The Man Who Would be Queen | Autogynephilia & the Michael Bailey Controversy

Bailey resigns as Chair of Psychology at Northwestern University!

In the Lambda Literary Foundation's decision to remove The Man Who Would be Queen - The Science of Gender Bending from their finalists list in the transgender category executive director Jim Marks said, "The change was prompted by a request from the panel of judges that is reading all the finalists in the transgender category, which said the book was not appropriate for the category." He continued, "This has been a difficult and humbling experience for the foundation. We’ve never before had a case in which a book whose author and publisher both affirm their support for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual rights has been opposed by those who say its content in fact is antithetical to those rights."

The controversy is over Bailey's two definitions of transsexuals: those with autogynephilia and homosexual transsexuals.

The term, autogynephilia, was first coined in the 80s by Ray Blanchard of the Clarke Institute in Canada. It remained a marginally-accepted, fringe issue until the National Academies Press publication of J. Michael Bailey's book, "The Man Who Would be Queen". It caused a firestorm of protest in the trans community because of Bailey's claim that there are two types of transsexuals: "autogynephilic transsexual," that Bailey's describes are people with an "erotic obsession with the image of themselves as women," and "homosexual transsexuals" or "extremely feminine gay men." The debate was intensified with the Lambda Literary Foundation's nomination of The Man Who Would be Queen for their 2003 transgender category awards, which was eventually rescinded.

The Man Who Would be Queen is not science, even though its title states, The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism. It is anecdotal information supporting Ray Blanchard's autogynephia theory. Bailey's book has no surveys, no data tables, no statistics, no footnotes. No references are offered to primary literature either. Six transgendered people are mentioned by name (pseudonym). Bailey did not take detailed and rigorous notes when interviewing these subjects, and relies on his recollection of their meetings. This sample is highly non-representative because the women he interviewed he met while "cruising" (p. 141) in "the Baton, Chicago's premier female impersonator club,'' (p. 186) leading to an occupational and socio-economic bias.

"The Man Who Would be Queen" has the most misguided description of transsexualism in the last 20 years. It reinforces society's misconceptions of us as sexually-obsessed and gay men. Even the cover is offensive and degrading. This is precisely the image we're trying to get away from!

The loudest opposition to Bailey and his ideas was, understandably, from the trans community vs. what appears to be a minority of supporters consisting of some in the queer community, lay-persons and psychologists who have little, or no, experience in gender identity. Dr. Anne Lawrence also supports the autogynephilia model of transsexualism. I have a lot of respect for Anne and what she's done for the trans community and impugning her reputation (as some have tried) is not my desire. She has an excellent website with an abundance of resources including a section devoted to autogynephilia.

Transsexual women are often hesitant to admit a sexual component to their transsexuality, primarily because of the stigma that if you're sexually turned-on by being a women you're not transsexual, but a transvestite or crossdresser, some who get a sexual kick out of dressing as women. They want to portray themselves, rightly so, as having the core identity of a female, but were born a phenotype male and not just those who find feminization erotic. We should look at the solicited emails on Dr. Lawrence's site from this perspective. I think these are people who felt ashamed, or unwilling, to admit they had a sexual component to their transgenderism and used Lawrence's autogynephilia email page as a place to vent. Many of the reports are from TGs who don't want SRS (sex reassignment surgery) and aren't transsexual, further supporting that the autogynephilia model of transsexaulity is incorrect.

I think they've made the assumption that, I'm sexually excited by being a woman, so I must be an autogynephiliac. When, in fact, they're transsexual women who have a sexual component to their feminization that's peripheral to their core identity as female, or they're not transsexual at all, but rather transgender or a transvestite.

"Homosexual" transsexual

Let's look at Bailey's second "category" of transsexuals: "homosexual transsexuals," that he defines as "extremely feminine gay men." A homosexual is a man who's sexually attracted to men. He identifies as male and would never think of cutting his penis off. Whereas a MTF transsexual identifies as female and dislikes her male genitalia. The confusion arises as some transsexual women had sex with men while they were still male. However, this doesn't negate the fact that the person was inherently transsexual to begin with and went through a gay phase (I went through a similar phase when I thought I was a crossdresser) before transitioning.

Most of us, out of an intense curiosity to find out why we were born this way, have done research into the causes of transsexuality that, from the latest evidence, appears to be biological, or even genetic, and happens prenatally. Although I agree some transsexual women had a sexual component and fantasies about being female (I certainly did), that's just a symptom of being transsexual and shouldn't be given the status of a diagnosis. We also need to take into account the soft, smooth skin and the overall erotic female body can be a turn on, expecially when the male body was disliked and seemed foreign.

The Man who Would be Queen promulgates images of us as sexually-obsessed men who want to be women solely because it's erotic, or we are gay men who have sex reassignment surgery to have "better gay sex with men." This makes no sense and it's unfortunate that a degreed psychologist wrote, and the National Academies Press published, this nonsense.

Before pulling The Man Who Would be Queen from their nominees list, the Lambda Literary Foundation justified keeping the book on their awards list with the statement, "Bailey has not set out to intentionally do harm to gay men and transsexuals. He doesn't get it on some fundamental levels but he genuinely thinks he does." It should be obvious by now that Bailey, indeed, doesn't get it. As for doing harm, does being unintentional lessen the impact of the harm? If you hit and kill an animal with your car did you do it intentionally? Of course not, but the harm is still there.

Unfortunately, some college-level human sexuality courses are using The Man Who Would be Queen as a reference book. This is a travesty. There's no better way to further muddle the distinctions between gays, transvestites or crossdressers, and transsexuals than using his book in the classroom.

Bailey's book should be titled: The Man Who Would be Confused about Transsexuality.

"The most glaring and repetitive offense committed by Bailey is one of language: he usually uses the dated psychiatric convention of using biological sex and anatomy as the point of reference for talking about gender and sexuality. More and more modern therapists are realizing that to call a transsexual woman 'he' or 'male' is an insult to our dignity and an infraction of our right to self-define. Plus, let's be honest, it's just plain insensitive."
-- Pandora, Trans-Health.com

Links on autogynephilia and "The Man Who Would be Queen"
The Man Who Would be Queen online - save your money, read it online!
Gay.com's article on The Man Who Would be Queen
Andrea James on Michael Bailey
Want a good chuckle? Bailey's high school pic - I couldn't resist. ;)

Pro autogynephilia and homosexual transsexual websites
autogynephilia.org
transkids.us

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