The Man Who Would be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism [Hardcover]

Had Bailey submitted this as a thesis to an academic institution, one can be sure that it would not be accepted. Bailey's research methodology is terrible; there is nothing academic about this book - it's essentially just a novel. Yet Bailey parades the word "science" on the front cover, using his PhD to give himself the image of a genuine researcher.

Researchers with good scientific methodology are accurate, objective and ethical - none of which Bailey is. His book is not accurate because its contents were neither precise nor detailed. He used a handful of crossdressers for his research, all from the same socio-economic background. Bailey seems to have already made up his mind about trans women before embarking on this project. Throughout the book he mentions "autogynephilia" as one of the primary motives behind a transsexual's desire to transition, yet does not consider the overwhelming research made by other psychologists suggesting that autogynephilia isn't the primary cause of transsexualism. Thus Bailey cannot claim to be objective. It is perhaps telling that he does not recognise the limitations of his research, seeming annoyed and angry when scientists such as Joan Roughgarden asked him to justify his position with further evidence. A scientist should always be open-minded, accepting of criticism in the search for truth. It seems Bailey was unethical in his research as well, neglecting to ask his subjects for their consent.

One finds himself screaming for footnotes and references whilst reading this text. His language and style of writing are appalling, considering that he passes this book off as scientific. Academic literature tends to: distinguish carefully and consistently between facts and opinions, avoid sweeping statements, be written in the third person singular rather than in the first person, make its claims cautiously (rather than provocatively, directly or boldly) and make clear links between ideas, evidence and interpretations. Bailey's style of writing does none of these things, and thus his book cannot pass as a scientific textbook.

This book ought to be avoided if wanting to learn about transsexualism. There are many other books available, written much more objectively and with a lot more evidence behind them.

Any new literature on the thorny and under-researched topic of gender trangression and transsexuality is welcome.
Well, almost any.

I'm all for a bit of hot science - even if the ideas turn out to be cobblers. Keeping the debate open and examining and testing the possibilities is how we'll grow in time to understand what baffles us today.

But hot science, cold science, even luke-warm-twitiching-it-its-grave science - I just can't find any in this book.

Michael Bailey is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University, which certainly looks good on paper and sounds pretty meaty if you say it out loud, too.

Unhappily, er, that's all folks - as what is presented here is but a collection of anecdotal meanderings laced with unsubstantiated assertions and qualifications. Think of Julie Burchill with a research grant.

The 'ordinary' lives of transsexual and transgendered people as opposed to the shabby stereotypes he lazily presents has long overtaken Michael Bailey's dated thinking. The dogma, oh the dogma!

I do not consider that this book advances thinking or understanding one pace. I love a bit of retro on the dancefloor, but not in my science, please.

Which leaves me with three thoughts -
1. Let's hope this guy is an academic and doesn't get to mess with real people.
2. You'll not learn much about the whole caboodle at Northwestern.
3. Thank God it's available at a heavy discount!

Lesley-Anne
(a transsexual woman, as if you hadn't guessed)

This is a silly, sensationalist book that attracted a lot of attention when it was first published because of its clearly prejudiced portrayal of transgendered people and its promotion of the so-called theory of "autogynephilia". The latter is a scientific hypothesis developed in the 1990s by Canadian psychologist Ray Blanchard, whose central premise is the idea that many biological males who undergo gender reassignment do so because of their sexual attraction to a fantasised image of themselves as women, which Blanchard classifies as a "paraphilia". Blanchard's theory has been heavily criticised because it draws a rigid distinction between transsexuals with an exclusively homosexual orientation and those with a predominantly homosexual, bisexual or heterosexual orientation, and then attributes completely different motives to the two groups. This approach is conceptually flawed as it seeks to classify in binary terms what is clearly, from an empirical perspective, a spectrum of sexual behaviours and feelings. Faced with this difficulty, Bailey and Blanchard accuse transsexuals who claim not to fit neatly into their two categories of being "in denial" about their motives. Thus insulated from criticism, the theory becomes a closed system which is incapable of being falsified - an essential test of any scientific hypothesis.

Leaving aside this somewhat philosophical point, there is in fact a much simpler explanation of why M-T-F transsexuals fantasise that they are women. (In science, simpler explanations are always to be preferred over more complex ones if they fit the observed evidence.) They do so because they are gender dysphoric, which is simply another way of saying that they experience a sharp incongruity between their physical sex and their mental image of themselves as women, usually dating from childhood or early adolescence. This has always been the essence of the M-T-F transsexual experience, and it does not require an explanation based on sexual arousal patterns. In fact, transsexuals' fantasies are often remarkably ordinary, apart from the inversion of their gender identity. They bear no resemblance to the genuine paraphilias that involve unusual fetish objects which were catalogued so thoroughly by Professor John Money in the 1960s. So the whole concept of autogynephilia is very shaky from a scientific standpoint.

The problem with Bailey's book is that he treats autogynephilia as established scientific fact, rather than an interesting hypothesis, and then uses it to construct a sexually driven model of transsexuality which very few transgender people can relate to. When trans people point out that he is mis-representing them, he simply accuses them of dishonesty - hardly a sound research method. Moreover, the book positively oozes with prejudice against gay and transgender people. It is written from a perspective of presumed superiority, the overall attitude being that this is a community of self-deluded freaks. The reality is that most transgender people are highly capable, productive members of society. The only thing holding them back is society's insistence on a highly rigid, binary gender divide that has no foundation in biological reality. Bailey's insistence that they are destined always to be men is symptomatic of this simplistic binary approach.