Customer Reviews

The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism

5 star:		(57)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(37)

 

 

This book is perhaps even more slanderous to gay men than it is to transexuals. Apparently the author simply went into gay bars, looked for men who fit the type he was looking for to interview, and then presents "scientific" research as gospel. Homophobes love the book and praise it here (while suggesting that anyone who doesn't like it is a "whacko") because it reinforces their negative opinions of gay people. Don't believe me? -- one reviewer writes for "The American Conservative" and has an article on his website entitled "Gay Gene or Gay Germ?" -- what does that tell you? THAT is the caliber of the person who thinks this is a good book! It's very simple: if you're homophobic you will love and admire "The Man who would be Queen" and if you're not, you will hate it. I can't put it any "straighter" than that!

Having read what this publisher calls its "lead title of the season," the reader comes up gasping for any meaningful conclusions from this biased and unscientific pastiche of informally collected anecdote. The book is stuffed with unproven, speculative rhetoric, spiced up with tales collected in the field (mostly in gay bars to be exact) by the author and research informants.

There has been a firestorm of outrage against this book from members of the gay, lesbian, and transgendered communities who have spent years in their respective lifestyles. Even some mainline scholars are calling for the book to be recalled, as bogus science unworthy of a national scientific press.

The content is seductive, even interesting, in the same way as works of pseudoscience about the crop-circle hoaxes or the face on Mars of NASA-conspiracy buff Richard Hoagland were. Like these, "Queen" would probably be a fun read for many people who might never have access to better science.

That is a sad prospect. The material is presented as science, but there is no solid documentation: no references, no stated method of analysis. The result is a mish-mash of conflicting hypotheses, and no clear path to understanding just what the author is trying to get across, other than distaste for his subjects of study.

My impression is that the author initially presented to his subjects as what some would characterize as a "trannie-chaser," showing up at certain bars night after night, quizzing people he was fairly sure were "transsexuals," avoiding those he wasn't too sure about, then revealing his research aims. Some of these people, by the way, have already gone on record in protest against the book. The author apparently wants us to believe that millions of effeminate homosexuals (his phrase), transsexuals, cross dressers, and other transgendered people, are either totally misinformed or, in effect, constantly lieing to themselves about their own inner natures and motivations. The impression is that the author sees self-deceit as the cornerstone of all things Transgender.

Perhaps we could accept the author's bland dismissal of the opinions and feelings of many of his study subjects as evidence of scientific detachment. We might even excuse his abrupt dismissal of his vocal detractors as well, if so many of them weren't professionals with solid scientific credentials. However, scientists in particular demand peer review, or at least mentorship, of studies that try to paint broad conclusions like the ones so poorly realized in "The Man Who Would Be Queen."

Most importantly for the field of psychology, there isn't a shred of evidence in this exposition to prove to the reader that Bailey's work brings us closer to a beneficial or therapeutic application of his insubstantial findings. In short, what we have here is merely an interesting, but hollow, indictment of personal behaviors and beliefs. Don't do your understanding of this important social topic a disservice -- avoid!

Bailey's reductionism, unfounded assumptions, and flawed methodology ruin what might have been a serious discussion of sexuality in transsexuals. It is a contradiction that half of the author's thesis rests essentially on observations of a single individual, yet throughout the book, Bailey seems incapable of dealing with people as individuals. In Bailey's world, all stereotypes are true, and stereotypes explain all human behavior. All gay men are effeminate, all gay men hang out in bars, and all transsexuals are obsessed with sex. The notion that people can be reduced to their sex drives has no currency in any field, except, it appears, sexology. That probably says more about sexologists than about people generally.

As to his unfounded assumptions:
1- All gay men are effeminate
2- Being effeminate is the same as being feminine (think about it, do you know any women who act like really effeminate gay guys? I think really effeminate gay guys are fabulous, but they're not really much like women)
3- Feminine behavior in kids who turn out to be transsexual is the same as feminine behavior in kids who turn out to be gay (Since Bailey believes that sexual orientation is inborn and accounts for feminine behavior in boys, he would seem to have a problem in explaining extremely feminine behavior in kids who grow up to be normal heterosexual males, who actually outnumber kids who were extremely feminine and turned out to be transsexuals, but that flaw in his theory, like so many others, seems to have passed him by)
4- Transsexuals who describe themselves and their history in ways which do not perfectly fit his model are always lying (this is not an inference, this is something he explicitly states)
5- The best place to find transsexuals is at gay bars
6- Transsexuals who work as prostitutes are representative of transsexuals generally (Reread that sentence and substitute "women" for "transsexuals")

As bad as this is, Bailey's research methodology is worse. The reductionism and assumptions we can understand, if not forgive, as simply being the way people like Bailey think. However, Bailey holds a PhD. He ought to know what is and isn't competent scientific methodology. What he presents in his studies is anything but. His study of so called "homosexual transsexuals" seems to rely entirely on prostitutes and people he met in gay bars. Most of them were people he met by being introduced to one subject's circle of friends, who then became his next subjects. This is a method of data collection commonly referred to as "snowball sampling." It is notoriously ineffective at producing reliable results. Since the people one obtains as survey subjects tend to run in the same circle, they are going to be far more like each other than random subjects from the population being studied will be. It's like if you want to survey political affiliation, and your first subject happens to belong to the Green party. You ask your subject to introduce you to other people to survey, and she gives you names of her friends, who are also Greens. Based on your results, you confidently predict the Green party will win the next presidential election in a landslide. Um, not likely. While snowball sampling is sometimes used with populations which are hard to locate, like transsexuals, results should ALWAYS be published with the disclaimer that there is no real way of knowing how well the data is representative of the actual population being studied. Bailey nowhere does this. Instead, he is absolutely dogmatic in his insistence that ALL transsexuals, 100%, with no exceptions whatsoever, fall into one of his two categories. Furthermore, according to Bailey, all transsexuals who fall into the "homosexual transsexual" category are essentially really effeminate gay men who, having difficulty attracting gay lovers, become women in order to fool straight men into having sex with them.

Then there's his other category. According to Bailey, all transsexuals, 100%, with no exceptions whatsoever, are either "homosexual transsexuals" or "autogynephilic transsexuals." Autogynephilic transsexuals are, according to Bailey, straight men who are so sexually obsessed with the image of themselves as women that they get sex changes in order to live out their sexual fantasy. Bailey appears to base this on a "study" of exactly one transvestite and one transsexual who was not feminine as a child and who at one point constructed an anatomically correct mannequin as a male love doll, plus his interpretation of Dr. Ray Blanchard's work. It is quite clear that Bailey has not approached this subject with an open mind. He has simply assumed Blanchard's work to be accurate and sought out an example to present to the public. He does not replicate Blanchard's findings, he does not even attempt to. Instead he assumes they are correct and goes looking for evidence to support his predetermined conclusion. Leaving aside the fact that Blanchard's work appears to suffer from the same reductionism and unfounded assumptions as Bailey's, Bailey further assumes that any transsexual who appears to fit the autogynephilic category but gives a history and understanding of herself inconsistent with the assumptions of the autogynephilic model is lying. So, Bailey has determined his conclusion at the outset and given himself a license to ignore contrary evidence. That is simply not science.

In the real world, transsexuals do not fit into these neat categories. There are transsexuals who transitioned young, were very feminine as children, pass with little effort, but are attracted to women. Many transsexuals whom Bailey would categorize as "homosexual" gave up relationships with men in order to transition. If Bailey's theory is correct, that should never happen. Bailey has a scale from 3 to -3 to determine if any given transsexual is homosexual or autogynephilic. Everyone who's 3 is homosexual, everyone who's -3 is autogynephilic, and ALL of us are one or the other. (...)

This book is unworthy of being called scientific or research. No scientific data is provided and no footnotes as to research is provided. The "Research" turns out to be casual conversations with transsexuals in gay bars at 2 AM. Compassionate Bailey is not as he stereotypes, women, men, gay men , lesbians, blacks, hispanic, and transsexuals.

Terrible shoddy research methods designed from the start to point to predetermined conclusions do not impress me.

However, you do have to give him some admiration for the way he's constructed his case. If you fit into any "feminine" stereotypes, you're the misguided homosexual. If you don't fit into the feminine stereotypes, then you're the vagina fetishist. He's managed to create two opposing stereotypes which in his logic interlocks in a way that the denial of either is direct evidence that one is present in the other.

The fact that he tries to divide any sort of human behavior into two such simplistic categories should be enough to suspect the work. After all, gender is about as binary as one can get, but if it was that simple, there wouldn't be any transexuals and we wouldn't have this discussion. But it's a free country, make up your own mind: tens of thousands of transexuals and decades of research and practical psychological practice on one side and Mr Bailey on the other.

But then, who am I to criticize. In dealing with his critics, Bailey has invoked the last defense of the modern bigot: everyone who disagrees is a politically correct lunatic trying to censor him.

This book is advertised as based on original research and grounded firmly in the scientific method. So it was surprising that it turned out to be primarily a platform for offensive opinions about transsexuality. Though the book claims to be sympathetic to transsexuals, instead of portraying them as otherwise normal people with an incongruent gender identity, it portrays them as primarily low socioeconomic, sex-focused losers, prostitutes, and fetishists. There appears to be no scientific basis for this opinion, and certainly no new relevant peer-reviewed research. As experts on the subject have long ago discounted these offensive views, why dredge them up again now? This is one of the most unsympathetic portrayals of transsexuality ever written.
Ben Barres, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Neurobiology
Stanford University School of Medicine

This a disturbing book looking at a fringe bar culture of the transgendered world, drawing unsupported ideas of sex identity and sexuality, coupled with the ideas and thoughts of a clinic in Canada that is known for it's backwater treatment of the transsexual condition.

As a research scientist I find the methodologies of Blair's research severely lacking in basic scientific research processes. To then draw conclusions that are solidified into fact covering all CD/TV/TG/TS with no room for diversity shames the author and puts into question the conclusions.

Limiting your views to the greater world and drawing conclusions based on just a small sampling of the cross dressing world where sex is a major components has opened you to be criticized.

When I was reading the book I couldn't help by be reminded of the cartoon of "Bevis and Butthead" Where their simplistic world encompassed sitting on the couch watching MTV and how everything revolved around sexual connotations. That isn't the world Ms. Anne Lawrence, Mr. Bailey or Mr. Blanchard, get off your couch, shut off the MTV. There is a thing such as sexual identity, it exists in nature and it exists in the human condition as well.

BTW Mr. Bailey I'm a highly successful business woman, who is thought well of in the community, my employees and my children call me mother and grandkids grandma, I'm respected by my family and peers, I've had solid relationships lasting decades. How dare you tell me I should be a prostitute instead, or my life is a male sexual fantasy instead of being what I am, a hard working, deeply loving woman for thirty years.

I am a postop transsexual woman. I find this book to run counter to my personal experience and to the experiences of the dozens, if not hundreds, of transsexual women whom I've met in the past decade.

Mr. Baily might be discussing drag queens, transvestites, or transgendered people, but he is certainly not discussing transsexual women. He certainly interviewed a number of DQs, TVs, and TGs, but few, if any, transsexual women.

If there were a lower rating than one star, I'd "award" it to this book.

Don't waste your money on it. If you want to read a decent book about transsexuals, get a copy of _True Selves_ by Millie Brown and Chloe Rounsley and/or _Confessions of a Gender Defender_ by Randi Ettner

It is sad and disturbing to see this discredited nonsense published by a distinguished firm as this and to have been written by someone with such credentials. It's as if this book was actually written some thirty years ago and is just now reaching the shelves!

Medical researchers have found the area of the brain that determines a person's "brain sex". This is independent of their "body sex". Transexual persons have the brain structure of the opposite sex of their body. Because there is no known way to change the brain, changing the body is the best solution. Bailey does not present this information. Rather, he brings forth old notions like transexual persons actually being a type of gay person. Since research shows a gay person's brain matches their body sex, this comparison is completely invalid.

Bailey's research with sex workers and others who live at the margins of society brings into question why he didn't feel the need to interview transexual persons who have remained in the larger job market? Does he prefer the company of prostitutes over the transexual doctors, lawyers, and the myriad of other professions where transexual persons are working each day?

It is wrong for old notions to be trotted out as current facts by people, and publishers, who should know better. This book deserves to be moved to the history section where medical quackery is exposed for the fraud it is.

What starts out as a semi-interesting, though dated, collection of small studies on gay men turns into the most misguided explanation of transsexualism in 20 yrs. Bailey lumps all transsexual women into two groups: "homosexual transsexuals" that Bailey defines as "extremely feminine gay men" or "autogynephilic transsexuals," people who he says have an "erotic obession with the image of themselves as women." The term "homosexual transsexual" itself is a misnomer, as a homosexual identifies as a man and a transsexual as a woman. He doesn't even address female-to-male transsexuals.

That there is a distinct difference between gender identity and sexual orientation (a transsexual woman isn't necessarily attracted to men and visa versa) is replaced by a homosexual/fetish-mishmash from which all transsexuals spring. "The Man who would be Queen" can be summed up in the judges' opinion of the Lambda Literary Foundation (who have rightly removed Bailey's book from their list of finalists): "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." Unfortunately, Bailey HAS done harm to the trans community with his psuedo-science, furthering stereotypical and erroneous beliefs about transsexuals.

It's interesting to note Bailey's arrogant statement that transgender people who disagree with him are "lying;" an inappropriate statement from an "expert." It should also be noted that the majority of people who liked Bailey's book are either lay-persons, or psychologists and psychiatrists with little, or no, experience with transgender people.

Being a post-op transsexual woman, I know I can speak for the majority of the transsexual community when I say this book is ludicrous and far from what mainstream science says about trans people. Bailey also uses the archiac and demeaning term "male transsexual" when describing male-to-female transsexuals that just furthers the misconception that we are gay men or sexually excited about being women, which describes a transvestitic fetish.

Bailey bases his conclusions on interviews with nine transsexuals he met in gay bars. Hardly a scientific cross-section of the transsexual community. Read this book only if you want to find out the misconceptions people have about transsexuals.