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Danny at end of book

I'm trying to educate myself about the subject of this article, so that (hopefully) I can be more useful here. I just downloaded the Kindle version of TMWWBQ and jumped to the Epilogue to read about Bailey's encounter with "Danny", which is the basis for this sentence in the article: "On the last page of the book, Bailey meets 'Danny', who no longer has gender identity disorder, and is living as a gay man." In the Kindle edition at least, at this encounter "Danny Ryan" is an 8-year-old boy. Am I missing another bit in the book? I wouldn't consider an 8-year-old a "man" in this context. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Danielklotz (talk • contribs) 03:22, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

That's one of several factual errors introduced by User:WhatamIdoing. In her interpretation of events, a gender-variant youth like "Danny" is an adult gay man at age 8, but Bailey's son and daughter are "innocent children" when promoting a book dedicated to them while about ten years older. Jokestress (talk) 03:39, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
If it is wrong, we should fix it. Bailey certainly reports in other sources that "Danny" is now an adult and now living as a gay man. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:04, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
You are going to let someone change something? That is funny, when I tried to get this part expanded and clarified you just kept reverting. Wasn't it you that said "the truth isn't important, it is a quote in the book". Why don't we just add a section on here explaining that this was a "factual error" or perhaps, just perhaps you could add the word "alleges". This article does nothing to describe the contents at all. The book itself had become secondary and the controversy section a cause to champion. Thank you Daniel for researching.98.149.114.34 (talk) 20:07, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
Argumentum ad hominem isn't particularly helpful right now- could you just focus on the content? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 20:38, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
Of course. WAID insisted that the final line where Bailey finds Danny was meant to drive home the point that the large majority of GID boys just turn out gay. This is of course is purely personal interpretation and has nothing to do with fact. Childhood identity in general is full of variables and no study has ever been done to verify that actual GID children revert. None. Instead what we have is the natural tendency of children to treat gender as a fluid thing becoming the unfounded basis of support for an unverified myth. WAIDs insistence of the inclusion of that line alone is based on that personal interpretation. 98.149.114.34 (talk) 20:43, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
Ah, the summer of 2009. That was when you kept insisting that "Danny" be described as a "daughter" rather than a "son" in the summary of the book, despite the book never doing anything of the sort.
From Dreger's description of the book:

"Indeed, Bailey refers to data showing that nearly all boys like Danny diagnosable with GID turn out not to be transsexual women, but to be gay men (pp. 17–20). Given the outcomes data on boys treated for GID, and given the self-reports of gay men with regard to their childhoods, Bailey speculates that Danny will end up a non-transsexual gay man (pp. 17, 34). This, of course, is part of what infuriated certain trans critics who adhere to the feminine essence story of MTF transsexualism—especially those who are attracted to women; they wanted to claim personal histories just like Danny’s, yet here was Bailey saying, in fact, that the vast majority of boys like Danny would just end up as fairly run-of-the-mill feminine gay men."

So there has been research done on this point, and "nearly all boys" with GID don't become transwomen. In fact, it typically reports that somewhere between 2% and 6% of children with GID become adults with GID, and a very substantial majority become gay men. It is not merely my "personal interpretation". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:08, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
Small problem WAID, quoting from Alice Dreger and not Dr Bailey. That study that there was absolutely no data on in the book ? It's this study to quote Bailey "The largest, most famous, and best study on this issue was conducted by Richard Green, then a psychiatrist at UCLA. Green began with 66 feminine boys, mostly referred by therapists". Now tell me WAID. DO YOU SEE GID LISTED ANYWHERE IN THOSE PAGES YOU QUOTED?! ANYWHERE?! No, not once! These were "feminine boys" not cases of boys with Gender Identity Disorder at all! Not once does it say they were ever diagnosed with GID! What you have done is made an assumption to fit your POV and injected it into this article. You never even quoted from the book ! You AGAIN use a secondary source to provide a completely false premise. YOU ARE WRONG AND YOU HAVE PROVIDED FALSE INFORMATION TO THIS ARTICLE YET AGAIN!
I know, I understand you haven't a clue what GID is after all these years. You still think it is feminine behavior in boys. Sorry, part of the premise of GID is that the patient complains of a disassociation with their gender. Not one of these boys ever did .so we can safely say that the majority of non GID yet feminine boys remain so".98.149.114.34 (talk) 00:25, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
I suggest that you look at Green's study, paying careful attention to the bit that runs "...66 clinically referred boys whose behaviors were consistent with the diagnosis of gender identity disorder of childhood," instead of guessing what it might have been about. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:03, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
So "consistent" to you is like a "diagnosis of "? How scientific! They were not GID and a study of GID kids , teenagers or adults has never been done.98.149.114.34 (talk) 01:09, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
And there was no ad hominem, just as there was no venom. After having everything you have done deleted a moment of sarcasm is hardly a "ad hominem". it was clearly about the article. Why do you keep insisting there is some attack going on here? I have to admit it's confusing. I'm happy as pie when WAID lets anyone else edit, it's such a rarity. 98.149.114.34 (talk) 21:29, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

And to your bad link WAID (doesn't work) , claiming I "insisted" that Danny be referred to as "her", that was based on the idea that Bailey was actually working with actual GID patients, not just gay men who Bailey misidentified as having GID. Given than neither of you seem to understand that Gender Identity Disorder actually requires the person to identify with the opposite gender I can understand your resistence. 98.149.114.34 (talk) 00:36, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Now all the little fun things said, let us look at a few quotes from the end of the book that explain a lot. Bailey right off declares Dnnny to NOT BE GID. In fact , right from the beginning he marks Danny as feminine but a gay man. There was no GID.
"I am fairly certain that when he grows up, Danny Ryan will be- come a man rather than changing into a woman. I am more certain that no matter what Danny becomes, his sexual desires will be for men. Now eight years old, Danny probably has not yet had clear sexual desires. Recall that at age five he claimed to dislike boys—he meant that he didn’t like their personalities and activities, not that he disliked them sexually. Certainly at age five, Danny had no unambiguous sexual feelings. But he will."
"Leslie Ryan says that Danny is “going into the closet more.” She doesn’t mean the literal closet where he used to seek her shoes. She means that more and more, he is hiding his femininity. Patrick has taken to playing catch with Danny, and Danny apparently enjoys spending this time with his father. But he is not very good at playing catch, and his mother thinks he would rather be doing something else.He will no longer talk willingly about his feminine ways. Jennifer, his old babysitter, recently visited him. She recalled playing Barbie with him, and Danny said: “We don’t talk about those things anymore"
"If Danny becomes a gay man, as seems likely, he will encounter more intolerance. Still, she thinks that at age eight, Danny has left his most difficult times behind him."
"Looking at Danny, it was difficult to imagine him wearing high heels and a dress. He looked good as a boy—if an unusually formally dressed one. When the family friend’s daughter showed up, she told him how handsome he looked, and he beamed.This was not a girl in boy’s clothing.As we congregated in the hallway, I watched Danny interact. Shy at first, he whispered quietly to his sister. Then someone asked him about Convocation. He cocked his head back dramatically, threw his forearm across his eyes and said,“I thought it was entirely too long. Must they read every single name?” His word choice was obviously unusual, for an eight-year-old boy, and his speech style was precise and somewhat prissy. This was not a typical boy, either.A few moments later, Danny said: “Mummy, I need to go to the men’s room.” I am certain that as he said that, he emphasized “men’s” and looked my way. And off he went, by himself. At that moment, I became as certain as I can be of Danny’s future."


Dr Bailey never diagnosed him as being free of GID because Danny never had GID. There was no professional assessment of GID , no year or two of living in gender and so , the entire premise of Baileys observations really mean nothing. He followed a very feminine gay man growing up. That is all. Your statement , pulled from the book you claim , is not only misleading but harmful in that it claims to be based on something that was never in the book. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.149.114.34 (talk) 01:05, 24 April 201198.149.114.34 (talk) 01:15, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
Danny was profiled in the book specifically because he definitely had GID. Bailey writes in the book, "Danny is not even a close call, diagnostically speaking.... According to the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-IV-TR)—which represents a kind of official list of mental disorders—Danny has a mental illness: childhood gender identity disorder (or GID for short)."
GID among children is not the same as GID among adults. Additionally, having GID and undergoing the process of transitioning are not the same thing. It is entirely possible for a person to have GID and decide not to spend a year living in the target sex (e.g., for fear of persecution). You don't stop having GID simply because you decide not to transition publicly, or to postpone the transition until a later date. (Although, fascinatingly, a small number of adult GID patients do stop having GID, per PMID 10929795.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:03, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Really?This is Danny at 5 years old:

"I am fairly certain that when he grows up, Danny Ryan will be- come a man rather than changing into a woman."

He was certain he wasn't a transsexual from the start. I guess this is like "a diagnosis consistent with" being turned into "GID" and Bailey suddenly feeling Danny no longer had GID. How odd , "poof"! I guess it's like a common cold, it comes and goes with the winds.98.149.114.34 (talk) 03:39, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Again to address this: "Additionally, having GID and undergoing the process of transitioning are not the same thing. It is entirely possible for a person to have GID and decide not to spend a year living in the target sex"

Really? Because there actually is no transition, the only people transitioning are everyone around you. Gender markers, the gender of pronouns , all of these are what your family change, you are still just you .You are your target sex already. That is what GID is. Perhaps you think SRS is transition or electrolysis or wearing a dress but it isn't. And that is the entire point, how do you stop being yourself? Gender "identity" Disorder is exactly the same in adults. Exactly, it is just what you do to deal with it. Children learn that it is bad to be different and so they hid it and become emotionally crippled adults , emulating what they think is male behavior. The problem is that you classify any male who behaves in a female manner as GID. So does Bailey. Danny was never GID and Bailey even stated that he believed that. Bailey couldn't say Danny had GID because he didn't know him. He was merely quoting from the DSM and as we all know the DSM classifies it as a mental illness much like it did homosexuality. 98.149.114.34 (talk) 06:32, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I just don't know how else to explain this to you. The fact is that GID exists in children, and GID exists before the person transitions, and may exist even if the person never takes even the smallest step towards a public transition. This is true whether you define transitioning in physical terms, like taking hormones, or in social terms, like asking family, friends, and co-workers to correct the gender markers they use in dealing with the person.
GID is not, and has never been, a medical term for gay men.
You might want to read about this (perhaps Gender identity disorder in children is a reasonable place to start), or ask someone whom you trust and who is more educated than yourself about this (e.g., Jokestress, who wrote most of Misplaced Pages's article about GID in children).
As for whether Bailey knew "Danny", the quotations above prove that Bailey did meet Danny. It is not possible for Bailey to have had a face-to-face meeting with Danny and Danny's mother, without Bailey meeting Danny and Danny's mother. Furthermore, Bailey must have had long-term contact with Danny and/or his mother, because Bailey reported in 2006 that Danny was no longer a little boy, but a young gay man. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:02, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Meeting Danny does not mean he diagnosed Danny ! How exactly do you think these kids are diagnosed? In the hallway of a theater? I don't know how to explain it to you either since you seem to believe that GID is as simple as having a feminine manner! As easily diagnosed as looking at him.
"I am fairly certain that when he grows up, Danny Ryan will become a man rather than changing into a woman."
No doctor would ever make that kind of assumption unless they were sure that the person didn't GID. The study Bailey quoted was about effeminate homosexual boys, not transsexuals. Sorry 98.149.114.34 (talk) 01:04, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Since it appears neither of you is going to stop bickering here...
98.149.114.34, please cite quotations from the book when discussing the book, and please connect it with the content in the article that you are discussing. You have posted so much material lately that it's impossible to grasp what you'd like to address. I feel we should do them one at a time, perhaps starting with Bailey's account of why he came under fire, contrasted with other accounts. As WAID points out, "while others disagree" is a vague and problematic way to cover this. It's clearer to say Bailey says this, others say this. Jokestress (talk) 20:14, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Fine, I have n problem with a larger statement. I started a separate section to discuss Greens study. WAID was using it to support Bailey saying that Danny was no longer a victim of gender identity disorder. Greens study was about homosexuality, the term GID meant effeminate gay men at the time, not transsexual. It was the 70's and people just assumed anyone who was effeminate and gay was transsexual.Lets start with this.
"On December 15, 1973, the American Psychiatric Association, in a much publicized move, approved a referendum removing homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. This development, coming after a bitter debate within the psychiatric community, had a tremendous impact on the public perception of homosexuality, not to mention the self-esteem of gay men and lesbians living within the United States.However, when the new Diagnostic and Statistics Manual (DSM III) was published in 1980, in place of homosexuality was an entirely new entry and diagnosis, "Gender Identity Disorder in Childhood," or "The Sissy Boy Syndrome."According to the DSM III, there are two main components that must be present to diagnose an individual with Gender Identity Disorder. First, with the child, there must be "strong and persistent" cross-gender identification, that is, a child wanting to be a member of the opposite sex. Evidence for this identification can include, for boys, the desire to cross-dress, or for girls, the "insistence on wearing only stereotypical masculine clothing."
Does Bailey at any time mention Danny insisting on wearing women's clothes?98.149.114.34 (talk) 01:04, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing, I continue to have concerns that the article says "Danny" is a "gay man" at age 8 in 1998 (and according to you is a man at age 15/16 in 2006), but Bailey's son and daughter are "children" (and according to you "innocent children") despite being years older than "Danny." It's this double standard regarding depictions of trans and non-trans children that caused much controversy in the first place, and the article should be consistent. I'm fine with "Danny" being described as a gay man (as in adult human male) in 2006 when he is 15/16, as long as we describe everyone that age consistently in the article. Jokestress (talk) 20:14, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Do you have a source that says Danny is 15 or 16? The source I'm looking at says nothing more specific than "young gay man". His mother talked to Bailey in 1996, but Danny's age at that time is not given. To assume that Danny is five or six at that time is a NOR violation; saying that Danny turned out to be a gay man is nothing more than following our sources.
On the other hand, saying that Bailey's offspring are somehow no longer his children defies common sense. You are still your parents' child, even when you are fifty years old. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:36, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
According to the book, "Danny" asked for and was denied a pink bike for his 5th birthday (p. 10), so his mom took him to a therapist for a few months, as well as a second opinion (p. 11). After "Danny" had difficulty adjusting in kindergarten (pp. 11-16) that fall, "Leslie" went to see Bailey in spring 1996 (p. 16). "Danny" was still in kindergarten, making him 5 or 6. Using your simple arithmetic from earlier, if he's 5/6 in 1996, he is 15/16 in 2006, and 20/21 in 2011. Again, we shouldn't have a double standard if we are discussing ages in the article. If we can do simple arithmetic to determine ages for one person, we should be able to use it for all. Of course, there's a concern that "Danny" is a fabrication, but in the book he is 5/6 in 1996. Certainly not a "man" a couple of years later at age eight.
Re "children": please don't try to obfuscate things by adding "his." Bailey's offspring remain his offspring, but they are not children and were not at the time the book was published. Jokestress (talk) 21:11, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
I don't actually see anything that cleanly indicates that Danny's mother appeared in Bailey's office while Danny was in Kindergarten. It's plausible, but beyond what the source says (if memory serves; if not, feel free to provide the relevant direct quotation).
As for "obfuscation", the text in the article says, "Andrea James, a transgender advocate, attacked Bailey by constructing a website with pictures of Bailey's children taken from his public website beside sexually explicit captions."
There is nothing inaccurate about this sentence. The pictures certainly were "of Bailey's children"; you even put their names on them to make sure they were identified as Bailey's kids. They were not stock photos or pictures of someone with no relationship to Bailey. They were pictures "of Bailey's children", and labeled as such. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:46, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
OK. Let's try this again.
  • "Danny" is at the youngest 8 (p. 214) in 2003 (publication year)
  • "Danny" is at the oldest 8 in 1996 (p. 16), assuming Bailey witnessed his "curing" shortly after meeting "Leslie."
  • That means "Danny" is between 8 and 15 when the book came out.
  • "Danny" turns 5 (p. 10) before "Leslie" seeks out therapists.
  • "Leslie" sees a psychiatrist who blamed her. (p. 11)
  • "Leslie" then sees a school psychologist "because Danny was about to start kindergarten" (p. 11). The psychologist says "Danny" will develop a homosexual preference without intervention. (p. 12)
  • "Leslie" then learns her gay brother outgrew his doll-loving cross-dressing childhood ways. (p. 12)
  • "Danny" starts kindergarten. (p. 13)
  • "Danny" agrees to see a child psychologist. (p. 15)
  • "Leslie" sees Bailey in spring 1996 to get yet another opinion. (p. 16)
  • "Danny" is at least 5 in Spring 1996, according to the book.
Numerous factual inaccuracies in the description you wrote: They were not sexually explicit captions. One caption repurposes a quote from his book (not explicit) and the other gives an either/or psychosexual pathology that echoes his taxonomy of trans people (and is explicit). And the website was not constructed at the time of publication (it had been around in various iterations for many years). And Bailey had constructed a book and lecture mocking and attacking transgender children, which was the impetus for all of it. Jokestress (talk) 07:08, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
I think we're pretty much stuck with "sexually explicit captions", since it's a direct quotation from the named reliable source:
"The site also included a link to the Web page of another critic of Dr. Bailey’s book, Andrea James, a Los Angeles-based transgender advocate and consultant. Ms. James downloaded images from Dr. Bailey’s Web site of his children, taken when they were in middle and elementary school, and posted them on her own site, with sexually explicit captions that she provided."
That you consider "'Kate': a cock-starved exhibitionist, or a paraphiliac who just gets off on the idea of it?" to not be sexually explicit is basically unimportant per WP:NOR. Or, on re-reading, perhaps your objection is that you only consider the one caption to be sexually explicit, and that the other sexually explicit items, e.g., on whether the children had been sodomized by their father, were not technically captions?
I agree that it might be slightly more precise to say that you posted a webpage with this particular bit of content, but the distinction seems fairly trivial to me, and certainly there were (and are) many other pages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:24, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Ah, summer 2007. The years have flown by since the first time I explained to you that the other caption was not explicit and was a quote from page 142 of Bailey's book: "There are also transsexuals who work as waitresses, hairdressers, receptionists, strippers, and prostitutes, as well as in many other occupations," but with his son's name replacing "transsexuals." I'm fine with the existing citation of the Ben Carey article per "verifiability, not truth," but Carey is regurgitating Dreger there and was doing a little payback for my getting him in trouble in 2005 and for getting that 2007 piece delayed for a few weeks. As the subject of a standalone paragraph in this Misplaced Pages article, I believe we should note the point I was making (per NPOV) about the double standard of Bailey's mocking and pathologizing trans children while using his own son and daughter to promote and defend his own actions. I know I have also explained the "two types" analogy to you at considerable length, and more than once as well, on your talk page, and in emails to you directly, I believe. Your idiosyncratic interpretation of events may be unshakable in the face of facts which contradict it (e.g. "Danny" the 8-year-old happy gay man), but the article should reflect all points of view in a neutral manner, not the version that exists in your mind which has found its way into this article. Jokestress (talk) 08:05, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Journalists can be biased SOBs and may well have had a grudge on you for past run-ins with them. But frankly, if we throw Carey's (and Dreger's) reporting out, there isn't much in the way of wp:secondary sources left in this article, except for the book reviews, which don't address those events. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports are not substantively different on that issue—I think we discussed that already. Tijfo098 (talk) 20:05, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually, since the dispute seems to gravitate around the use of "children" now (and not just "sexually explicit captions"), we could use the Chronicle wording "teenage son and daughter" instead. Tijfo098 (talk) 20:30, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, let me ask you about a different pair of photos. Jokestress eventually replaced the school yearbook photos of Bailey's kids with snapshots showing Jokestress at about age 4. If memory serves, one of them showed Jokestress outside with a duck. Would you describe the replacement images as "pictures of a four year old" or "pictures of a middle-aged person"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:37, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
Err... We barely got a break from the IP editor who filling this talk page with her personal opinions, although they were diametrically opposed to yours on most issues at hand here. It doesn't matter in the slightest what I think of this or that photo (unless you propose to include them in this article, in which case I might have an opinion on their relevance). Otherwise, it only matters what reliable sources say about the incident. Tijfo098 (talk) 02:53, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
And I don't have first-hand experience with any version of the web page in question. I take it you do and therefore oppose the change based on that. Please be a little more explicit. Tijfo098 (talk) 03:06, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
The age difference is more striking in the second set of pictures, and I thought might illustrate the problem: Do we describe the age of the person at the time the picture was taken, or at the time the image was posted by Jokestress?
The school photos that Jokestress copied and re-posted in 2003 were not taken in 2003. I'd have guessed that at the time the school yearbook portraits were taken, the kids were about 10 or 12 years old. So if we're interested in describing what the reader saw, then "teenage" is probably an inaccurate and misleading description of the pictures actually posted, just like "middle-aged" would be a remarkably inaccurate and misleading description of a three-decades-old snapshot that clearly shows a preschooler. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:24, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
Since I've not seen the pictures myself, and because there are RSes using both wordings, I defer to your judgement. Tijfo098 (talk) 05:36, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Revised article structure

It seems obvious to me that minor tweaks here and there to this article will not solve the years-long disputes that continue to this day. A more comprehensive approach needs to be taken to the revising. If there is interest, I am volunteering to spearhead a rewrite of this article, seeking frequent input from all sides. The goal would be to arrive at a version we are all comfortable with, which can then be instated and the article can be unlocked. Material in this current article that is broadly accepted should certainly be kept. I know a lot of energy has gone into it.

I'm interested in reactions to this proposal for a rewrite. If it's a worthwhile idea, the first step will be to agree upon a structure for the article. I've looked at the guidelines within WikiProject Books, as well as Featured Articles and Good Articles within that project. It seems to me that WikiProject Books is the most relevant WikiProject when it comes to article structure, and WikiProjectWikify has good standards, too. (I believe WikiProject LGBT studies and WikiProject Sexology and sexuality will be great resources a little later, when it comes to the actual content of the article. They don't seem to have much to offer in terms of ideal structures for an article about a book.) Based on the guidelines of WikiProject Books, along with consideration of the debates that have taken place here, here is the article structure I would like to offer for your feedback: 

     Intro
   1 Synopsis
   2 Commercial and critical reception
       2.1 Positive reception
       2.2 Negative reception
       2.3 Bailey's response to critics
   3 Publication
   4 Historical context
   5 See also
   6 References
   7 External links

To add a little detail to this...

  • Per WikiProject Books guidelines, the synopsis will be held to under 900 words, with 600 as the ideal.
  • In the "Critical reception" section, the flow will be like this: "Some critics praised the book, and here is some of what they said. Others criticized the book, and here are the main themes of their critiques and some of what they said. The author responded to some of the criticism and here is some of what he said." (The charge that the book was marketed as "a work of science" but is not belongs in this section, as do allegations that the author did not follow IRB protocol etc. Information regarding the Northwestern University investigation would also go here, since it was negative reception that prompted it.)
  • The "Publication" section gives the facts about when the book was published and by what entity.
  • The "Historical context" section would be the place to talk about how Bailey follows/endorses Blanchard, what the state of transgender studies was at the time of publication, as well as to note any significant changes or developments since then. (For instance, it is useful for Misplaced Pages readers to know about the ongoing debate about whether GID is in fact a mental illness belonging in the DSM.)
  • "See also" begins with a link to Bailey's biographic Misplaced Pages article, which is where some of the controversy (including details of his tenure at Northwestern) belong.

So... thoughts? -- DanielKlotz (talk · contribs) 21:38, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I would like it to be smaller as well only leaving in a section where Bailey gets to level charges at his critics doesn't seem quite fair. If Bailey or Dreger get to level charges of the loss of academic freedom at people without a chance of counter it, again becomes a bias article. We either exclude Baileys accusations or include his critics response. The problem is these aren't facts, these are accusations. Despite WAIDs prejudice Dreger is no more an authority than Moser on the actual events and far less objective . So, either add a 2.4 section where Baileys critics respond to his accusations or in 2.3 leave personal accusations out entirely and deal only with the book. I would love that also, as expanding the section on the critics alone would be hard to trim down. There is so much material. . I am completely fine with keeping this to the book alone and the criticisms of the book or doing the personal approach but either way it needs balanced. Do no harm and these accusations do exactly that, either by insinuation or directly accusing.98.149.114.34 (talk) 22:56, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
The scandal is the only reason the book is notable. Lots of people publish books; only a few of them get written up in dozens of media outlets because someone tried to get the author fired, put in jail, etc. over the book The scandal, rather than the book itself, and specifically the big-picture effects on academic research, are what the sources focus on (inhibiting academic freedom and discouraging research on the one side, and scaring away research subjects on the other side), and if there hadn't been this big scandal, then our sources would almost certainly be limited to routine press releases announcing the book's publication. Consequently, we really can't leave out the scandal and restrict the article to the contents of the book alone; it wouldn't be a representative description of the subject.
Also, we don't mention, but probably should, the fact that the scandal was ultimately empowering to the trans activists.
My basic reaction to the proposed outline is that (except with the addition of the section on publication), it's not very different from what we've got here, except that the section headings are a bit vaguer. I think that the "historical context" section is doomed: it will be an endless battleground for The Truth™ vs Verifiability.
BTW, it looks like the current summary is half the "ideal" length. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)


I agree that the outline I'm proposing is not much different from what's in place now. Instead of viewing these new section headers as more vague, I view them as more standardized with FAs and GAs about books. Thoughts on that?
I also agree with 98 that section 2.3 doesn't really belong. Responses (and responses to responses) can be summarized in 2.1 and 2.2.
While I understand that a Historical context section could be inviting a continuation of the edit war, I don't see how at least some of the information could be left out. This book is within a field (transgender studies) that has been rapidly changing. To have knowledge of this book (which is what this Misplaced Pages article is meant to provide), I think knowledge of the context is necessary. That said, can the summaries of the book's critical reception provide enough historical context? I think it's possible. Thoughts? -- DanielKlotz (talk · contribs) 19:20, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Agreed that 2.3 can be incorporated into other sections. Also agree that sections on context and publication are important. This book and the response is a watershed moment in trans history, described by one historian as a "transgender tipping point." It's included in a book listing great moments in transgender history, discussing academic exploitation of trans people. Jokestress (talk) 19:40, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
2.3 can definitely mesh with other parts, and the publication section makes perfect sense. As to the historical context... I think it could work, but we're going to have to keep a pretty tight lid on it. The scandals are also significant as well, so we obviously can't leave those out, and WhatamIdoing's note about the larger picture should definitely be mentioned, as it does seem like a pretty obvious omission. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 14:24, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
Dividing reception into "positive" and "negative" tends to make my skin itch. Also, I'm not sure that all of what should be covered is really about the reception of the book, e.g., filing legal complaints about Bailey writing letters. I wonder whether it would be possible to organize it by timeline (initial reception, scandal, long-term) or by affected groups (reception from psychologists, trans people, others). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:19, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
I agree that the division in two sections along those lines is a bad idea; soon enough we'll end up with something resembling Israel and the apartheid analogy, where editors cram non-descriptive lists of those "for" and "against" the "analogy", which is was usually done by cajoling the sources to say what they want. (Someone removed those since last time I checked that article , progress in Misplaced Pages is possible after all). Tijfo098 (talk) 21:17, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
I'm also a bit concerned about us trying to pigeonhole people into "negative" or "positive". It's sometimes obvious, but it would not be unreasonable for a single individual to be simultaneously glad that the subject was considered worth publishing a book on, disappointed at the tone taken towards transwomen, supportive of the notion of diversity among transsexuals, concerned about an anti-trans political backlash, interested in what academics make of the then-existing research, and heartened by the recognition that feminine behavior is measured on a continuum, rather than as a strict binary. Many of the people I might call critics have found something positive (however small) to say about it, and most of the people I might call supporters have identified flaws. A "love it/hate it" split isn't necessarily as accurate as other options. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:41, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Dreger for instance, while generally being sympathetic to Bailey as the "cornered academic" (my expression), was also critical of him for having a tin ear. (Both issues are mentioned in the current version of the article.) Where should we pigeonhole her views?! Tijfo098 (talk) 23:50, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

My thought is that a particular critic could be cited in both sections. That's easy enough. But, I agree this positive/negative split is imperfect. If there's a better way to split this section up, we should go with that. As for the scandals, all of them (as far as I can tell so far) grew out of negative criticisms made against the book, and thus would belong in the "Negative reactions" subsection. (Btw, this conversation thread underscores the importance of taking this process slowly and in small steps, so we can build consensus among warring factions.) -- DanielKlotz (talk · contribs) 01:20, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

We've all agreed to ditch 2.3, "Bailey's response to critics", revising the proposed structure to: 

     Intro
   1 Synopsis
   2 Commercial and critical reception
       2.1 Positive reception
       2.2 Negative reception
   3 Publication
   4 Historical context
   5 See also
   6 References
   7 External links

One lingering concern is, Where to scandals/accusations go? I suggest they get classified as "negative reception". If a scandal/accusation is not clearly related to the book, it probably belongs in Bailey's bio article, not here.

Another lingering concern is about having a section called "Historical context". Based on my own thoughts plus the discussion here, I don't see how we can do without such a section. If we build consensus intentionally, seeking a variety of viewpoints, we can arrive at a version that will be honored by enough editors to shut down attempted edit wars. (Or so the hope goes.)

Reactions? -- DanielKlotz (talk · contribs) 01:52, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Re-archival notice

Some massive deletions of talk page posts took place here and in some subsequent edits (nearly half the byte size of this talk page), making a number of threads unintelligible. Unfortunately, it wasn't reverted in time making a rollback now almost impossible due to new posts. I'm going to archive sections that haven't received reply since then from the pre-deletion version. Tijfo098 (talk) 03:11, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

I think I fixed it. I restored some comments to the "live" talk page as well, in the active threads. Tijfo098 (talk) 05:40, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
It has come to my attention (by email) that during the above process I've restored some potentially uncivil communications on this talk page . I did not mean to cause any more controversy than this page has already seen. I ask an uninvolved administrator to examine the matter. Tijfo098 (talk) 00:39, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Autogynephilia in Women.

Has anyone read Charles Moser's paper claiming that autogynephilia occurs in women? "To test the possibility that natal women also experience autogynephilia, an Autogynephilia Scale for Women (ASW) was created from items used to categorize MTFs as autogynephilic in other studies. A questionnaire that included the ASW was distributed to a sample of 51 professional women employed at an urban hospital; 29 completed questionnaires were returned for analysis. By the common definition of ever having erotic arousal to the thought or image of oneself as a woman, 93% of the respondents would be classified as autogynephilic. "

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19591032

If this is true does this not completely discredit Blanchard and Bailey? 75.84.159.117 (talk) 23:04, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

The unregistered user has also asked the same question at Talk:Feminine_essence_concept_of_transsexuality#Autogynephilia_in_Women.. Perhaps one location is sufficient. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:44, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps not. It concerns both articles and perhaps many more, but different aspects. Since you watch both so very closely you can oversee, making sure there is no duplication of discussion. Perhaps cross posting by link relevant to this books article. 75.84.159.117 (talk) 19:22, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

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