Lambda Literary is an American nonprofit that “nurtures and advocates for LGBTQ writers, elevating the impact of their words to create community, preserve our legacies, and affirm the value of our stories and our lives.”
Over the years they have supported many trans and gender diverse writers through several programs:
- Lambda Literary Awards
- Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices
- Lambda Literary Review
- LGBTQ Writers in School Program
- Lambda LitFest
Background
Lambda Rising was an LGBT bookstore that operated from 1974 to 2010 in Washington, D.C. In 1987, founder L. Page “Deacon” Maccubbin published the first Lambda Book Report, highlighting notable LGBTQ books. In 1989, Maccubbin announced the first annual Lambda Literary Awards, later nicknamed The Lammys. In 1997, Lambda Literary Foundation was incorporated as a nonprofit organization, and Jim Marks was named as first Executive Director.
The Lambda Literary Awards have been involved in significant controversies around transgender issues, most notably their nominations and subsequent withdrawals of two transphobic books:
The Man Who Would Be Queen (2004)
A 2003 Lambda Literary event in Provincetown listed J. Michael Bailey as a scheduled participant:
THE INFLUENCE OF TRANSGENDER WRITING ON LESBIAN AND GAY LITERATURE
Gail Leondar Wright, Moderator; Toni Amato, J. Michael Bailey, Kate Bornstein, Leslie Feinberg, Gordene McKenzie, Nancy Nangeroni, Riki Wilchins
I contacted Gail Leondar-Wright, who stated this was cleared up and Bailey was disinvited.
The following year, Bailey’s book was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award on February 2, 2004 in the transgender/genderqueer category (LLF 2004a). Executive Director Jim Marks defended the decision for several weeks (Nangeroni 2004a), until LLF judges took the unprecedented step of withdrawing the nomination on 12 March (Seely 2004). Marks said of the decision: “The specific issue was whether the book was transphobic. The judges looked at the book more closely and decided it was.” (Letellier 2004a)
In 2005, LLF accepted Marks’ resignation in June (Smith 2005) and closed their website in September, removing all materials about the controversy in the process (LLF 2005a). LLF eventually opened a new site at a new web address that made no mention of the matter (LLF 2005b).
Key dates
- February 2: Nomination announcement and immediate criticism (Grubb 2004)
- February 9: Marks defends the decision on GenderTalk. (Nangeroni 2004a)
- February 13: Marks announces that LLF is revisiting the nomination.
- February 24: LLF announced the committee would keep it on their list: “Bailey has not set out to intentionally do harm to gay men and transsexuals.” (Marks 2004b)
- February 29: A protest petition passed 1,000 signatures in its first few days, ending at over 1,400. (Burns 2004).
- March 12: Selection committee withdrew nomination (see full text below).
Revocation announcement
Below is an announcement that we are posting on our web site today. I would like to thank everyone for their comments and e-mails. We welcome additional comments or discussion, although our limited staff and resources preclude answering everyone personally.
Jim
March 12, 2004.
The Lambda Literary Foundation announced that “The Man Who Would Be Queen” has been removed as a 16th Annual Lambda Literary Award finalist.
The change was prompted by a request from the panel of judges that is reading all the finalists in the transgender category, which said the book was not appropriate for the category. The Foundation does not identify the judges to the public or each other until the Awards banquet, which this year will be held June 3, in Chicago, IL. Upon receiving the request, executive director Jim Marks went back to the Finalist Committee, which had selected the book originally. A majority of the committee agreed to honor the request.
Because the action was unprecedented, it provoked heated discussion within the Finalist Committee. Finalist Committee member Kris Kleindienst said, “Removing the book from the list is not censorship. The book is widely available, has been widely reviewed and is not about to be denied to the public. What we are doing is behaving in a responsible manner to make sure the list of finalists is compatible with the Foundation’s mission. Having looked at the book closely, I am sure it is not.” Several committee members echoed Kleindienst’s views.
Finalist Committee member Victoria Brownworth, along with several others, disagreed on the censorship issue. “Banning a book and censoring a book are two different things. While I hate to be the titular voice of the ACLU here, especially since I personally disagree with many aspects of Bailey’s book, if we take the book off the list we are indeed censoring it. It doesn’t matter what our reasons are.”
“This has been a difficult and humbling experience for the Foundation,” said Executive Director Jim Marks. “We’ve never before had a case in which a book, whose author and publisher both affirm their support for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual rights, has at the same time been opposed by those who say its content in fact is antithetical to those rights.”
“Throughout the controversy that has raged over the book’s selection as a finalist, we have struggled to maintain the integrity of the process.” Marks said. “Since the impetus for the change came from the within the category’s judges, and was reviewed and voted on by the Finalist Committee, we feel that the decision is consistent with our process.”
The recipients of the 16th Lambda Literary Awards will be announced at a gala banquet to be held June 3, 2004 at the Chicago Mart Plaza Hotel.
Tickets are $125 for the dinner, $175 for the dinner and gala reception, with discounts for tickets purchased before March 31, 2004.
For more information or to order online, go to www.lambdalit.org or call 202-682-0952. (LLF 2004c)
People involved
The key official and the 2003 selection committee are listed below. Many were not involved in the selection process. (MacCubbin 2004) Jim Marks said The Man Who Would Be Queen “was added to the list by a member of the finalist committee and after the finalist committee had selected it, we went back to the publisher, who paid the nominating fee.” (Marks 2006)
Jane Troxell later responded that “Robert Starner, my co-worker, and I did not vote for Bailey and we even suggested Mariette Pathy Allen’s book instead.” However, Troxell voted not to rescind the nomination, thinking that “would be even worse in the long run.” (Troxell 2004)
Lambda Literary Foundation Executive Director
Selection Committee
- Larry Bailey (openbookltd.com)
- Victoria A. Brownworth (victoriabrownworth.com)
- Michelle DiMeo (womenandchildrenfirst.com)
- Pam Harcourt (womenandchildrenfirst.com)
- Richard Labonte (btwof.com)
- Kris Kleindienst (left-bank.com)
- Sara Look (charisbooksandmore.com)
- Retha Powers (insightoutbooks.com)
- Philip Rafshoon (outwritebooks.com)
- David Rosen (insightoutbooks.com)
- Richard Schneider, Jr. (glreview.com)
- Robert Starner (lambdarising.com)
- Martha Stone (glreview.com)
- Jane Troxell (lambdarising.com)
- Kurt Weber (adlbooks.com)
Victoria Brownworth was a key figure in the nomination and defense: “Banning a book and censoring a book are two different things. While I hate to be the titular voice of the ACLU here, especially since I personally disagree with many aspects of Bailey’s book, if we take the book off the list we are indeed censoring it. It doesn’t matter what our reasons are.”
Kris Kleindienst said, “Removing the book from the list is not censorship. The book is widely available, has been widely reviewed and is not about to be denied to the public. What we are doing is behaving in a responsible manner to make sure the list of finalists is compatible with the Foundation’s mission. Having looked at the book closely, I am sure it is not.” Several committee members echoed Kleindienst’s views.
In July 2004, Kris Kleindienst wrote with this addendum:
For the record, the whole Lammy thing was a terrible ordeal, one which took up a month of my time, aside from normal judging duties, in intense engagement with some members of the finalist committee and Jim Marks. I am not paid for this pleasure, in fact I have to pay for the privilege of attending the awards ceremony. (I did not attend this year.) I could have easily chosen not to deal with it, there are no real consequences for simply not responding to an email from the Lambda Literary Foundation. But in fact, I was sickened by the thought that this book could have gotten this far –more by inattention and ignorance than for any malicious reason–I was unaware it was even being considered until the finalists were made public. My FtM partner and I had some very hard conversations about what to do. Hopefully, the final outcome has started a process that is long overdue at the Lammies, one of really putting the T in LGBT.
Flaws in the process
The entire process is in the service of commerce, much like the same problem with the review process at Amazon.com. Books are nominated by the publishers and chosen by a group of booksellers in a symbiotic marketing relationship. Books are chosen more by buzz than by literary merit, which works to the benefit of a book like Bailey’s which uses controversy as a marketing tool.
Jennifer Finney Boylan, the eventual 2003 Lambda Literary Award winner in the trans category, was not even notified of being nominated, suggesting that the process is not about the awards and authors but about the sales. It also came out that the committees involved in the decision had no representation from the transgender community, which explains how they were unaware that the vast majority of the community found the book defamatory and irresponsible.
2005: Marks ousted, building sold, publications ceased, website deleted
In June 2005, Marks was ousted as Executive Director, a position Marks had held almost continuously since 1996. On 7 June, a majority of Lambda Literary Foundation Board of Trustees voted to accept the resignation.
Trustees accepting:
- Jim Duggins, retired academic who lives in Palm Springs, Calif.
- Katherine V. Forrest, an author based in San Francisco
- Karla Jay, an author who lives in New York
- Don Wiese, a New York editor at Carroll & Graf
Trustees not accepting:
- Jim Marks, ousted director
- Nick Apostol, Jim Marks’ domestic partner (Smith 2005)
LLF also sold their building on 16 June and suspended publication of the James White Review and the Lambda Book Report. Founder Deacon Maccubbin noted “issues were skipped or late getting on newsstands,” which “hurt its credibility.” Trustee Katherine Forrest said “Both of the publications have been operating chronically in the red, really, since they left the umbrella of the Lambda Rising bookstore. We’re talking about nine or 10 years that it’s just been sputtering along.” Forrest said there has been an “ongoing, chronic problem” with the Lambda Book Report’s ability to publish in a timely manner. It was supposed to be available monthly, but often was late coming out (Smith 2005). Marks has since claimed the resignation had nothing to do with the financial difficulties cited by LLF’s founder and trustees, nor anything to do with the mishandling of the Bailey fiasco (Marks 2006).
Their lambdalit.org website went offline after the announcement, eventually reappearing in 2006 as a text-only site consisting of three pages that lasted for a couple of years. A new site at lambdaliterary.org went live at the end of 2005, announcing “Welcome to the New Lambda Literary Foundation.” Any mention of the Bailey debacle was gone from the new site. In January 2006, new LLF Executive Director Charles Flowers reportedly initiated a complete overhaul of Lambda’s process.
The 2004 incident has become a centerpiece of Bailey’s evidence that the book was well-received. After the New York Times‘ Benedict Carey wrote a piece citing Bailey’s version of the LLF incident and omitting the revocation (Carey 2007), Flowers moved to set the record straight (Flowers 2007):
To the New York Times,
In your recent article on J. Michael Bailey and his book, The Man Who Would Be Queen (“Criticism of a Gender Theory, and Scientist Under Siege” by Benedict Carey, August 21, 2007), your journalist reported, “The Lambda Literary Foundation, an organization that promotes gay, bisexual, and transgender literature, nominated the book for an award.”
Mr. Carey failed to disclose that the Foundation later withdrew the award nomination in response to our judges’ assessment of the book, which they ultimately considered transphobic and inappropriate for a Lambda Literary award.
Further, the Bailey incident revealed flaws in our awards nomination process, which I have completely overhauled since becoming the foundation’s executive director in January 2006. Any book with LGBT content may be nominated by its publisher or its author, but the selection of the book as a finalist for an award is in the hands of the category’s judges. Trans writers now serve as judges in our awards process (both in the Transgender category as well as other categories), so that a book such as Bailey’s could be nominated for an award by the author/publisher but not selected as a finalist or recipient by the judges. In addition, we have expanded many of our categories by dropping the “gay” and “lesbian” designation, in favor of “men’s” and “women’s,” to better represent and embrace the literature of bisexual and transgender writers.
Our judges spoke for the foundation in 2004 when they withdrew Bailey’s book from consideration of a Lambda Literary Award, and the foundation’s position remains the same. With the help of the transgender community, we have improved the integrity of our awards, by making them more inclusive and our methods more transparent.
Sincerely,
Charles Flowers
Executive Director
Lambda Literary Foundation
Galileo’s Middle Finger (2016)
In 2006, after failing to stop me from speaking at Northwestern University, historian Alice Dreger published a lengthy revisionist history defending J. Michael Bailey in the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Dreger sent a pre-publication draft to Benedict Carey at the New York Times, hoping to get coverage during a sexology convention. Carey had written several pieces presenting Bailey as a legitimate academic, and Carey’s piece left anti-trans activists “elated.”
Dreger’s article was republished in the 2015 book Galileo’s Middle Finger with some revisions, including Dreger’s further laundering of the Danny Ryan hoax that frames Bailey’s book.
The following year, Lambda Literary nominated Dreger’s book for a Lambda Literary Award. Dreger attempted to build a campaign of support. Unlike the previous controversy, leaders took the error very seriously and quickly rescinded the nomination.
On March 22, anti-trans activist Jesse Singal published the letter that Dreger received from Lambda Literary Executive Director Tony Valenzuela rescinding the nomination:
@LambdaLiterary has withdrawn @AliceDreger’s book from consideration for its nonfiction literary award. The (very strongly) implied message here is that you can’t simultaneously be an advocate for social justice and care about the principles of truth, accuracy, and fairness in argument. It was a message I heard loud and clear after my Zucker/GIC article, and one that will, in the long run, harm all of us greatly.
Singal (2016)
Dreger wrote an open letter to Valenzuela claiming Valenzuela’s letter was dated March 24 and expressing outrage over the recission:
Not too surprisingly, Conway and James soon launched a campaign against my book’s finalist status, but I pretty much ignored this. I figured the Foundation knew this would happen and was prepared to weather the storm. […]
I’m writing in response to your March 24 email informing me that, “After reviewing Galileo’s Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and the Search for Justice in Science, the organization has concluded the book is inconsistent with its mission of affirming LGBTQ lives. As a result, the decision was made to rescind the nomination for a 2016 Lambda Literary Award in the LGBT Nonfiction category.” […]
But no. You caved. And quickly—much more quickly than the Foundation did under Marks in 2003. In spite of all the LGBT people who have actively praised my book, who have thanked me for the work, you quickly caved to a small group of bullies who have proven time and time again that they will do anything they can to get attention and to force everyone to adhere to their singular account of transgenderism, even when it negates the reported childhoods of gay and lesbian people, even when it denies the reality of many transgender people and attempts to force them into closets because of their sexual orientations.
Brynn Tannhill wrote in The Advocate:
Dreger endorses and actively promotes the theories in Bailey’s book. She opposes the affirming model of therapy for transgender youth. She supports psychiatrists who use coercive behavior modification on children to prevent them from growing up to be transgender. She urges transgender people to simply accept or embrace living in a society in which they cannot transition, rather than building a more open and affirming society. Finally, Dreger has also publicly opposed laws banning reparative therapy if they include gender identity.
Dreger uses scare tactics on LGB people to convince them that transgender people and affirming therapists are “forcing” innocent gay and lesbian children into being transgender. Anti-transgender splinter groups from the LGBT commnity use Dreger’s fear-mongering as a rationale for why LGB people should abandon transgender people to their fates.
Tannehill (2016)
References
Tannehill, Brynn (March 30, 2016). Lambda Literary Foundation Snuffs Out Anti-Trans Scandal. The Advocate https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2016/3/25/lambda-literary-foundation-snuffs-out-anti-trans-scandal
Beyer, Dana (March 22, 2016). The Lambda Literary Foundation Trips but Rights Itself Quickly and With Dignity. HuffPost https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-lambda-literary-found_b_9526090
Dreger, Alice (March 24, 2016). An Open Letter to the Lambda Literary Foundation. https://alicedreger.com/LLF/
- See also this letter from Bruce Henderson https://alicedreger.com/BH/
Bailey JM (2003a). The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism. Joseph Henry Press. [Online version removed February 2006] http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10530
Bailey JM (2003b). Interview on KOOP-FM, Austin, TX, May 2003 Originally at http://www.donnarose.com/JMBInterview.html [archive]
Burns C and ~ 1,400+ signatories (2004). J Michael Bailey Book Petition. http://www.petitiononline.com/bailey/petition.html [archive]
Carey, Benedict (2007). Criticism of a Gender Theory and a Scientist Under Siege. New York Times, 21 August.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/health/psychology/21gender.html
Chesnut, Saralyn (2003). Report on a J. Michael Bailey Lecture at Emory University, 8 April. http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/bailey-transsexuals.html [archive]
Conway, Lynn (2005). The gay and lesbian “Lambda Literary Foundation” disses all transsexual women by nominating Bailey’s book for a GLB’T’ literary award. lynnconway.com, revision dated 19 July. https://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Bailey/Lambda%20Literary%20Foundation.html
Flowers C (2007). Letter to New York Times. 20 September.
Grubb RJ (2004). Lambda Literary awards come under fire: Organization criticized for controversial book finalist. Bay Windows, 12 February.
http://www.baywindows.com/main.cfm?include=detail&storyid=604717 [archive]
Lambda Literary Foundation (2003). LLF website logo and tagline. Retrieved 24 December 2003.
http://web.archive.org/web/20031001144857/www.lambdalit.org/index_2.html [archive]
Lambda Literary Foundation (2004a). 16th Annual Lambda Literary Award Finalists. 2 February.
http://www.lambdalit.org/Lammy/lammy_2003_finalists.html [archive]
Lambda Literary Foundation (2004b) Man Who Would Be Queen to Remain on Lambda Literary Awards Finalists List. 24 February.
http://www.lambdalit.org/Lammy/FinalistDecision.html [archive]
Lambda Literary Foundation (2004c) Man Who Would Be Queen Announcement. 12 March.
http://www.lambdalit.org/Lammy/BaileyBook/Baileyaction.html [archive]
Lambda Literary Foundation (2005a). Resources for the debate over The Man Who Would Be Queen [offline as of September 2005]
http://www.lambdalit.org/lambda_home.html [archive]
Lambda Literary Foundation (2005b) Welcome to the New Lambda Literary Foundation.
http://www.lambdaliterary.org/ [archive]
- Note: former website http://www.lambdalit.org [archive] went offline at the time they closed publications and sold their building, eventually reappearing in 2006 as a text-only site consisting of three pages.
Letellier P (2004a). Group rescinds honor for disputed book. Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network, 16 March.
http://www.planetout.com/news/article.html?2004/03/16/3 [archive]
Letellier P (2004b). Gay? Trans? Whatever. The Advocate, 27 April.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1589/is_2004_April_27/ai_n6141883 [archive]
Maccubbin D (2004). Letter to Andrea James. 15 March.
Marks J (2004). 16th Annual Lambda Literary Awards Finalists named. Press release dated 2 February.
http://www.lambdalit.org/lammy_FinalistsPR_2003.html [archive]
Marks J (2006). Letter to Alice Dreger. 22 July.
Nangeroni N,, MacKenzie G (2004a). Jim Marks discusses the LLF nomination. GenderTalk, 9 February. http://www.gendertalk.com/real/400/gt447.shtml [archive]
- See also transcript excerpts at https://www.transgendermap.com/politics/media/jim-marks/
Nangeroni N, MacKenzie G (2004b). Jim Marks discusses the LLF nomination withdrawal. GenderTalk, 15 March.
http://www.gendertalk.com/radio/programs/450/gt452.shtml [archive]
- See also transcript excerpts at https://www.transgendermap.com/politics/media/jim-marks/
Scanlon, Kyle (2004). Lost in trans-lation: Nomination revoked / How a book award went so wrong. Xtra!, 15 April.
http://www.xtra.ca/site/toronto2/arch/body1684.shtm [archive]
Schlessinger L (1998). Dr. Laura’s Website, December 8, 1998 archived by stopdrlaura.com
http://www.stopdrlaura.com/laura/index.htm [archive]
Schwartz N (2005). Lambda Literary Foundation Announces Major Changes. Bookselling This Week, 16 June.
http://news.bookweb.org/news/3606.html [archive]
Seely C (2004). Gay awards shun trans book: Critics say author propagated stereotypes. Southern Voice, 9 April.
http://www.southernvoice.com/2004/4-9/view/actionalert/action.cfm [archive]
Smith, Gwen (2004). Awarding transphobia. Bay Area Reporter, 4 March
http://www.gwensmith.com/writing/transmissions88.html [archive]
Smith R (2005). Lambda Literary loses leader, closes publication. New York Blade, 17 June.
http://www.newyorkblade.com/2005/6-17/news/localnews/lambda.cfm [archive]
Szymanski Z (2004). Lambda awards finalist sparks anger. Bay Area Reporter, 4 March
- Archived by Lynn Conway https://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Bailey/Lambda%20Literary%20Foundation.html#Zak [archive]
Troxell J (2004). Letter to Andrea James. 19 March.
Resources
Lambda Literary Foundation (lambdalit.org) [archive]
- Bailey Action [archive]
- http://www.lambdalit.org/Lammy/BaileyBook/Baileyaction.html
- Resources for the debate over The Man Who Would Be Queen [archive]
- http://www.lambdalit.org/Lammy/BaileyBook/BaileyResources.html
- [includes materials by J. Michael Bailey, Stephen Mautner, Vernon Rosario, Lynn Conway, Andrea James, and Willow Arune]
- Professor Bailey’s web site (includes text of The Man Who…) [archive]
- http://www.psych.northwestern.edu/psych/people/faculty/bailey/controversy.htm
- Open Letter from the Joseph Henry Press [archive]
- http://www.jhpress.org/press_release/10530openletter.pdf
- Review of The Man Who Would Be Queen by Vernon Rosario [archive]
- http://lambdalit.org/Lammy/BaileyBook/RosarioonBailey.html
- Lynn Conway Investigation [archive]
- http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/LynnsReviewOfBaileysBook.html
- TS Roadmap [archive]
- http://tsroadmap.com/info/bailey-blanchard-lawrence.html
- Psychology of Gender Identity and Transgenderism [archive]
- http://www.genderpsychology.org/autogynephilia/j_michael_bailey/
- Autogynephilia Transgender Support Group [Willow Arune trolling group banned by Yahoo]
- Transgender Essay on behalf of The Man who.. [archive] [Willow Arune’s “I AM ARUNE!”]
- http://www.lambdalit.org/Lammy/BaileyBook/Willowarune.html
Lambda Literary (lambdaliterary.org)
Lambda Literary Review (lambdaliteraryreview.org)
Twitter (twitter.com)
YouTube (youtube.com)
Facebook (facebook.com)
Instagram (instagram.com)
LinkedIn (linkedin.com)
Paul Varnell was an American journalist and LGBTQ rights activist.
Background
Paul Varnell was born on April 16, 1942 in St. Louis and grew up in the northeast United States. Varnell earned a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in 1963, then attended graduate school at Indiana University-Bloomington. Varnell taught at Northern Illinois University before moving into activism and journalism in the 1980s.
Varnell was among that generation’s most notable conservative/libertarian journalists in the LGBTQ community.
Varnell died December 9, 2011.
Selected works
In 2005 Varnell criticized sexologist J. Michael Bailey’s belief that bisexual men do not exist, and he wrote an early critical review of Bailey’s anti-transgender book The Man Who Would Be Queen.
Weird Science: J. Michael Bailey’s ‘The Man Who Would Be Queen’
Originally published July 23, 2003, in the Chicago Free Press.
It’s a shame trees had to be sacrificed in order to print J. Michael Bailey’s controversial new book “The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism.”
Bailey takes a perfectly interesting and reasonable question — what is the relationship between childhood femininity in boys and gay men, and transgenderism — and succeeds only in writing a bunch of speculative and insulting nonsense.
Don’t be fooled by the “science” in the title: There is very little science in this book. It’s not science calling up a two-decades-old research study and declaring it the truth for all time. It’s not science without documentation — there are no footnotes, no references listed and no bibliography.
It’s not science sitting at a bar in Chicago’s gay neighborhood of Boystown talking to gay men and transgenders about their childhoods. It’s not science when someone answers your questions and you don’t like the answers or don’t believe them, so you dismiss the insight as lies, or internalized “femiphobia.”
It’s not science when you write pages about what “perfect” studies would need to be conducted to prove your wanted findings, and then write that, of course, these studies could never be done because of their length and complexity.
It’s not science to simply quote small studies and surveys with no context. It’s not science taking an 8-year-old boy’s cross-dressing issue and basing an entire book on the question of what he may or may not become later in life. And it’s not science or scholarship to praise your son’s ability to spot gay men on the street. It’s not science to base your knowledge of transgender and gay lives on what they say they are seeking in personal ads.
This book is not science. A discussion of ideas, yes. One straight man’s look into an unfamiliar world, yes. Science, absolutely not.
Bailey’s thesis is that there is a connection between femininity in boys and gay men and the desire to change gender. In investigating this he takes a long detour through covering gay masculinity and femininity, stereotypes of gay men and whether gay men are actually more like straight men or women.
Then he declares there are exactly two types of transgenders: homosexual and autogynephile. The former are men who want to change gender because they identify as women and the latter are men who are erotically charged by switching gender. In his limited exploration, Bailey paints an ugly picture of transgenders’ alleged sexual perversity, confusion and relationships. And he makes no effort to consider transgenders who carry on “normal” jobs, friendships, sexual desires, lives, etc.
While the argument Bailey makes is pretty bad, the writing and organization of the book aren’t much better. He never adequately connects the several different strands he’s weaving into a cohesive whole theory. And his personal anecdotes are annoying, not to mention credibility-busting.
This book is not worth reading, even for the controversy. You’d learn a lot more reaching out to someone in the trans community and having a friendly and honest discussion with them about their lives than reading this ridiculous concoction of speculation.
What’s also mystifying is that some reputable authors (Steven Pinker, Anne Lawrence) and literary establishments (Kirkus Reviews, Publisher’s Weekly, Out magazine) gave the book positive quotes, since it doesn’t take much analytical ability to slice through Bailey’s arguments, speculations and assumptions. Also confusing is how an author of Bailey’s apparently reputable credentials can get away with a shoddy publication like this. He is a professor of psychology at Northwestern University, has written for The New York Times and is a well-known sex researcher.
Wisely and appropriately, the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition has called for the National Academy of Science to investigate the book and remove it from under its banner.
Bailey’s Bisexuality Study (2005)
Originally published August 3, 2005, in the Chicago Free Press.
Most of us realize that there are many people who have had sex with both sexes but that that does not necessarily means they feel equal desire for both sexes. As Masters and Johnson wryly observed, “The label of bisexual often means whatever the user wishes it to mean.”
Now a new study published in Psychological Science by Northwestern University psychologist J. Michael Bailey and two Ph.D. candidates claims to advance science by reporting that none of the men in their study of male bisexuals experienced “strong” desire for both sexes and that most experienced much stronger sexual arousal by men than women.
Whether or not Bailey’s conclusions are true, the study fails to demonstrate them effectively. Bailey has repeatedly in the past employed problematic research procedures and this study is no exception.
Bailey and his team recruited 33 “bisexuals” as well as control groups of homosexuals and heterosexuals by advertising in the gay and “alternative” press. They then showed all three groups of men “several” two-minute-long erotic films, including two of two men having sex and two of two women having sex. The subjects’ genital arousal was determined by a device placed around the penis that measured any increased circumference. Bailey says, “For men arousal is orientation.”
It turned out that one-third of each group of subjects had no significant genital arousal at all from the films, which means that either they had no sexual orientation or else the technique for testing orientation was flawed. But Bailey ignored that possibility, simply eliminated the non-responders and used the 22 bisexual who did have an arousal response.
It also turned out too that three of the 25 gay men who had measurable genital arousal were more aroused by the female films than the male films. Bailey should conclude (“arousal is orientation”) that they were heterosexual but does not and does not say why. This interesting fact is buried in a footnote in a manuscript version of the study but I missed it in the uncorrected page proofs Bailey kindly provided.
In any case, the final result was that although all the bisexual men reported equal subjective (mental) arousal to both types of films, all of them “had much greater genital arousal from one sex than to the other” and three quarters of the 22 men had stronger genital arousal from the all-male films than the all-female films.
It is noticeable that there is no mention of heterosexual films – a man having sex with a woman. The study assumes that a film of two women having sex will always generate a heterosexual arousal response but offers no evidence or argument for the claim. No doubt some men are titillated by lesbian sex but whether it is as uniformly effective a heterosexual arousal agent as a heterosexual film seems questionable.
Some bisexual men, for instance, are far more interested in their own performance, their impact on the other person, than the gender of the partner. Masters and Johnson call them “ambisexuals” and C. A. Tripp mentions that some researchers describe them – somewhat inaccurately – as ready to “stick it in anywhere.” If such men are to be aroused by brief films it would more likely be one of a man having sex with another person, male or female, than by a film lacking any male participant. This could help explain the greater number of men aroused by the all-male films.
Since the bisexual men did report substantially equal subjective (mental) arousal to both types of films, someone might wonder if two-minute films were long enough to generate genital arousal particularly for the female films since they presumably did not involve specific arousal cues such as copulatory activity. As psychologist Murray Davis points out, the move from everyday life to erotic reality can take time, the right mental set, and the right cues.
Finally one might wonder if the recruitment ads were specific enough. If Bailey had advertised for men with “equal sexual desire” for men and women he might have obtained a more interesting study group. As it was, he defined “bisexuals” as people with Kinsey ratings of 2, 3 and 4 thus including people with stronger heterosexual responses (2s) and stronger homosexual responses (4s).
One might also wonder if most of the bisexuals solicited through ads in gay publications might lean toward the gay side of bisexuality – which could be why they were reading gay publications and saw the ad. That in turn might help explain the larger number of bisexuals who were more aroused by males than females.
These and related difficulties lead to me wonder why Bailey continues to try to do sex research when he demonstrates so little understanding of the human psychology involved in sex and sexual arousal and seems so unself-critical about research designs that include sample bias, dubious testing procedures, built-in assumptions, unaccountable anomalies, etc. Whatever he is doing, it is not psychology and it is not science.
References
Baim T (December 14, 2011). PASSAGES: Writer, activist Paul Varnell dies. Windy City Times. http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=35183
Reese R (October 15, 2011). Paul Varnell, 1941-2011: Gay activist wrote fiery conservative column. Chicago Tribune https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2011-12-15-ct-met-varnell-obit-20111215-story.html
Varnell P (August 3, 2005). Bailey’s Bisexuality Study. Chicago Free Press https://igfculturewatch.com/2005/08/03/baileys-bisexuality-study/
Varnell P (July 23, 2003). Weird Science: J. Michael Bailey’s ‘The Man Who Would Be Queen’. Chicago Free Press https://igfculturewatch.com/2003/07/23/weird-science-j-michael-baileys-the-man-who-would-be-queen/
Donna Martina Cartwright (born October 4, 1946) is an American journalist and labor activist. Cartwright served as a copy editor for The New York Times for about 30 years, transitioning on the job in 1997 and retiring in 2006. Cartwright was named to the NLGJA LGBT Journalists Hall of Fame in 2014.
Background
Cartwright was born in Hackensack, New Jersey. Cartwright was also involved in creating and leading some of the most important trans rights organizations, including:
- Pride at Work
- New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA)
- Gender Rights Advocacy Association of New Jersey
- National Center for Transgender Equality
- TransEpiscopal
- Gender Rights Maryland
2000 media criticism
In 2000, Cartwright published a piece on how cis journalists were “Trivializing and Silencing Transgender People in Queer Media.” Cartwright wrote:
Transgender people, long marginalized in the gay and lesbian community and “written out” of its history, have been making a modest comeback in recent years. Many queer organizations routinely recognize our presence through the use of such phrases as “the GLBT community” to describe their missions or constituencies; that some of these “natives” might be capable of uttering words comprehensible to civilized people too often seems beyond the imagination of the “normalized” queer writer. Funny, gays and lesbians were seen in just such terms, not so long ago ….
Both this renewed visibility and its problems are reflected in a recent work of queer history, Dudley Clendinen and Adam Nagourney’s book. Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America (Simon & Schuster, 1999) which covers the period from the late 1960’s until the late 1980’s.
Clendinen and Nagourney pay serious attention to many of the controversies over the place of trans- gender people in the queer movement over the last 30 years. Unfortunately, they treat us largely as a disempowered, voiceless “other,” passive objects of history rather than subjects.
DAYS OF FURY
By many accounts, 1973 was a difficult year for transgender queers: a rising tide of separatism in the lesbian/ feminist movements culmi- nated in an explosion of hatred and hysteria at the West Coast Lesbian Conference in Los Angeles in April; two months later, similar tensions erupted at the New York City Pride March.
Out for Good gives a compelling picture of these events: in L.A., Beth Elliott, a lesbian male-to-female transsexual, one of the conference organizers, was scheduled to sing as part of the conference’s opening ceremonies. She had been at the center of a bitter dispute over her transsexuality in the San Francisco chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis in late 1972.
Elliott is a fascinating figure; unfortunately, Clendinen and Nagourney seem oblivious to the pos- sibility that she might have had some- thing of value to contribute to their account. She is not quoted in Out for Good, and she says that they never interviewed her. By her own recollec- tion, she is the first “out” transsexual lesbian feminist. She transitioned at the age of 19, and soon thereafter was invited to join the Bay area Daughters of Bilitis chapter — at that point, the membership felt her transsexuality was not a disqualification.
“Wanting to make the freedom I was experiencing safer and available to more women,” she says, she began doing volunteer work at the chapter’s office. After several months, in the fall of 1971, she was elected Vice- President in a two-candidate race.
In the summer of ’72, however, trouble appeared in the form of lesbian separatists who began to press their perspective on the chapter as a whole. Tensions rose over various issues, from Elliott’s transsexuality to demands that the editor of the chap- ter newsletter be brought under offi- cial oversight. In the fall of that year, Elliott ran for re-election as Vice- President and was defeated in a cam- paign in which her transgender his- tory may have been a tacit issue. A few months later, in a separate vote, transsexuals were ruled ineligible for membership.
Out for Good skews history a bit in its account of the struggle in the San Francisco D.O.B. The book says Elliott’s “demand to be admitted into the San Francisco chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis had torn the group apart. The D.O.B. had devoted eighteen months to arguing about whether there was a place in the Daughters of Bilitis for a transsexual, before finally and bitterly voting ‘No’.”
But Elliott’s account, which is supported by a look at back copies of Sisters, the San Francisco D.O.B. ‘s magazine, is rather different. The battle took up at most a few months, not 18, and it was not over her “demand to be admitted,” but over her expulsion.
Perhaps Clendinen and Nagourney relied on the recollection of someone involved in the conflict, decades after the fact. All the more reason to have balanced their sources.
Cartwright added:
Not that this incident is exactly unknown territory for queer writers. Pat Califia, in her book Sex Changes (1997) quotes a member of the chap- ter who “had actually been present at the stormy meeting where [Elliott] was ousted …
“This doesn’t feel okay to me/ she said. ‘She worked harder than anyone else in D.O.B. She gave a lot to that organization. There was no good reason to kick her out. She hadn’t done anything wrong except be a transsexual. You wouldn’t believe some of the vile and vicious things other women said to her. And she just sat and listened to all of it, kept her dignity and answered them back without losing her temper or calling anybody names/”
A few months later, some of Elliott’s enemies in the San Francisco battle attended the conference in L. A. and created an uproar when she went on stage to sing. They demand- ed that she leave, the performance was brought to a halt, and the issue was debated for hours and ultimate- ly put to a vote.
Out for Good says there was a slim majority in favor of allowing Elliott to sing, but according to contemporary sources, the margin was overwhelming. Barbara McLean’s “Diary of a Mad Organizer” in the Lesbian Tide confer- ence issue says the women voted three to one to hear Elliott, while The Advocate (May 9, 1973) also calls the vote “overwhelming.” The separatists and some others in the audience walked out. According to The heritage of sexual sophistication.”
Advocate, Elliott later received a standing ovation from “most of the 1,200 women present.”
The next day, Robin Morgan, the writer and editor who later became a leading figure in the rightward drift of radical feminism, devoted part of her keynote address to a vicious, hateful attack on transgender women. In it, she suggested that we enjoy being harassed on the street (doesn’t that sound sickeningly familiar?), said that we “parody female oppression,” accused us of “leeching off women” and demanded that we be excluded from women’s space.
In a three-page account of the controversy at the conference. Out for Good quotes Morgan at length, and, somewhat more briefly, Jeanne Cordova (editorial coordinator of Lesbian Tide and an organizer of the conference) in Elliott’s defense. But neither Elliott nor any other transsex- ual is quoted; are we not up to speak- ing for ourselves? Elliott still lives in California, and eventually managed to become active again in the lesbian and leather communities; surely she might have been asked about her feelings concerning that day. And it is not exactly a daunting task to reach her; this writer managed it without great difficulty.
And Out for Good is not exactly neutral in tone. In addition to the factual errors and omissions, consider this description of Elliott: “She might have been the only woman in the room wearing a skirt or a gown — except for the fact that Beth Elliott wasn’t a woman. Beth Elliott was a preoperative transsexual, a man in the process of trying to become a woman, who, to complicate things, claimed to be a lesbian.”
At another point. Out for Good refers to “the near-riot that Beth Elliott had caused.” Well, it takes more than one person to cause a riot, and all Beth Elliott did was accept an invitation to sing. It was who she was, not what she said or did, that “caused” the near-riot.
Elliott, who was also a founding member of the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club and who played an active role in the California Committee for Sexual Law Reform, paints an interesting picture of the early post-Stonewall queer move- ment. She says that many lesbians “judged individual transsexual women on the content of their character,” adding that “there were a lot of lesbians who had no interest in the legendary political correctness of the 1970’s.”
She also notes that many of the early-70’s lesbian communities were “very sex-positive … and the ‘sex purity’ movement never managed to control the lesbian community as a whole.
Tapestry article (2004)
In 2004, Dallas Denny published an exposé about “autogynephilia” activist Anne Lawrence in Transgender Tapestry. In it, Denny revealed that Cartwright had a similar inappropriate experience as I did with Lawrence. Cartwright and I were both hit on after being invited to Lawrence’s home under the pretense of taking vaginoplasty result photos for Lawrence’s consumer site:
James also describes an incident of alleged inappropriate boundary crossing in Lawrence’s photography of James’ genitals for Lawrence’s website www.annelawrence.com. James says Lawrence was inappropriately seductive while James had her clothes off. Lawrence denies this.
There’s more to the story. A year or so ago, Donna Cartwright, another transsexual woman, described to Tapestry an experience virtually identical to that reported by James. At that time we chose not to go forward with an unverified allegation. This allegation has now been substantiated in the form of James’ complaint. Lawrence denies this incident also.
For a more detailed account, see Anne Lawrence incident with Donna Cartwright.
References
Staff report (July 23, 2014). NLGJA names LGBT Journalist Hall of Famers, Excellence honorees. http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/lgbt/NLGJA-names-LGBT-Journalist-Hall-of-Famers-Excellence-honorees/48421.html
[Editors] (2004). Concerns about Dr. Anne Lawrence. Transgender Tapestry #105, p. 13. https://archive.org/details/transgendertapes1052unse/page/12
Resources
NLGJA (nlgja.org)
Digital Transgender Archive (digitaltransgenderarchive.net)
Solidarity (solidarity-us.org)
Healthcare NOW
–Donna Cartwright speech (2019) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BWBm0k8Y0M
