Bailey and Blanchard have a POV. That is really all it is, a POV.
The POV is based on, foundationally, Freudian principles that declare there are women and there are men. There are certain 'essential' qualities to both. Some of those qualities, the ones B&B use, are that women are basically passive sexual receptacles who decline agency (action) when it comes to sex.
OTH, men are agentic sexually. Men have a drive to have sex with women, they wish to penetrate and dominate. The only way B&B 'see' that a male might be 'transsexual' is if that male is a very submissive homosexual who doesn't really want to be 'homosexual.' Instead, that 'man' wants heterosexual men to 'take' him. Thus, when he is unable to find that comfort he feminizes himself so as to attract heterosexual males. The agency of the so-called homosexual male is internally repressed and rejected. He is asexual without the agency of a heterosexual male.
Thus, those people, according to B&B and their evolution of Freudian Psychology, are 'true transsexuals.' They MUST be perceived as women to have a satisfying sex-life.
There are, however, other males who call themselves transsexuals according to B&B. Those males are not homosexual. They are so heterosexual that they eventually can only be satisfied sexually by making their bodies into fetishes (implements for sexual/spiritual/emotional gratification.) Those men are intent on getting surgeries because they are so consumed with their fetish that they must feminize their bodies for sexual reasons.
They are called 'autogynephiles' (basically people who 'get off' on the sexual appearance of their own bodies.) Those men generally marry and fertlize eggs and have off-spring, they are normally attracted to women exclusively (according to Blanchard.) (According to Bailey the HSTSes are particularly suited for prostitution, waitress jobs, secretarial work and other socially-constructed low-end 'female' jobs. Bailey says that if TSes have worked in computers, mathematics, law, criminal justice, etc that they are not 'true transsexuals, but ->-bleeped-<-TSes.)
Both Blanchard and Bailey deny that women have any attraction to the sexualization of their own bodies, because women are passive, merely waiting quietly while the males have to provide all the agentic force of a sex-drive. Thus, neither believes that FTMs are worthy of any notice at all.
Anne Lawrence says that she fits absolutely the category of ->-bleeped-<-TS. She lost her medical license due to some improprieties with patients and went back to school and was able to get a degree in Psychology. Its been claimed that she has tried and successfully taken advantage sexually of pre-ops for her own gratification. As far as I know those are merely rumors and no evidence has been presented in a law court to indicate Lawrence has ever done such things. But, she is totally committed to the idea that her form of 'fetish' is not very rare at all, rather that it is the dominant form of transsexuality. Most other vocal proponents 'in the community' of the BBL theory are so-called HSTSes who wish to limit transition to people like themselves.
The long and short of it is this: BBL have axes to grind due to a 'view' of human being that is simply that. Like most academics they work with theory and words rather than with a world and the people in it. They have an IDEA about you or me, Jenny. And their 'research' tends to automatically discount them 'believing' any evidence that is contrary to their theories. The evidence of your life and experience gets in the way of their theorizing.
Thus, certainly for Bailey, you are 'lying' about your life and feelings and experiences. Of course, according to Bailey, so are all bi-sexual men. He believes there are only two kinds of men, gay and straight. Anything outside of that has to be forced into his two transsexual categories. Blanchard has never written about bi-sexuality that I have read. He may have similar views or he may not.
But, whatever. They are simply viewpoints. They are not 'science,' they are mental-abstractions. The 'evidence' that Blanchard has proffered has not been replicated, insofar as I can discover, by anyone else. Bailey has never presented any 'evidence' and Lawrence's 'evidence' is her own personal belief and her own narrative. None of them says anything at all about you. They write and propound their own specific notions about their lives and their beliefs. Not much different than those of Rush Limbaugh, Al Franken or Bill O'Reilly, except they claim 'science' not politics as their venue.
Nichole
