensation for that role according to the article.
The Woolseys’ overlapping affiliations are part of a growing pattern in Washington in which individuals play key roles in quasi-governmental organizations advising officials on major policy issues but also are involved with private businesses in related fields. Such activities generally are not covered by conflict of interest laws or ethics rules. They underscore an insiders network in which contacts and relationships developed inside the government can meld with individual financial interests.
Suzanne Woolsey is also affiliated with other firms, including the Paladin Capital Group, a Washington venture capital firm in which Woolsey’s spouse is a partner. Suzanne Woolsey did not respond to messages left at Paladin and at Fluor.
References
Roche, WF (8 August 2004). Private, Public Roles Overlap in Washington. Los Angeles Times. [archive]
Holloway J, Boyette L. (27 January 2004.). Fluor Adds Suzanne H. Woolsey to Board of Directors. Fluor website. http://investor.fluor.com/visitors/print_release.cfm?ReleaseID=127565 [archive]
Clemons SC (8 August 2004). Woolsey’s web: Structure and corruption in Iraq. The Washington Note. http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000015.html [archive]
Dana Beyer is an American physician, political candidate, and transgender rights activist.
Dana Beyer was born February 9, 1952 and grew up in New York City. Beyer earned a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in 1974 and a medical degree from  from University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1978. Beyer worked as an eye surgeon before going into activism and politics.
Philanthropic work includes Gender Rights Maryland and Equality Maryland.
Jeff Sherman is a social psychologist and longtime supporter of J. Michael Bailey. I got the following note on May 7, 2003. Sherman’s comment in bold reflects typical thinking from anti-transgender psychologists. Sherman ignores that Bailey was mocking transgender people, including our young children, on his book tour. Apparently Sherman thinks it’s fine for Bailey to do that to our children while “trying to find the truth,” but any reciprocation is “vile.” Via Sherman:
you are a vile human being for putting pictures of mike’s kids on your web site. you disagree with mike’s theories? fine. there is ample opportunity for scientific debate, and no one more than mike welcomes a scientific critique of his work. to ascribe any motives to mike beyond trying to find the truth is nothing more than an attempt to stifle free and open discourse. you should hook up with kansas state legislature.
sincerely, jeff sherman
***************************************************************** Jeffrey W. Sherman Associate Professor Department of Psychology Northwestern University 2029 Sheridan Rd. Evanston, IL 60208-2710 phone: 847-467-4133 fax: 847-491-7859 url: www.psych.nwu.edu/People/JeffSherman.htm ******************************************************************
WEB LINK: http://www.psych.northwestern.edu/psych/people/faculty/sherman/sherman.html email:Â sherm@northwestern.edu
My reply in part:
It’s what he’s doing to my kids in his lectures. “Vile” is an apt descriptor. May I borrow it?
Maybe Mike should open his lecture to the parents of those kids whose images he features. I wonder how they’d feel to see their children’s expressions of pain being used by Mike to amuse audiences? I bet they’d think he’s a pretty vile human being. I certainly do.
Sherman did not follow up.
Jeffrey Paul Robbins (born circa 1950) is an American editor best known for editing and fact-checking one of the most transphobic books ever written, The Man Who Would Be Queen by J. Michael Bailey.
My editor, Jeff Robbins, at Joseph Henry Press, made my writing better than I could. (pp. xii-xiii)
Correspondence
Below is the letter I sent Robbins on May 17, 2003.
Jeffrey Robbins, Senior Editor The Joseph Henry Press 36 Dartmouth St. #810 Malden, MA 02148 Tel. 781-324-4786 Fax 781-397-8255 E-mail: jrobbins@nas.edu
Mr. Robbins–
I maintain an âOur Bodies, Ourselvesâ type website for transsexual women called tsroadmap.com.
After my business partnerâs boyfriend Barry Winchell was beaten to death with a baseball bat because he was dating her, I expanded my efforts from practical matters of gender transition to improving media depictions of our condition.
I am writing to you today because of your involvement in J. Michael Baileyâs The Man Who Would Be Queen. In it, Bailey states that you edited this book and “made my writing better than I could.” (xii-xiii)
Mr. Robbins, you are complicit in the publication of what many in my community believe is the most defamatory book on transsexualism written since 1979. You are responsible for allowing us to be associated with depraved murderers (p. 142) and to be described as little more than socially stunted deviants generally unable to form long-term relationships or even hold âconventional jobs.â (p. 188). Imagine if the following were said about women you know:
â[They] work as waitresses, hairdressers, receptionists, strippers, and prostitutes, as well as in many other occupations.â (p. 142)
I intend to see that you remain clearly linked to this historical document and are held accountable for this outrage during the remainder of your career. I also plan to secure your shameful place in the history of our communityâs struggle to enjoy the same basic rights afforded other women. Make no mistake: you will have helped to hurt a great many women and children before we get those rights, and I can assure you your efforts will not go unnoticed.
I will be re-reading the entire text as well and making a painstaking record of all the ways you and Bailey have hurt all of us by bringing out such bigotry in the name of “science.” I will be sending my full findings to the National Academies leadership later this year.
The fact that any publisher allowed this to be printed under the auspices of “science” raises serious concerns about the process by which books are subjected to review at Joseph Henry Press. I intend to assist with the full investigation into how you personally allowed this to happen.
Though I doubt you are, you should be absolutely ashamed of yourself.
[signed]
cc: Barbara Kline Pope, Director Phone: 202-334-3328 E-mail: bkline@nas.edu
Robbins did not respond. Below is the form letter sent out by Suzanne Woolsey to anyone who wrote to them. I received my copy on May 22, 2003.
We have received your message about the book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, by J. Michael Bailey, and I am responding on behalf of the National Academies. We appreciate knowing of your concerns and recognize that the contents of this book are controversial. The copyright page of the book carries the following notice: “Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this volume are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Academy of Sciences or its affiliated institutions.” This statement applies to all books published by the Joseph Henry Press. Joseph Henry Press publications are not reports of the National Academies, but are individually authored works on topics related to science, engineering, and medicine.
In our opinion, the best response to writing with which one disagrees is more writing. Those who hold views contrary to those expressed in this book are encouraged to present and publish the evidence and reasoning in support of their conclusions.
Sincerely, Suzanne H. Woolsey, Ph.D. Chief Communications Officer
Paul Varnell was an American journalist and LGBTQ rights activist.
Background
Paul Varnell was born on April 16, 1942 in St. Louis and grew up in the northeast United States. Varnell earned a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in 1963, then attended graduate school at Indiana University-Bloomington. Varnell taught at Northern Illinois University before moving into activism and journalism in the 1980s.
Varnell was among that generation’s most notable conservative/libertarian journalists in the LGBTQ community.
Varnell died December 9, 2011.
Selected works
In 2005 Varnell criticized sexologist J. Michael Bailey’s belief that bisexual men do not exist, and he wrote an early critical review of Bailey’s anti-transgender book The Man Who Would Be Queen.
Weird Science: J. Michael Bailey’s ‘The Man Who Would Be Queen’
Originally published July 23, 2003, in the Chicago Free Press.
It’s a shame trees had to be sacrificed in order to print J. Michael Bailey’s controversial new book âThe Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism.â
Bailey takes a perfectly interesting and reasonable question â what is the relationship between childhood femininity in boys and gay men, and transgenderism â and succeeds only in writing a bunch of speculative and insulting nonsense.
Don’t be fooled by the âscienceâ in the title: There is very little science in this book. It’s not science calling up a two-decades-old research study and declaring it the truth for all time. It’s not science without documentation â there are no footnotes, no references listed and no bibliography.
It’s not science sitting at a bar in Chicago’s gay neighborhood of Boystown talking to gay men and transgenders about their childhoods. It’s not science when someone answers your questions and you don’t like the answers or don’t believe them, so you dismiss the insight as lies, or internalized âfemiphobia.â
It’s not science when you write pages about what âperfectâ studies would need to be conducted to prove your wanted findings, and then write that, of course, these studies could never be done because of their length and complexity.
It’s not science to simply quote small studies and surveys with no context. It’s not science taking an 8-year-old boy’s cross-dressing issue and basing an entire book on the question of what he may or may not become later in life. And it’s not science or scholarship to praise your son’s ability to spot gay men on the street. It’s not science to base your knowledge of transgender and gay lives on what they say they are seeking in personal ads.
This book is not science. A discussion of ideas, yes. One straight man’s look into an unfamiliar world, yes. Science, absolutely not.
Bailey’s thesis is that there is a connection between femininity in boys and gay men and the desire to change gender. In investigating this he takes a long detour through covering gay masculinity and femininity, stereotypes of gay men and whether gay men are actually more like straight men or women.
Then he declares there are exactly two types of transgenders: homosexual and autogynephile. The former are men who want to change gender because they identify as women and the latter are men who are erotically charged by switching gender. In his limited exploration, Bailey paints an ugly picture of transgenders’ alleged sexual perversity, confusion and relationships. And he makes no effort to consider transgenders who carry on ânormalâ jobs, friendships, sexual desires, lives, etc.
While the argument Bailey makes is pretty bad, the writing and organization of the book aren’t much better. He never adequately connects the several different strands he’s weaving into a cohesive whole theory. And his personal anecdotes are annoying, not to mention credibility-busting.
This book is not worth reading, even for the controversy. You’d learn a lot more reaching out to someone in the trans community and having a friendly and honest discussion with them about their lives than reading this ridiculous concoction of speculation.
What’s also mystifying is that some reputable authors (Steven Pinker, Anne Lawrence) and literary establishments (Kirkus Reviews, Publisher’s Weekly, Out magazine) gave the book positive quotes, since it doesn’t take much analytical ability to slice through Bailey’s arguments, speculations and assumptions. Also confusing is how an author of Bailey’s apparently reputable credentials can get away with a shoddy publication like this. He is a professor of psychology at Northwestern University, has written for The New York Times and is a well-known sex researcher.
Wisely and appropriately, the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition has called for the National Academy of Science to investigate the book and remove it from under its banner.
Baileyâs Bisexuality Study (2005)
Originally published August 3, 2005, in the Chicago Free Press.
Most of us realize that there are many people who have had sex with both sexes but that that does not necessarily means they feel equal desire for both sexes. As Masters and Johnson wryly observed, “The label of bisexual often means whatever the user wishes it to mean.”
Now a new study published in Psychological Science by Northwestern University psychologist J. Michael Bailey and two Ph.D. candidates claims to advance science by reporting that none of the men in their study of male bisexuals experienced “strong” desire for both sexes and that most experienced much stronger sexual arousal by men than women.
Whether or not Bailey’s conclusions are true, the study fails to demonstrate them effectively. Bailey has repeatedly in the past employed problematic research procedures and this study is no exception.
Bailey and his team recruited 33 “bisexuals” as well as control groups of homosexuals and heterosexuals by advertising in the gay and “alternative” press. They then showed all three groups of men “several” two-minute-long erotic films, including two of two men having sex and two of two women having sex. The subjects’ genital arousal was determined by a device placed around the penis that measured any increased circumference. Bailey says, “For men arousal is orientation.”
It turned out that one-third of each group of subjects had no significant genital arousal at all from the films, which means that either they had no sexual orientation or else the technique for testing orientation was flawed. But Bailey ignored that possibility, simply eliminated the non-responders and used the 22 bisexual who did have an arousal response.
It also turned out too that three of the 25 gay men who had measurable genital arousal were more aroused by the female films than the male films. Bailey should conclude (“arousal is orientation”) that they were heterosexual but does not and does not say why. This interesting fact is buried in a footnote in a manuscript version of the study but I missed it in the uncorrected page proofs Bailey kindly provided.
In any case, the final result was that although all the bisexual men reported equal subjective (mental) arousal to both types of films, all of them “had much greater genital arousal from one sex than to the other” and three quarters of the 22 men had stronger genital arousal from the all-male films than the all-female films.
It is noticeable that there is no mention of heterosexual films – a man having sex with a woman. The study assumes that a film of two women having sex will always generate a heterosexual arousal response but offers no evidence or argument for the claim. No doubt some men are titillated by lesbian sex but whether it is as uniformly effective a heterosexual arousal agent as a heterosexual film seems questionable.
Some bisexual men, for instance, are far more interested in their own performance, their impact on the other person, than the gender of the partner. Masters and Johnson call them “ambisexuals” and C. A. Tripp mentions that some researchers describe them – somewhat inaccurately – as ready to “stick it in anywhere.” If such men are to be aroused by brief films it would more likely be one of a man having sex with another person, male or female, than by a film lacking any male participant. This could help explain the greater number of men aroused by the all-male films.
Since the bisexual men did report substantially equal subjective (mental) arousal to both types of films, someone might wonder if two-minute films were long enough to generate genital arousal particularly for the female films since they presumably did not involve specific arousal cues such as copulatory activity. As psychologist Murray Davis points out, the move from everyday life to erotic reality can take time, the right mental set, and the right cues.
Finally one might wonder if the recruitment ads were specific enough. If Bailey had advertised for men with “equal sexual desire” for men and women he might have obtained a more interesting study group. As it was, he defined “bisexuals” as people with Kinsey ratings of 2, 3 and 4 thus including people with stronger heterosexual responses (2s) and stronger homosexual responses (4s).
One might also wonder if most of the bisexuals solicited through ads in gay publications might lean toward the gay side of bisexuality – which could be why they were reading gay publications and saw the ad. That in turn might help explain the larger number of bisexuals who were more aroused by males than females.
These and related difficulties lead to me wonder why Bailey continues to try to do sex research when he demonstrates so little understanding of the human psychology involved in sex and sexual arousal and seems so unself-critical about research designs that include sample bias, dubious testing procedures, built-in assumptions, unaccountable anomalies, etc. Whatever he is doing, it is not psychology and it is not science.
