Steve Sailer is an American conservative activist and anti-transgender extremist. Sailer created the Human Biodiversity Institute, an organization dedicated eugenic ideology.
Connection to J. Michael Bailey
J. Michael Bailey published his instant classic of transphobia, The Man Who Would Be Queen, in 2003. Steve Sailer’s Roster of Human Biodiversity Discussion Group links many of the usual suspects back to before Bailey had published his materials on gender online in 2000.
- J. Michael Bailey
- Ray Blanchard
- Chris Brand
- David Buss
- John Derbyshire
- Steven Pinker
- Ian Pitchford
- Dan Seligman
Sailer’s iSteve site also has top page links to many members’ sites, and to others who share his ideology:
- Gene Expression: Blog by elitists enamored of eugenics.
Sailer says this about Bailey:
Michael Bailey
A psychologist at Northwestern, Bailey is a leading researcher into homosexuality, and one of the handful of realists on this subject where moralizing (whether of the religious or politically correct variety — “Gays: Sinners Against God or Victims of Society?”) is standard.
Here’s Sailer’s shill review for Amazon
Wonderfully readable book on gay males and transsexuals, August 16, 2003
Reviewer: Steve Sailer (see more about me) from Studio City, CA
United States Please note that this book has been the subject of an organized smear campaign among transsexuals, which accounts for most of unhinged reviews you’ll see below.
Professor Bailey is the chairman of the psychology department at Northwestern and probably the leading researcher into homosexuality in America.
The first two thirds of the book are about male homosexuals, who, as you’ll note, aren’t complaining. It briskly reviews most of the scientific evidence on male homosexuality, which shows that most of the stereotypes about gay men tend to be more or less true on average. I’ve studied this issue for years, and everything I’ve ever seen points to the validity of Bailey’s conclusions about male homosexuals.
Bailey has outraged transexuals by publishing in the last third of the book in highly readable form the evidence that has been mounting for a number of years in scientific journals that the standardized explanation of transsexualism — “I always felt like a girl on the inside, even when I was a linebacker, then a Navy SEAL, then the most feared corporate raider on Wall Street” — is not very persuasive. Bailey suggests that male to female transsexuals tend to fall into one of two categories — extremely effeminate homosexuals or masculine men who have an odd fetish called autogynephilia, which is a kind of heterosexual narcissism.
Is this true? Beats me. My main exposure to transsexualism is the wonderful travel writer James/Jan Morris’ memoir “Conundrum,” which repeats the “I always felt like a girl” party line. It struck me at the time that Morris’ descriptions of how he was a military officer, an adventurer, and fathered five children while feeling like a girl on the inside sure sounded bogus, but I hadn’t heard at the time the alternative explanation of autogynephilia. Anyway, it would be easy to see why nobody would want to be associated with autogynephilia.
In sum, a fascinating and informative book that a well-organized pressure group doesn’t want you to read. What better reason to read it?
He says this about Blanchard
Of course, the article ignores the truth about male to female transsexuals, as discovered by leading Canadian sexologist Ray Blanchard. All that stuff about, “Even when I was captain of the football team, I always felt like a girl on the inside,” is in most cases a cover story. In reality, most cases fall into two categories. The first are extremely effeminate homosexuals who want to attract a Real (i.e., straight) Man, and figure their only chance is to become a quasi-Real Woman. The second are what Blanchard calls “autogynephiles.” These are, in effect, narcissists who become overwhelmingly attracted, quasi-heterosexually, to the idea of themselves as a beautiful woman. They classically start out dressing up in their mother’s lingerie and, uh, amorously admiring themselves in front of the mirror. That’s kind of embarrassing to explain, so they settled on this “I feel like a girl on the inside” party line. But don’t expect to read that in the NYT.
www.isteve.com/Web%20Exclusives%20Archive-Aug2002.htm
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20020823-120858-6977r
Interview: Are stereotypes of homosexuals true? by Steve Sailer — To paraphrase Mark Twain, everybody talks about sexual orientation, but Michael Bailey is one of the few scientists who rigorously researches it. The Northwestern University psychology professor is among the most respected figures in the field of objectively investigating homosexuality.
He’s quoted on the Joseph Henry Press site.
Gay gene or gay germ? (17 August 2003) http://www.vdare.com/sailer/gay_gene.htm
Pinker’s Progress logrolling for Steven Pinker
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/pinker_progress.htm
Steve was a fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute.
Since it was his shot at the big time, his presentation to Margaret Thatcher and some Hudson Institute people probably best sums up his worldview (see a synopsis below).
Sailer writes for UPI, the formerly objective press consortium now bankrolled by conservative Sun Myung Moon.
Ray Blanchard was one of the very first people to sign on with Steve’s Biodiversity group, no doubt because of his prominent role in assisting Canada’s positive eugenics programs through psychology (following the groundbreaking eugenics work of psychologist Charles Kirk Clarke, as in Clarke Institute). The British/Canada connection is an interesting one.
The Catholic church (via Paul McHugh?) has been churning out a lot of position papers on this matter lately, though Sailer holds views antithetical to most Catholic doctrine. He suggests that the quaint notion that we are all equal in a spiritual sense or the US Constitutionâs quaint claim that âall men are created equalâ need to be done away with as we enter the âAge of Galton,â which he sees as the next big paradigm shift.
Francis Galton coined the term “eugenics,” was a sort of protopsychologist, and a criminologist who invented the concept of fingerprinting. Steve’s Human Biodiversity group seeks to gather the far-flung diaspora of thinkers and fields influenced by Galton’s undeniably brilliant but ideologically volatile contributions.
Sailer seems to see himself as an evangelist of Galton’s, though he has put a decidedly unusual ideological spin to eugenics. He has fused Marx and Darwin into an ideology in which he seems to advocate a sort of genetic division of labor, taking most examples from sports. He envisions a society of genetic classes each assigned to do what they do best, sort of an antithesis of Marx’s classless society. He also notes that traditional eugenics programs (i.e. genocide and sterilization) are in place in China, and that we are poised to lose the eugenics “arms race” if we don’t implement our own eugenics programs pronto.
He sees those advocating Galtonian principles of eugenics as suffering a sort of religious persecution, getting kicked out of universities and generally reviled. Sailer’s isn’t your Fuhrer’s eugenics, this is a kinder, gentler eugenics!
Steve’s presentation to Margaret Thatcher
This was clearly a big deal for him– a photo cropped to show just Thatcher and Sailer is on his front page.
http://www.isteve.com/thatcher-speech-web_files/frame.htm#slide0001.htm
Steve in “quotes,” commentary in [brackets]
“To Lady Thatcher and three dozen other distinguished guests at the Hudson Institutesâ Thatcher Weekend conference on âWill the 21st Century Be the American Century?â Today, Iâll discuss the long run impact of the biotechnology revolution.”
[He starts of with an example of positive eugenics, in which a family screened embryos to avoid having a second child with cystic fibrosis.]
“Should we ban every genetic manipulation? Or just the ones that would be socially deleterious? But, how would we know which ones are which? Or should we let the free market rip? Or should we subsidize enhancements for the poor and, uh, genetically-challenged?”
[Steve claims weâve moved from Marxâs obsession with âaccidents of birthâ (i.e. Class into which you were born) to Darwinâs âaccidents of conception.â]
“In the West, outspoken Darwinian scientists like Edward O. Wilson, Arthur Jensen, J.P. Rushton, and Chris Brand have been the victims of assault, threat, riot, firing, censorship, character assassination, and constant harassment.”
“What, by the way, is âhuman biodiversity?â Itâs primarily biological differences in sex, race, and — to some debatable extent — sexual orientation. Just as studying the biodiversity of animals is interesting, aesthetically pleasing, and important to society, so is studying the fascinating biodiversity of humans. I take seriously the multiculturalist slogan âCelebrate Diversity.â Unfortunately, multiculturalists donât. In practice, the diversicrats try to cover up human biodiversity.”
“Consider the French-inspired post-modernist rebellion against science, knowledge, nature, and objective reality.”
“The new prestige of evolutionary biology encouraged egalitarians to discard that corny creed of spiritual equality – and to adopt the shiny new scientific hypotheses that humans are physically and mentally uniform. And that, paradoxically, put progressive egalitarians on a collision course with Darwinian science.”
“The human race is strengthened by its diversity, as long as we are allowed to specialize in what we do best and trade with people with different strong suits. Thatâs Ricardian economics 101.”
[An economic model of international trade introduced by David Ricardo to explain the pattern and the gains from trade in terms of comparative advantage. It assumes “perfect competition” (i.e. No affirmative action or economic handicapping for poor countries) and a single factor of production: labor, with constant requirements of labor per unit of output that differ across countries.]
“Similarly, one easy way for America to improve its human resources through immigration reform. Like Canada, we should just admit those likely to most benefit and least burden our current citizenry. Instead, who gets in depends primarily on family reunification, a euphemism for nepotism.”
“Eugenics has a terrible reputation, much of it deserved. Until recently, eugenics in action mostly consisted of governments murdering people they didnât like, as in Nazi Germany, or sterilizing them, as in Socialist Sweden.”
http://www.themilitant.com/1997/6133/6133_18.html
[ Steve mentions Sweden but fails to mention similar programs here in the good old US of A:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/072100-106.htm
http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/]
“In contrast, todayâs eugenics consists of couples freely choosing to improve their own children.”
[Steve fails to mention Asians screening for female fetuses and aborting them, etc.]
“Will voluntary eugenics bring about utopia, or a Brave New Nightmare? It all depends on what impact these changes in gene frequencies have on society. Fortunately, we have a huge storehouse of data available to base predictions upon: namely, the vast amounts of existing genetic diversity. Unfortunately, we now discourage and even persecute scholars who try to study it.”
[He advocates breeding a subset for intelligence because “In 1997 some high-IQ cancer researchers saved me from a painful death.”]
“Canada discriminates more in favor of intelligent immigrants than the United States. Which country has benefited more?”
[Steve then goes on a Galtonian reverie about sex difference, where men are “natural” leaders, and women are “nurturing.”]
“But IQ is just one aspect. Consider how free market Galtonism may widen the gap between the sexes. People who want to choose their childâs sex will likely want to choose their genes so that they get boyish boys and girlish girls. Theyâll crank up their sonsâ testosterone levels to get athletic, square-jawed, hard-charging, natural leaders of men. But what will be the impact on society if the new generation of men are manlier on average? We might get some insights from studying the African-American community, since, as shown by their sports domination, they tend toward greater masculinity.”
“Conversely, those parents who choose daughters, will tend to prefer higher estrogen levels to produce lovely, nurturing young ladies who will give them grandchildren and take care of them in their old age.”
“When this is understood, it will increase demands for banning genetic technologies. Already, professional activists for the disabled worry that embryo selection will put them out of business by creating healthier people.”
“Likewise, feminist organizations will go through the roof once they figure out that reproductive liberty would mean even more little girls whoâd much prefer to play house than softball.”
“However, just as eugenics was favored in the past by leftist busybodies like Beatrice and Sidney Webb, progressive pressure groups may well someday give up on banning eugenics and flip back to demanding mandatory re-engineering of human nature. Pacificists and multiculturalists will want to chop out our penchant for violence and ethnocentrism. Feminists will demand that the government redesign men to better appreciate women like themselves. Environmentalists will want to delete our desire for the internal combustion engine. âWhy canât people just stay in one place, like a tree?â If socialism failed because it conflicts with human nature, why not change human nature to make Marxism possible?”
“Whether eugenics is officially banned or socialized, people will still try to make their own choices about their own kids. And thatâs why God created the Cayman Islands. But these black market babies will out-compete their government-controlled rivals so badly, that governments will have to strike back.”
“Unencumbered by post-Christian ethics, the Chinese government recently passed a pre-1945-style eugenics law calling for the sterilization of ‘morons.’ If China uses genetic enhancements while the West either bans them or pursues a politically correct re-engineering of human nature, the inevitable result within a few generations would be Chinese economic, and thus military, global hegemony. The weapons scientist and evolutionary theorist Gregory Cochran points out that ‘We cannot opt out of this biological arms race any more than we could opt out of the nuclear arms race.’â
Resources
He maintains a web presence at the following:
iSteve.com
vdare.com
His inflammatory comments on race have prompted someone to put up a Steve Sailer Sucks site:
xSteve.com
Sailer also makes a lot of comments about gays and lesbians:
http://www.isteve.com/lesvsgay.htm