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The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender Bending and Transsexualism is a controversial 2003 book by J. Michael Bailey, published by Joseph Henry Press. In it, Bailey reviews the evidence that male homosexuality is congenital and a result of heredity and prenatal environment. He also reviews the evidence for the controversial idea that there are two forms of transsexualism, one that is an extreme type of homosexuality and one that is an expression of a paraphilia known as autogynephilia.

The book generated considerable controversy, as well as a formal investigation by Northwestern University, where Bailey was Chair of the Psychology Department until shortly before the conclusion of the investigation. Bailey insists that he did nothing wrong and that the attacks on him were motivated by the desire to suppress discussion of the book's ideas about transsexualism, especially autogynephilia.

Written in a popular science style, the book summarizes research done on the topic which supports Bailey's opinions. Free access to the online version of the book on the Joseph Henry Press site was available from 2003 but disabled in 2006.

Summary

The book is divided into three sections: The Boy Who Would Be Princess, The Man He Might Become, and Women Who Once Were Boys.

The book starts with an anecdote about a child Bailey calls "Danny." Bailey writes of Danny's mother, who has been frustrated by other therapists she has seen about her son's "feminine" behavior: "In spring of 1996 Leslie Ryan came to my Northwestern University office to seek yet another opinion." Bailey discusses Kenneth Zucker's therapy for boys with gender identity "disorder". An NPR story on Zuckers "forced maleness" therapy.

"http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90247842"

"So, to treat Bradley, Zucker explained to Carol that she and her husband would have to radically change their parenting. Bradley would no longer be allowed to spend time with girls. He would no longer be allowed to play with girlish toys or pretend that he was a female character. Zucker said that all of these activities were dangerous to a kid with gender identity disorder. He explained that unless Carol and her husband helped the child to change his behavior, as Bradley grew older, he likely would be rejected by both peer groups. Boys would find his feminine interests unappealing. Girls would want more boyish boys. Bradley would be an outcast."

"The mistake the other side makes, Zucker argues, is that it views gender identity disorder primarily as a product of biology. This, Zucker says, is, "astonishingly naive and simplistic."

gender specialist — Diane Ehrensaft, a psychologist in Oakland in rebuttal to Ken Zuckers approach :

"To me, this is coercive therapy," Ehrensaft says. "And I don't think we should be in the business of coercing people. ... I would say all the kids I've worked with who have gone through that kind of treatment, they have not come out better; they've come out worse. For Ehrensaft, the lessons of the early therapeutic approaches to homosexuality — therapies that sought to "cure" the patient of homosexual desires — are clear."

Bailey uses the anecdote about Danny to discuss young boys considered to have a psychological condition referred to as gender identity disorder (GID). This term is used to describe patients who exhibit a large amount of salient gender-atypical behavior such as cross-dressing, boys preferring to play with dolls, identification with female characters in stories or movies. This section also discusses some case studies of men who were, for varying reasons, reassigned to the female sex shortly after their birth, and emphasizes the fact that, despite this, they tended to exhibit typically male characteristics and often a desire to identify as a male.

The second section deals primarily with homosexual men, including a suggested link between childhood GID and male homosexuality later in life. . In particular, he discusses whether homosexuality is a congenitally or possibly even genetically related phenomenon. This includes references to his studies as well as those of Simon LeVay and Dean Hamer. He also discusses the behavior of gay men and its typically masculine and feminine qualities.

In the third section Bailey uses a psychological model created by Ray Blanchard that male to female transsexuals fall into two categories, according to their motivations for transition. He also discusses the process by which this transition occurs. When Bailey runs into Danny in the end of the book, Danny has become less feminized. The last paragraph of the book has Danny emphasizing that he needs to go use the men's room. Critics have suggested parallels with "gay cure" narratives, as well as parallels with the success reported by John Money in "treating" David Reimer (later proven to be academic fraud).

Controversy

Largely because of a single chapter in its third section, the book and its author have been surrounded by a great deal of controversy. The major point of contention is Blanchard, Bailey, and Lawrence theory, which is presented favorably. This theory categorizes transsexuals into one of two types labeled "autogynephilic transsexuals" and "homosexual transsexuals." The basic idea is that these two subtypes of transwomen transition to female for different reasons, both driven by sex:

• because they are attracted to the image of their own feminized body (autogynephiles), or
• because they are homosexual and attracted to heterosexual men (homosexual transsexuals).

Bailey's critics generally claim that his book presents his speculations, anecdotes, and opinions as science. Bailey asserts that they are "misunderstanding" the book.

His prominent critics and defenders both include peers in sexology. Bailey's response was a lecture at the 2003 International Academy of Sex Research titled "Identity politics as a hindrance to scientific truth." Immediately after Bailey's presentation, John Bancroft, then head of the Kinsey Institute, told Bailey: "Michael, I would caution you against calling this book 'science' because I have read it ... and I can tell you it is not science." Eli Coleman, head of the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association has described the book as "bad science" and an "unfortunate setback" of his own theories on transsexualism. Clinician Walter Bockting noted that "the book fails to offer a balanced and well-cited review of the scientific literature," although this omission is common in books intended for a non-technical audience (Bockting 2005). On the book's jacket, Anne Lawrence, in contrast, praised the book as "wonderful," and Simon LeVay called it "absolutely splendid."

Some GLBT rights groups have spoken out about Bailey's claims in various publications, including the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, GenderPAC, as well as three prominent transwomen:

• renowned computer scientist Lynn Conway,
• Anjelica Kieltyka, to whom Bailey refers in his book by the pseudonym Cher, and
• writer and consumer activist Andrea James. James' website includes numerous pages attacking Bailey, his family, his friends, and his professional associates. One of these pages -- now removed -- published pictures of Bailey's young children and labeled with extremely worded text James claimed to be in the style of Baileys book. The text above the pictures reads " Lets replace women in my community with a couple of random photo's and see if Baileys words and theories seem as academic ."

James wrote in her defense on her website " It focuses on some deliberately offensive satire I wrote in 2003 about how Bailey tends to reduce sexuality to pseudoscientific binaries. Bailey had no problems with mocking gender-variant children in his lectures (Roughgarden 2003), so I responded in kind. Today, the only place that satire is available is on Bailey’s website."

Sourced from http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/alice-dreger/hermaphrodite-monger.html

Some transgendered people believe that their behavioral model is not only inaccurate, but a reflection of anti-trans attitudes and a form of defamation.

Originally, the Lambda Literary Foundation nominated the book as a finalist in the transgender award category for 2003. Transpeople immediately protested the nomination and gathered thousands of petition signatures in just a few days. Under pressure from the petition, LLF's judges examined the book more closely, decided that they considered it transphobic, and removed it from their list of finalists.

Many of Bailey's critics attack not only his book, but his professional ethics. Two of the transwomen in his book and several organizations still accuse him of several ethical breaches in his work. Charges of having sex with a research subject and not telling them they were research subjects. Bailey has adamantly denied that he behaved unethically. A top-level investigation at Northwestern University, begun at the instigation of his critics. In November 2003, NU officials announced a formal internal investigation would be conducted into the complaints. The NU investigation committee hearings finally began in March of 2004, and concluded in late June of 2004. Many months later we began to get glimpses into the emerging impact of the investigation within Northwestern, when on November 22, 2004 several of the complainants were mailed form letters informing them that:

source :http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Bailey/The%20Daily%20Northwestern%2011-18-03.html

"I have now received the formal report of the committee charged to investigate the matter; and I have taken action that I believe is appropriate in this situation." - Lawrence B. Dumas, Provost, Northwestern University

source :http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Bailey/The%20Daily%20Northwestern%2011-18-03.html

December 1, 2004, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported that Mr. Bailey had resigned as Chairman of the Psychology Department in October 2004. The findings of the investigation were totally confidential and despite Bailey's claims of exoneration no such exoneration has been verified as the proceedings were in secret and not released to the public.

As part of this controversy, a male-to-female transsexual person who was interviewed for his book accused Bailey of having sex with her while she was his research subject. She has refused to offer details or discuss the accusation, which Bailey has denied.

It was also suggested that Dr. Bailey violated scientific standards by, "conducting intimate research observations on human subjects without telling them that they were objects of the study." Bailey countered by stating that, "I interviewed people for a book This is a free society, and that should be allowed."

The accusations printed in The Chronicles of Higher Education:

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Chronicle-7-17-03.html

Following an appearance by Bailey on CBS 60 Minutes, The Advocate published an opinion piece that asserted, "Bailey’s insistence on his authority in defining what does and doesn’t qualify as gay and his dedication to discovering a 'cause' for gayness is only temperamentally different from those who insist on finding a 'cure.'"

In 2006, the Chicago Free Press (a GLBT free weekly) announced it would no longer accept ads for studies conducted by Bailey. In an editorial entitled "Bad Science," the newspaper said would not allow itself to be used "to further the dubious agenda of someone who believes he should not be held accountable to our community."The Free Press editor told Editor & Publisher that an e-mail blast to a listserv from Bailey himself was the source of most letters protesting the decision. Journalist Jim D'Entremont countered that "Bailey's critics follow the familiar patterns of ideologues seeking to discredit scientists whose findings they deem politically wrong."

Dreger's critics counter that Dreger's defense of Bailey is more than merely defending the academia's right to publish bad "science" , it is about about the right to publish bad science without any regard for the people that misinformation hurts. While no one will dispute the right to discuss scientific theory but " The Man Who Would Be Queen" even Bailey admitted wasn't "hard science".

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Reviews/Psychology%20Perverted%20-%20by%20Joan%20Roughgarden.htm

Transcript of KQED Forum program http://www.alicedreger.com/kqed_forum_transcript.html

Krasny: " But Ms. Conway did write to us, and I think one of the big arguments seems to be calling this science. You said that it was a book in which you interviewed people for a book, as opposed to it being taken seriously as perhaps science or research, or nothing other than a social or soft science, so let’s maybe distinguish that if we could."

Bailey: I wrote what is commonly understood to be a popular science book in which I reviewed serious academic work by myself and other scholars.

Concerns about academic and intellectual freedom

The controversy surrounding Bailey's book has been cited as an alarming example of infringement of academic and intellectual freedom and freedom of speechby Northwestern University ethicist Alice Dreger . Charges that Bailey acted "unethically, immorally, and illegally" were investigated by Dreger, who alleges the accusations were unfounded."What happened to Bailey is important, because the harassment was so extraordinarily bad and because it could happen to any researcher in the field,” said Dreger. "If we’re going to have research at all, then we’re going to have people saying unpopular things, and if this is what happens to them, then we’ve got problems not only for science but free expression itself " Bailey called the two years following its publication as "the hardest of my life."

Critics of both Dreger and Bailey like Joan Roughgarden counter that Bailey's misrepresentation of his book with advertisements that read on National Academies’ letterhead, ``Gay, Straight, or Lying? Science Has the Answer", and conclusions promised that ``may not always be politically correct, but… are scientifically accurate, thoroughly researched and occasionally startling." are responsible for his troubles. Pulled from an incredibly limited sampling of transsexuals (6), all from the same "cruising bar " , with no data base, notes or any real research beyond Baileys memories . Academic freedom is balanced by responsibility to produce verifiable , reproducible facts .

"The outrage of transgendered people against Bailey coincides with that of other scholars against psychologists who write about gender while pretending to be scientific." -Joan Roughgarden

Source: The Bailey Affair: Psychology Perverted By Joan Roughgarden , Department of Biological Sciences Stanford University February 11, 2004

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Reviews/Psychology%20Perverted%20-%20by%20Joan%20Roughgarden.htm

References

External links

• Book Controversy FAQ by author J. Michael Bailey
• J. Michael Bailey investigation via Lynn Conway
• Clearinghouse on Bailey's book via Transsexual Road Map
• Book Review: The Man Who Would Be Queen - S. Alejandra Velasquez
• The World according to J. Michael Bailey inside "The Man who would be Queen: The Science of Gender Bending and Transsexualism" by Madeline H. Wyndzen
• The 'Science' Behind Autogynephilia: A Critique of "The Man Who Would Be Queen"

• 2003 books
• Sexology
• Transgender and medicine
• Sexual orientation and medicine