Feministing (http://feministing.com/archives/007609.html)
This Tuesday, The New York Times ran an article about the continuing controversy surrounding psychologist J. Michael Bailey's 2003 book The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism. The premise of the book is that *all* transsexual women transition for purely sexual reasons - either to attract straight men or because they are sexually aroused by the idea of being or becoming female.
Bailey is an idiot. And Dreger has shown her true colors by coming to his aid.
But, that doesn't change the fact that some of the people he describes do exist in the culture. Some women do transition mostly motivated to be able to have sex with any men. Some with str8 men. Some want only to attract heterosexual men. Some have sex as a mild stimulant in their desire to change their bodies, and for others, it is the only real reason. While others claim to be only asexual. The real question should be, why does it matter?
Like people from any other group, peoples needs and desires vary wildly among the populace in any self-identified grouping. People that transition later in life "tend" to be different than people that transition earlier. Generally speaking! But even if you were to examine the women in the "earlier" or "later" sub-groups, they are going to be very different from one another, because experience colors who you are.
So, the real problem here, is that Bailey and his ilk try to create a scenario in which all people that transition fall into a cookie cutter methodology. The real problem is that these so-called practitioners of science attempt to explain away as a pathology the wonderful diversity inherent in the community of people that transition. Current science is always trying to create a nice, neat sub-divisioned organizational chart of human beings and their behaviors, labelling some as "normal" and others as aberrant. It's junk science at it's best, most often anecdotally based, not fact-based.
Bailey and his kind will exist as long as the hetersexist culture that drives their reasoning exists. Switching from a binary organizational system, to one that eschews organization in favor of a model that accepts the innate, wonderful diversity of the human condition will not be pleasant, or easy. But it is the only path that lies to true freedom for everyone. Only when we stop pathologizing certain behaviors amongst people that are neither hurtful nor detrimental to everyone will we be able to evolve to our higher-callings.
Science IS NOT the problem. The people trying to control the organization of science IS the problem.