March 07, 2008
A "Bailey Controversy" Follow-Up, by Julia Serano
http://feministing.com/archives/008750.htmlJulia Serano is an Oakland, California-based writer, spoken word performer, trans activist, and biologist.
Back in August 2007, I posted a critique of a NY Times article regarding what has come to be known in the transgender community as the "Bailey controversy." Briefly, in 2003, psychologist J. Michael Bailey published a book, The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender Bending and Transsexualism, that forwarded three of the most commonly repeated sexualizing stereotypes of trans women: that we are either gay men who transition to female in order to attract straight men, fetishists who transition in order to fulfill some kind of bizarre sex fantasy, and/or that we are "especially well suited to prostitution." The book was not only extremely trans-misogynistic, but it was marketed to a largely trans-ignorant lay audience as "science." A broad consensus of trans activists, allies and advocates found the book to be unapologetically pathologizing, sensationalizing, stigmatizing, and a distortion of both trans women's experiences and the scientific literature. The resulting backlash against the book was fierce and (as with any backlash) had its ugly moments. But it was also empowering in many ways as it represented the first time that the transgender community en masse stood up and forcibly challenged a theory forwarded by members of the psychological/gatekeeper establishment who hold institutional power over us.
