A PDF of my paper can be found here.
-----------------
Is Alice Dreger to J. Michael Bailey as George W. Bush is to Scooter
Libby? Weighing in on an Yet Another Attempt to Pull a `Scholarly'
Fast One Against Transsexual Women
Katrina C. Rose [FN A]
I want two things to be known up front: - • I have no personal connection to the controversy over The Man
Who Would be Queen [FN 1] beyond the fact that I am a transsexual woman (though, as I will demonstrate, that gives me a vested – and valid - interest in combating maliciousness that masquerades as `science.') I have had minimal contact with only two of the principals. I have conversed with Andrea James [FN 2] a few times over the last few years via e-mail, though I believe that none of this communication involved Queen (I've offered a few thoughts on trans law for use on TS Roadmap, [FN 3] and she does link to my trans legal history web page.) Additionally, I have had one phone conversation with Anjelica Kieltyka (which, I believe, occurred during the summer of 2004, and was a call from her about my review of Queen that had appeared in Transgender Tapestry.) As for Anne Lawrence, in 2000 I was a one of many trans rights activists (along some whose interests were/are averse to trans rights) who participated in a conference call, and Lawrence was part of the call, though I do not recall if I spoke to her directly at any point during
the call. Additionally, I have never had any contact with Lynn
Conway or Deirdre McCloskey. [FN 4]
• I use Alice Dreger's Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention
of Sex [FN 5] in the undergraduate-level course I teach on
transgender history and probably will continue to do so irrespective of how the brewing controversy over her defense of J. Michael Bailey plays out. I have a few qualms with it (others have more), but nothing that has caused me to find another main text; Hermaphrodites is a nice college-level introduction to the concept of intersexuality; and, I supplement it with other material on the subject, so Dreger's is not the only voice heard.
And I hope that hers is not the only voice heard once her "The
Controversy Surrounding The Man Who Would Be Queen: A Case History of the Politics of Science, Identity, and Sex in the Internet Age" is published, with the apparent venue to be the Archives of Sexual
Behavior. [FN 6]
Unfortunately, there's a bad smell in the air – the smell of a fix
being in. [FN 7]
That is simply a feeling on my part, and I could be wrong. But,
trans people – particularly trans women – do not deserve to have to
waste precious time and energy defending ourselves against yet
another Transsexual Empire, [FN 8] Meyer-Reter `study,' [FN 9] Horsexe, [FN 10] "Cunning Linguists," [FN 11] or Kantaras v. Kantaras: How a Victory for one Transsexual May Hinder the Sexual Minority Movement. [FN 12]
Yet, when the next round of illegitimacy is poised for
legitimization, we have to defend ourselves, because history has
shown that if we do not, we cannot expect a defense from any other
corner.
Remember that – for, I believe, that is what all of this can be
boiled down to.
But, as for Dreger's article itself, I doubt that I need to recount
here the general thesis of Queen or the reaction that the trans
community had to the book in 2003. I am assuming that anyone reading this is sufficiently familiar with that context to understand my
analysis.
At the outset, I am particularly dismayed at the following statement
by Dreger about that context and what came later: "In researching
this history, I was dismayed to discover how many people — including
professional scholars — were ready to give me detailed opinions about
the book while admitting they hadn't bothered to read it." [FN 13] Now, I am not particularly dismayed by its accuracy; I've no doubt that this
is true (in fact, this was my feeling as to how The Man Who Would be
Queen ended up with its Lambda nomination; I never saw any indication that anyone who was responsible for the nomination had actually read the book.)
I'm more dismayed by the irony of it.
Note this passage from Dreger: When I talked with him about the backlash against the book, Paul Vasey recalled being with Joan Roughgarden, a prominent transgender
scientist, in February 2003 when she saw for the first time thebook's cover, reproduced on a flier. Vasey remembers that, uponseeing the flier, Roughgarden immediately denounced the book and declared it a threat to the LBGT community. Roughgarden could not have actually known what the book said, because it wasn't yet published. [FN 14]
Why is knowing the contents of the interior of the book a
prerequisite to making a very valid comment about a disgusting
illustration (one clearly designed to play to the worst anti-
transgender and anti-gay male prejudice) and, by extension, the book
it is designed to sell, and, again by (valid) extension, the
potential for the book, primarily or even solely because of that
cover, to be "a threat to the LBGT community"? Must we wait until it
gets cited right alongside Paul McHugh's religionism-
based `scholarship' in a court opinion that forcibly re-transitions
us all? [FN 15] While it is indeed best to have read all of what one
is criticizing, some `nuggets' are sufficient for people of
reasonable intelligence – and relevant experience – to, for lack of a
better phrase, judge a book by its cover.
The first I heard of Queen was the glowing write-up of it by John
Derbyshire in the right-wing National Review:
[C]onservatives remember what much of the rest of society has forgotten: that even the most private of acts can have dire public consequences, as witness the epidemic of bastardy that has ravaged the United States over the past 40 years, and also of course the AIDS plague, spread in this country mainly by promiscuous homosexual buggery. Religion, to which most non-Randian conservatives are at least well disposed, adds another complicating factor, since the
sacred texts of all three major Western monotheistic faiths proscribe homosexuality in unambiguous terms.
These matters are therefore at the very crux of conservative thinking as it has developed in this country across the past half-century. In order to tackle them, it is helpful to have as much actual
understanding of them as we can acquire. Michael Bailey's new book is a very useful addition to that understanding.
…
[H]is book offers a wealth of fascinating information, carefully gathered by (it seems to me) a conscientious and trustworthy scientific observer.
…
[T]here is circumstantial evidence that complete acceptance and equality for all sexual orientations may have antisocial consequences, so that the obloquy aimed at sexual variance by every
society prior to our own may have had some stronger foundation than mere blind prejudice. Male homosexuality, in particular, seems to possess some quality of being intrinsically subversive when let loose
in long-established institutions, especially male-dominated ones. The courts of at least two English kings offer support to this thesis, as does the postwar British Secret Service, and more recently the Roman
Catholic priesthood. I should like to see some adventurous sociologist research these outward aspects with as much diligence and humanity as Michael Bailey has applied to his study of the inward
ones. [FN 16]
Why is it unreasonable for transsexual women to have a ferociously
negative reaction to something embraced in this manner by one of the
punditry organs of radical conservatism?
Even without us having seen it?
Embracing the enemy of one's enemy in the hopes that the former will
actually turn out to be a friend has rarely proven to be more than
embarrassing national masochism, not only not solving the initial
problem but often causing exponentially more problems; in fact, one
of America's current follies of this nature seems to be turning into
excruciatingly painful national suicide (or, at least, the murder of
most of our cherished freedoms.) Recognizing the friend of one's
enemy as also being one's enemy – or at least being willing to
recognize the possibility of that commonality – is not folly in the
slightest. It is an initial step toward self-preservation.
That was the mindset with which many transsexual women greeted The
Man Who Would be Queen.
And justifiably so.
To be absolutely fair, Dreger does concisely acknowledge the accuracy
of the ultimate core criticism of Queen [FN 17] (something many of
Bailey's defenders do not), namely that the book in question,
presented to the public as being science, was anything but science.
[T]he way in which Bailey refers offhandedly and irregularly to his methodology could lead some to believe that all of the information he relays therein is the result of scientific study. The total lack of citation and documentation makes it very difficult to
determine to what extent Bailey's claims are based on peer-reviewed scientific evidence. It is true that TMWWBQ's jacket boasts that it is "based on his original research" and "grounded firmly in the
scientific method." And indeed, in some places, Bailey does refer to some of his own actual scientific research. For example, at the opening of the chapter called "In Search of Womanhood and Men,"
Bailey speaks of "my own recent research [that] has focused on the homosexual type" of transsexual. A couple of pages later, he similarly remarks that "In our study, we found that drag queens ranked between gay men and transsexuals on a number of
traits related to femininity". But, compared to the organized (and IRB approved) studies to which he is referring in these two sentences, one would be hard-pressed to call what Bailey did to obtain and present the stories of Kieltyka, Juanita, and the other
individuals about whom he wrote "science"—or even "research" in any scholarly sense. Indeed, both Conway and McCloskey have complained about just that—that what he was doing with these women's stories wasn't science—and I think they are absolutely right.
Clearly, what Bailey did in terms of learning and relaying the stories of Kieltyka, Juanita, and other transsexual women was neither systematic nor generalizable. Never did Bailey organize a series of specific questions to ask these women, questions that might have been used, for example, to scientifically test Blanchard's taxonomy. Never did he seek a statistically representative sample of transsexual women in deciding whose stories to tell; again, his
critics have complained about just this (see, e.g., Sauer, 2003). He simply picked people who came with good stories — people such as Kieltyka and Juanita — to put human faces on Blanchard's theory. He had no interest in scientifically investigating Blanchard's theory; at this point, he already believed it to be true
because of what he had learned from the scientific literature, from colleagues, and from his prior experiences. Using stories in this way is not science—it doesn't even rise to the level of bad science, because it doesn't even pretend to test or develop a theory—and I think it is clear it does not rise to the level of IRB-qualified research by the U.S. federal definition.
Although TMWWBQ occasionally seems to brag
about its scientific rigor—especially on its jacket—in the text Bailey frequently acts more like a science journalist than a scientist. He mixes up references to scientific studies he led and stories of individuals he met along the way—stories, remember, not just of transsexual women and crossdressing men, but also of the men on the annual "gay guys" panel of his human sexuality class, of "Princess Danny," and of Edwin, the effeminate man at the cosmetics counter of Bailey's local department store. Bailey didn't
get IRB approval to gather or write about any of these stories, because they were all anecdotes and not scientific studies. Given that he consistently obtained IRB approval for work he did that was IRB-qualified, there can be no doubt Bailey knew perfectly well
the difference between the anecdotes he used to liven up his book and real systematic and generalizable science. If his readers do not know
it, that has certainly been to his and his argument's advantage, but it does not mean he violated federal policy. [FN 18]
So?
That would mean that certain specific allegations against Bailey
emanating from Queen might possibly be inaccurate (and I take no
position on these arms of the controversy; Dreger's article is well
over sixty pages and the amount of space needed for refutation seems
to be growing exponentially [FN 19]) but that the inclusion of the
word "science" in the title – specifically the sub-title – of the
book makes the authorship, publication and marketing of it not simply
into a work of bad-, pseudo- or non-science but into an act of fraud
perpetrated directly against anyone who purchased the book expecting
to see some form of presentation of some aspect of science [FN 20]
(and perpetrated indirectly against all transsexual women), and it
begs the question of why the perpetrator of such a fraud deserves any
defense from any corner of the scholarly world.
Despite that, I want to acknowledge that Dreger does, on some level,
seem to imply that she even feels as though at least some of the
immediate, visceral reaction was justified. Yet, the entire
discussion of these reactions brings me back to this: Why should
reading the entire thing be a prerequisite to judging the whole?
Some `parts' of `things' are so rancid – so poisonous – as to render
the whole unsalvageable. And when some `parts' are so defective as
to render the whole deadly from the start, it is in no way improper
to initiate demolition procedures before the edifice is ever opened
to the public.
The interior of The Man Who Would be Queen contains a section that
cannot be read in any other fashion as having been designed to
embarrass, denigrate and, in ways scarcely imaginable to non-
transsexuals (and, so far as I know, neither Bailey nor Dreger is a
transsexual), complicate the lives of transsexual women – and it is
this section alone that I assign for reading in my undergraduate-
level transgender history class.
That section comprises slightly over two pages. [FN 21]
Yes, pages.
Yet, those pages (192-194) are all that were – and, in my view, all
that still are – needed to completely discredit The Man Who Would be
Queen; and, though I am sure that the precise wording of applicable
professional ethics rules would allow Bailey to escape unscathed on
this point as well, I feel that general notions of societal ethics
are violated by what he does therein. These pages comprise a `test' –
or so he asserts.
"Autogynephilic and Homosexual Transsexuals: How to Tell Them
Apart."
I focused on this `test' – one Bailey intended for use by both the
professional and the "novice" – when I critiqued the book in
Transgender Tapestry in 2004, and I quote here from that review:
"Have you ever been in the military or worked as a policeman or truck driver, or been a computer programmer, businessman, lawyer, scientist, engineer, or physician?" A seemingly innocuous question to gauge simply whether the askee has a reasonable, stable work history? After all, some gender transition programs and gender therapists ask
such questions of new patients—and one might think a yes answer would be a good thing.
Instead, this is one of a short list of questions which Bailey says "should work even for the novice" (even though he admits he's never tested this!) at how to tell the difference between autogynephilic transsexuals (according to Bailey's false dichotomy, "men erotically obsessed with the image of themselves as women;" in other words, nothing but a full-time fetishist) and homosexual transsexuals ("extremely feminine gay men"). The list consists of several questions, six each with a point value of +1 and -1 and, with the exception of a bonus round question based on the asker's opinion as to the passability of the subject, all of the +1 questions come first—significant for the testing parameters: "Ask each question, and if the answer is `Yes,' add the number (+1 or -1) next to the question. If the sum gets to +3, stop; the trans- sexual you're talking to is autogynephilic. If the sum gets to -3, she is
homosexual."
Upon my initial read of the list of professions, any one of which constitutes one-third of an intractable declaration that one is autogynephilic (remember: if you get to +3, then stop; the -1 questions never come into play), I tried thinking of things that
aren't encompassed by it, and I had trouble coming up with much beyond convenience store clerk, prostitution, and writing books that further dehumanize the last minority that against which it is truly still politically correct to discriminate.
Yes, the transphobia is more than obvious, but there is far more afoot. Philadelphia transgender activist Kathy Padilla has observed, "Besides the horrible transphobia—the misogyny is appalling! Let's remember this is a guy who states he doesn't
understand female sexuality at all. Not transwoman or non-transwoman—he certainly seems to feel a need to define and control it though, doesn't he?"
Think about it. What is Bailey really saying with that list? That those listed are inherently male professions and no real woman would be in such a profession, so a new woman with such a history can't possibly be legitimate—either as a woman or a transsexual (and when compared to the occupational list at the other end of the scale, it's clear that Bailey views these professions as being not simply for men, but for real men). And it only gets worse:
"As a child, did people think you were about as masculine as other boys?"
"Have you ever been married to a woman?"
"Were you over the age of 40 when you began to live full-time as a woman?"
"Are you nearly as attracted to women as to men? Or more attracted to women? Or equally attracted to women?" [FN 22]
It is that italicized parenthetical in the second quoted paragraph
that makes Dreger's concern about those who are intended to be judged by this `test' (and the book as a whole) judging The Man Who Would Be Queen based on having seen at least a portion of it rather ironic.
I teach this two-plus page section in the following manner: I assign
the pages, but with the few words by which Bailey admits that he's
never utilized this specific `test' himself blacked out. We discuss
the negativity of the stereotypes the `test' embraces and how it is
frontloaded in favor of concluding that the test subject
is `autogynephilic.'
Bear in mind, that we've seen only half of the `test' thus far.
Continuing with my 2004 review:
Try some of his -1 questions—the ones where enough answers to get you to -3 permits the quizzer to declare the quizzee to be a homosexual transsexual:
"Is your ideal partner a straight man?"
"Does this describe you? `I find the idea of having sex with men very sexually exciting, but the idea of having sex with women is not at all appealing.'"
"Were you under the age of 25 when you began to live full-time as a woman?"
"Do you like to look at pictures of really muscular men with their shirts off?"
Still not enough in the way of stereotypes? Try this one: "Have you ever worked as a hairstylist, beautician, female impersonator, lingerie model, or prostitute?" Okay, yes, Bailey came up with a few
more occupations for this end of the scale than I did upon analysis of the question at the other end, but are you at all surprised that he included prostitution here? Transsexuals aren't. [FN 23]
After looking at all of the questions and how the `test' is designed,
I then reveal to my students the fact that Bailey unleashed this
thing without ever having tried it out.
My students instantly – and without any further prompting – see the
problem. Rest assured, not all of them are sexual libertines of any
variety or even rabidly pro-transsexual; most are Iowa farm kids who
are experiencing this subject in a non-Jerry Springer setting for the
first time.
But they can read
And they can smell.
I realize that Alice Dreger is not simply reviewing/defending The Man
Who Would be Queen. There is the outgrowth controversy – and I
repeat that is an aspect of this I do not weigh in on here, except in
a general nature as follows:
- I doubt seriously if either side is 100% right; mistakes and
inaccuracies happen in the best of circumstances. However, The Man Who Would be Queen is not the `best' of anything. In fact, its absolute lack of legitimacy has earned all of its – and its author's – critics a favorable presumption in any dispute directly orindirectly related to the book's non-science-marketed-as-science. - Even if the personal problems with Queen and its production
are all resolved in Bailey's favor, such resolution does nothing to
obviate the fact that every ounce of criticism directed at the book
and its author because of the non-science-marketed-as-science was justified (remember, Dreger herself tacitly acknowledges the
illegitimacy of Bailey's packaging.) Collectively, we have every
right to defend ourselves against those who seek to – and I realize that the following is an inflammatory word, but the word exists for a reason – exterminate us or our right to exist as who we are. - Silencing, intimidating and muzzling of dissent is a real
issue – in academia, politics and in any aspect of life in which
there is more than one opinion afloat. I must point out that
transgendered people in general (not just transsexuals, though we do seem to suffer the most) have more first-hand experience with being silenced, intimidated and muzzled by dominant discourse (even apart from the medical establishment; dominant gay rights discourse has long squashed all real dissent to the entrenched agenda of opposition to expending resources on the securing of transgender rights until after gay rights – including same-sex marriage – are secured.) I know transsexuals who hate the non-science of `autogynephilia' as much as I do, yet, on principle, are very uncomfortable about efforts to shut up its proponents. To this, I reply with the musing of a former co-worker. He said it always upset him to hear anyone
say `There are always two sides to the story' because that's not
always the case; sometimes there are three or four or more.
Likewise, sometimes, there is only one reasonably legitimate point of view.
Sadly, in the end, I feel as though the entire controversy-about-the-
controversy boils down to yet another effort to rob transgendered
people – particularly transsexual women – not only of all agency but
even our mere static legitimacy.
Simply put, we had the temerity to stand up and defend ourselves –
something that, in and of itself, would seem to weigh in favor of
an `autogynephilic' label by Bailey-theory adherents. Bailey
apparently was not expecting it. And the `autogynephila academia'
brethren have every intention of re-establishing the proper order of
things.
Irony?
Catch-22?
Yes, indeed. We had the audacity to speak for ourselves, to speak
out against an attack against our very being – or, to use the words
of Kathy Padilla from 2004, an attempt "to define and control" who
and what we are and what we will ever be allowed to be. Anyone who
is familiar with the subjugation of trans women within the larger gay
rights establishment – of how we are defined based on our willingness
to speak and controlled out of any opportunity for careers in policy
and advocacy – knows just how verboten it is to be the very caliber
of woman that lesbian feminists (and the crypto-feminists of the
Janice Raymond mold) legitimately assert the right to be.
I still have nightmares about the months I spent following my
graduation from law school – when I had no nightmares only because I
could not sleep at all.
Because of worry about what I would ever – and never – be allowed to
be.
Because of knowing that even some who were able to pass themselves
off as allies of trans people felt that I shouldn't even attempt to
do anything like be a lawyer or even expect to secure any non-minimum-wage employment, that I should be happy to simply be something that would end up on Bailey's list of homosexual transsexual
signifiers: "hairstylist, beautician, female impersonator, lingerie
model, or prostitute."
I don't yet have nightmares about it, but now, in 2007, I will admit
that I do occasionally wonder if, when next I enter job market – to
seek a position in academia after I finish my Ph.D. – any of those
who will consider whether or not even to offer me an interview, much
less a professorship, will have been influenced by J. Michael
Bailey's `science.' I wonder if, should I get that professorship and
have to move to another state, when I make the dreaded trip to the
DMV for a new driver's license the person behind the counter will
have been influenced by J. Michael Bailey's `science.'
I wonder about these things.
I have to wonder about these things.
Many of those people who judge Queen based solely on its cover have
to wonder about these things.
When the Dreger article surfaced, I conversed again with Padilla
about it and what it defends.
Bailey's interest in the plethysmograph extends to his diagnostic practices in questionably ways – he knows who is a "homosexual transsexual" by seeing if he finds that person attractive – if so – they must find men attractive. A bit of unrecognized projection and a
rather unique use of his body as diagnostic tool; we are relegated todiagnostic dustbins b ased upon his own finely calibrated "Peter Meter." Again – his inherent misogyny affects his judgment, and you
can judge a book by its cover – only as long as that book is about us. [FN 24]
Us.
Dreger complains of an "`us versus them' mentality."
But, I have to wonder about those things because of the non-science-
marketed-as-science that lurks underneath the cover of Queen.
And, all transsexuals have to worry about those things.
J. Michael Bailey does not.
Yes, J. Michael Bailey is a human being and deserves the dignity that
all human beings deserve – even in spite of his having produced a
work that not only will never enhance (or generate respect for or
even acknowledgement of) my dignity as a woman but will always stand
poised to be used against me whenever I attempt to validate my
womanhood in any fashion, to anyone, in any forum – public or
private.
Yes, I'll repeat, Bailey is a human being, but The Man Who Would be
Queen was – and is – as indefensible as anything ever typed out by a
human being.
Alice Dreger has permanently tarnished her reputation - and the
entire notion of true academic freedom – by defending both.
FOOTNOTES
A - Attorney at law (Texas and Minnesota) and Ph.D. candidate
(History, University of Iowa.) In addition to authoring a column on
trans political issues in the Texas Triangle (1998-2003), I have
published numerous scholarly works on transgender law, including "The
Proof is in the History: The Louisiana Constitution Recognizes
Transsexual Marriages and Louisiana Sex Discrimination Law Covers
Transsexuals – So Why Isn't Everybody Celebrating?", Deakin Law
Review 9:399 (2004); and "Cause of Action For Legal Change of
Gender," Causes of Action (2nd) 24:135 (2004) (co-authored with
Alyson Meiselman and Phyllis Frye).
1 J. Michael Bailey, The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of
Gender-Bending and Transsexualism (Joseph Henry Press, 2003).
2 I have also had some minimal contact with Calpernia Addams, all
via e-mail and all several years ago, relating to a law review
article I wrote in which I referenced some material written about the
murder of Barry Winchell. See Katrina C. Rose, "When is an Attempted
Rape Not An Attempted Rape? When the Victim is a Transsexual -
Schwenk v. Hartford: The Intersection of Prison Rape, Title VII and
Society's Willingness to Dehumanize Transsexuals," American
University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law 9(3):505
(2001), 538 n. 201.
3 I do not want to say that I endorse everything on TS Roadmap
(http://www.tsroadmap...) as I have not ever perused every page on
the site. Nevertheless, I also cannot say that I agree with the
characterization of TS Roadmap as promoting a "`Stepford Wife'
stereotype" for transsexual women. Marti Abernathey, "For Matters of
Disclosure, I Open Myself To You," TransAdvocate, Aug. 16, 2007,
http://transadvocate...f-to-you/ (last visited Aug. 18, 2007).
4 I am currently working on a doctorate in History at the University
of Iowa, where McCloskey taught (in the History Department) and
transitioned in the 1990s. However, I began my graduate work at Iowa
after McCloskey left to go to the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Needless to say, however, I do work with many of her former
colleagues and have TA'd alongside some of her former TAs. My view
of both Conway and McCloskey comes solely from what they have
published in various forums related to trans issues. While I
generally side with them in the controversy over Bailey, they both
strike me as somewhat elitist and, in their own ways, detached from
the day-to-day realities of transsexual woman who are not financially
secure.
5 Alice Domurat Dreger, Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of
Sex (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995).
6 Alice D. Dreger, "The Controversy Surrounding The Man Who Would Be Queen: A Case History of the Politics of Science, Identity, and Sex
in the Internet Age," Archives of Sexual Behavior, as yet unpublished
(2007).
7 Already, the ostensibly progressive Huffington Post has posted
praise for Dreger's defense of Bailey. Seth Roberts, "Can Professors
Say the Truth?" Huffington Post, Aug. 16, 2007, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-roberts/can-professors-say-the-tr_b_60781.html (last visited Aug. 18, 2007).
8 Janice G. Raymond, The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-
Male (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979).
9 Jon Meyer & Donna Reter: "Sex Reassignment: Follow-Up," Archives
of General Psychiatry 36:1010 (1979).
10 Catherine Millot, Horsexe (1990).
11 Norah Vincent, "Cunning Linguists," The Advocate, June 20, 2000.
12 Elizabeth C. Barcena, "Kantaras v. Kantaras: How a Victory for
one Transsexual May Hinder the Sexual Minority Movement," Buffalo
Women's Law Journal 12:101 (2003 / 2004).
13 Dreger, "Controversy," 13.
14 Ibid.
15 For an analysis of McHugh's work being used against transsexual
existence, see Lynn Conway, "IRS disallows a woman's tax deduction
for SRS - citing teachings in a Catholic religious journal as a basis
for its decision," Jan. 25, 2006,
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Legal%20Issues/Taxes/IRS%20SRS%20Rulings.html.
16 John Derbyshire, "Lost in the Male," National Review, June 30,
2003.
17 The National Review's Derbyshire and the Huffington Post's
Roberts certainly were unwilling to do so.
18 Dreger, "Controversy," 40-41 (citations omitted) (emphasis
added).
19 I would recommend reading the response to Dreger by Andrea James
on TS Roadmap. Andrea James, "Alice Dreger: Timeline of Her Personal
Feud With Me," TS Roadmap, Aug. 14, 2007,
http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/alice-dreger/hermaphrodite-monger.html (last visited Aug. 18, 2007). If, as James appears to show, Dreger quoted e-mails from James (to Anne Lawrence) out of context, then it would seem that, in attempting to defend Bailey from charges of misconduct, Dreger has opened herself up to, at the very least, the sort of charges that have long been made against Janice Raymond. See generally Kay Brown, "Janice Raymond, Ph.D.," Transhistory.net, http://www.transhist... (last
visited Aug. 18, 2007).
20 "To act with the `intent to defraud' means to act wilfully, and
with the specific intent to deceive or cheat, for the purpose of
causing financial loss to another, or to bring some financial gain to
oneself. It is not necessary to establish that any person was
actually defrauded or deceived." 720 ILL COMP. STAT. ANN. 5/17-1 (A)
(iii) (2007).
Roberts complains:
I read Bailey's draft a few months after reading Crossing (1999), a memoir by Deidre McCloskey, a professor of economics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Crossing tells the story of McCloskey's change from man to woman. It is an emotionally powerful book, full of longing. According to Crossing and Bailey's draft, McCloskey had at least three features in common with Type 2 transsexuals (worked in male-dominated profession (economist),
married, changed sex after age 40). Crossing also describes being sexually aroused by cross-dressing. This appeared consistent with Blanchard's typology -- which Crossing didn't mention. Why not? I felt deceived.
Roberts, "Can Professors." Well, genuinely without any intent to be
snarky, I believe Roberts answered that himself: Crossing is "a
memoir" (though in spite of its relevance to trans-specific history
in Iowa, in my view it is not a particularly well-written one.)
21 Bailey, 192-94.
22 Katrina C. Rose, "The Man Who Would Be Janice Raymond,"
Transgender Tapestry, Winter 2004,
http://www.ifge.org/... (last visited Aug. 18, 2007).
23 Ibid.
24 E-mail from Kathy Padilla to author, Aug. 18, 2007.
© 2007 Katrina C. Rose
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In academic feuds, as in war, there is no telling how far people will go once the shooting starts.Earlier this month, members of the International Academy of Sex Research, gathering for their annual meeting in Vancouver, informally discussed one of the most contentious and personal social science controversies in recent memory.
