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

J. Michael Bailey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 10, 2003

Gay, straight, or lying, it's as simple and straightforward as black or white, right! Or is there a gray area, where the definitions of sex and gender become blurred or entirely refocused with the deft and practiced use of a surgeon's knife? For some, the concept of gender - the very idea we have of ourselves as either male or female beings - is neither simple nor straightforward. Written by cutting-edge researcher and sex expert J. Michael Bailey, "The Man Who Would Be Queen" is a frankly controversial, intensely poignant, and boldly forthright book about sex and gender. Based on his original research, Bailey's book is grounded firmly in science. But as he demonstrates, science doesn't always deliver predictable or even comfortable answers. Indeed, much of what he has to say will be sure to generate as many questions as it does answers. Are gay men genuinely more feminine than other men? And do they really prefer to be hairdressers rather than lumberjacks? Are all male transsexuals women trapped in men's bodies - or are some of them men who are just plain turned on by the idea of becoming a woman? And how much of a role do biology and genetics play in sexual orientation? But while Bailey's science is provocative, it is the portraits of the boys and men who struggle with these questions - and often with anger, fear, and hurt feelings - that will move you. You will meet Danny, an eight-year old boy whose favorite game is playing house and who yearns to dress up as a princess for Halloween, and Martin, an expert makeup artist who was plagued by inner turmoil as a youth but is now openly homosexual and has had many men as sex partners, and Kim, a strikingly sexy transsexual who still has a penis and works as a dancer and a call girl for men who like she-males while she awaits sex reassignment surgery. These and other stories make it clear that there are men - and men who become women - who want only to understand themselves and the society that makes them feel like outsiders, that there are parents, friends, and families that seek answers to confusing and complicated questions, and that there are researchers who hope one day to grasp the very nature of human sexuality. As the striking cover image - a distinctly muscular and obviously male pair of legs posed in a pair of low-heeled pumps - makes clear, the concept of gender, the very idea we have of ourselves as either male or female beings, is neither simple nor straightforward for some.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An associate professor of psychology at Northwestern University, Bailey writes with assuredness that often makes difficult, abstract material-the relationship between sexual orientation and gender affect, the origins of homosexuality and the theoretical basis of how we discuss sexuality-comprehensible. He also, especially in his portraits of the women and men he writes about, displays a deep empathy that is frequently missing from scientific studies of sexuality. But Bailey's scope is so broad that when he gets down to pivotal constructs, as in detailing the data of scientific studies such as Richard Green's about "feminine boys" or Dean Hamer's work on the so-called "gay gene," the material is vague, and not cohesive. Bailey tends towards overreaching, unsupported generalizations, such his claim that "regardless of marital laws there will always be fewer gay men who are romantically attached" or that the African-American community is "a relatively anti-gay ethnic minority." Add to this the debatable supposition that innate "masculine" and "feminine" traits, in the most general sense of the words, decidedly exist, and his account as a whole loses force.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"...a highly interesting and very worthwhile book. In fact once I started I had difficulty putting down!" -- GLIP (Gay and Lesbian Issues and Psychology) News, August 2003

"...interesting and provocative... Bailey has written a book worth reading." -- Frontiers, March 14, 2003

"...recommended reading for anyone interested in the study of gender identity and sexual orientation. ... a thoughtful book..." -- Out Magazine, March 2003

"...the first scientifically grounded book about male femininities written for a general audience." -- James Cantor, PhD, in the Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Issues (American Psychological Association) newsletter, summer 2003

"Compassionate without attempting to be politically correct... It will interest anyone with curiosity about the variety of human sexuality." -- The Times (London), December 6, 2003

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Joseph Henry Press (March 10, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0309084180
• ISBN-13: 978-0309084185
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (109 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #587,702 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

201 of 256 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Possibly well intentioned but seriously flawed April 17, 2003

By Boo

Format:Hardcover

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. (...)

51 of 64 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Polemic not research November 28, 2003

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

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.

41 of 51 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars nothing less than homophobia December 5, 2004

By tom holt

Format:Hardcover

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!