Gert Comfrey is an American therapist who identifies as nonbinary and queer. Comfrey specializes in marriage and family therapy issues that affect sex and gender minorities.
Background
Comfrey was born in November 1985, grew up in Central Pennsylvania, and was known by another name prior to adulthood.
Comfrey earned a bachelor’s degree from Elizabethtown College in 2008, then earned two master’s degrees; one from Vanderbilt Divinity School in 2010, and one from Trevecca Nazarene University in 2015.
In 2019 Comfrey was a panelist at the LGBT+ College Conference held at Middle Tennessee State University.
Comfrey opened a marriage and family therapy practice in Nashville, Tennessee in 2019:
I have extensive experience working with transgender clients and clients wanting to explore gender identity, along with letter-writing for gender affirming surgeries. I am also a trained Circle facilitator and have offered trainings to healthcare professionals, counseling interns, and students regarding best practices when working with queer clients.
Comfrey is known to many from an appearance in the 2022 anti-trans propaganda piece What Is a Woman? In it, Comfrey earnestly explains that sex and gender are more complicated than binaries, prompting interviewer Matt Walsh to ask about personal gender identity, “So how do I know?” Comfrey responds, “That question, when it’s asked with a lot of curiosity, that’s the beginning of a lot of people’s gender identity development journey.” Many people who enjoy Walsh’s incurious bad-faith tactics found the exchange entertaining.
References
2019 LGBT+ College Conference Schedule https://www.mtsu.edu/mtlambda/2019LGBTplusCCSchedule.php]
Media
Community Changers (May 27, 2022). DDC S3 Gert Comfrey: The LGBTQ+ Community https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xd4vlZCbAeM
Some gender questioning people ask me about online “gender tests.” I think gender tests are pseudoscience. They look like science but are not. I worry these tests might hurt some people who take them. They might make a bad choice in life because of the results. I think these tests are very bad for young people and for people without much school.
Why gender tests are bad
1. You do not learn anything new from gender tests
Some people take the tests for fun or as a joke. That is great!
If you are taking one because you are questioning your gender and want answers, you need to be careful. You already know that you might want to make changes. It is better to talk in person with people who can help. Online tests seem like easy answers, but there are no easy answers.
2. You can often get the score you want
You can often tell which answers are “masculine” or “feminine.” Your score may also change based on when or how you take the test.
3. You might make big choices based on your score
A quick test with a score is less work than thinking hard about how you feel. Some people use the score as “proof” they should do something. Big choices should not be based on an online test. Do not use a number or category from your test score to make a big life choice.
Some people do not like to make big choices. They want to be told what to do. That way if things go wrong, they can blame something.
4. Gender tests look like science, but they are not
I am happy people study sex and gender. I would be happy if a test could tell if you should make a gender change. No test can do that yet.
We do not know why some people are transgender or gender diverse yet.
That means the tests are not based on proven things.
5. Gender tests will give the wrong result to some people
Even good tests are not always right. Think of a test for cancer. Most of the time, the test is right, but sometimes it is wrong. There are two ways it can be wrong:
It says you have cancer when you do not have it (a false positive)
It says you do not have cancer, but you do (a false negative)
If enough people take a test, even a good one, some will get put in the wrong group.
Some people make a gender change, but later they wish they had not done it. This happens when you do not think hard enough about why you want to make a gender change. People who like gender tests may not want to think hard.
6. Some people use gender test scores like game scores
Some people think their score means they are “more transgender” than someone with a lower score.
Many people want to know where they stand among other people:
Gender tests seem real to some who think that “numbers don’t lie.” But gender identity can not be reduced to a number or score.
7. Gender tests say there are simple “types” for things that are not simple
People do not fit into simple types. That is what is great about people!
Many of the ways we divide people into types are too simple.
For instance, dividing people as only “gay” or “straight” gets rid of a lot of big differences. The same is true with dividing people as only “male” or “female.” Sexuality and gender are a spectrum, not a binary of two things.
Think of a rainbow. Imagine saying there are only two colors: warm and cool. That would get rid of a lot of colors!
Background
When I was in grade school, there was a “gender test” we used to tell if someone was a boy or girl by how they looked at their fingernails: if you look at your nails with fingers bent and palm facing you, you were a boy, and if you looked at them with fingers straight and the back of your hand facing you, you were a girl.
This kind of belief is called a stereotype. A stereotype is an idea or image of a group of people or things that is too simple. Some people might not match their stereotype. Some adults think we can split people in types based on stereotypes.
A note on horoscopes
Horoscopes are another way to classify people that is fake science. It takes something scientific (looking at the stars and when you were born) and says that you are a type based on that stuff. People who believe in it say everyone falls into one of twelve types. Each type acts in different ways. Capricorns act this way, and Cancers act that way.
Horoscopes are a lot like gender tests. People hear what they want in the results. In science, this is called confirmation bias. There are even people who plan their day based on a horoscope. That is about as smart as planning your life based on a gender test.
Things like “gender tests” and horoscopes should only be done for fun.
Here are some of the “gender tests” you might hear people talk about:
COGIATI (Combined Gender Identity And Transsexuality Inventory)
These are all fake science and should not be taken seriously.
This page uses easy words. This helps young people read it. This also helps people who don’t know many English words. The words in bold are hard. You need to know what they mean, or this will be hard to read. You can use these links to looks up words you don’t know: Merriam-Webster’s Learner’s Dictionary Cambridge Learner’s Dictionary
National Convener Mr Gordon Walker Department of Psychology, Monash University PO Box 197, Caulfied East, VIC, 3145 Tel: (03) 9903 2728 Fax: (03) 9903 2501 Email: gordon.walker@med.monash.edu.au
GLIP News Gay and Lesbian Issues and Psychology An Interest Group of the Australian Psychological Society Ltd. Volume 2, Issue 2 August 2003 page 5
by Gordon Walker, Convener
Book review: Bailey, J.M. (2003). The man who would be queen: The science of gender-bending and transsexualism. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press.
This is a book, written by a leading researcher in the field, is about understanding sexual orientation and identity. Although the author makes much use of research, this is not a textbook; any educated person with an interest in this topic would find the material very accessible. The stories of various boys and men are woven together with the discussion of research to create a highly interesting and very worthwhile book. In fact once I started I had difficulty putting down! Broadly speaking it is an examination of the relationship between male homosexuality and femininity. As the author says, to say that femininity and homosexuality are closely bound together has been politically incorrect for some time now, but nevertheless factually correct. The book then goes on to demonstrate this across the sexual orientation spectrum.
The book is therefore a challenge to the postmodern position on gender, although the author clearly occupies the middle ground between social constructionism and essentialism. This is demonstrated in his discussion of feminine boys and of those labeled gender identity disordered (GID) in particular. In looking at the debate between those on the left who want them left alone to be as feminine as they want to be and those on the extreme right who view homosexuality as arrested psychosexual development, he draws the reader’s attention to research that shows that therapy directed at reducing femininity in highly feminine boys reduces the number who ultimately seek a sex-change, and therefore increases the number who as adults identify as gay. He suggests that an alternative to this would be to allow such boys to become women very early (pre-puberty) so that they can have better outcomes as women.
The author uses a range of research to clearly challenge the view that pronounced femininity in boys is the result of socialisation. The question of where does extreme femininity come from is also examined
Similarities and differences between gay and straight men are also examined. Broadly speaking, although gay men have interests more in line with those of women, in attitudes to sex and the body homosexual and heterosexual men were shown to be essentially the same; the differences in behaviour come about because heterosexually men are basically constrained in their behaviour by women. The author provides a very accessible and readable account of the sometimes confusing array of studies that have attempted to account for sexual orientation and draws the conclusion that there is some fundamental biological influence that transcends culture. The last section of the book focuses on transsexualism, and produces a compelling argument for recognising two main types: homosexual and non-homosexual types, with the latter being erotically obsessed with the image of themselves as women. A very much more complex picture emerges than the popular image of a woman being trapped inside a man’s body.
The great value of this book lies in the way it has brought together a wide range of research on important questions relating to sexual orientation. This gives the reader a wonderful opportunity to reflect further on what being other than heterosexual might mean.
Gordon Walker Department of Psychology School of Psychology, Psychiatry and Psychological Medicine Monash University
Letter to Dr. Walker from WOMAN Network
“We write to express our concern that the Special Interest Group on Gay and Lesbian Issues of the Australian Psychological Society has been implicated in support for the writings of Prof J Michael Bailey of Northwestern University.
In this respect, we draw your attention to the following quote from GLIP News, August 2003:
“…any educated person with an interest in this topic would find the material very accessible. The stories of various boys and men are woven together with the discussion of research to create a highly interesting and very worthwhile book. In fact once I started I had difficulty putting down! … The author provides a very accessible and readable account of the sometimes confusing array of studies that have attempted to account for sexual orientation and draws the conclusion that there is some fundamental biological influence that transcends culture. … The great value of this book lies in the way it has brought together a wide range of research on important questions relating to sexual orientation. This gives the reader a wonderful opportunity to reflect further on what being other than heterosexual might mean.”
The book referred to is “The Man Who Would Be Queen” which was published under the imprimateur of the National Academies of Sciences. It has brought huge condemnation for its inaccurate and highly offensive portrayal of transsexualism and the people who are affected by it. This has culminated recently in legal action against the author, who is accused of failing to obtain the necessary informed consents of the subjects of his material. Importantly, the scientific veracity of the work has now been shattered in a most public way at the recent IASR Conference in the United States.
Bailey seized on earlier work by Ken Zucker of the somewhat infamous Clarke Institute, and categorised us as either excessively homosexual males or autogynaephilic males. He deliberately excluded the anecdotal evidence of those, the vast majority, who did not fit with his theory and ignored completely the prevailing hard science pointing to the somatic nature of transsexualism. The fall out from this scientific fraud is gaining momentum and it would be very unfortunate if Monash University were to be included in this.
You can gauge the international responses to the issue by visiting these websites:
One matter of very real concern is the way in which the religious right has already seized on Bailey’s writings to further justify their rejection of transsexualism as a valid condition of human sexual formation and their condemnation of those affected by it. These same condemnations will undoubtedly be directed at gay and lesbian people to the detriment of us all.
We therefore ask you to consider repudiating Bailey’s work and ensure your next newsletter contains a suitable disclaimer.”
It is reported that Dr. Walker is making inquiries about the matter and will respond after he’s had time to review the matter.
The COGIATI is an online “gender test.” COGIATI stands for Combined Gender Identity And Transsexuality Inventory. It sounds like it is a science test (even though it is not). It was made to tell if someone is a transgender woman, but it can not tell you that.
I like and respect Jennifer Diane Reitz. Jennifer created the COGIATI as part of a series Transsexual Tests. She has helped many people. However, I disagree strongly and respectfully with Jennifer on the COGIATI test. I do not think it will help people. These kinds of tests are not scientific. They do not have scientific validity.
The COGIATI has questions that Jennifer says are based on sex differentiation. The scores are:
-650 to -390: Class 1 (Definite Male)
-389 to -130: Class 2 (Feminine Male)
-129 to 129: Class 3 (Androgyne)
130 to 389: Class 4 (Probable Transsexual)
390 to 650: Class 5 (Classic Transsexual)
Many questions are like questions on other tests by Bem and Moir-Jessel. Those tests have problems, too.
Jennifer says:
The COGIATI is a prototype. It was designed for only one target: the curious, unsure, pre-operative POTENTIAL Male-To-Female transsexual (not a post-op, not someone who is already certain, not a Female-To-Male, not anyone else who fails to fit the stated definition target). Further, it was constructed for that given target only because no scientifically and medically based test for such people exists. None. Anywhere. I saw that there was a void, no physicians were filling it, and so I set to work. The COGIATI is a challenge to the scientific and medical community to follow my example, and do a better job than I.
While this is a good goal, I think the test is based on bad ideas and bad science. Some tests look like science, but they are not. This fake science is called pseudoscience.
People who like their score will think it is a good test. That is called bias.
To learn more on why gender tests are bad, go here.
Małgorzata Anna Łamacz (1949–2017) was a Polish psychologist who also published in English as Margaret Lamacz. Her work focused on behavioral genetics and disease models of sex and gender minorities. She is the co-author of the 1989 book Vandalized Lovemaps: Paraphilic Outcome of 7 Cases in Pediatric Sexology with John Money.
Background
While earning her Master’s degree and Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University, Lamacz worked with Money doing clinical psychology and pediatric sexology. There, she worked with transgender clients, as well as children and adolescents referred for developmental or behavioral issues related to sex and sexuality.
Lamacz went on to work on evidence of genetic susceptibility to schizophrenia. This work was done with fellow Catholic Paul McHugh, who shut down the gender clinic at Johns Hopkins.
According to a Polish newspaper, Łamacz died after a long illness, and her ashes were interred at the Church of St. Giles in Kraków.
Vandalized Lovemaps (1989)
Her work with Money on paraphilia led to the concept of “vandalized lovemaps.” She is co-author of his 1989 book Vandalized Lovemaps: Paraphilic Outcome of 7 Cases in Pediatric Sexology. Their book profiles seven young people based on Money’s neurodevelopmental theory of paraphilia development, based on observations in non-human animals. Money and Lamacz then make observations about each outcome once the seven are adults. Because they advocated intervention in the lives of sexually different children, some colleagues criticized their approach. She and Money proposed the term “gynemimetophilia” as part of a paraphilic model of attraction to transwomen.
Selected works
Money J, Lamacz M (1984). Gynemimesis and gynemimetophilia: individual and cross-cultural manifestations of a gender-coping strategy hitherto unnamed. Comparative Psychiatry. 1984 Jul-Aug;25(4):392-403. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-440X(84)90074-9
Money J, Lamacz M (1987). Genital examination and exposure experienced as nosocomial sexual abuse in childhood. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 1987 Dec;175(12):713-21. https://doi.org/10.1097/00005053-198712000-00002
Pulver AE, Nestadt G, Goldberg R, Shprintzen RJ, Lamacz M, Wolyniec PS, Morrow B, Karayiorgou M, Antonarakis SE, Housman D, et al. (1994). Psychotic illness in patients diagnosed with velo-cardio-facial syndrome and their relatives. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 1994, Volume 182, Issue 8, pp. 476-477. http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00005053-199408000-00010
Blouin JL, Dombroski BA, Nath SK, Lasseter VK, Wolyniec PS, Nestadt G, Thornquist M, Ullrich G, McGrath J, Kasch L, Lamacz M, Thomas MG, Gehrig C, Radhakrishna U, Snyder SE, Balk KG, Neufeld K, Swartz KL, DeMarchi N, Papadimitriou GN, Dikeos DG, Stefanis CN, Chakravarti A, Childs B, Housman DE, Kazazian HH, Antonarakis SE, Pulver AE (1998). Schizophrenia susceptibility loci on chromosomes 13q32 and 8p21. Nature Genetics 20, 70 – 73 (1998) https://doi.org/10.1038/1734
Karayiorgou M, Kasch L, Lasseter VK, Hwang J, Elango R, Bernardini DJ, Kimberland M, Babb R, Francomano CA, Wolyniec PS, et al. (2005). Report from the Maryland Epidemiology Schizophrenia Linkage Study: no evidence for linkage between schizophrenia and a number of candidate and other genomic regions using a complex dominant model. American Journal of Medical Genetics Volume 54 Issue 4, Pages 345 – 353. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajmg.1320540413
Pulver AE, Karayiorgou M, Wolyniec PS, Lasseter VK, Kasch L, Nestadt G, Antonarakis S, Housman D, Kazazian HH, Meyers D, et al. (2005). Sequential strategy to identify a susceptibility gene for schizophrenia: report of potential linkage on chromosome 22q12-q13.1: Part 1. American Journal of Medical Genetics Volume 54 Issue 1, Pages 36-43. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajmg.1320540108
References
Hurtig AL, Levine SB, Weinrich JD. Vandalized Lovemaps [Review]. Archives of Sexual Behavior, Volume 20, Number 3 / June, 1991 319-329. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01541850
Francoeur RT, Taverner WJ (2004). Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Human Sexuality . McGraw-Hill College, ISBN 9780072371314 ASIN: B000OURRP2
Millon T, Blaney PH, Davis RD (1999). Oxford Textbook of Psychopathology (Oxford Series in Clinical Psychology) Oxford University Press, USA, ASIN B000OKSETU
Associated Press (September 3, 1998). New clues to schizophrenia. Rocky Mountain News
“Dr. Małgorzata Łamacz, a psychologist, died on November 2, 2017 after a serious illness.” Her ashes were interred at the Catholic church in Raciborsko, a village southeast of Kraków.
The Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) is a gender test that was developed by Sandra Lipsitz Bem (1944–2014), who began researching sex roles since the early 1970s. The Bem test indicates the degrees of absorption of cultural definitions of gender, as reflected in the user’s personality.
Overview
Cynthia Connor and colleagues summarize Bem’s findings in an interesting article titled “Intrinsic Motivation and Role Adaptability with Regards to Drama Students:”
The possession of both masculine and feminine characteristics has important consequences for behavior (Bem, S. L., 1974). An expanded behavioral repertoire gives androgynous individuals superior sex-role adaptability in comparison to sex-typed individuals. The androgynous individual is able to adapt to a variety of situations. Sex-typed people internalize societies sex-appropriate behaviors as being desirable and exclude cross-sexed behaviors from their behavioral repertoires. Sandra Bem’s pioneering research on the dimensions of masculinity and femininity led to the development of the Bem Sex Role Inventory, (1974). The Bem Sex Role Inventory measures masculinity and femininity as two discriminable dimensions. The androgynous individual scores high on both dimensions. Sex-typed individuals score high on one dimension and reject while rejecting the characteristics of the other dimension. Androgynous people enact their masculine and feminine on different occasions (Vonk, R. & Ashemore, R. D., 1993). In describing their masculine, feminine and gender neutral attributes sides, Androgynous subjects use more situational qualifiers to explain their behavior. This supports Sandra Bem’s theory that androgyny is manifested as situational flexibility (1975).
After continued research into androgyny, Bem developed a cognitive schema theory of sex role behavior (Cook, E. P. 1985). Androgyny is a particular way of processing information. Androgynous individuals do not use sex-role related schemas to guide their information processing. Gender schematic individuals divide the world into masculine and feminine. They use traditional sex-role standards in their processing of information. Gender schema theory does not emphasize the degree to which an individual is masculine or feminine, but rather the extent to which they process new information along in terms of sex roles (Hargreaves, D. J. & Colley, A. M., 1987).
This inventory (BSRI) provides independent assessments of masculinity and femininity in terms of the respondent’s self-reported possession of socially desirable, stereotypically masculine and feminine personality characteristics. This can also be seen as a measurement of the extent to which respondents spontaneously sort self-relevant information into distinct masculine and feminine categories. The self administering 60-item questionnaire measures masculinity, femininity, androgyny, and undifferentiated, using the Masculinity and Femininity scales.
Criticisms
While Bem’s theories are very interesting, the test itself for use in our community is problematic for several reasons:
Reliance on gender stereotypes which can be recognized as male or female by the test taker.
Self-reporting by the test taker based on the above can influence the outcome.
While Bem asserts that androgynous takers will score high on both scales, this may not be true for trans people. Many people in our community are gender schematic, or very invested in culturally defined sex-appropriate behaviors, and a baseline has not been established for us.
References
Bem, S. L. (1974). The measurement of psychological androgyny. Journal of Counseling & Clinical Psychology, 42, 155-162.
Bem Sex – Role Inventory. Bem, Sandra L. USA: Consulting Psychologists Press; 1981.
Martin Kafka is an American psychiatrist who subscribes to a number of disease models of human sexuality, including ones that are sometimes applied to trans and gender diverse people:
He served as a member of the Sexual and Gender Disorders Working Group (Paraphilias Sub-Committee) of the American Psychiatric Association for the formulation of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), 5th Edition.
Background
Martin Paul Kafka was born in May 1947. He graduated from Columbia College in 1968, then earned his medical degree in 1973 from SUNY Downstate Medical Center. He completed his psychiatric residency at the University of Michigan in 1977. In 1999 Kafka was elected a full member of the International Academy of Sex Research.
References
Kafka MP, Henne J (). The Paraphilia-Related Disorders: An Empirical Investigation of Nonparaphilic Hypersexuality Disorders in Outpatient Males. J Sex Marital Ther. 1999 Oct-Dec;25(4):305-19. doi: 10.1080/00926239908404008
The “brain sex” concept put forth by Moir and Jessel is far more troubling to me than the Bem Sex Role Inventory.
Description: The purpose of the Moir-Jessel Brain Sex Test is “to determine whether your brain functions within the normal range for a male or a female.” This test gives two scores of which the participant selects the correct one for their sex. The interpretation of these scores, breaks the male and female scores each into three categories.
Males scoring less than 0 are “Extremely Masculine.”
Males scoring between 0 and 60 are “Normal Males.”
Males scoring greater than 60 are “Feminine Males.”
Females scoring less than 50 are “Masculine Female.”
Females scoring between 50 to 100 is “Normal Female.”
Females scoring greater than 100 is “Extremely Feminine.”
Anne Lawrence states: “The book BRAIN SEX, from which the test is derived, is a sloppy piece of pop science, full of oversimplifications, unsupported inferences, and speculations presented as though they were facts.” She adds, “The test has not been validated by actual samples of male and female subjects… [T]he test has never been validated with a sample of transsexuals, either.”
I agree about the lack of scientific validity in this extremely controversial book. I would also add that science can be used, or misused, for social purposes. Valid observations can be used to draw absurd conclusions, like the concept of “social Darwinism” put forth by racists and proponents of eugenics.
Moir and Jessel’s Brain Sex is to sexism what Murray and Herrnstein’s The Bell Curve is to racism: a veneer of scientific methodology laid over an agenda that is sexist at its very core. I find the fact that this book is warmly embraced by many transgender women to be a highly troubling commentary on our community’s attitude toward gender stereotypes.
To argue that social inequalities between the sexes is based on brain structure is simply misogyny draped in a labcoat.
Dallas Denny (born August 18, 1949) is an American author, counselor, and transgender rights activist known for publishing and archiving community resources. Denny is one of the most important transgender figures of the 1990s.
Background
Denny was born on August 18, 1949 in Asheville, North Carolina. Denny earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Middle Tennessee State University in 1974 and a master’s degree from University of Tennessee-Knoxville in 1977. Denny also did postgraduate work at East Tennessee State University, Georgia State University, and Vanderbilt University.
Denny worked for the State of Tennessee from 1979 to 1990 as a caseworker and analyst. From 1990 to 2008 Denny worked as a behavior analyst for the DeKalb Community Service Board.
Transgender activism
In 1990 Denny founded AEGIS (American Educational Gender Information Service), later renamed Gender Education & Advocacy. Denny also founded the print journal Chrysalis Quarterly. In 1993 Denny founded the National Transgender Library & Archive.
In the 1990s Denny continued the work of the Erickson Educational Foundation, helped found Atlanta’s transgender Southern Comfort Conference, and directed Fantasia Fair. From 1999 to 2008 Denny was editor of Transgender Tapestry, published by the International Foundation for Gender Education.
Books include:
Gender Dysphoria: A Guide to Research (1994)
Current Concepts in Transgender Identity (1998)
Honors include:
IFGE’s Trinity Virginia Prince Lifetime Achievement Award
Bruce Alberts, President, the National Academy of Sciences Harvey V. Fineberg, President, the Institute of Medicine
The National Academies 2101 Constitution Avenue NW Washington DC 20418
Dear Dr. Alberts and Dr. Fineberg:
I am writing in regard to a recent publication under the National Academies of Sciences imprimatur, namely Michael Bailey’s The Man Who Would be Queen. As you know, Bailey’s book is deliberately provocative and is considered highly offensive by many who have read it. I count myself in this growing number.
Also as you know, Bailey is claiming he is advancing a science-based argument in his deliberately objectional depictions of gay men and transsexuals. However, there is no science in his book, merely sweeping generalizations and grand statements which are not backed up by data or even citations for publications which might contain such data.
Controversial books often serve to advance science, but only when they use carefully considered arguments and present data to convince the reasoned reader of the validity of the author’s arguments. Darwin did this. Thomas Kuhn did this. Even popular works such as the late Stephen Jay Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man discuss actual research and interpret the findings. The Jerry Springer approach used by Bailey informs no one; it serves merely to further polarize an already-polarized issue.
My question to you is: why has the esteemed National Academies of Sciences lent its credibility and dignity to such a discreditable and undignified work as The Man Who Would Be Queen? In this age of reality TV and junk journalism, are you deliberately tarnishing your heretofore respected image– or was someone asleep at the wheel?