Timeline of Significant Moments in Transgender History
In recent years, transgendered people have grown from a marginalized population to an increasingly major part of our mainstream culture. Slowly but surely, transgendered, transsexual, and intersexed individuals have claimed not only their legal rights, but their place in the public eye. Below is a timeline of some significant moments in transgender history during the past 10+ years.
1992:
Release of The Crying Game
Veronica Vera opens Miss Vera’s Finishing School for Boys Who Want to Be Girls
1993:
The first appearance of RuPaul on MTV
Minnesota passes the first law prohibiting discrimination against transgendered people. The Minnesota statute establishes protections for transgendered people under the rubric of sexual orientation.
Cheryl Chase founds the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA)
1994:
Release of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
1995:
Release of To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
1996:
Release of The Birdcage
1998:
Theater debut of Hedwig and the Angry Inch
California becomes the second state to amend its state hate crimes law to include transgendered and transsexual people. The California legislation adds “gender” to the list of protected categories. Since then, Vermont, Missouri, and Pennsylvania have also amended their state hate crimes statutes to include transgendered people.
1999:
PBS debuts the documentary You Don’t Know Dick: Courageous Hearts of Transsexual Men.
Release of Boys Don’t Cry
The first annual Transgender Day of Remembrance to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice.
2001:
Release of the movie version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch CBS debuts The Education of Max Bickford, a drama about a college professor going through a midlife crisis. Included in the cast of regulars is Erica, who used to be the title character’s best friend, Steve. This is the first transgendered person to appear regularly on a major network television program.
Rhode Island becomes the second state with a non-discrimination law explicitly protecting transgender people. The state’s non-discrimination statute isamended to explicitly include “gender identity or expression” as a protected category.
Two transgender-themed movies (Hedwig and Southern Comfort) receive awards at the Sundance Film Festival. Southern Comfort wins top honors for best documentary and Hedwig’s director, John Cameron Mitchell, wins the dramatic directing award.
2002:
Dame Edna becomes a regular on Ally McBeal
A new WB program, Everwood, features a male child who was born a hermaphrodite, neither a boy nor a girl.
Jeffrey Eugenides writes Middlesex, in which the main character (Calliope Stephanides) is a hermaphrodite.
2003:
A Florida judge awards custody of two children to a transgendered father, a man who was born and started out in life as a female.
The California Assembly honors the first transgendered recipient of its “woman of the year” award.
HBO airs Normal, in which Oscar nominee Tom Wilkinson plays a middle-age Midwest factory foreman who’s celebrating his 25th anniversary with wife Jessica Lange when he blurts that he can only continue living if he can live as a woman.
Joseph Henry Press, trade publisher for the National Academies, publishes The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism by J. Michael Bailey
Showtime debuts its fact-based A Soldier’s Girl, in which a male Army recruit falls for a transgendered nightclub performer who is living as a woman.
Amy Beth Bloom (born June 18, 1953) is an American author, producer, and therapist. She is author of the 2002 nonfiction book Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Cross-dressing Cops, and Hermaphrodites with Attitude.
Background
Bloom’s mother Sydelle was a psychotherapist and writer. Her father Murray was an author of books and magazine articles.
Bloom earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Theater/Political Science from Wesleyan University in 1975 and her Masters Degree in Social Work from Smith College in 1978.
She has authored several fiction books and was creator of the 2007 television drama State of Mind.
Normal (2002)
The book is expanded from her April 2002 Atlantic Monthly article “Conservative Men in Conservative Dresses.” Bloom has several points of contact with the community.
A Dignity Cruise to Catalina Island
The Fall Harvest 2000 gender convention in St. Louis
Tri-Ess leaders Jane Ellen and Mary Francis Fairfax
She quotes psychologist Ray Blanchard, who says: “They emulate the women they want to be – some kind of confusion between attraction to a sexual object and being the object.” When Bloom mentioned that she’s been told that crossdressing is relaxing for its practitioners, Blanchard was quick to shut that down:
‘Of course it’s not relaxing,’ Blanchard says, with some heat. ‘Heels and makeup and a wig and a corset? It’s preposterous. Even women don’t find that relaxing. Relaxing is a pair of sweatpants, clothing that doesn’t even feel like clothing. Cross-dressers want to normalize this, to have it seen as relaxation and self-expression.’
Bloom seems to agree:
Crossdressers wear their fetish, and the gleam in their eyes, however muted by time or habit, the unmistakable presence of a lust being satisfied or a desire being fulfilled in that moment, in your presence, even by your presence, is unnerving. The mix of the crossdressers’ own arousal and anxiety and our responsive anxiety and discomfort is more than most of us can bear.
Bloom concludes of the crossdressers she met:
There is no innate grasp of female friendship, of the female insistence on relatedness, of the female tradition of support and accommodation for one’s partner and of giving precedence to the relationship overall.
Nancy Nangeroni complained in an open letter to The Atlantic that the piece was a “glib caricature.” J. Michael Bailey recommended it in his book The Man Who Would Be Queen because it “angered many autogynephiles.”
References
Bloom, Amy (2002) Conservative Men in Conservative Dresses. The Atlantic; April 2002, Vol. 289 Issue 4, p. 94.
Transgender Tapestry is an American media organization for the transgender community. It was published as a printed news source from 1979 to 2008. It is an important historical document of the trans community. Before the proliferation of online resources, it was an important source of information and connection for the transgender community.
Founded by Merissa Sherrill Lynn and published as a newsletter by the Tiffany Club as The TV-TS Tapestry, it was later called Tapestry and The Tapestry Journal before becoming Transgender Tapestry, a quarterly magazine published by the International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE).
Its favorable coverage of J. Michael Bailey under editor Robert VerBruggen included actionable libel published about me, later retracted.
Founded in the spring of 1992, The Chronicle was “derecognized” in 1998 by the student government. It later won the right to publish.
VerBruggen editorship
In 2005, VerBruggen allowed Bailey to publish an article about himself and various controversies, claiming he is a victim of “academic McCarthyism.” Bailey included several related items, including one by transgender troll Willow Arune. Arune’s incompetent cyberstalking of me led Arune to claim that I had filed bankruptcy and lied about having a master’s degree. Arune had made these false claims on USENET, but VerBruggen was the first to let Arune make them in an edited publication. After a lot of correspondence, I finally got VerBruggen to retract all the actionable libel about me in the publication he edited.
After VerBruggen
Bailey and VerBruggen were removed from the masthead in 2007. Its last print edition was in 2011. It was dormant for several years before returning at a new domain in 2016 to 2017.
“…fascinating revelations… In a personable and straightforward manner, [Bailey] describes his research techniques and reproduces the questionnaires given to his subjects. … Despite its provocative title, a scientific yet superbly compassionate exposition.” — KIRKUS REVIEWS, January 2003
“Kirkus Reviews called the book ‘a scientific yet superbly compassionate exposition’ (January 2003).”
Below is the full text with excerpts from above in blue.
January 15, 2003 SECTION: NONFICTION LENGTH: 355 words ISBN NUMBER: 0-309-08418-0 AUTHOR: Bailey, J. Michael TITLE: THE MAN WHO WOULD BE QUEEN: The Psychology of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism PUBLISHER: Joseph Henry Press (256 pp.) $24.95 Mar. 25, 2003 REVIEW:
A researcher into the genetics of homosexuality presents fascinating revelations about feminine boys, gay men, and transsexuals, combining the most recent scholarship on sexual behaviors and preferences with up-close and personal profiles. Bailey (Psychology/Northwestern Univ.) makes some controversial findings in his exploration of stereotypes about femininity and homosexuality. Among the traits he has studied are speech and body language, interest in casual sex, and the importance placed on youth and physical attractiveness in a partner. In a personable and straightforward manner, he describes his research techniques and reproduces the questionnaires given to his subjects. He concludes that gay men have a mixture of male-typical and female-typical characteristics, suggesting that the reason may very well be that their brains are mosaics of male and female parts. Feminine boys, he further asserts, usually do grow up to become gay men, and a small minority of them even become transsexuals. The first section opens with a sympathetic profile of a boy whose mother came to Bailey with questions about raising her very feminine son that lead smoothly into a discussion of the research that has been done on such boys. Next, Bailey focuses on the scientific research on gay men; cross-cultural studies and accounts of homosexual practices in ancient Greece and renaissance Florence are particularly eye-opening. As yet unanswered, Bailey notes, are questions about the existence of homosexual genes and the reason for the persistence of homosexuality in human evolution. Finally, the author explores transsexualism, defined simply as “the desire to become a member of the opposite sex.” Nonjudgmental profiles illustrate what Bailey distinguishes as the two basic types of male transsexuals: extremely feminine gay men, and autogynephiles, “men erotically obsessed with the image of themselves as a woman.” The concluding chapter details the process and costs of medical transitioning from male to female. Despite its provocative title, a scientific yet superbly compassionate exposition.
Michelle DiMeo works with Pam Harcourt, who is also on the committee.
Michelle DiMeo and Pam Harcourt
Women and Children First 5233 N. Clark St. Chicago, IL 60640 773.769.9299 Fax: 773.769.6729 [email protected] http://www.womenandchildrenfirst.com
On 24 February 2004, the selection committee including Sara Look voted to retain the nomination of this book over the objections of transexual people and other concerned parties around the world.
In March 2004, the committee reconsidered and withdrew this nomination.
I will publish any comments or responses from Sara Look regarding this matter as I receive them.
Frontiers is an American media organization in business from 1981 to 2016.
The Man Who Would Be Queen (2003)
A reviewer for the Southern California LGBT magazine Frontiers reviewed the 2003 book The Man Who Would Be Queen:
All of Bailey’s musings are interesting and provocative, and his evidence is often powerful… Bailey has written a book worth reading. …it will have its readers, both pro and con, thinking and talking…
– Frontiers, March 14, 2003 frontiersnewsmagazine.com
The review was cited by the book’s publisher in promotional materials.
Joseph Henry Press (1992–2008) was a trade publishing arm for the National Academies Press. In 2003 the six people below were responsible for fact-checking, publishing, promoting, and defending J. Michael Bailey’s 2003 book The Man Who Would Be Queen, one of the most transphobic books ever written.
Reviews excerpted for publicity (click authors for more details)
Praise
After I started systematically tracking down the reviews listed in the original Praise (PDF) document, the marketing team started adding others to the book’s webpage as they became available. Most of the praise was written by Bailey’s colleagues. Some wrote more than one review. I tracked down all the authors where possible, listed here as:
This sheds some light on the academic culture that encouraged the JHP to publish Bailey’s book. Her thesis is basically that as the academic community adopts business values, it starts to judge scholarship by how well it sells rather than how well it answers questions. I think the following quote pretty much exactly describes how TMWWBQ got published:
“It used to be an important role of the academic presses to publish significant books too specialized to be economic. Increasingly, however, as subsidies from their universities have shrunk, university presses seek to publish books they believe will make money. This too is discouraging, to put it mildly, to the investment of effort in difficult problems. Better, from the point of view of making oneself heard, to write the kind of book that might interest a trade publisher, or at least the kind of book that will get reviewed in the non-academic press. And this too, inevitably, favors the simple, startling idea, even, or perhaps especially, the startlingly false or impressively obscure idea. . . .”
Publisher description
2002 pre-publication version
A frank and fascinating look at what science has to tell us about sex and gender identity written by a leading authority on this very complicated subject. Equally important, the book explores some deeply personal and often strikingly poignant stories of femininity, masculinity, and gender confusion.
2003 to present version
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.
Beginning in 2003, they published several articles as controversy unfolded over publication The Man Who Would Be Queen by psychology professor J. Michael Bailey. Bailey was Chair of the department until shortly before he was secretly disciplined following an internal investigation into his research activities in November 2004.
Hansen said DM [Dance Marathon] hopes to have more faculty performers at future talent shows. For example, if students raise $3,000, [Lane] Fenrich and psychology Prof. Michael Bailey will dress in drag and sing a duet together during DM.
“I think the book is intentionally controversial,” Bailey said. “I write about things that matter and that people are uncomfortable with. The cover (as well as the book) is meant to be provocative.”
But Bailey said he thinks people in the second group of transsexuals are upset with his findings because they do not like being classified as autogynepheliacs.
“A lot of people think there is something weird about (being an autogynepheliac) and it is a narcissistic blow,” Bailey said. “I am very sympathetic to transsexuals. I like these people, except for the people who hate me — they scare me.”
Although the book has offended some members of the gay and transsexual communities, others have been more receptive. At Outwrite Books, an Atlanta-based bookstore and cafÎ catering to gays and lesbians, Bailey said he was well received by an audience of mostly gay men.
A Northwestern Ph.D. candidate will present results of sexual arousal research she conducted with NU Prof. J. Michael Bailey — which has drawn criticism from the Republican wing of Congress — when she speaks at a federally-funded sexuality conference next week.
A $147,000 National Institutes of Health grant funded the research, which studied the effect of pornography on females to determine whether sexual arousal is as category specific for women as it is for men.
The arousal study showed that while watching pornography men had a one-sided arousal pattern — straight men were aroused by clips with women, gay men by those with men. But females in the study, straight or gay, were aroused by both male and female sex acts. The results could be published in “Psychological Science” by 2004, Chivers said.
Two transsexual woman featured in Northwestern psychology Prof. J. Michael Bailey’s latest book about sexuality have filed complaints with NU, alleging that Bailey did not ask for their consent before using their stories.
Anjelica Kieltyka, who is mentioned in Bailey’s “The Man Who Would Be Queen” under the pseudonym “Cher,” sent a complaint to NU’s Vice President for Research C. Bradley Moore on July 3 asking for a formal investigation of Bailey’s research methods. Another woman featured in the book filed a claim July 14 supporting Kieltyka’s letter, but an addendum to the claim keeps her name confidential.
Bailey refused to comment, calling the matter “very stressful and private.”
Another transsexual woman who met Northwestern Prof. J. Michael Bailey while receiving a clearance letter for sex change surgery has filed a formal complaint with NU, saying Bailey used information from an interview with her without telling her she was a research subject.
But Bailey said he stands by his book.
“I didn’t write the book so groups would like or dislike me,” he said. “I wrote it so people could learn about stuff.”
Bailey said he knew his work would be controversial and assumed some people might speak against his beliefs.
“I was not totally surprised at the reaction,” Bailey said. “I was surprised at the degree of hostility and how relentless they’ve been.”
Complaints filed with NU’s Office of Research now total five — one from a transsexual advocate who brought women to Bailey for letters recommending sex-reassignment surgery, three from anonymous women who received those letters and a joint claim from two transsexual professors in support of the complaints.
Bailey, however, said he has never claimed that transsexual women actually are men.
“I experience them as women as long as that’s how they’re living,” he said July 22.
Another argument of some claimants is that Bailey left out stories that did not match the book’s theory of two types of transsexuals. In the latest anonymous complaint, filed July 30, the woman says of herself and another claimant, “Our two ‘data points’ compromised his results, we did not fit into his scheme and were left out.”
Bailey said he stands by his book’s accuracy and will not be deterred by opposition.
“I’m concerned with science and truth and not the feelings of groups,” Bailey said.
In a letter to Kieltyka obtained Monday by The Daily, C. Bradley Moore, vice president of research at NU, wrote that the investigating committee and Daniel Linzer, dean of the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, “recommend proceeding with a full investigation of the allegation that Professor Bailey did not obtain the informed consent of research subjects.”
Bailey questioned the basis of the women’s allegations in an e-mail to The Daily on Monday.
“The entire issue in dispute is whether what I did was a ‘study’ and whether the transsexual women I talked to were ‘subjects,'” Bailey wrote.
A sexual misconduct complaint against psychology Prof. J. Michael Bailey alleges he had sex with one of the transsexual woman featured in his most recent book, according to confidential records received by The Daily on Monday from transsexual advocates.
University officials would not confirm the complaint, and Bailey declined to comment on the allegations.
Bailey — who has been accused of not obtaining permission from research subjects and engaging in sexual relations with one of his subjects — has been drawn into a battle over his work and reputation by transgender activists.
But regardless of the outcome, academic freedom is under fire here and precious few have noticed it. Most people are concerned with the allegations against Bailey, but they have ignored the threat these activists are posing to free speech.
Ironically Bailey, who says a “climate of fear and intimidation” has been created by his detractors, has done a lot to bring transgender people into the mainstream. His critics would be better served to offer constructive critiques of his book rather than to try to shut him up.
In Nadir Hassan’s Tuesday column, he writes of the threat to free speech. But freedom carries a responsibility, and psychology Prof. Michael Bailey — writing as a professor and claiming his book is about science — has a responsibility to do it properly.
Constructive critiques of his book have also appeared. Many point out that his biological essentialism only tells part of the story. Others point out that he has taken a small subset of the transsexual population and generalized it to the whole.
My problem is that, even within his self-admitted reductionist framework, his theory is fundamentally flawed.
In a shift of rhetoric from the university, a top official now has said psychology Prof. Michael Bailey is being investigated by a committee in connection with allegations of research misconduct.University Provost Lawrence Dumas told The Daily late last week that a committee is looking into whether or not Bailey “followed the procedures of this university” and whether those procedures applied to Bailey’s work.
Despite the accusations Bailey has continued teaching. “I have done nothing wrong,” he wrote in an e-mail to The Daily.
Researchers studying humans are required to obtain a statement of informed consent before submitting their project. Some projects might not require this statement, but researchers must file a request for exemption. Sherman said varying interpretations of the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects — the law regulating human subject research — add to questions surrounding approval.
The law defines research as “a systematic investigation, including research development, testing and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge.” Some question whether Bailey’s book fits this definition.
But Mark Sheldon, assistant dean of Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and a philosophy and medical ethics professor, said subject rights should be vital to the research process.
“Legislation is about protecting research subjects, not about protecting research,” he said.
Tim Fournier, Northwestern’s new associate vice president for research integrity, began his position this week on Northwestern’s Chicago Campus. Fournier heads a new office that will look into compliance issues following problems NU had with the federal government and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In a different type of integrity issue, the university is also investigating psychology Prof. Michael Bailey’s research methods. Bailey is accused of research misconduct after transsexuals in his most recent book said he failed to receive their informed consent. Bailey said he did nothing wrong.
Fournier said he does not yet know the specific role he will play in these investigations.
Bailey, psychology department chairman, cited scientific findings to support his position that free will does not exist because human choices are constrained by the evolution of genes and by the environments humans experience.
However, Bailey said quantum mechanics could offer the only plausible explanation against his position.
Two formal complaints filed against Northwestern psychology Prof. J. Michael Bailey allege he practiced as a clinical psychologist without a license and published confidential information about transsexual women he interviewed without their permission, according to documents obtained by The Daily this week.
The book follows sex researcher Ray Blanchard’s theory that transsexuals are either homosexuals or autogynephilics — men who are aroused by the idea of themselves as women.
But the book’s content does not matter in this case, said Deirdre McCloskey, a University of Illinois at Chicago professor of economics, history, English and communication who also filed a complaint.
“There’s a lot of books I don’t like, but I wouldn’t be writing a letter to (NU’s) provost about that,” she said.
Many NU students cheated before they came here, and many will cheat after they leave. Academic and professional dishonesty is a part of life, especially in the 21st century. But that doesn’t mean it comes without consequences — just look to the New York Times’ Jayson Blair or even the accusations against our own psychology Prof. J. Michael Bailey.
The Culture War has come crashing onto campus — and psychology Prof. J. Michael Bailey’s research is fueling the fire.
A Northwestern committee recently finished an inquiry into claims that Bailey violated federal rules for human research subjects while interviewing transsexuals for his book, “The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism.” Officials are tightlipped about the investigation’s outcome. Did Bailey do anything wrong? Why do some transsexual activists hate his book?
“They hated the content of the book,” Bailey said. “That is the real reason all this happened.”
In agreeing to investigate these allegations about classroom bias or unethical research, university administrations have been either naive or eager to avoid bad press. As the kerfuffle over psychology Prof. J. Michael Bailey proves, most of these charges are red herrings for hatred of particular ideas.
The fracas over Bailey’s book, which examines transsexual life, has been raging for more than a year, yet it remains unresolved. At first, critics accused Bailey of violating federal research rules by revealing his subjects’ identities without their consent (Bailey contends he never was conducting hard-and-fast scientific research). Now, Bailey must contend with the appalling development that eugenicists have used his book and his other research to declare homosexuality a contagious disease and a source of social decay.
Many of these eugenicists have misused science — or simply invented it — to argue, for example, that Al Gore lost the 2000 election because of a “prim” lisp that alienated voters. Yet often what goes unmentioned is that Bailey has called eugenics completely false and even wrote in a 2001 article that homosexuality “is entirely acceptable morally.”
The study, published last month in the journal Psychological Science, included 101 men. Psychology doctoral student Gerulf Rieger, who led the study under the supervision of psychology Prof. J. Michael Bailey, said the results corroborate the theory that men are either gay or straight — not bisexual.
“There’s a lot of skepticism about the existence of truly bisexual men, and our study, I think, supports that skepticism,” Bailey said. “I have no agenda to question bisexual people. It’s just what our data said.”
Bailey said he wants to conduct follow-up experiments that focus on the psychological, rather than the physical, elements of attraction.
“I’m happy to have the study repeated, and we will probably try to do some modified method of the study,” Bailey said. “We’re trying to now measure sexual arousal in the brain, so we’ll probably do a similar study on the brains of bisexual men someday.”
UnHerd is a British group blog that publishes consistently anti-transgender content.
Background
UnHerd was founded in 2017 by conservative British political activist Tim Montgomerie with funding from Paul Marshall. Montgomerie had previously founded ConservativeHome. In 2018 anti-trans activist Sally Chatterton took over editing from Montgomerie, leading to significantly increased anti-trans coverage.
They are known for publishing “the kind of people who are generally ‘unheard’ because people edge away from them at parties.”
The only exception is balanced writing on religion and trans issues, including work by Christopher Rhodes and Alexander Faludy.
Originally available without a paywall, they have since added one. In 2023, they set up UnHerd Club, a gathering place for contributors and their orbiters.
UnHerd partnered with Ground News, FIRE, and ThirdRail to hold an event in New York City called “Dissident Dialogues.” It was produced by talent agency This Is 42, which handled logistics.
Panels included anti-trans activists speaking on “What is the future of feminism?” and “The end of ‘gender medicine.'”
