Madeline H. “Maddie” Wyndzen (born 1973) is the pen name of an American psychologist who wrote about gender identity and expression from both professional and personal perspectives between 1997 and 2008. Wyndzen wrote a number of important criticisms of disease models of sex and gender minorities.
Background
In 1997, Wyndzen created an early online gender transition resource on GeoCities called Gender Outside the Lines. The site was moved to the Gender Web domain in 1998. In 2001, Wyndzen changed the name to All Mixed Up and moved it to the domain genderpsychology.org. Wyndzen initially used the name Katherine Heather and Katie, switching to “Madeline H. Wyndzen” in 2004 for professional reasons:
I have found in more and more awkward not to have a last name. For example, in order to cite my essays in APA style, you would start with my last name. That is why I created a pen name, “Madeline H. Wyndzen.” Please use this name in all citations, publications, and correspondence with me. I also feel that separating my real name from this web-site can help me step away from transgender issues while I work on other priorities.
Correspondences http://www.genderpsychology.org/identity/mail.html
Comments on Ray Blanchard’s taxonomy
In 2003, Wyndzen published one of the first scientific critiques of the disputed diagnosis “autogynephilia” created in 1989 by Ray Blanchard. Blanchard’s ideas had just been popularized by J. Michael Bailey in the book The Man Who Would Be Queen and on Anne Lawrence’s website. Wyndzen mailed the following notification of the new website material on 13 May 2003:
Scientific critique of autogynephilia & psychopathology model of transsexualism
Hi Everyone,
Ray Blanchard’s Mis-Directed Sex-Drive model of transsexuality, including the controversial notion of autogynephilia, has received a great deal of attention recently. It has had a remarkable amount of success in pervading both general audience and professional medium: Anne Lawrence and J. Michael Bailey each wrote popular accounts, the DSM [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders] and HB-SOC [Harry Benjamin Standards of Care] now include reference to Blanchard’s constructs, and I have heard that even textbooks have started to feature it.
I find this trend disconcerting as both a transsexual and a scientific psychologist. I feel the evidence for this theory is weak. Interpreting this theory to say that MtF [male-to-female] transsexuals are ‘really’ gay men or ‘really’ crossdressing men is insensitive. Many perspectives on this controversy have been expressed. Typically the scientific perspective has been held by those most supportive of Blanchard’s model. I would like to advance a scientific perspective that is skeptical of Blanchard’s model and the ability of any Psycho-pathological model to adequately understand transgenderism. Some of you may be interested in the following two new essays found on my web-site (links are below).
The Banality of Insensitivity: Portrayals of Transgenderism in Psychopathology
Though the mental health community intends to help transsexuals, embedded within psychopathology is an insensitivity towards the very people it seeks to help. Removal of the mental illness diagnostic categories “Gender Identity Disorder” and “Transvestic Fetishism” is recommended to allow for objective scientific work and to heal the divisive relationships between the mental health and transgender communities. Included in this essay is a discussion of the idea that we are ‘really’ our biological sex according to Blanchard’s model. Also included is a discussion of the claim that transsexuals who deny a sexual motivation for their gender dysphoria are lying.
WEB LINK: http://www.genderpsychology.org/psychology/mental_illness_model.html
“Blanchard’s Mis-Directed Sex-Drive Model of Transsexuality”
This essay provides a scientific critique of Blanchard’s model. It includes a summary of the model’s key points and the evidence supporting those points. It continues to address what may be numerous serious methodological flaws. The essay also addresses the clinical intuition that sexuality may be the only force powerful enough to explain transsexuality by showing how the psychological literature suggests identity is also a remarkably powerful mechanism.
WEB LINK: http://www.genderpsychology.org/psychology/blanchard/
Any feedback about these essays is always appreciated. I would very much appreciate if you would please forward this message to other transgender mailing lists where Blanchard’s model has been a significant or recent topic.
Best wishes,
[Madeline – signed “Katie” in the original]
American Psychological Association Division 44
In 2004, Wyndzen published an essay in response to a favorable book review written by Bailey friend James Cantor that appeared in the newsletter for Division 44 of the American Psychological Association.
A Personal & Scientific look at a Mental Illness Model of Transgenderism
http://www.apa.org/divisions/div44/2004Spring.pdf [archive]
Madeline H. Wyndzen, Ph. D. (pen name)
Editorâs Note: Ms. Wyndzen originally submitted a brief letter to the editor in response to a recent book review of The Man Who Would Be Queen in this Newsletter. I invited her to expand on that letter here.
If a man sought therapy due to unhappiness over his attraction to other men, a therapist would likely diagnose him with Depression. If a transsexual sought therapy due to unhappiness over his or her biological sex, a therapist would almost certainly diagnose him or her with Gender Identity Disorder. Whereas gay men and lesbian women are diagnosed for how they suffer, transsexuals are diagnosed for who they are. As a psychologist and transsexual, I find that the mental illness label imposed on transsexuality is just as disquieting as the label that used to be imposed on homosexuality.
Similar to antiquated ideas suggesting that homosexuality is a deviant sex-drive, Ray Blanchard (1989, 1991) proposed that transsexuality is a mis-directed form of either heterosexuality (named âautogynephiliaâ) or homosexuality. Rather than asking the scientifically neutral question, âWhat is transgenderism?â Blanchard (1991) asks, “What kind of defect in a male’s capacity for sexual learning could produce ⊠autogynephilia, transvestitism âŠ?” (p. 246).
Blanchardâs model is featured prominently and uncritically in J. Michael Baileyâs (2003a) recent book, The Man who would be Queen: the Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism. A balanced portrait of Blanchardâs key empirical findings (1989) would reveal that they: (1) have never been replicated, (2) failed to include control groups of typically-gendered women, (3) failed to covary the acknowledged age-differences from ANOVA, and (4) drew conclusions about causality from entirely observational data.
Inconsistencies between transsexualsâ self-portraits and Blanchardâs model are reconciled by Bailey (2003a) with the suggestion that some transsexuals are deceptive: âThere is one more reason why many autogynephiles provide misleading information about themselves that is different than outright lying. It has to do with obsessionâ (p. 175). Aware of concerns that some may be troubled by his portrayal of them, Bailey has said, âI cannot be a slave to sensitivityâ (quoted in Wilson, 2003), and â There is good scientific evidence that says you should believe me and not themâ (quoted in Dreier & Anderson, 2003). In a critique of Baileyâs book available on my website, I provide alternate interpretations of this evidence: http://www.genderpsychology.org/autogynephilia/
Bailey (2003b) contends that negative reactions to his book are merely âidentity politicsâ that are a “hindrance” to “scientific truth” (Bailey, 2003b). Contrasting his objectivity with othersâ politics reminded me of â81 Words,â a radio documentary about the removal of homosexuality from the DSM (Spiegel, 2002). Those who diagnosed âhomosexualityâ as a mental illness genuinely felt that they were helping their clients. I know that Ray Blanchard, J. Michael Bailey, and others are similarly concerned about the welfare of transsexuals. I only wish they would see the bias in their theories and diagnoses. When I listened to â81 Words,â I was struck by how foreign it sounded to talk about being gay or lesbian as a disorder. I am too young to remember that time. My hope is that someday my children will think it just as unfathomable that I was once diagnosed and treated for âGender Identity Disorder.â
References
Bailey, J. M. (2003a). The Man who would be queen: the science of genderbending and transsexualism. Joseph Henry Press, Washington DC.
Bailey, J. M. (2003b, July 19). Identity politics as a hindrance to scientific truth, presented at the conference of the International Academy of Sex Research. Abstract retrieved July 16, 2003, from http://www.iasr.org/meeting/2003/ABSTRACTS2003.doc
Blanchard, R. (1989). The Concept of Autogynephilia and the Typology of Male Gender Dysphoria. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 177(10), 616-623.
Blanchard, R. (1991). Clinical Observations and systematic studies of autogynephilia. Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, 17(4), 235-251.
Dreier, S. and Anderson, K. (2003, April 21). Profâs book challenges opinions of human sexuality. The Daily Northwestern, retrieved December 31, 2003, from http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/
Spiegel, A. (2002, January 18). 81 words. This American Life, retrieved January 18, 2002 from http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/02/204.html
Wilson, R. (2003, June 20). Dr. Sexâ: A human-sexuality expert creates controversy with a new book on gay men and transsexuals. Chronicle of Higher Education, retrieved June 27, 2003, from http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i41/41a00801.htm
Comments on J. Michael Bailey’s book
In 2005, Wyndzen expanded earlier online materials to summarize the controversy and criticisms of Bailey from professional and personal perspectives.
The World according to J. Michael Bailey inside “The Man who would be Queen: The Science of Gender Bending and Transsexualism”
J. Michael Bailey’s book, “The Man who would be Queen: The Science of Gender Bending and Transsexualism” has disrupted the lives of transgendered persons and the lives of mental health professionals who work with them. Some psychologists question the truthfulness of their transgendered clients. Some transgendered persons question if the therapists conceal a dismissive cynicism underneath an exterior of unconditional acceptance. It has become acceptable for transgendered persons to dismiss each others feelings as deception. And it has become acceptable for psychological researchers to regard the feelings of transsexuals as merely politics getting in the way of important work.
As a psychological scientist and a transsexual I find myself both deeply affected by this controversy and in a unique position to interpret it. The following essays are my attempt to make sense of Bailey’s book and the controversy surrounding it.
http://www.genderpsychology.org/autogynephilia/j_michael_bailey/
Comments on DSM
Wyndzen has written about how gender identity and expression are covered in the 4th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV):
In 1994, the DSM-IV committee replaced the diagnosis of Transsexualism with Gender Identity Disorder. Depending on their age, those with a strong and persistent cross-gender identification and a persistent discomfort with his or her sex or a sense of inappropriateness in the gender role of that sex were to be diagnosed as Gender Identity Disorder of Childhood (302.6), Adolescence, or Adulthood (302.85). For persons who did not meet the criteria, Gender Identity Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (GIDNOS)(302.6) was to be used.
DSM IV http://www.genderpsychology.org/transsexual/dsm_iv.html
That version also listed “Transvestic Fetishism” (302.3) under paraphilias.
Comment on Alice Dreger’s target article
In 2008, Wyndzen published a peer commentary responding to a target article by historian Alice Dreger. The article was published by Kenneth Zucker in Archives of Sexual Behavior, a sexology journal where Bailey served on the editorial board. Zucker had been praised throughout Bailey’s book, so many Zucker critics saw this as a conflict of interest. Dreger had also given a draft to anti-trans activist Benedict Carey at the New York Times a year before publication. Carey had given favorable coverage to Bailey before with his 2005 piece “Gay, Straight, or Lying: Bisexuality Revisited.” That piece uncritically repeated Bailey’s claims that male bisexuality does not exist. Carey’s 2007 favorable coverage of Dreger painted Bailey as a “scientist under siege.” In 2008, Wyndzen’s commentary was published with a number of others:
A social psychology of a history of a snippet in the psychology of transgenderism.
Alice Dreger wrote an oral history for the Archives of Sexual Behavior, “The Controversy Surrounding ‘The Man Who Would Be Queen: A Case History of the Politics of Science, Identity, and Sex in the Internet Age. Though Dreger suggests disagreeing with autogynephila is the focal point of the backlash against J. Michael Bailey, I suggest from the historical pattern that Bailey experienced a backlash because he accused those who disagree with him of lying. Merely acknowledging autogynephilia or opposing a “feminine essence model” provoked little controversy. I explain Dreger’s misconstrued historical account and Bailey, Anne Lawrence, and Ray Blanchard’s over-simplified psychological accounts with common biases described by social psychology: fundamental attribution error, group polarization, groupthink, stereotyping, representativeness heuristic, base-rate neglect, framing effects, and the correspondence bias. Journal editor Kenneth Zucker offered the opportunity to write responses. Though we have very different perspectives on autogynephilia and the way transgendered persons are understood by psychology, he graciously agreed to include my response.
http://www.genderpsychology.org/autogynephilia/alice_dreger.html
Wikipedia controversy
In 2008, Canadian anti-trans extremist James Cantor began editing Wikipedia under the pseudonyms MarionTheLibrarian and WriteMakesRight. Cantor quickly began self-promoting and removing criticisms. It soon became clear that Cantor was behind the accounts, and Cantor was ultimately banned from Wikipedia.
Among Cantor’s early edits were attempts to remove all references to Wyndzen’s work from Wikipedia.
I told Wyndzen about Cantor’s activities, and Wyndzen wrote the letter below to Wikipedia editors on July 31, 2008 in hopes of having Cantor’s suppression reverted. Despite a year of effort by Wyndzen, Cantor prevailed in keeping Wyndzen from being cited on Wikipedia. This controversy marked the end of Wyndzen’s public writings about gender.
—
Dear Andrea James,
Thank you for letting me know about James Cantor’s effort to remove reference to my work from Wikipedia. Though disappointing, it is also flattering that he considers this worth his time. Perhaps he recognizes the accuracy of my critique of autogynephilia and he worries that when other behavioral scientists read it (especially those not already committed to a side), they will recognize how weak Ray Blanchard’s model is. James Cantor and his colleagues may also be starting to recognize the larger problem of beginning their account with the assumption of a mental illness model and how it results in stereotypes of transgender persons. They may be worried about the ongoing debate about including transgendered persons in the DSM for being who they are; censoring Wikipedia so it only showcases their side as reliable might delay uncommitted psychiatrists and psychologists from readily finding the scientific accounts on the other side. It’s a clever manipulation of our scientific heuristic that peer-reviewed journals contain more credible information. Like all heuristics that usually work, it sometimes fails. It fails in this case because the journals are part of a mental health community that begins with the assumption that we are mentally ill for being who we are. Those who begin from a neutral or positive perspective on transgenderism lack journals of their own.
Imagine what James Cantor’s life as a gay man would be like today if those at the American Psychiatric Association dismissed Dr. Anonymous as “unreliable” because he did not publish against the mental illness model of homosexuality in a peer-reviewed journal or because he protected his identity. As psychology professors, James Cantor and I both know that it’s the quality of our arguments that matter â not our names, credentials, or the sources in which we publish. Perhaps the transgender community should gently remind him that you cannot raise yourself up by pushing others down. Even if he continues to behave unscientifically, I am not sure why this persuades other Wikipedia editors? I thought the spirit of Wikipedia was to be neutral, present all sides, and let readers judge for themselves? It’s a spirit I agree with. When Anne Lawrence introduced autogynephilia to the transgender community, I discussed with Ray Blanchard exposing a wider audience to his original work and he graciously allowed me to post some of his writing on my website. Maybe James Cantor feels better believing I am unreliable. Maybe others will feel that I am credible because of my decade of involvement in the trans-community and my numerous efforts to bridge the divide between transgender and psychological communities. If it may help, please feel free to post this message. I hope you are successful in preserving Wikipedia’s principled neutral stance.
Best wishes,
Madeline Wyndzen
http://www.GenderPsychology.org/
References
Wyndzen MH (2004). A Personal and Scientific Look at a Mental Illness Model of Transgenderism,â American Psychological Association Division 44 Newsletter (Spring 2004). http://www.genderpsychology.0rg/autogynephilia/apa_div_44.html [PDF]
Wyndzen MH (2008). A social psychology of a history of a snippet in the psychology of transgenderism. Arch Sex Behav. 2008 Jun;37(3):498-502; discussion 505-10. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-008-9340-2. [link]
Resources
All Mixed Up (genderpsychology.org)
Gender Web (genderweb.org)
- http://www.genderweb.org/~katherine/ [archive]
Willow Arune is a Canadian former lawyer and transgender troll. Arune was the most notorious USENET troll of all time on transgender newsgroups.
Background
Willow Cheryle Arune was born December 20, 1946. Arune practiced law before becoming a nudist who lives on disability. Arune claims to be an âescaped person under Thai law.â [1]
“Autogynephilia” activism
Arune is also a frequent defender of Ray Blanchard, formerly of Canadaâs infamous Clarke Institute (now CAMH), and Arune is a prominent supporter of a disease model of gender variance called âautogynephilia,â made up by Blanchard in 1989. [2] Blanchard defines this sex-fueled mental illness as âa manâs paraphilic tendency to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman.â [3] Blanchard claims this disease explains gender variant behavior among ânonhomosexuals.â Many believe it is a spurious diagnosis akin to ânymphomaniaâ and other discredited illnesses made up to pathologize socially unacceptable behavior.
Blanchard and his proteges J. Michael Bailey and Anne Lawrence frequently suggest that a âhandfulâ or âsubgroupâ of trans people have concerns about describing this behavior as a psychosexual pathology. This is a blatant distortion. In reality, the opposite is true. Most gender-variant people, their service providers, and experts on gender variance have expressed concern about this diagnosis. The tiny but vocal minority who base their identities on this diagnosis are a small group, typically older divorced people who canât or wonât adapt to culturally proscribed appearance and behavior based on gender roles. Most also identify through metaphors of disease and impairment, which is why this concept appeals to them.
Beyond Arune and about ten people on an âautogynephiliaâ support group Arune started in 2003 (and inadvertently destroyed in 2005 due to Aruneâs incompetence), there is little community support for this diagnosis. Arune was one of the three people responsible for about two-thirds of all the content on the group. In fact, about one in three posts on that forum were Aruneâs, mostly unoriginal cut-and-paste jobs from other publications and newsgroups and attacks on people Arune didnât like.
Arune is well-known both on and off the internet as a prodigious kook. Arune has probably been kicked off more email lists and out of more moderated transgender groups than any other person in North America. Arune enjoys trolling and baiting people online âto get a quotable quote,â [4] which then gets used as evidence that Arune is being attacked.
Shortly after publication of J. Michael Baileyâs defamatory book The Man Who Would Be Queen in 2003, Arune began a quest to replace Anne Lawrence as the poster child for âautogynephilia.â Both seek validation from clinical diagnoses, because neither get much approval beyond âapprovalâ letters they sought and received from therapists to qualify for vaginoplasty. Like Anne Lawrence, Arune has an interest in nudism, and both appear to have other erotic interests considered unusual or socially unacceptable in many places. Given Aruneâs more florid behavior, it is more likely that the people promulgating this diagnosis will choose Arune over Lawrence as exemplifying this spurious disease. Lawrenceâs only saving grace for retaining the crown may be a combination of florid behavior and academic credentials.
Of special interest to Arune are matters in Thailand, where Arune claims to have spent time in jail on a forgery charge. My guess is that there is more to be learned about Aruneâs alleged illegal misadventures in Thailand, which also includes an alleged sexual assault. Arune told a reporter in 1999 that after returning from being jailed in Thailand, âhis therapist suggested becoming a woman.â [5] Following this suggestion, Arune was able to manipulate the Canadian health system to indulge an erotic interest in vaginoplasty. Arune is apparently drawing Canadian welfare, while being able-bodied enough to spend 12 to 16 hours a day devouring and regurgitating anything related to transgender issues. Arune seems to have a compulsion toward hoarding, especially with online materials, books about transgender topics, and animals. This hoarding impulse seems connected to the amount of energy Arune spends on this topic, and Aruneâs identification with a disease that characterizes Aruneâs behavior as a sexual compulsion.
Arune attacks critics
As the controversy around Bailey’s book unfolded in 2003, Arune and I had agreed to carry on private correspondence after the Bailey book came out. Arune stopped honoring this agreement once Arune got a âquotable quoteâ from me. I asked Arune to confirm or deny allegations that Arune is a registered sex offender. Arune immediately published this far and wide as evidence of something or another, prompting me to ignore this type of trolling from that point on. As expected, Aruneâs trolling continued to escalate the insults in hopes of regaining the attention Iâd been giving Arune, including comparing me to Osama bin Laden [6] as well as all sorts of other inflammatory personal attacks.
Arune has tried to get a number of other prominent transwomen to pay attention to various rants, goading Professor Dierdre McCloskey and other critics of Baileyâs book with childish taunts and mockery.
Arune also appears to have a vendetta against Professor Lynn Conway for presenting a wide array of Transsexual Womenâs Successes from around the world. In November 2002, about four months before Baileyâs book came out, Arune sent the following complaint to Professor Conway, stating that post-transition success is ânot typicalâ and that most people who contact Arune âare not great scholarsâ who lack the intellect to have realistic expectations:
While I appreciate your website and believe that it is good to have success stories available for these people, I truly believe a big warning should be attached. Such would state that the TS women shown are *not typical* and any financial success after transition is rare.
Not only from my own personal experience, but also on the few statistical reports available, TS women suffer from great prejudice in the workplace. This is acknowledged in every book on transsexuality. Generally, I advise those that seek me out that they should be prepared to loose everything â their families and friends, their job and career, their assets and more. Only if their need is great enough to risk all of that should they go forward. I also advise them that the chances of âpassingâ totally are minimal as is the case in the majority of transsexual women that I know. So after I dampen their enthusiasm and get them thinking, they head off and find your site. âWillow, you are all wrong!!!,â they say. âWe can pass and still be successful. We saw Lynnâs page on the Webâ.
Please, amend your site so that potential TS patients are not lured into transition by unrealistic dreams. Many of these people are not great scholars; they need a caution in big, bold letters. [7]
In what appears to be a case of narcissistic projection, Aruneâs âpersonal experienceâ with failure post-transition becomes the standard trajectory, when in fact by any objective standard, Arune is near the lower bound of what anyone might realistically expect after transition.
Since Professor Conway disregarded Aruneâs suggestion in 2002, Arune has resorted to a series of lies and misrepresentations, including claims that Professor Conway had allegedly suggested that a woman who started transition over a certain age was an aging crossdresser. Professor Conway has stated many times that this is a bogus accusation on Aruneâs part.
Hereâs an example where Arune claims Professor Conway transitioned at the same age as Arune:
They had maybe 50 years of being males and being forceful and aggressive and shouting to get what they want as men. Theyâre only a few years, relatively, into their lives as women when they have these strong feelings that Bailey is wrong, but they donât yet know how to control feelings the way a woman would, so they go about arguing against him in a very male way. I know thatâs the worst insult I can aim at a fellow tranny, but look, these people like McCloskey and Conway are used to being powerful in their respective occupations, and they demand to be listened to. [8]
This is typical of Aruneâs tactics. Lynn Conway began transition in her 20âs and finished by age 30, after which she started over in her field in steath, because of the staggering prejudice at the time. Professor Conway had been summarily fired by IBM when she transitioned in 1968, despite being one of their most promising researchers. Luckily, she was able to successfully move on into her new life after that, and then make many of the advances in computing for which she is now famous.
Getting back to the quotation, it was of course Arune who had maybe 50 years of being male before âhis therapist suggested becoming a woman.â Much of the rest of the quotation also sounds like projection on Aruneâs part: only a few years into transition, arguing in a âvery male wayâ (whatever that means), demanding to be listened toâŠ
Professor Conway has also prepared a report describing Aruneâs involvement in this matter, which exposes the type of sleazy, dirty tricks Arune uses to lash out at perceived enemies.
Aruneâs collaborations with other kooks
In May 2003, Arune teamed up with Lisanne Anderson, aka Lori Anjou, to create their online âautogynephiliaâ support group. See those pages for more on the similarities in behavior and outlook between these two. Arune and this group were both kicked off Yahoo for violations of Terms of Service in 2005, allowing Arune to retain the crown of biggest transgender netkook, and adding another group to the long list of groups and services which had to remove Arune for trolling and baiting.
In December 2004, Arune teamed up with yet another unstable kook named Kimberly Williams, a deeply troubled person who became obsessed with the idea that I was âpagejackingâ Williamsâ website, despite my attempts by phone and email to explain that Williams was very confused. Arune and Williams began working together, spreading lies that I had filed for bankruptcy and had fabricated my academic degrees. Williams may actually be even more incompetent and obnoxious than Arune, which is no small feat. Williams has referred to me with Nazi epithets and claims I am using several aliases. Williams also brags in a self-published autobiography about terrorizing an immobilized hospital patient, snatching the patientâs wig off and swirling it in the toilet before putting it back on the patientâs head. Williams then brags about moving the call button just out of reach, leaving the patient helpless. [9] Arune and Williams are certainly cut from the same cloth, so it was no surprise when they began working together to attack me, nor is it a surprise that Arune continues to cite Williams as a reliable source of corroborating information. This incompetent and libellous collaboration led to the demise of Aruneâs support group on Yahoo in 2005.
In March 2005, Aruneâs continued escalation of personal attacks on me led to yet another incompetent decision. Arune set up a Yahoo group devoted to insulting, harassing and cyberstalking me, so Yahoo removed both this new group and Aruneâs older group for violations of their Terms of Service. Though Arune was obviously the only person to blame for this incident, Arune was unable to see that this was yet another instance where Aruneâs incompetence led to a bad decision, just like the fateful trip to Thailand that landed Arune in jail and subsequently triggered Aruneâs belief that Arune is a transsexual. I had not had much interaction with people at this level of incompetence previously, and it is remarkable how many of them I have come into contact with as a result of their support of Bailey and his book. In many ways, itâs probably good that they donât understand how they appear to others. Arune has vowed to bring this âsupportâ site back on another service, but for now, itâs just more evidence of Aruneâs incompetence.
As with most of these fringe element kooks and trolls, Aruneâs personal attacks are better left ignored. Some of these kooks will escalate things to cyberstalking and violence when provoked. The Registrarâs Office at my alma mater had to update their cyberstalking policy because of Aruneâs activities [10]. I recommend only countering the misinformation Arune and friends spread. They crave attention, even if itâs negative attention, from those who are ârespected authorities,â as a way to compensate for their own incompetence. Ignore them, and they will find some other compulsion to indulge in time.
Identifying with metaphors of disease and impairment
As I discuss on my page about disease models of gender identity, some gender-diverse people agree with âexpertsâ who consider them diseased and sexually disordered.
As an aside, itâs interesting to note that the clinical literature is is full of references about people like Arune, who normally defers to clinicians as experts. People like Arune have been described by so-called experts as âtransvestitic applicants for sex reassignmentâ [11] who are âagingâ [12] and âdistressed,â [13] suffering from âpseudotranssexualism,â [14] a ânon-transsexualâ variant of âgender identity disorderâ (GIDAANT), [15] and âiatrogenic artifact.â[16]
Arune is especially fond of claiming that we are mentally ill, asserting that without a mental illness diagnosis, there is no way to get trans health services through government health programs. Unfortunately for Arune, this is simply untrue in many countries. Had Arune read the GIRES materials available on this site since Baileyâs book came out, Arune would know that the UK goverment among others do not consider this a mental illness and continue to fund trans health services. Arune defends the alleged âexpertsâ at one regressive Canadian clinic, while the rest of the community looks to the current consensus of 24 world-renowned experts who are signatories to the document on causes of transsexualism, the final draft of which was provided to this site via lead investigator Milton Diamond. [17]
Arune dismisses the 2002 UK policy that allows funding of trans health services without the stigma of mental illness, because it badly undermines Aruneâs identity as a mentally ill man. Arune claims the UK policy âmerely serves a political role and distorts any scientific judgement in favour of appeasement.â [18] Because Aruneâs incompetence clouds rational judgment, Arune can only view this policy as a problem, rather than a major step forward brought about by progressive transactivists.
As seen with the âforced feminizationâ script played out by Arune with Aruneâs own therapist, the deference to an expert for validation is an important part of Aruneâs identity. âLetâs face it, honey⊠Weâre the patients in this exercise. Weâre not the experts.â [19]
Arune needs an âexpertâ diagnosis to maintain a legitimate identity as a type of diseased man. Some of us feel that we are in a better position to define and describe ourselves, and we feel that Aruneâs bizarre outlook and self-identity is different than a transsexual identity. People like Arune will go down in history as similar to the gays and lesbians who consider themselves diseased, or other oppressed groups who buy into the idea they are biologically inferior. Those folks defer to experts, tooâ many of the same âexpertsâ Arune defends.
In a newspaper interview, Ray Blanchard called Arune a âman without a penis.â [20] If Arune wants to defend someone who says that about all of us, I personally canât fight for Aruneâs rights.
Resources
Transgender Tapestry ()
Elizabeth (2004). On the Science of Bonerism and the Identity Politics of “Single Heterosexual Men,” originally published in Transgender Tapestry #107, Fall/Winter 2004, pp. 45-51 {archive]
Lynn Conway (lynnconway.com)
Datenbank ĂŒber TranssexualitĂ€t (transray.com)
- Willow Arune bibliography [archive]
CEN-TA (centa.com)
The Autogynephilia Resource (autogynephilia.org) [archive]
References
1. Kruger J, Dunning D (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing oneâs own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. December 1999 Vol. 77, No. 6, 1121-1134
http://www.phule.net/mirrors/unskilled-and-unaware.html
2. Blanchard (1989). The concept of autogynephilia [ sic ] and the typology of male gender dysphoria. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease . 1989 Oct;177(10):616-23.
http://www.genderpsychology.org/autogynephilia/male_gender_dysphoria/ (full text)
3. Bailey JM (2000). Phenomenology and classification of male-to-female transsexualism. Symposium conducted at the meeting of the International Academy of Sex Research , Paris. June, 2000. Slide 38.
http://www.psych.nwu.edu/psych/people/faculty/bailey/Blanchardâs%20Paris%20Talk.ppt (requires reader)
4. Arune WC (2004). USENET post 11 April 2004.
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl101135305d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2cof f=1&safe=off&selm=Kxoec.84223%24Ig.10853%40pd7tw2no
5. Plant D (1999). Willow sculpts a life. Kelowna Daily Courier January 27, 1999. For more on Aruneâs incarceration in Thailand, see:
http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/bailey-willow-arune.html
6. Arune W (2004). âAutogynephiliaâ support, 21 August: âThe same reason as Ben Laden â able to justify any act due to belief and faithâ
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/autogynephiliasupport/message/3570
7. Arune W (2002). Letter to Professor Lynn Conway, 20 November. Reprinted with permission of recipient.
8. Rodkin D (2003). âSex and Transsexuals.â Chicago Reader, 12 December 2003.
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Bailey/Reader/Chicago%20Reader.12-12-03.html
9. Williams K, Killeen MJ (2004). The Transsexual Gladiator: The Sword of Apodictic and The Shield of Woe. Apodictic, Inc., p. 258.
10. Arune W (2005). âA matter of degree.â âAutogynephiliaâ Support, 12 January.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/autogynephiliasupport/message/4699
11. Wise TN, Meyer JK (1980). The border area between transvestism and gender dysphoria: transvestic applicants for sex reassignment. Archives of Sexual Behavior . 1980 Aug;9(4):327-42.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=7416946
12. Lothstein LM (1979). Psychological treatment of transsexualism and sexual identity disorders: some recent attempts. Archives of Sexual Behavior . 1979 Sep;8(5):431-44
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=496624
13. Wise TN, Dupkin C, Meyer JK (1981). Partners of distressed transvestites. American Journal of Psychiatry . 1981 Sep;138(9):1221-4.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=7270729
14. Wise TN, Lucas J (1981). Pseudotranssexualism: iatrogenic gender dysphoria. Journal of Homosexuality . 1981 Spring;6(3):61-6.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=7341667
15. American Psychiatric Association (1987). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM III-R).
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0871400499/qid=1094416834/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-8778638-7938457?v=glance&s=books
16. Moser C, Kleinplatz PJ (2002). Transvestic fetishism: psychopathology or iatrogenic artifact? New Jersey Psychologist , 52 (2) 16-17.
http://home.netcom.com/~docx2/tf.html
17. Diamond M (2003). Personal correspondence with the author, 16 July 2003.18. Arune W (2004). âAutogynephiliaâ support, 10 November.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/autogynephiliasupport/message/4243
19. Rodkin D (2003). âSex and Transsexuals.â Chicago Reader, 12 December 2003.
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Bailey/Reader/Chicago%20Reader.12-12-03.html
20. Armstrong J (2004). The body within, the body without. Globe and Mail, 12 June 2004, p. F1.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040612/COVER12/TPComment/TopStories
Willow Arune: harassment and cyberstalking
This is a subpage for the main article on Willow Arune. Please start at the main article for an overview.
âIt is easy to be a bully on Usenet â all it takes is a computer, a modem, and an ugly being. Suddenly you are a hero in your own mind.â
â Willow Arune
Willow Arune is a notorious eccentric who posts primarily on USENET, because Arune has been kicked off almost every moderated online forum due to trolling and baiting. Checking the statistics for the USENET group alt.support.srs will show Arune (as [email protected]) among the top ten posters in any given month. Many of the posts will be cut and paste jobs from other publications (usually marked FYI), but the rest will be flames and trolls aimed at Aruneâs perceived enemies.
Despite claims to the contrary, Arune sends a steady stream of emails to me, including four on 2 June 2005 alone. Arune mentions me at least once a week on alt.support.srs and is clearly obsessed with me. In early 2005, Arune started a Yahoo group called âSurvivors Support Groupâ about me (AJSSG):http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AJSSG
This was a members-only clearinghouse of personal information about me, created by several people harassing and cyberstalking me. This incompetent decision by Arune led Yahoo to terminate all of Aruneâs accounts, which subsequently led to the demise of another âsupportâ group Arune used to publish various rants. Now that Arune is limited primarily to USENET, the attacks there have escalated, to the point that Arune is responsible for much of the content on that nearly defunct forum, long ago abandoned by most to the kooks.
Below are some selected emails to me during the time Arune was âleaving me alone.â Since no one is going to be interested in slogging through all these rants, I have put a short summary in front of each one.
Hereâs one where someone quotes this site and is equated with a murderer.
From: Willow Arune <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2005 17:40:41 -0800
To: Andrea <[email protected]>
Subject: Fw: Bailey resigns!
There you go â one of your most avid readersâŠ
Like the minister who preaches hatred of gays, and then says âI did nothingâ when two of his congregation go out and murder one. You bred Jenny and others like herâŠ
Such a sweetieâŠ
W.
Hereâs an excerpt from one citing Aruneâs collaborator Kimberly Williams.
From: Willow Arune <[email protected]>
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 17:26:21 -0800
To: [email protected], [email protected]
Cc: Andrea <[email protected]>, [email protected], Kimberly Williams <[email protected]>
Subject: Fw: False Statements
A new site contains a bit more concerning Ms. James. One wonders how she supports all those web pages? Go here:
http://www.bostonelectrolysis.com/index.php
(The University of Chicago has confirmed that it has never awarded a degree of Masters in English to Andrea James, by the way). After she accused Mike Bailey of living too close to Boystown in Chicago, guess where she lived and partied??? You got it â next to Boystown. Proof is found on her former web pages, easily available:
http://web.archive.org/web/20010604130122/www.andreajames.com/imageindex.html
Bankruptcy court records might show how AJ âpaidâ for her Full Facial Surgery. Not included in her helpful hints. If indeed her family is rich, they most certainly did not assist in that aspect of her life. A soon to be breaking story, in the mode of James/ConwayâŠ
Loathing is a mild word. James has attacked others in the same fashion. Unhappily, as with her vaulted âMasters in Englishâ few think to challenge her assertions.
Willow
Aruneâs incompetence has led Arune to believe I do not have a Masterâs Degree in English from University of Chicago, which can be easily confirmed by following the instructions at the Registrarâs Office. Arune emailed two department secretaries who do not keep official records, and in Aruneâs incompetent mind, that constitutes proof.
From: Willow Arune <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 17:37:21 -0800
To: Andrea <[email protected]>
Subject: Web Changes
Ah yes, Andrea,
The modifications to your web site have been brought to my attention.
Strange. The University of Chicago has no record of you, at least for a Masters in English. Not the English Department, nor Graduate Studies, and not the Registrar. At this point, as the saying goes, the onus moves to you. Would you care to provide particulars?? I can, of course, easily provide copies of e-mails from the University.
As to Kimberly Williams, I fear you have hurt a great many over the years with your standard tactics of ducking behind the web site. Kimberly is definitely not alone. Even I was astounded at the number of those who do not like you at all. Your recent effort to demean the Transkids was a farce. Placing Christine Burns in the position of having to issue an apology and retraction on the eve of her award from the Queen was a callous thing to do.
The bankruptcy? An innovative way to pay for FFS, I agree. One more step and that public record shall be available, and I fear some might wish to publish it on a web site given what you have done to them. Not me, mind.
This is rather silly. As is normal with things of this nature, no doubt certain matters will surface when you least wish them to do so. While I cannot claim the number of investigators you seem to have, there are not that many US states and areas north of Chicago where mobile homes, especially converted buses, are not that common. It is not the numbers that are important, but more the placement â one clerk in a government office is better than fifty amateurs lurking in bushes.
TTFN,
Willow
From: Willow Arune <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 18:42:01 -0800
To: Andrea <[email protected]>
Subject: Tsk, TskâŠ
Gee, Andrea â you do write the strangest things on your web pageâŠ
If there were an award for inaccurate reporting, I am sure you would make the finals.
As to the University of Chicago, the *fact* remains that I have three posts from them, each of which officially denies that you ever obtained a Masters in English. As you asked me on Dec. 24, 2003, will you affirm or deny that you have the degree you have claimed? This is much easier than similar question post to me. I do so hope you, as a good alumni, donated funds to Chicago. I would love to think that some of the monies they are paying me came from you. Stay tuned â oh, so sorry. You are not on the new list are you? So sad.
In the meantime, please remember that Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville were followed by Gettysburg. One small victory, even two, do not a war win.
You see, honey, the world has passed you by â perhaps me too for that matter. Save for the Internet, and even major portions of that, nobody cares. Sycophants you may have, but step outside that circle and nobody knows or cares about transexuality or autogynephilia. Many, probably most, have not even hear of you, me or the term itself. The great last campaign for civil rights you claimed to represent is a group of huddled silly types gathered around a dwindling fire in the cold. You had your fifteen minutes; that time has passed.
Have a great day and if you have some time, read either of Colette Chilandâs books. Not all of the world is as caught up âprofessional transsexualityâ as you are. Some sanity remains.
Until we meet again, I shall take great delight in imagining all the truly stealth types wearing your tee-shirts and using your mugs at work. And some thought wearing a TS Menace Tee was bad!!!
Hugs,
Willow
This one is my favorite. Arune writes to tell me Arune is not thinking about me.
From: Willow Arune <[email protected]>
Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2005 20:01:00 -0700
To: Lisanne <[email protected]>
Cc: Andrea <[email protected]>
Subject: It isâŠ
âŠniceâŠ
I realized today that I have not thought or spoken or written the name Andrea James for days, weeks evenâŠ
Who says you have to die before you go to heaven???
Hugs,
Willow
This one is to remind me of my irrelevance, and to let me know Arune has decided âenough is enoughâ and will no longer be involved in any of this.
From: Willow Arune <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 19:08:22 -0700
To: Andrea James <[email protected]>
Subject: Fw: I Want What I Want
Time to crow, honey. You pages on me are totally irrelevant, part of history.
The new freedom is wonderful. Keep on with the professional transsexual route â it suits you. Others have better things to do.
Willow
ââ Original Message ââ
From: Willow Arune <mailto:[email protected]>
To:
Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2005 7:05 PM
Subject: Re: I Want What I Want
Hi Rosie,
It was fun to collect â and read â the books that frame our history. Given the nature of TS people, what I got most was insults â AndrĂ©a James determined I was hoarding or worse, and most simply did not care.
It got so bad that one night, I looked and the collection and said enough is enough. I kept the Brown and a few early ones, but most are now at the University if Chicago and I am happily doing more renovations to my home.
I have retreated. No TS meetings, no TS internet, no TS counselling. Being up north in Canada, there is not any interaction save former clients and now a few of us are friends. No more reviews of books and such either. Simply, the bad of dealing with other TS was too great. Too many are, at best, dysfunctional and delusional. A few are downright dangerous and others are simply evil â Andrea James I put in that category.
Fine. Others can follow like little sheep, telling themselves that myths are true. One cannot create a fiction, unsupported by anything really and demand all others in society follow it. Perhaps the best view is that of Dr. Colette Chiland, and two of her books have been translated and are available in the US.
Coddled. Those private types who âhelpâ are â I am convinced â in it for the money. That includes surgeons. The university approach demanded by Stoller was indeed the best â now we have paid types advising those who want to get what they want. Bah!
Anyway, good luck with all. Best advise â avoid other tS like the plagueâŠ
Hugs,
Willow
Of course, Arune was back to âleaving me aloneâ five days later.
From: Willow Arune <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 08:14:07 -0700
To: Andrea James <[email protected]>
Subject: Ah Yes, Your Site
A friend brought the recent changes to your web pages to my attention.
Silly and stupid, as always. I seem to be your boogieman, hiding in hallways ands under beds to do battle. In fact, as you well know, I have withdrawn from the lists (used in an historic context) and no longer care â with one exception.
As you well know, your site is both insulting and libellous. At this point, there is no reason to proceed with legal action as that would result in costs but no recovery â you have no assets to speak of as we all know. Thus, I continue to request that you delete the libel immediately and reserve the right to proceed with legal action if and when I elect so to do.
Of course, each time you add to the defamation, you extend the time for filing, which suits me just fine.
Your pawn almost lost her job and certainly has been effectively muzzled but that was no doubt your plan when you egged her on. As to Christine Burns, you lies got her in trouble at the worst possible moment yet you continue with those lies as well, I note. You hurt the Transkids merely to hurt â the mark of a psychopath. And you did that from cover, the mark of a coward.
You truly are the ugliest being I have met in this lifetime. A soul so retched that you simply love to add lies after lie even after the supposed foe is no longer on the field.
No doubt this response pleases you, in your own sick way. From my viewpoint, I have moved on. You remain as you were â a professional, but flawed, transsexual.
Willow Arune
Hugs,
Willow
I got half a dozen emails from Arune in a 24-hour period in early June 2005. These two give the flavor.
From: Pangarune Corner <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 18:23:39 -0700
To: [email protected]
Subject: Fw: An Observation about Will Orobko
You should be soooooo happy. Why, having a surrogate like Diane is only bettered by having both Diane and Jenny Usher.
You must be so proud. Quoted so often by your peers â and they are indeed *your* peers. Every time one of your idiots quotes your lies it reflects on your personality.
Willow.
From: Pangarune Corner <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 20:20:32 -0700
To: [email protected]
Subject: Fw: alt.support.will.orobko
You see, your followers are so loyalâŠ
I really think you should contact Diane and give her a medal â she is using your material just as you wanted it to be doneâŠ
W.
Hereâs a long one about Aruneâs most recent paramour. Not sure why I got this one.
From: Willow Arune <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 19:42:06 -0700
To: Andrea James <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Will Orobko is a very fat man
Sonia, cur was married in Singapore, separated, came to Canada and served as a registered nurse for many years. She was disabled due to back problems. During that time, she raise four daughters, without any financial assistance from hubby, of whom three are now registered nurses, two with advanced degrees, and one computer whiz who after university has gained a top job with a stock brokerage firm. For her work during the initial AIDS crisis, she is regarded as almost a saint by the Vancouver Gay community; She was with over 50 of those who died, who otherwise would have died alone. In one one case, the fellow was denied medicine due to our former premier. Sonia married him solely to get him medical coverage. He was one of those that died.
You are not fit to even grovel at her feet. As expected, you place total emphasis on appearance, and none on soul and spirit. That is why you are such a callow thing â and thing is one good word to describe you. As with your mentor, Andrea, you attack not the ideas, but the person of those who do not share your opinions. As Andrea attacked Baileyâs children, you attack Sonia. Thankfully, I did not expect you had reached as low as you could.
Heaven knows there are enough types here to follow your way. No matter. Your mentor, dear Andrea, is a self-confessed AG, and in her own words even worse. I can think of no two people who deserve each other as much as you and she. In fact, I shall copy her with this post to show how well you imitate her style. As with her, you are not doubt an AG too â not that such is a problem, mind.
Disgust is a mild word to describe you. Attacking one who is so good that she would even take you in off the streets on a cold night. As has already been pointed out, you have laid claim to all sorts of deeds of derring- do, money beyond wealth, and more. In fact, you are but a trembling leaf â a thing. Not male or female, a THING. Henderson and the lower ranks of the Air Force deserve you.
W.
This flurry came about after I demanded a retraction from a student newspaper after Arune once again claimed I have filed bankruptcy.
From: Willow Arune <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 11:47:58 -0700
To: Andrea James <[email protected]>
Subject: NW
Would you like an Address for Service??? As I assume you would be suing in Canada, please note I shall require Security for Costs.
Would you like the quotes for the definition of âprofessional transsexualâ??
Perhaps Deirdre McCloskey can join you? I am sure her family members would be still willing to testify.
Willow Arune
From: Willow Arune <[email protected]>
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 10:11:10 -0700
To: Andrea James <[email protected]>
Subject: Fun and Games
You seem to have far too much time on your hands these days. Not enough to do as a big âHollywood Producerâ?
Now, I did offer you an Address for Service. Certainly if you wished to start a legal action, I am delighted to respond. I think your site has enough nasty material on myself and others (the Transkids, Lisanne Anderson and more) to present some interesting law. But then, suing you does not do much good, does it? Not unless you have full access to Lynnâs Star Wars contract funds.
When will you wake up to realize that you are fighting a war in which no one has any interest? The new crop of transsexuals could care less about any theory or concept and most do not recognizes the names of Blanchard, James, Conway or any of the other participants â and could care less.
You are certainly amusing in a childish sort of way; you are certainly a nuisance in far too many ways. Try a job that better occupies your time and energy â that would be my suggestion. Being a professional transsexual is not that rewarding â soliciting donations and selling mousepads and such.
TTFN,
Willow Arune
Hugs,
Willow
Willow Arune: words and actions
Former Northwestern University psychology department chair J. Michael Bailey is like the Jerry Springer of academia, and many of his supporters share Baileyâs eccentricities and âcredibility issues.â Since Baileyâs book was deemed ânot scienceâ by the director of the prestigious Kinsey Institute, [1] the issues of author motivation and credibility are obviously important.
The story below is based on first-hand accounts by Bailey supporter Willow Arune, known as Will O [2] at the time of the incident described below. Given the claims of incarceration and criminal charges, statements by this person should be verified independently, even those repeated by journalists, before being considered factual.
According to self-reports [3], on 25 February 1995, Canadian citizen and self-confessed eccentric Will O traveled to Thailand on a visa to broker a $1 million loan through Citibank for a private hospital. [4] Will O has a long history of making incompetent life choices, and this was apparently no exception. Will O claims to have been arrested with two Americans during the meeting and subsequently incarcerated on charges of forging a bank certificate worth $50 million. [5] Will O was allegedly held for 92 days before getting out on bail. [6] Will O claims that after being released, Thai authorities withheld Will Oâs passport and did not return it for over a year. [7] During that time, Will O variously claims âI could not workâ [8] or âI worked in a law officeâ in Thailand. [9]
Will O claims to have been âtrappedâ in Thailand through 1995 and 1996 with little assistance from the embassy, until Reform Party leader Preston Manning and Alberta M.P. Bob Mills personally took up the case by traveling there. [10] Will O claims to have been formally deported in late 1996, noting âI am now an escaped person under Thai lawâ [11] and âa fugitive from Thailand.â [12]
According to Will O, the case number is Black 2870/2538 (Southern Bangkok Criminal Court) [13], and it involved a five year trial, with two appeals of four years each. [14]
Will O claims to have endured six weeks of sexual abuse and rape at the hands of guards. [15] Upon returning to Canada in November 1996, Will O sought counseling, and âhis therapist suggested becoming a woman.â [16] According to Will O:
âSubsequent therapy helped with the Post Traumatic Stress problems, but out popped transsexuality. In retrospect, this was a blessing â a special talent given to a few to understand and BE both genders. My former âpersonalityâ was in essence destroyed, and Willow emerged.â [17]
âIt totally destroyed my sense of being⊠I didnât know who I was when I got out.â [18]
If the concept of a female personality emerging from a destroyed maleâs sense of being sounds familiar, itâs probably because you have seen the ending of the Hitchcock film Psycho. [19]
Now, if you ask me, if a nudist club [20] former officer [21] gets arrested in the sex tour capital of the world [22] and is then sexually abused while in prison, one begins to wonder if the forgery charge is the entire story, or the story at all. Further, if that same person is deported back to Canada, goes on permanent disability welfare for post-traumatic stress disorder caused by the incarceration [23], and then has a therapist suggest becoming a woman on the government dime, one has to marvel at how generously the Canadian welfare system has benefited this fugitive from Thailand. Perhaps Bailey can write a sequel starring Arune called The Man Who Would Be Welfare Queen.
As far as the claim that âout popped transsexuality,â people like Arune have been described in the medical literature as âtransvestic applicants for sex reassignmentâ [24] who are âagingâ [25] and âdistressed,â [26] suffering from âpseudotranssexualism,â [27] a ânon-transsexualâ variant of âgender identity disorderâ (GIDAANT), [28] and âiatrogenic artifact.â [29] Therapist Mildred Brown has suggested several non-transsexual motivations that can apply, including:
- Victims of sexual assault or abuse, who therefore want to distance themselves as much as possible from the bodies in which they were victimized. If one result of the sexual abuse is that they cannot function sexually as the sex in which they were born, they hope that becoming the other sex will put all the trauma behind them.
- Persons who dislike the behavior they have fallen into in their original sex âe.g. rape, child-molestation, exhibitionism, and other anti-social or criminal behavior. They want to get rid of the parts of their bodies âusually penisesâthat have led them astray.
- Individuals with psychiatric disorders, who have delusions that they are the other sex. [30]
Maybe these twelve people who rally around Bailey are (to use his phrase) âfundamentally differentâ [31] from transsexual women because they are not transsexual women. Maybe they are âeccentricsâ who defensively claim to be âreal transsexualsâ but are in fact, to put it bluntly, kooks. Since Bailey would rather engage in science by press conference [32], and he wonât engage those who have written extensive scientific criticisms of his model [33], terminology [34], methodology [35], and book [36], maybe Baileyâs work is not science. After all, thatâs what was asserted at the International Academy of Sex Research right before he stepped down from his position with that group. Maybe Bailey is just someone who is into exploiting kooks, gullible students, and sex workers for professional gain and personal pleasure.References
1. Conway L. Report from IASR Conference at Kinsey Institute. 19 July 2003. via lynnconway.com.
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/IASRmessage.html
2. James A. Willow Arune on âautogynephilia.â
http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/willow-arune.html
Note: Name shortened from William Orobko to Will O throughout for clarity.
3. Arune W. Nightmare in Bangkok. 8 January 1998 via usenet newsgroup: soc.culture.thai
4. Gradon J. Free at last. Calgary Herald. 24 November 1996.
Note: When I contacted the author in 2004, Mr. Gradon noted, âOrobko always was and still is apparently a different breed of cat, of that we are and always were certain.â
5. McDougal I. Ex-local man seeks sex change, citing weeks of Thai jail torture. The Edmonton Sun. 26 September 1999.
6. Arune W. Nightmare in Bangkok. 26 December 1997 via usenet newsgroup: soc.culture.thai
7. Arune W. Nightmare in Bangkok. 8 January 1998. via usenet newsgroup: soc.culture.thai
8. Arune W. Nightmare in Bangkok. 27 December 1997 via usenet newsgroup: soc.culture.thai
9. Arune W. Re: My Post âDonât Move to Thailandâ. 30 December 1997 via usenet newsgroup: soc.culture.thai
10. Gradon J. Free at last. Calgary Herald. 24 November 1996.
11. Arune W. Nightmare in Bangkok. 27 December 1997 via usenet newsgroup: soc.culture.thai
12. Arune W. Nightmare in Bangkok. 8 January 1998 via usenet newsgroup: soc.culture.thai
13. Arune W. Nightmare in Bangkok. 8 January 1998 via usenet newsgroup: soc.culture.thai
14. Arune W. Re: SPAM attacks on Thai recently. 4 January 1998 via Newsgroup: soc.culture.thai
15. Plant D. Willow sculpts a life. The Kelowna Daily Courier. 27 January 1999.
Opening lines: âMeeting Willow Arune for the first time can be a little unsettling. After all, you donât have to look hard to realize thereâs a man inside the make-up, dress and heels.â
16. Plant D. Willow sculpts a life. The Kelowna Daily Courier. 27 January 1999.
17. Arune W. Transsexuality. 16 April 1999 via usenet newsgroup: alt.religion.mormon
18. McDougal I. Ex-local man seeks sex change, citing weeks of Thai jail torture. The Edmonton Sun. 26 September 1999.
19. Stefano J. Psycho. Screenplay for 1960 film by Alfred Hitchcock:
DR. RICHMOND: You see, when the mind houses two personalities, thereâs always a conflict, a battle. In Normanâs case, the battle is overâand the dominant personality has won.
20. Craft N. Nudist/naturist hall of shame.
http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/NudistHallofShame/
21. Van Tan Nudist Club Guestbook, 29 October 2002 entry by Arune:
âMany years ago, in 1971, I joined your club and after that served as Secretary for one year⊠When I was secretary, I was rather inconvenently male. I now take pride in being female not just in mind, but body as well. It should be fun!â
22. US Department of Justice. Sex Tourism. Retrieved 14 October 2005.
http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/ceos/sextour.html
23. Arune W. Willow 22 July 2003. via usenet newsgroup: alt.support.srs.
âMy status as disabled is already known.â
24. Wise TN, Meyer JK (1980). The border area between transvestism and gender dysphoria: transvestic applicants for sex reassignment. Archives of Sexual Behavior. 1980 Aug;9(4):327-42.
25. Lothstein LM (1979). Psychological treatment of transsexualism and sexual identity disorders: some recent attempts. Archives of Sexual Behavior. 1979 Sep;8(5):431-44.
26. Wise TN, Dupkin C, Meyer JK (1981). Partners of distressed transvestites. American Journal of Psychiatry. 1981 Sep;138(9):1221-4.
27. Wise TN, Lucas J (1981). Pseudotranssexualism: iatrogenic gender dysphoria. Journal of Homosexuality. 1981 Spring;6(3):61-6.
28. American Psychiatric Association (1987). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM III-R).
29. Moser C, Kleinplatz PJ (2002). Transvestic fetishism: psychopathology or iatrogenic artifact? New Jersey Psychologist, 52 (2) 16-17.
30. Brown ML, Rounsley CA. True Selves: Understanding Transsexualism-For Families, Friends, Coworkers, and Helping Professionals. 1996 Jossey-Bass, ISBN: 0787902713 pp. 106-107.
31. Bailey JM. Academic McCarthyism. Northwestern Chronicle. 9 October 2005.
32. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. New York Times suggests bisexuals are âlyingâ: Paper fails to disclose study authorâs controversial history. 8 July 2005.
33. Wyndzen M. Everything you never wanted to know about autogynephilia but were afraid you had to ask. Via genderpsychology.org, 2004.
34. Roughgarden J (2004). The Bailey affair: Psychology perverted. via lynnconway.com.
35. James AJ (2004). Plethysmograph a disputed device. and âAutogynephiliaâ: a disputed diagnosis. via tsroadmap.com.
36. Bockting W. Biological reductionism meets gender diversity in human sexuality. [Review of The Man Who Would Be Queen]. The Journal of Sex Research, Volume 42, Number 3, August 2005: pp. 267â270.
Jenn Ross is a Canadian software developer and “autogynephilia” activist. Ross is involved in the transkids.us hoax website, allegedly written by transgender youth. Ross made a gender transition around age 30, was about 35 when transkids.us went online, and turned 50 years old in 2019.
Background
Jennifer E. âJennâ Ross was born November 11, 1969. Ross was associated with Algonquin College in Ottawa, Ontario and had computer businesses based in Toronto for many years. Ross’ online ventures have included IMN Internet Services, NetDesign Network Holdings, Inc., and Yallery.com. Ross has also served as Chief Technology Officer at GW Hannaway and Associates in Boulder, Colorado.
Ross’ vaginoplasty in the late 1990s was funded by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan, which means itâs very likely Ross participated in the regressive programs at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in order to get healthcare. Most adults in Toronto avoid CAMH and use private providers, leaving as the primary clientele those adults who enjoyed the humiliation of regressive CAMH policies. Ray Blanchard, a CAMH psychologist at the time, has written about the âmale gender dysphorics, paedophiles, and fetishistsâ they see in their clinic. Blanchard has said about patients like Jenn Ross, âA man without a penis has certain disadvantages in this world, and this is in reality what youâre creating.â Thatâs why anyone who could avoid CAMH went elsewhere.
Transkids.us hoax
While living in Boulder, Colorado, Ross was involved in developing transkids.us prior to its December 2004 publication. Like site owner and notorious troll Denise Magner (also known as Denise Tree and Kiira Triea), Ross is a Linux expert and makes a living as a computer technician and web developer. Magner was 54 years old when the transkids.us hoax site went live.
Ross was one of the key people who comprised 85% of all transkids.us visits prior to the siteâs publication. Transkids.us had 122 visits from Rossâ Boulder ISP prior to December 2004, as well as traffic from the Amsterdam-based IP associated with one of Ross’ businesses.
To date, participants identified by name do not embody the self-identity which transkids.us allegedly represents (âhomosexual transsexuals,â which they abbreviate HSTS). The front page of transkids.us states:
Our purpose in making this website is to make the voices of transkids, homosexual transsexuals, directly accessable. We prefer to speak about our lives and issues ourselves and we are not helped by having our lives and issues represented and re-interpretted by non-homosexual transsexuals whose histories, motivations, etiology and personal understanding of their transsexuality is different from our own. [emphasis mine]
According to the site, âtranskids.us is written by hsts and is about homosexual transsexuality.â Proponents of this term claim this âtypeâ of trans woman is ânaturally feminineâ from early on, and exhibits âearly, extreme, and effortless femininity.â Sexologist Ray Blanchard claims there is a close relation between computer nerdiness and âautogynephilia,â a sex-fueled mental illness he created. In fact, Blanchard supporter J. Michael Bailey considers Jenn Rossâ occupation as a computer expert to be a key indicator that someone is not a âhomosexual transsexualâ under their taxonomy.
Trans people as a group vehemently oppose the term âhomosexual transsexualâ and its pejorative baggage, because it identifies trans people by their sex assigned at birth rather than by their gender identity. The term is mainly used by a few old-school sexology holdouts in Toronto and their supporters.
After Denise Magner died in 2012, “autogynephilia” activist Candice Brown Elliott took over the hoax site at age 55.
References
Collison, Ken (March 30, 1995) Tea Party Time: Tea party concert broadcast on the internet. Humber Et Cetera https://library.humber.ca/digital-archive/sites/default/files/coven/Mar30_95_Vol27_No24.pdf
Resources
“Transkids” (transkids.us)
Twitter (twitter.com)
Mastodon (mastodon.social)
Octodon (octodon.social)
LinkedIn (linkedin.com)
- https://linkedin.com/in/jennr/ [deleted]
- https://linkedin.ca/in/jennr/ [deleted]
Jenn Ross (jenn.com) [archive]
Jenn Ross (jenn.ca) [archive]
Jenn Ross (jennlog.com) [archive]
NetDesign (netdesign.com) [archive]
Yallery (yallery.com) [archive]
Heike Susanne Bödeker (also known as Heike Spreitzer) is a German writer and “autogynephilia” activist. Heike claimed to have been in a relationship with Denise Magner (aka “Kiira Triea”) and was involved in the transkids.us hoax site.
Background
Heike claims to be born in 1963 and âadopted by the family of a psychotic woman.â Heike described family life in Heidelberg as a concentration camp: âlike being at the hands of some torturer or KZ-Waechter resp. like living in a death row.â Heike has very little good to say about one adoptive parent. Heike allegedly got a break when the parent was hospitalized in 1969. Heike says, âoccasionally she beat me really seething with hatred.â and â I will spit on her grave rather go to hellâŠâ
Heike has reported being diagnosed with mixed gonadal dysgenesis. Heike claims to have been assigned female at birth but was reassigned male in 1968 around age 5. Around age 12, Heike was reportedly put on testosterone (from November 1975 âuntil shortly before my attempt at suicide around the time of my 14th birthday in May â77.â). This gave Heike what âmany contemporaries due to their lack of any musical education mistake for a male voice.â In 1977, Heike dropped out of a school program, then âhad a major breakdownâ at age 18.
After living as male for about 16 years starting at age 5, Heike was reportedly reassigned female at age 21 in 1984. Heike’s turning point came in 1993. Heike spent time learning about the Siksika, Piikani, Kainaa, Tsuutâina, and Nakoda First Nations, and became aware of ISNA.
âI experienced another breakdown only a few weeks after [2 years of psychotherapy] had ended.â Heike was reportedly later adopted by Anna Boedeker and got in a relationship with Denise Magner (aka “Kiira Triea”). Between 1998 and 2000 Heike Bödeker self-identified as âKiiraâs partner,â at one point writing, âThis is what happens when oneâs gf lives in Germany.â
Activism
Heike and Magner had many connections prior to Magner’s death in 2012:
- CISAE [Coalition for iIntersex Support Activism and Education] and GMSSG [Genital Mutilation Survivors’ Support Network] and EZKU were hosted on the same domain
- Wrote pro-“autogynephilia” piece in response to Becky Allison
- Wrote article on Native v. White gender diversity with Magner and Teresa BinstockÂ
- http://www.sonic.net/~boedeker/ (now Heikeâs motherâs site)
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
Boedeker has gone to considerable effort to erase all online presence.
Selected publications
Michal Rachel Nahman (2000). Embodied Stories, Pragmatic Lives: Intersex Body Narratives on the Net. Unpublished thesis, York University.
The EZKU website is run by Heike Boedeker, from Germany, who used to run the Genital Mutilation Survivorsâ Support Network website (which is no longer in existence). As opposed to GMSSN, EZKU is not a support network; rather, it is an online journal (the offline version of which dates back to 1981 -1985) devoted to intersexual and transsexual traumatization issues. Through this website Heike has demonstrated dissatisfaction with the exclusion of transsexual issues frorn the intersex movement. The EZKU website contains Heikeâs life history. It focuses specifically on traumatization caused by surgeries, hormone therapies and the mistreatment s/he received. I use Heikeâs cornments and hir online testimonials in the next section where I compare the different intersex websites⊠For Heike, a functioning body is just as important or even more important than a body that can âpassâ for mate or female. Here we see a key difference amongst people in the movement. Some equate normalcy with function, others with appearance.
For exarnple, in her online testimonial, Heike describes her feelings at the age of 15, stating that she could not identify as anything: 1 canât be male, I canât not be male, 1 canât be female, I canât not be fernale, I canât be intersexed, 1 canât be not intersexed, i canât betranssexual, I canât be not transsexual.. . likewise, I canY have râships [sic] and I canât have no râships.. .sounds crazy, right? [Heike Boedeker, GMSSN website (no longer available online)]
When she wrote this Heike was feeling rejected by various different communities and found herself in a double bind. While others have constantly identified Heike as an intersexual, she sees herself as just as much a transsexual, or rather she is frustrated by the need to identify as anything at all.
References
Boedeker, Heike (Janunary 24, 1998). âPortrait of the Artist as a Young Herm.â Real Intersexed People, via CISAE
Spreitzer, Heike (1994). enthĂ€lt: Zur PhĂ€nomenologie der DirektionalitĂ€t (“inverse Flexion”). Sprache & Sprachen
Spreitzer, Heike; Nieragden, Göran; Chapado, Olga; Wilbertz, Veronika; Weyerts, Helga (1994). Versuch einer historischen Lautlehre des Arbore. Sprache & Sprachen 14/15 (1994), 35-69.
Resources
Anna Boedeker (anna-boedeker.de)
- http://www.anna-boedeker.de/ab.html
- http://www.anna-boedeker.de/cats/family.htm
Sonic (sonic.net)
- http://www.sonic.net/~boedeker/
- http://www.sonic.net/~boedeker/heike/index.htm
- http://www.sonic.net/~boedeker/ezku/index_pe.html
- http://www.sonic.net/~boedeker/ezku/glossary.htm
Tamara Roberson is an American software engineer and “autogynephilia” activist. Roberson is a key figure in the transkids.us hoax website and identifies as a “gender critical” Christian trans person. As with many “autogynephilia” activists, Roberson believes others have that disease, but Roberson does not identify as an “autogynephile.”
Background
Tamara Zoe Roberson was born November 16, 1984. Roberson attended Marysville-Pilchuck High School in Marysville, Washington, then attended Western Washington University in Bellingham from 2003 to 2005. Roberson earned an associate’s degree from Everett Community College in 2020 and a bachelor’s degree from Washington State University in 2022. Roberson worked at Target and Walmart for about ten years before taking a role as a software engineer at Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL) in 2022.
Roberson has maintained an extensive trolling online presence since the 1990s. Usernames include:
- Justanormalgirl
- TGirlZoe
- Foxxygirltamara
- TamaraZRoberson
Roberson became a religious conservative later in life.
“Autogynephilia” activism
âAutogynephiliaâ (“AGP”) is a sex-fueled mental illness created by Ray Blanchard in 1989. Blanchard defines it as âa manâs paraphilic tendency to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman.â Support for this disease model of gender diversity is almost nonexistent, limited to a small group of conservative activists and supporters.Â
âAutogynephiliaâ as a taxonomy appeals to a very specific type of person: neurodiverse, fixated on collecting and categorizing, socially isolated/eccentric, rigid thinking. “Autogynephilia” appeals to Roberson, who claims to be the other type in the two-type taxonomy: “homosexual transsexual,” or “HSTS.” To that end, Roberson supported the trolling efforts of Denise Magner, creator of the transkids.us hoax site. All of the people involved in that project identify as “HSTS” but would be categorized by Blanchard as “AGP.”
Resources
Twitter (twitter.com)
LinkedIn (linkedin.com)
Facebook (facebook.com)
Quora (quora.com)
Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
LiveJournal (livejournal.com)
GitHub (github.com)
Instagram (instagram.com)
Charlotte Anjelica Kieltyka is an American photographer and artist credited by both real name and by the pseudonym “Cher Mondavi” in J. Michael Baileyâs anti-transgender book The Man Who Would Be Queen. Kieltyka is prominently featured throughout the book and is also featured prominently in the defense of Bailey by Alice Dreger.
Background
Charlotte Anjelica Kieltyka was born February 5, 1951. Kieltyka grew up in the Chicago area and graduated from St. Joseph Catholic School in Westchester. Kieltyka attended University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1969 to 1972. In 1973, Kieltyka won grand prize in the annual Chicago Tribune photography contest. Kieltyka made a gender transition in the 1980s.
After seeing Bailey on television talking about “transsexualism” in the mid-1990s, Kieltyka reached out. Kieltyka saw Bailey as a respected authority and sought Bailey’s approval. Kieltyka shared personal experiences and theories involving gender and sex. This led to a long-standing relationship where Kieltyka would get further validation and attention by performing in front of Baileyâs exploitative classes on sexuality; Northwestern University cancelled the course permanently in 2011 after Bailey arranged a live “fucksaw” demonstration. Kieltyka would in turn provide Bailey with access to young trans women, as well as older transgender people Kieltyka knew through a local support group. Bailey would then see these acquaintances in a clinical or lab setting, and Bailey would socialize with the young, attractive ones at nightclubs.
The Man Who Would Be Queen case report fabrication
Kieltyka contacted Lynn Conway and me after The Man Who Would Be Queen came out in 2003. Kieltyka protested at the International Academy of Sex Research conference and filed a formal complaint with Northwestern University for the inaccurate and lurid misuse of biographical information in that book.
Kieltyka also reported that Bailey admitted to fabricating key aspects of a case report in the book.
I soon recovered to ask about something else that was really troubling me about the ending to the book…..I meant the ending to the story about Danny, the last scene depicted in the Epilogue, (p. 214 – the last paragraph) :
“….A few moments later, Danny said : ‘Mummy, I need to go to the men’s room.’ I am certain that as he said that, he emphasized ‘men’s’ and looked my way. And off he went, by himself. At that moment, I became as certain as I can be of Danny’s future. “…….
What had me curious and uniquely troubled about Bailey’s description of this final scene was his absolute certainty of Danny’s future…..What had me perplexed was this presumptiveness and arrogance that he had displayed throughout his book and his life. ….Now he’s playing God or one of his prophets, in telling Danny’s future with such infallible foresight…..It was either that or he was some sort of charlatan……But Bailey is an honest and humble researcher……yet, how could he know with such certainty?
Let me re-phrase that….How could he know that Danny was going to turn out a gay man rather than a transexual woman like “Juanita”?…..His whole book was setting up this either/or proposition (leaving out a real third possible future which was Danny committing suicide!)…..Either Danny was going to be almost exactly like “Juanita” ….A real possibility because both Bailey and I knew about “Juanita’s” childhood and how it closely resembled Danny’s, and that being the case how could Bailey not be as certain of that outcome…..“How could he be so certain? is what I wanted to know…..
Asking him as I did in my best “National Enquirer” inquisitive tone of voice…..His reply……
“I made it up.”…… he said…..
Excuse me, What did you say?…..
“I said I made up that final scene….it never happened “……he replied……
I felt like my computer brain did not compute or could not compute this “DATA”, and so it just “crashed”…..This was even more incredulous then the first answer and I was not even asking whether the scene was true or fabricated ! ! ….I was dumbfounded and he was appearing to be playing both characters in …Dumb and Dumber…..maybe dumbest of all….. Of greater import, and with grave and serious consequences, he seemed to be playing both insidious and dangerous roles of quack and demi-god ….pretending to do research and creating the results that he predicted beforehand……
Kieltyka later sent the following to Bailey in the wake of Bailey’s claims they were friends:
Dr. Bailey, Please refrain from any future remarks about âCherâ and/or Anjelica Kieltyka as being your friendâŠ.I am not your friendâŠYou could not be my friend and write that bookâŠ.Do not link Anjelica Kieltyka to âCherâ and /or Autogynophilia and or/ non homosexual transexual except in the context that I , Anjelica Kieltyka , vehemently and emphatically refuse that classification/diagnosis/opinion by you. Any further remarks by you in print or spoken word or use of my image/video describing me, Anjelica Kieltyka as âCherâ and/or Autogynophilic/non homosexual I will consider libelous and/or slander. Most openly and honestly yours, C. Anjelica Kieltyka P.S. I hope to teach you a âgreat dealâ more about the souls of transexual women in the days to come.
Kieltyka now sees that attempts to share experiences and opinions were exploited and misrepresented by Bailey to further a personal agenda and interests. The entire matter has left Kieltyka very troubled and distrustful, as Kieltyka feels duped and exploited by Bailey and others like Alice Dreger. Most people are not going to see past Kieltykaâs eccentricities or unique worldview. Like many of the trans people Dreger and Bailey exploit, Kieltyka is an eccentric hoarder who is socially isolated and experiences significant poverty. It is much easier for people like Bailey to reduce people like Kieltyka to caricatures rather than to treat them like human beings.
Since the 2003 controversy, Kieltyka has done forensic photo analysis for the Arthur C. Pillsbury Foundation.
References
Surkan K (2007). Transsexuals Protest Academic Exploitation. [PDF] In Great Events from History: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Events, 1848-2006. Lillian Faderman, ed. Salem Press, 2007, ISBN 9781587652639
Kieltyka, Anjelica (July 8, 2003). Danny vs. Juanita : Baileyâs Choice. Published at Conway, Lynn (2003). Itâs Fiction! Bailey Admits to Anjelica Kieltyka that he Fabricated the Key Final Scene in His Book https://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/DannyFabrication.html
Dreger AD (2008). The Controversy Surrounding The Man Who Would Be Queen: A Case History of the Politics of Science, Identity, and Sex in the Internet Age. Archives of Sexual Behavior. 2008 Jun; 37(3): 366â421.Published online 2008 Apr 23. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-007-9301-1
Windsor EJ (2018). Power in the production of transgender knowledge: The controversy over The Man Who Would Be Queen. The Rutgers Journal of Sociology Knowledge in Contention, Volume II, 2018, pp. 2-37. [PDF]
Resources
Facebook (facebook.com)
LinkedIn (linkedin.com)
Lynn Conway (lynnconway.com)
Chloe Ann Rounsley is an American writer and photographer who co-wrote True Selves with therapist Mildred L. Brown in 1996.
Background
Chloe Ann Rounsley was born in 1950.
As a staff photographer for newspapers, Rounsley “has always focused on the visual and photographic aspects.” Rounsley has written feature stories, book reviews, a regular column called Faces (with portraits and stories), and magazine articles on a variety of subjects.Â
One of Rounsley’s relationship articles for the San Francisco Chronicle led to the book True Selves.
Rounsley has also worked as a public relations manager, staff writer, and copywriter for ad agencies. Rounsley’s own creative agency, Rounsley Associates, develops corporate identity and ad campaigns.
Resources
Rounsley Associates (rounsley.com) [archive]
LinkedIn (linkedin.com)
Digital Transgender Archive (digitaltransgenderarchive.net)
Lynne Carroll is an American psychologist and author of numerous articles and book chapters on sex and gender minority issues.
Background
Carroll was born circa 1957. Carroll obtained a masterâs and a doctoral degree in psychology from the University of Pittsburgh. Carroll is board certified by The American Board of Professional Psychology in Counseling Psychology.
While serving as a professor of psychology, Carroll authored a textbook, professional articles, book chapters, and papers and posters on diverse topics at national and international professional conferences.
Carroll has practiced as a psychologist in Florida and Maryland and as a counselor in community agencies and university settings in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.
Carroll taught at the University of North Florida and at University of South Florida.
PY8827 Florida board certified diplomate in Counseling Psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology Graduated 1985
Resources
LinkedIn (linkedin.com)
Comprehensive MedPsych Systems (medpsych.net)
- Lynne Carroll [archive]
- https://www.medpsych.net/staff/carroll-lynne-ph-d-abpp/
Therapist Healthcare (therapist.healthcare)
- Lynne Carroll
- https://therapist.healthcare/directory/listing/1932-lynne-carroll
Florida Counseling and Evaluation Services (flces.com)
- Lynne Carroll [archive]
- http://www.flces.com/OurClinicians.en.html
NPI 1578999249
Notes
Counseling transgender, Transsexual, and Gender-Variant Clients
By Lynne Carroll, Paula J. Gilroy, and Jo Ryan
Source: Journal of Counseling & Development; Spring 2002, Vol. 80 Issue 2, p131, 9p
A journal of the American Counseling Association
Republished at transgendermap.com with kind permission of the authors and publisher.
The emergent consciousness and political activism within the transgender community has important implications for the field of counseling. In the current paradigm, the focus has shifted from using surgical and hormonal interventions and thereby enabling transgender persons to âpassâ within the traditional gender binary of society to affirming the unique identities of transgender persons. To prepare counselors, counselor educators, and counseling supervisors for this important challenge, the authors describe the evolving nature of the transgender community, discuss mental health issues and counseling interventions for use with transgender clients, and present a case study detailing the progression of counseling with 1 transgender client.
Despite the recent focus on multiculturalism and diversity within the counseling field, the transgender population has been given insufficient attention in research and in counselor training. Although gay, lesbian, and bisexual issues are beginning to receive much needed attention in multicultural texts and professional journals (e.g., the 1998 special issue in The Counseling Psychologist, the recent publication by the American Psychological Association titled Handbook of Counseling and Psychotherapy With Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Clients, by Perez, DeBord, & Bieschke, 2000), discussion of transgender issues is rare in such publications. For the most part, mental health practitionersâ views about transsexuals, transvestites or cross-dressers, and others with transgender status have ânot been informed by objective empirical researchâ (Fox, 1996, p. 31). Consequently, counselors are ill- prepared to meet the needs of such clients. The purpose of this article is to inform counselor educators, counselors, and supervisors about the salient clinical issues that arise when working with transgender clients. Specifically, the following areas are addressed: (a) the emerging and evolving definition of the transgender community, (b) the politicization of the transgender movement, (c) clinical issues and interventions for use with transgender clients, and (d) the presentation of an actual case that details the progression of personal therapy with a transgender client.
EVOLVING DEFINITIONS
The term transgender was coined in the late 1980s by men who did not find the label transvestite adequate enough to describe their desire to live as women (Prosser, 1997). Alternately, the term transsexual was deemed inappropriate because many nontraditionally gender-identified persons did not necessarily want to reconfigure their bodies surgically and hormonally and did not share the desire to âpass,â or to fit into normative gender categories of male and female. Included in the full spectrum of people with nontraditional gender identities are pre- and postoperative transsexuals, cross-dressers or transvestites, intersex persons, and those who are disinterested in passing. Among the many terms used interchangeably to describe this community are transgender persons, gender-variant persons, and trans persons. For consistency in this article, we use transgender persons and its variations.
Today, the continued proliferation of identifying terms within the transgender community, including gender-bender, gender outlaws, gender trash, gender queer, transsexual lesbian, and so forth, reflects the diversity within this community as well as the ongoing struggle for self-definition. Novelist Leslie Feinberg (1998), who is transgender and an activist for this community, observed that âour lives are proof that sex and gender are much more complex than a delivery room doctorâs glance at genitals can determine, more variegated than pink or blue birth capsâ (p. 5).
For many counselors, these variations in terms and identifications within the transgender community are confusing. We have found Eyler and Wrightâs (1997) ânine-point gender continuumâ (p. 6) to be a helpful framework for us to organize our understanding of the multiplicity of gender identifications that exist. Eyler and Wrightâs continuum depicts possible gender identities ranging from âfemale-basedâ identities to âmale-basedâ identities, with âbigenderedâ identities (defined as alternating between feeling/behaving like a woman and feeling/behaving like a man) in the center.
Attempts to estimate the prevalence of transgender persons have been problematic because such efforts have been based on counting persons who request surgical reassignment of their sex and who therefore would very likely be considered transsexuals (Ettner, 1999). Ettner (1999) maintained that the prevalence of persons with âgender dysphoria,â defined as psychological discomfort with oneâs biological sex, is âgrossly underreportedâ (p. 28). She indicated that estimates vary from a range of 3% to 5% to a range of 8% to 10% of the general population. Whatever the figures, it is likely that mental health care providers will encounter at least one transgender client at some point in their professional career (Ettner, 1999).
THE BIRTH OF THE TRANSGENDER MOVEMENT
As Parlee (1998) and Denny (1992) noted, the emerging political activism and organization of the transgender community is both the cause and the consequence of several recent sociocultural events including (a) the closing of university-affiliated gender clinics and subsequent opening of private clinics(Readerâs note. According to Cole, Denny, Eyler, & Samons, 2000, the disaffiliation of universities from their respective gender clinics was in large part precipitated by the release of a scientific publication by J. K. Meyer & Reter, 1979, which reported no improvement in the lives of patients after sex reassignment. The report was later discredited.); (b) the organization of the 1992 International Conference on Transgender Law and Employment Policy to fight for the legal and social rights of transgenderists; (c) the First International Conference on Gender, Cross-Dressing and Sex Issues in 1995; (d) the demonstration on behalf of the rights of infants born with ambiguous genitalia, who routinely undergo corrective pediatric surgery, by the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA), at the 1996 meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics in Boston; (e) the publication by ISNA of the newsletter titled Hermaphrodites With Attitude; (f) the formation of TOPS (transgender Officers Protect and Serve for transgender police, firefighters, military, etc.); and (g) the formation of Gender PAC (political action committee), the first transgender political education fund. Several authors (e.g., Denny, 1997; Gagne, Tewksbury, & McGaughey, 1997; Whittle, 1998) also attributed much of recent transgender activism to the increasing use of cyberspace. The plethora of Web sites and chat rooms has provided possibilities for transgender persons to communicate and support one another with anonymity. The media attention given to this issue and the visibility of transgender persons in movies and popular culture (drag queen RuPaul and the Lady Chablis, star of the film Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Eastwood, 1997) have enabled activists to challenge public intolerance and grow in self-confidence and affirmation.
Perhaps more than any of the aformentioned events, the publicity surrounding the hate crimes perpetrated against transgender persons has stimulated, mobilized, and activated the transgender community. Indeed, most, if not all, transgender persons know only too well the consequences of straying from compliance with the definition and appearance of what is considered ânormalâ gender expression. Gagne and Tewksbury (1998) observed that transgender persons who are neither masculine nor feminine must deal with âthe ubiquity of the binary systemâs dictate that all social actors âdo gender and do it right’â (p. 100). Such persons are truly on the margin of society and are at most risk for social ostracism and discrimination. As Bornstein (1994) noted,
There is most certainly a privilege to having a gender. Just ask someone who doesnât have a gender, or who canât pass, or who doesnât pass. When you have a gender, or when you are perceived as having a gender, you donât get laughed at in the street. You donât get beat up. You know which public bathroom to use, and when you use it, people donât stare at you or worse. You know which form to fill out. You know what clothes to wear. You have heroes and role models. You have a past. (p. 127)
In 1993, the death of Brandon Teena, a female-to-male (FTM) transgender person, captured the headlines and was the focus of a popular film titled Boys Donât Cry (Peirce, 1999). Brandon was brutally raped and murdered after two male acquaintances discovered that he was biologically female. The death of the transgender woman Tyra Hunter, who was left unattended by paramedics at the scene of a car accident after they opened her pants and discovered that she had a penis (Stine, as reported by Parlee, 1998), horrified and outraged many in the transgender community. Leslie Feinberg (1998), a lesbian, described being near death and refused treatment by a physician in the emergency room of a hospital because of âhirâ (pronounced like âhereâ) gender expression. (Feinberg expressed a preference for the term âhirâ because it blends the pronouns him and her.)
As a result of such sociocultural phenomena, many in the transgender community have rejected the use of such clinical terms as gender dysphoria. The use of diagnostic terms contained in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994), such as transvestic fetish and gender identity disorder, were also rejected because they seem to pathologize and dehumanize persons with nontraditional gender identities. The medical and psychiatric communities are viewed with suspicion by many in the transgender community because they have historically served as regulators and gatekeepers in the gender transition process. Beginning in 1979, persons seeking hormonal therapy or sex reassignment, or both, were required to seek counseling and adhere to a series of procedures defined in âthe standards of care,â developed by the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (W. Meyer et al., 2001). These standards dictated that hormonal and surgical candidates receive counseling and obtain official letters of recommendation by qualified mental health professionals. Those interested in surgical reassignment were also mandated to live as their desired gender for approximately 1 year (called âthe real life experienceâ) prior to surgery. Many now seek to âdefine themselves rather than asking or allowing themselves to be defined by helping professionals,â and thereby âdo as little or as much as they wish to their bodiesâ (Denny, 1997, p. 37). For example in 1993, at the Conference on Transgender Law and Employment Policy, the International Bill of Gender Rights had specifically included the right to âfreedom from psychiatric diagnosis and treatmentâ and thereby reflected the desire by many not to have to conform to a prescribed regimen dictated by the medical and psychiatric establishments (i.e., Standards of Care of the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association; W. Meyer et al., 2001).
THE CRITIQUE OF PASSING
Although many transsexuals are able, with the aid of hormonal and surgical interventions, to successfully pass as their desired gender without detection, it is important to note that others are less successful in doing so. Either the medical procedures are too costly and painful or their basic body morphology makes their attempt to transition more noticeable to others. It is partly for this reason that many transgender activists (e.g., Feinberg, 1998; Stone, 1991) have advocated that transsexual persons âcome outâ and identify themselves as transgender and, in so doing, âbegin to write oneself into the discourses which have been written [about us]â (Stone, 1991, p. 299). On the basis of his extensive interviews with persons with nontraditional gender identities, Hill (1997) noted that the majority preferred to identify themselves as âtransgenderâ and did not want to âreeditâ their biographies or to âpassâ in mainstream society. As Feinberg (1998) stated, âWe are oppressed for not fitting these narrow social norms, and we are fighting backâ (p. 5). Bockting (1997) observed that by affirming their identities as either transsexuals or transgender persons, persons with nontraditional gender identities can alleviate the shame, isolation, and secrecy that often accompany attempts to pass as a desired gender.
IMPLICATIONS FOR COUNSELING
The emergent transgender consciousness and political activism emanating from this community have important implications for the field of counseling. Treatment issues no longer center on assisting âgender dysphoricâ persons in their adjustment to their new gender but include the possibility of affirming a unique transgender identity (Bockting, 1997). In this paradigm shift, the focus is not on transforming transgender clients but rather transforming the cultural context in which they live. To assist counselors, counselor educators, and supervisors with this challenge, we adapt the multicultural counseling competencies described in Sue, Arredondo, and McDavis (1992), Sue et al. (1982), and Sue and Sue (1999) to address the crucial counselor attitudes, knowledge, and skills that are needed for work with transgender persons.
Counselor Attitudes
We believe that clinicians need to rethink their assumptions about gender, sexuality, and sexual orientation and to adopt a âtrans-positiveâ or âtrans-affirmativeâ disposition to counseling. A trans-affirmative approach necessitates that counselors affirm transgender persons; advocate for political, social, and economic rights for the transgender; and educate others about such issues. Such an approach is similar to the practice of âsex-positiveâ therapy (Queen, 1996) and gay-affirmative therapy with gay men, lesbians, and bisexual persons and requires that, first and foremost, counselors, supervisors, and researchers should recognize that they may not only have a role in alleviating the emotional distress of clients who challenge the binary gender system but may also be responsible for contributing to or exacerbating it. Counselors must be sensitive to the fact that the medical and psychiatric establishments have long histories of pathologizing transgender persons. Ettner (1999), for example, has observed that counselors have communicated reductionist either-or messages, such as counseling clients out of sex reassignment procedures because of âsomatically inappropriateâ body types, facial features, and so forth. In their qualitative study of MTF transsexuals, Gagne et al. (1997) found that the majority reported having been actively involved in psychotherapy and indicated that they were pressured by their therapists to come out to others and appear as women. In these cases, therapists may fail to take into account the possible repercussions, such as violence and harassment, that may ensue if clients are not adequately psychologically, financially, and emotionally prepared for such a rapid transition. There are still incidents of counselors who adamantly believe that transsexual people are âfundamentally homophilic but cannot consciously accept their sexual orientationâ (Fagan, Schmidt, & Wise, 1994). In contrast to the common stereotypical assumption that transgender persons are gay or lesbian, the clinical literature has within the last several years reflected the reality that many transsexuals are bisexual (Bolin, 1988; Denny & Green, 1996). Denny and Green, for example, observed that many postoperative transsexuals (persons who have completed the surgical reassignment process) find bisexual partners attractive because they are not exclusively focused on gender as a determinant of sexual and emotional attraction.
Counselor Knowledge and Skills
To help counselors build an adequate knowledge base for understanding transgender issues in counseling, they must have information regarding the political, historical, and psychological contexts in which transgender clients live. Counselors need to become familiar with the evolving terminology and politics of the transgender movement. Because the growth of transgender studies was partly facilitated by the use of autobiographies of transgender persons (Parlee, 1998), training efforts should incorporate such narratives. We recommend that counseling professionals read such biographical texts as Stone Butch Blues (Feinberg, 1993) and Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us (Bornstein, 1994) and general texts, such as Transgender Warriors: Making History From Joan of Arc to RuPaul (Feinberg, 1996), Confessions of a Gender Defender: A Psychologistâs Reflections on Life Among the transgender (Ettner, 1996), and My Gender Workbook (Bornstein, 1998). Such films as Paris Is Burning (Livingston, 1991), Ma Vie En Rose (Berliner, 1997), The Brandon Teena Story (Muska & Olafsdottir, 1998), Boys Donât Cry (Peirce, 1999), Outlaw (Lebow, 1994), and periodicals such as Gendertrash, Transgender Tapestry, and Chrysalis Quarterly are also helpful in exploring the culture of transgender people. As Parlee (1998) pointed out, the opportunities created by academics âworking outside positivist research traditions, using methods that allow transgender persons to speak for and about themselves to researchers they trustâ (p. 131) has permitted a more complex level of theorizing about gender than ever before.
We advocate that counselors familiarize themselves with the burgeoning of postmodern analyses across many academic disciplines including sociology, literature, and philosophy. The postmodern deconstructionist movement critiqued the belief in âuniversal trothsâ and acknowledged that some identities are socially constructed with the purpose of privileging some categories and not others (Layton, 1998). Those analyses and the subsequent emergence of Queer and Transgender studies opened up new possibilities for academic counseling to challenge traditional binary notions of sex/gender. Adhering to the work of Foucault (1980), âqueerâ theorists believe that discourse, which refers to the use of language as a form of social practice, typically places people in different power positions. Foucault insisted that the discourse of sexuality, the discourse that defines âthe homosexualâ as a separate species, is a discourse of power. Perhaps one of the most influential contemporary theoreticians is Judith Butler (1990) whose text, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, argued against the view of gender as a biological given. She contended that feminine or masculine behaviors are performative and are the by- product of cultural norms.
It is essential that counselors working with the transgender population have adequate knowledge of local, regional, and national support networks for the transgender community. The significance of collective organizing to enhance self-esteem in this population has been documented (Lombardi, 1999; Mason-Schrock, 1996). In Mason-Schrockâs qualitative study of support group interaction, he viewed this community as performing an integral function in preoperative transsexualsâ narrative construction of the âtrue self.â Lombardi reported that the greater the social network, the greater the opportunities for members to talk about gender issues with one another. As Parlee (1998) pointed out, the growing sense of community serves to challenge the pathologizing medical community and the violence and discrimination that have arisen both in the past and the present.
It must also be noted that despite the trend in transgender communities to build coalitions between subgroups like cross-dressers, intersexed, MTF transsexuals, FTM transsexuals, and so forth, tension and differences within the transgender community sometimes interfere in this process. Many authors (e.g., Bornstein, 1998) have commented on the sometimes uneasy alliance between the gay and lesbian community and the transgender community. Lorber (1998) observed, âdespite attempts of queer theorists to include lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, and hermaphrodites under one transgressive category, they themselves have broken up into multiple groups with different political goalsâ (p. 436). Halberstam (1998) noted, for example, the tension between FTM transsexuals and lesbian feminists. It is important that clinicians not assume that all transgender persons have the same consciousness about gender identities. For example, in Gagne and Tewksburyâs (1998) study of transgenderists (the majority of their volunteer sample consisted of preoperative MTF transsexuals and cross-dressers), most desired to refigure their bodies in such a way as to pass as women. Only a minority of those in their sample expressed a desire to live as transgenderists and to break out of the traditional gender binary.
Bockting (1997) advocated that counselors assume a client-centered approach. Given the societal discrimination that transgender persons must continually confront, the issue of trust is paramount when working with such clients. For this reason, constructivist therapy approaches are particularly helpful in working with transgender clients. Laird (1999) advocated that practitioners assume a narrative stance in which clients fully tell their own stories unburdened by the prior assumptions of the therapist about gender and sexuality. Basically, counselors need to create an atmosphere in which the larger cultural narratives concerning heterosexism and gender are deconstructed. Laird recommended adopting an âinformed not knowingâ stance (Shapiro, 1996) in which the counselor leaves âbehind her own cultural biases and pre- understandings, to enter the experience of the otherâ (Laird, 1999, p. 75). Laird also advocated that therapists bring the stories of their clients to the professional literature and into the political arena.
We recommend that counselors working with transgender clients strike a balance between facilitating client self-discourse and incorporating more directive interventions. Ettner (1999) advocated that mental health professionals who work with the transgender population possess what she called âcognitive flexibilityâ and that they adapt a more directive, holistic style to therapy. Effective counseling with this population also requires not only that counselors possess effective clinical skills but also that they be adept at consultation, referral, and case management. Frequently, the counselorâs role is one of clarifier, aiding clients in distinguishing between sexual fantasies, sexual attractions, and gender identity (Denny & Green, 1996) and in recognizing the full spectrum of gender identities and options that such persons have in terms of partial or complete change in primary or secondary sex characteristics (Bockting, 1997). Counselors may need to explore with their transgender clients the âmerits of various physical changes in the context of the individualsâ identity development with an emphasis on personal comfort and well-beingâ (Bockting, 1997, p. 51).
Clinical Issues
transgender persons seek counseling for a variety of presenting issues including depression, alcoholism and other substance abuse, fetishism, inability to perform at school or work, and physical abuse from parents or peers (Denny & Green, 1996). Because of the intense discrimination that transgender persons experience, feelings of low self-esteem and depression may be especially intense. As previously noted, counselors have historically assumed gatekeeping functions regarding the gender identity process. As a result of negative reaction to this role, there is the possibility that transgender persons may be less than forthcoming with counselors about the severity of their depression. Counselors need to consider the possibility that such symptoms constitute ways of coping and may be the by-products of the discrimination and prejudice that transgender persons experience in todayâs culture. Another important issue that is particularly germane to the transgender population concerns the lack of knowledge about HIV risk and safe sex (Bockting, Robinson, & Rosser, 1998). Previous studies have indicated that HIV/AIDS has already significantly affected transgender persons. Bockting et al. (1998) observed that many transgender persons do not identify themselves as persons who engage in high-risk sexual behaviors. Attention must also be paid to issues of relationship violence and personal safety. As Bockting et al. noted in their focus groups with transgenderists, MTF transsexuals are especially vulnerable to sexual assault because of their lack of experience with sexual advances by biological males. The interested reader should consult the following texts for further information concerning counseling issues and interventions with transgender clients: Gender Blending (Bullough, Bullough, & Elias, 1997); Gender Loving Care: A Guide to Counseling Gender-Variant Clients (Ettner, 1999); Counseling in Genderland: A Guide for You and Your transgender Client (Miller, 1996); and the book chapter titled âIssues of Transgenderâ by Cole et al. (2000).
CASE STUDY: T IS FOR TERRY AND FOR transgender
Because narratives of transgender persons have played such an integral role in the growth of the transgender rights movement, we chronicle the experiences of Terry (fictitious name), a transgender client who presented for therapy with the second author. Terry first came to the counseling center in 1998 for an intake interview. Terry was born a biological male in the northeastern United States and was named by her parents after a popular professional athlete. This decision by her parents points out how even at birth, they had definitive expectations of their âson,â expectations which included that âheâ excel at sports and be drawn to stereotypically âmasculineâ pursuits. Once she entered elementary school, Terry immediately became aware of her gender difference. She quickly discovered how she differed from her peers by the assaults on her nontraditional gender identity. On a regular basis, she faced taunts, ridicule, and isolation from her peers. Terry became aware that the social penalties imposed against feminine boys (boys who exhibited gender-atypical qualifies) were rigidly enforced. Taunts on the playground escalated into more severe persecution in junior high school when Terry was frequently called âfaggotâ and âqueer.â At this point in time, when Terry was 13 years old, being differently gendered was perceived as synonymous with homosexuality by Terryâs peers. In addition to enduring the onslaught of epithets, Terry was the victim of frequent physical harassment including punching, pushing, and kicking. Terryâs sense of isolation reached a peak during these years as she Searched for role models of other differently gendered individuals. She felt ostracized from her peers as well as her own family as a result of her efforts to adjust to life on the gender margins. Throughout junior high school, she felt suicidal and battled with an ongoing sense of depression, isolation, and fear of physical harm. Although Terryâs family recognized her gender-atypical behaviors from an early age, they struggled both to sympathize with and to protect Terry by encouraging her to conform. For example, Terry was prodded to try out for Little League during second grade Terry was not interested in Little League but felt compelled to comply With their wishes in order to fulfill the âcorrectâ role of a boy.
Due to a change in schools, Terryâs high school experience was more positive, but her sense of desolation and detachment continued to escalate. Terry would frequently scour the campus library desperately searching for nuggets of information regarding âtransvestismâ and âsex changes.â The long, rich history and culture of the transgender community was not readily available to Terry, and this added to her sense of alienation. A critical element in Terryâs survival was a very positive, therapeutic relationship that enabled her to negotiate gender identity in the face of a hostile environment. Terryâs first therapeutic experience lasted throughout her 4 years in high school. After 2 years in therapy, Terry came to identify herself as a transsexual and actively desired sex reassignment surgery. Because of the overwhelming pressure to conform, Terry was not yet aware of the full spectrum of options available to her along the gender continuum. At that time, Terry believed the only way for her to survive in society was to surgically and irrevocably alter her body.
Once Terry started her undergraduate career, she began to discover more resources regarding a specifically transgender identity. Terry discovered that the specificities of transgender experience allow for a more fluid expression of gender and an opportunity to blur the lines of the traditional gender paradigm. Terry started voraciously reading the literature from the burgeoning transgender liberation movement. She became increasingly comfortable with defining herself as a âgender outlaw,â an individual whose gender expression defies easy categorization within American societyâs bipolar system. In 1993, during Terryâs freshman year, Terry started to be referred to as âshe.â (Ironically, Terry, like many transgender persons, does not support the use of traditional gender designations. The fact that alternative designations such as âhir,â âs/he,â âzeâ and âsieâ are not common knowledge or popularly used illustrates the extent to which the gender binary is so embedded in our culture and the way that language can function as a barrier to transgender expression, empowerment, and liberation.) Although she made the decision not to surgically or hormonally alter her own body she resolved to fully support others who choose hormonal therapy and surgical reassignment. Terry has decided that perhaps in the future, she may even take advantage of these options. This is further evidence of the fluidity of gender to Terry and her desire not to be categorized in an essentialist way.
When Terry, now a graduate student, presented for counseling with the second author, she identified the following treatment goals: (a) to become more comfortable with her transgender identity in her new midwestern surroundings, (b) to learn techniques to manage symptoms of depression, and (c) to increase social interaction. At first glance, these goals seemed reasonable and attainable. These same goals were frequently identified by graduate students who have relocated, are not yet familiar with the area, and have no social network. Terry was, however, diagnosed with major depressive disorder soon after beginning therapy. The severity of symptoms seemed to fluctuate with Terryâs feelings of isolation. There were times when it was physically and psychologically exhausting for Terry to perform even the most routine tasks. During these times, Terry experienced frequent suicidal ideation. Terry coped with these thoughts and feelings by creating a safety plan in therapy and by talking with supportive friends and allies. Although Terry continues to struggle with symptoms of depression, she has found the coping mechanisms learned in therapy to be useful in managing her suicidality.
The cognitive behavioral techniques that might otherwise have been used to treat her depressive symptoms and facilitate goal achievement were not sufficient with Terry Terryâs cognitions were not distorted; she was not assuming others were staring, they were; she was not worried needlessly about being verbally assaulted, she had been assaulted; she was not imagining âtransphobicâ reactions from peers and faculty-there was concrete evidence of such reactions. Who would not be depressed under such horrendous circumstances? Depression management techniques were and are effective to a point, as are pharmacological interventions. But despite such efforts, Terryâs reality would remain the same. The society in which she lives is often an oppressive, threatening, and unsafe place for a transgender person.
Outside of counseling, Terry struggled in her social interactions and in making close friendships. At the age of 26, Terry often felt like she was revisiting the âghostsâ of junior high school because petty insults and abusive epithets continued to be a common experience for her. In general, transgender individuals are constantly bombarded with the messages that they are âfreaksâ who do not belong. Terry often described herself as a âvoiceless bodyâ because the physical nature of her gender expression was brazenly apparent on campus. Terryâs height and âmasculineâ physical features seemed to conflict, in their eyes, with her âfeminineâ dress, speaking, and comportment. Terry was often recognized or âreadâ as a biological male who did not meet the rigid gender role requirements of her transphobic surroundings. The campus, located in a rural midwestern community; is overwhelmingly White and conservative. The conventional attire of many of the students, as well as their conformity to rigid gender role standards, left Terry feeling perpetually on the margins. The irony of the situation was that Terry was visible, but only in a negative manner. The physicality of her transgender expression was noticeable and provoked hostile conduct followed by behavior aimed at minimizing Terryâs existence. Terry experienced harassment in a variety of places on campus, including the student union and the library. Because of the level of ostracism she faced, she often internalized the negative comments aimed at her. This affected her ability to trust and to take risks to initiate and establish relationships.
Throughout the counseling process, Terry was encouraged to seek out a community of accepting individuals. At her counselorâs urging, Terry sought out progressive campus groups, such as the Gender Equality Association, whose focus was to advocate for gender equity on campus. Although the original mission of the association was focused on gender equity, Terry worked with the group to expand the definition of âgender equalityâ to include transgender and gender-variant constituencies. Thus, gender equality took on a more sophisticated valence and fostered a transpositive atmosphere for all members. Terry began to initiate other social contacts for her own personal and political development With some prompting, she became involved in various campuswide projects, including the development of a womenâs center for the university. Terry was also encouraged to make contact with individuals whom she perceived to be supportive, like those professors and staff members who displayed pink triangles (e.g., one of the more popular and widely recognized symbols of the gay community, with historical roots in Hitlerâs concentration camps) and pink âsafe spaceâ ally signs on their office doors and windows. Through these contacts, Terry was able to access trans-affirmative individuals and groups outside the campus community.
Although Terry was able to develop some mutual, healthy relationships as a result of reaching out, her efforts were also met with rejection and hostility. In counseling, Terryâs feelings of rejection and hurt after these experiences were validated. She was assured that it was quite possible that her identity as a transgender person might at least be partially to blame for being socially rejected. She worked very hard at not allowing othersâ phobic reactions to define her worth and to develop strategies for optimizing her social success. Even if Terry was rejected, she was able to perceive âreaching outâ as progress and an investment in her future. Terryâs willingness to take risks was facilitated by consistent, positive validation in therapy. For her, the counseling center constituted a safe zone, a place to which she could return and where she would feel the support and encouragement to persevere. Safe zones for transgender individuals are defined as places where gender diversityâ is not only accepted but celebrated. The whole rainbow of gender expression is affirmed and welcomed.
Despite positive gains, Terry still experiences depression, isolation, and frequent harassment. She earned her degree despite the âtransphobiaâ and because of the âtranspositiveâ persons she encountered there. Terry believes there is a curious fascination with transgender bodies in our culture, but there is a dearth of genuine interest in the personal and political realities of gender oppressed people. Often she feels like a âdeviantâ body perpetually on display, a body that effectively has no voice. This sense of feeling stripped of subjectivity, of being turned into an object, makes Terry feel powerless. Therefore, venues for educating the campus community are vitally important to Terry because they enable her to recover the passionate voice that is so often stolen. Terry continues to be an advocate for gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender and feminist causes and issues. In addition to producing a video on gender diversity, she has conducted countless workshops and delivered many presentations to university and community organizations. This work has helped to heal the scars of her childhood because she feels like she is ushering in a new era of gender freedom. In addition to recognizing the value of speaking up for her empowerment, Terry is a strong believer in the personal benefits of a therapeutic relationship.
On the basis of our clinical experiences, we find that the essential elements of therapy with Terry as with many other transgender persons include listening, empathy, the assumption of an âinformed not knowingâ stance, and the provision of a safe zone. As is consistent with a constructivistic approach to counseling, listening is critical because it allows clients to tell their story and to be heard. The story is not told only once; the story continues each day with new social context, but key themes of pain and isolation echo throughout Terryâs narratives. Repeated validation of feelings is paramount to the therapy process because of the rigidity of the gender system in society and the subsequent oppression this creates.
CONCLUSION
As supervisors and counselors, we believe that an understanding of transgender clientsâ life histories is pivotal to comprehending the complexity of issues brought to therapy. Our experiences working with transgender clients have been unlike any other in our professional careers. Our respective knowledge bases regarding transgender issues have naturally expanded and our abilities as clinicians have improved. After overcoming our initial ignorance and misinformation, we are now comfortably familiar with relevant resources for both client and counselor. These improvements, however, are fairly standard after exposure to a new presenting problem or clinical population. Most significant to us has been the tremendous personal growth we have achieved through our relationships With transgender clients. Because of our research and clinical experiences with this population, we take more time to really listen to all of our clientâs stories. We have learned to no longer take for granted the fact that we can walk across our respective campuses, take in a movie, or shop for groceries without verbal abuse or harassment. We no longer take for granted the feeling that we belong-whether to our families, our places of employment, our social circles, or society as a whole. The extent of âgender privilegeâ is both alarming and ubiquitous. Our consciousness of transphobia has been raised since learning of the intensity and frequency of harassment directed against differently gendered individuals. Although the sexual orientation of many gay, lesbian, bisexual people may not be immediately apparent to others, many transgender persons do not or cannot âpassâ (conceal the fact that they are differently gendered) and, therefore, are the most frequently targeted group for social persecution. We do not think any of us in the majority who fit into the normative gender categories of male and female can imagine the paradoxical situation of being very obvious and yet invisible at the same time. Perhaps, most of all, our experiences with the transgender have taught us, as Laird (1999) suggested, to realize our serious professional obligation to take the stories of our transgender clients into the professional literature and into the streets to enable a more humane and just world for all gender identities.
Author Note. The authors gratefully acknowledge the contribution of the late Terrianne Summers for her feedback on an earlier draft of this article. Terrianne was a transgender activist and educator who was murdered on December 12, 2001 in front of her home in Jacksonville, Florida. Initial police reports indicated that her shooting was the result of a robbery attempt, although nothing was taken during the incident. This article is dedicated to the memory of Terriane Summers and her tireless efforts to advocate for transgender fights and educate others about transgender issues.
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Stone, S. (1991). The empire strikes back: A postranssexual manifesto. In J. Epstein & K. Straus (Eds.), Body guards: The cultural politics of gender ambiguity (pp. 280-304). New York: Routledge. Sue, D. W., Arredondo, P., & McDavis, R. J. (1992). Multicultural counseling competencies and standards: A call to the profession. Journal of Counseling & Development, 70, 484-486.
Sue, D. W., Bemier, J. G., Durran, M., Feinberg, L., Pedersen P., Smith, E., & Vasques-Nuttall, E. (1982). Position paper: Cross-cultural counseling competencies. The Counseling Psychologist, 10, 45-52.
Sue, D. W., & Sue, D. (1999). Counseling the culturally different: Theory and practice (3rd ed.). New York: Wiley.
Whittle, S. (1998). The trans-cyberian mail way. Social & Legal Studies, 7, 389-408.
APPENDIX
Glossary of Terms
Please note that the following terms and their definitions are not necessarily universally accepted. Variations exist both within and outside trans communities in the usage and interpretation of these terms.
Cross-dresser: An individual who dresses in clothing that is culturally associated with members of the âotherâ sex. Most cross-dressers are heterosexual and conduct their cross-dressing on a part-time basis. Cross-dressers cross-dress for a variety of reasons, including pleasure, a relief from stress, and a desire to express âoppositeâ sex feelings to the larger society.
Drag King: A term usually reserved for individuals who identify themselves as lesbians and who cross-dress for entertainment purposes in lesbian and gay bars.
Drag Queen: A term usually reserved for individuals who identify themselves as gay men and who cross-dress for entertainment purposes in lesbian and gay bars.
Gender: A complicated set of sociocultural practices whereby human bodies are transformed into âmenâ and âwomen.â Gertder refers to that which a society deems âmasculineâ or âfeminine.â Gender identity refers to an individualâs self-identification as a man, woman, transgender, or other identity category.
Gender bender: An individual who brazenly and flamboyantly flaunts societyâs gender conventions by mixing elements of âmasculinityâ and âfemininity.â The gender bender is often an enigma to the uninitiated viewer, who struggles to comprehend sartorial codes that challenge gender bipolarity. Boy George, a popular culture icon, was often referred to as a âgender benderâ by the press.
Gender dysphoria: A term used by the psychiatric establishment to refer to a radical incongruence between an individualâs birth sex and their gender identity. An individual who is âgender dysphoricâ feels an irrevocable disconnect between their physical bodies and their mental sense of gender. Many in the transgender community find this term offensive or insulting because it often pathologizes the transgender individuals due to its association with the DSM-IV.
Gender identity: see Gender.
Gender outlaw: A term popularized by trans activists such as Kate Bornstein and Leslie Feinberg, a gender outlaw refers to an individual who transgresses or violates the âlawâ of gender (i.e., one who challenges the rigidly enforced gender roles) in a transphobic, heterosexist, and patriarchal society.
Gender queer: A term that refers to individuals who âqueerâ the notions of gender in a given society. Gender queer may also refer to people who identify as both transgender and queer (i.e., individuals who challenge both gender and sexuality regimes and see gender identity and sexual orientation as overlapping and interconnected).
Gender trash: A term that calls attention to the way that differently gendered individuals are often treated like âtrashâ in a transphobic culture.
Gender variant: A term that refers to individuals who stray from socially accepted gender roles in a given culture. This word may be used in tandem with other group labels, such as gender-variant gay men and lesbians.
Intersex: Formally termed hermaphrodites, individuals termed intersex are born with some combination of ambiguous genitalia. The Intersex movement seeks to halt pediatric surgery and hormone treatments that attempt to normalize infants into the dominant âmaleâ and âfemaleâ roles.
Queer: Queer is a term that has been reclaimed by members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities to refer to people who transgress culturally imposed norms of heterosexuality and gender traditionalism. Although still often an abusive epithet when used by heterosexuals, many queer-identified people have taken back the word to use it as a symbol of pride and affirmation of difference and diversity.
Queer theorist: An individual, usually an academic, who uses feminism, psychoanalysis, poststructuralism and other theoretical schools to critically analyze the position of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals in cultural texts.
Sex: Separate from gender, this term refers to the duster of logical, chromosomal, and anatomical features associated with maleness and femaleness in the human body. Sexual dimorphism is often thought to be a concrete reality, whereas in reality the existence of the intersex points to a multiplicity of sexes in the human population.
Sexuality: An imprecise word that is often used in tandem with other social categories, as in race, gender, and sexuality. Sexuality is a broad term that refers to a cluster of behaviors, practices, and identities in the social world.
Sexual orientation: This term refers to the gender(s) that a person is emotionally, physically, romantically, and erotically attracted to. Examples of sexual orientation include homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual, and asexual. transgender and gender-variant people may identify with any sexual orientation, and their sexual orientation may or may not change during or after gender transition.
Trans: An umbrella term that refers to cross-dressers, transgenderists, transsexuals and others who permanently or periodically dis-identify with the sex they were assigned at birth. Trans is preferable to âtransgenderâ to some in the community because it does not minimize the experiential specificities of transsexuals.
Transgender: A range of behaviors, expressions, and identifications that challenge the pervasive bipolar gender system in a given culture. This, like trans, is an umbrella term that includes a vast array of differing identity categories such as transsexual, drag queen, drag king, cross-dresser, transgenderist, bi-gendered, and a myriad of other identities.
transgender lesbian: An individual, regardless of biological sex, who identifies as both transgender and lesbian. This could include male-to-female transgenders who are sexually attracted to women, or to biological females who identify as lesbians and who often âpassâ as men or who identify to some degree with masculinity or with âbutch.â
Transgenderist: Coined by Virginia Prince, this category refers to an individual who dis-identifies with their assigned birth sex and lives full time in congruence with their gender identity. This may include a regime of hormone therapy, but usually transgenderists do not seek or want sex reassignment surgery.
Transphobia: The irrational fear and hatred of all those individuals who transgress, violate, or blur the dominant gender categories in a given society. Transphobic attitudes lead to massive discrimination and oppression against the trans, drag, and intersex communities.
Transsexual: An individual who strongly dis-identifies with their birth sex and wishes to use hormones and sex reassignment surgery (or gender confirmation surgery) as a way to align their physical body with their internal gender identity.
Transvestite: An older term, synonymous with the more politically correct term cross-dresser, that refers to individuals who have an internal drive to wear clothing associated with a gender other than the one that they were assigned at birth. The term transvestite has fallen out of favor due to its psychiatric, clinical, and fetishistic connotations.
~~~~~~~~
By Lynne Carroll; Paula J. Gilroy and Jo Ryan
Lynne Carroll is an associate professor and codirector of the Counselor Education Program at the University of North Florida, Jacksonville.
Correspondence regarding this article should be sent to Lynne Carroll, Counselor Education Program, Schultz Hall, University of North Florida, 4567 St. Johns Bluff Road, South, Jacksonville, FL 32224-2676 (e-mail: lcarrollATunf.edu).
Paula J. Gilroy is a psychologist at the University of Northern Iowa Counseling Center, Cedar Falls.
Jo Ryan is a graduate student at the University of New Hampshire, Durham.
Copyright of Journal of Counseling & Development is the property of American Counseling Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holderâs express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
Source: Journal of Counseling & Development, Spring2002, Vol. 80 Issue 2, p131, 9p
Republished at transgendermap.com with kind permission of the authors and publisher.
Margaret Ann McGhee (born 1942) is an American technology executive. Shewas a prolific contributor on the support group dedicated to âautogynephiliaâ in early 2004, before group founder Willow Arune inadvertently got the group banned from Yahoo in 2005 for trolling and defamation.
Background
Her 2009 autobiography states:
My adolescence, growing up in Texas in the fifties, was a nightmare of guilt, self-hate, confused emotions and sexuality – and, oh yeah, don’t forget the abusive step-mother. At fifteen I left home and headed to California where my grandparents graciously supported me while I completed high school. After graduating I moved out on my own and started working my way through college. Over the years and despite the confusion I gradually developed a male persona that gave me sufficient happiness. Perhaps to kill off that inner female once and for all, I married a smart and attractive wife who soon gave us a wonderful son. This marriage only lasted a few years however as my inner female was becoming restless. After our separation the “do your own thing” sexually permissive spirit of California in the sixties became my great escape. Those were heady times when I grew my hair long, resisted the war, smoked lots of dope and wore bell-bottoms and flowing shirts. My inner female was wishing for flowing skirts as well but I kept her repressed enough that my male existence was still the only face I presented to the world.
Over the next several years I started migrating northward. With stops in Santa Cruz and Eugene, the farther north I went the more I liked it. I eventually established a good life in Bellingham in the wet, cool and intensely green northwest corner of Washington state. I met and married a wonderful woman there. After a few years we moved to Idaho and together raised my son from my earlier marriage. Life was good. Except for the occasional stealth cross-dressing episode my inner female was safely tucked away from everyone. Then one day in 1997, after 22 years of marriage, my wife was killed by a drunk driver. In the weeks and months that followed, the woman inside me firmly reclaimed her place in my life. It was an overwhelming force that I could not resist. It just felt right. I became convinced that my destiny was to become as close to a biological female as possible through sexual reassignment surgery. I started down that path including the necessary psychological counseling and a year of HRT (hormone replacement therapy). However, as time went by I realized that I was not ready to completely abandon my male side which I had nurtured so carefully all those years and had become an important part of who I was. Also, I was reluctant to surgically alter my body unless I was absolutely sure that my happiness required it. I couldn’t confidently come to that conclusion and so I stepped off that train.
At the time I wasn’t sure how all this would work out but by following my feelings as honestly as I could and not analyzing things too much I seem to have found a happy middle ground for now, where I spend as much time as I wish in either persona. That’s not to say that my life is all happiness and bliss these days juggling dual external identities but it is far better than hiding my true feelings from those close to me. The few problems I face these days are practical ones, not ethical. I do try to stay focused on my many other interests in life and living each day to its fullest which is always a wise plan anyway. Aside from exploring human nature, some of these interests include playing the guitar and making music with friends, fly fishing, cooking and outdoor photography. A large part of my happiness these days is no doubt due to my marriage, going on three years now, to a wonderful and intelligent woman who appreciates both of us as much as we do her. And also, to the many new friends I have found since moving back to Washington.
http://geocities.com/margimcghee/ (2009)
Margaret has an interest in evolutionary psychology, a field which heavily underpins The Man Who Would Be Queen by J. Michael Bailey. Bailey and Anne Lawrence are the primary proponents of the âautogynephiliaâ diagnosis created by Ray Blanchard.
Margaret has written an summary of the controversy available on her site:
Autogynephilia, a Narrative
http://www.geocities.com/margimcghee/Articles/AG.htm
also in PDF
http:// www.fusionair.com/margismugs/ag.pdf
2005 message
Margaret sent the following on 7 October 2005:
This evening I was browsing tsroadmap and was surprised to find a page there dedicated to some information about me. This was regarding some posts that I made in the past to the now long defunct autogynephila forum.
http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/margaret-mcghee.html
I seem to be described as being a supporter of Blanchardâs theory of autogynephilia.
I did spend a lot of time at the ag forum as you say. I did try to be as friendly as possible with the other members of the ag forum. However, my presence there was to politely argue against the concept.
While there I presented counter-arguments. I confronted both Anne Lawrence and Michael Bailey with those arguments. Much of the substance of my counter-arguments were taken from information that I found following links from your website.
Willow Arune referred to me as one of the non-believers â who was allowed to stay (probably because I did not personally attack anyone there even though I was frequently attacked myself). I was accused more than once by other members of being in cahoots with you, Susan James and Lynn Conway â or perhaps being a spy for you  Finally, they got fed up with me and I was kicked off.Â
While there, I think I learned a bit and gained some understanding of the psychology of the transsexuals who supported the theory. Thatâs one reason I hung out there. I couldnât understand how anyone could go through life feeling that badly about themself â and I wanted to understand it better.
In any case, I am definitely not a supporter of Blanchardâs theory. Nor do I believe that transsexuality or gender variance is in any sense a pathology. In the interest of accuracy, and because I would not want anyone to get the wrong impression it would be helpful if you corrected your listing.
Feel free to check me out further or ask me any questions you like. I wouldnât expect you to change anything youâve written unless you were certain that it was correct.
I do have an interest in evolutionary psychology. That may be why you assumed I supported Bailey. Iâd say my understanding of the intersection of evolution and transsexuality is more along the lines of what Joan Roughgarden writes in Evolutionâs Rainbow.
Yes, I believe human transsexuality is the result of evolution, as is every single aspect of human nature. I believe it is a perfectly natural outcome â to be celebrated, not pathologized.
I have not been active in any ts online groups for some time now. My interests have lately been in more general aspects of identity. I am working on an hypothesis that relates worldview to group conflict, alliance and other social phenomema. One reason I find this interesting is the firsthand experience I gained about the autogynephilia conflict from having in-depth discussions with members of the ag forum.
Thanks in advance for your attention to this matter,
Margaret McGhee
My response:
Hi Margaretâ
Thanks for writing. When all this was going down, I found the best thing to do was to document everyone who got involved and sort it out later. This led to a pretty quick vectoring of the institutions from which all this BBL stuff was emanating, and how Bailey operates (science by press conference). Ultimately, Lawrence and Bailey are both self-hating [trans] chasers with different strategies for getting closer to the objects of their desire. This brings profound bias to the knowledge they produce and their writings about that knowledge.
I knew Arune would eventually be seen as a crank, based on Aruneâs long trolling history on Usenet. Arune is simply replaying some old injury again and again in an attempt to control it. Lisanne Anderson aka Lori Anjou eventually was seen that way, too, as well as Deni aka Suki aka Alejandra aka Steffie and all the other old school web trolls inhabiting that group. As I note here below the chart:
http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/autogynephilia-support.html
âPlease note that several of the people listed above have expressed concern about the term, and do not necessarily agree it is a legitimate diagnosis.â
That was meant to include you.
I also note that you stopped posting after an initial burst of activity, another common pattern as people began to see that it was a troll site. By the time Aruneâs incompetence led to that groupâs demise, it was basically a carbon copy of Aruneâs Usenet âcontributionsâ before and since: cut-and-paste jobs from other publications, plus slander and baiting of people Arune doesnât like.
So, now we have a record of a bizarre attempt to create a community around an identity based on a sex-fueled mental illness. Several of the people involved had a similar learning trajectory as I did: my first impression was that âautogynephiliaâ was a love of self as a woman. I even sent Anne Lawrence a note around the time Lawrence published an introduction to the concept saying that it made sense. As with many others, I did not grasp that this was a paraphilic model which casts our motivations as a sex-fueled mental illness. One of my majors was classical Greek, so I assumed âphiliaâ (friendly love, affection, friendship) could be considered in apposition to âphobiaâ (panic fear/hatred) and suggested to Dr. Lawrence that my own motivation might be better described as âautoandrophobia,â a hatred of my self as male. It was only when the Bailey book came out that I understood how âphiliaâ was used by these guys.
If you donât mind, Iâd like to include your letter and this response on that page, as well as anything else youâd like to include. I knew a lot of the debate would be ephemeral, which is why I had a âdocument now, sort out laterâ philosophy. I wanted a historical record of the contemporaneous response. I still consider this event a turning point in trans history, the beginning of the end for the gatekeeping âauthoritiesâ who would medicalize and pathologize us the way they used to with gays and lesbians. Unfortunately, they have some key people in the Presidentâs Council on Bioethics and involved in the DSM-V revision committees, so we are not out of the woods, yet. This will prove to be a decisive turning point in our fight for rights. BBL have done more to mobilize an international coalition of trans activists that anything since the invention of the internet itself.
Thanks again for contacting me! I look forward to hearing back from you.
In February 2006, I got the following note:
Hi Andrea, I mentioned several weeks ago that I would attempt to write an essay describing my experience as a dissenting member of the Yahoo AG-support group and what I thought about it all now. Itâs been a major project but I seem to be running out of reasons to revise it further. So, if you want to post a link you are welcome to do that. Itâs at:
http://www.geocities.com/margimcghee/Articles/AG.htm
Iâd also be interested in your opinion.
Resources
LINK: Margaret McGheeâs personal site
http://www.geocities.com/margimcghee/indexmm.htm
LINK: Margaretâs theory about two âtypesâ of transsexuals
http://www.geocities.com/margimcghee/Articles/tstheory.htm
LINK: Autogynephilia Redux: A Memoir â The Trans-woman Who Is Me
http://www.geocities.com/margimcghee/Articles/AG.htm
Dallas Denny (born August 18, 1949) is an American author, counselor, and transgender rights activist known for publishing and archiving community resources. Denny is one of the most important transgender figures of the 1990s.
Background
Denny was born on August 18, 1949 in Asheville, North Carolina. Denny earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Middle Tennessee State University in 1974 and a master’s degree from University of Tennessee-Knoxville in 1977. Denny also did postgraduate work at East Tennessee State University, Georgia State University, and Vanderbilt University.
Denny worked for the State of Tennessee from 1979 to 1990 as a caseworker and analyst. From 1990 to 2008 Denny worked as a behavior analyst for the DeKalb Community Service Board.
Transgender activism
In 1990 Denny founded AEGIS (American Educational Gender Information Service), later renamed Gender Education & Advocacy. Denny also founded the print journal Chrysalis Quarterly. In 1993 Denny founded the National Transgender Library & Archive.
In the 1990s Denny continued the work of the Erickson Educational Foundation, helped found Atlanta’s transgender Southern Comfort Conference, and directed Fantasia Fair. From 1999 to 2008 Denny was editor of Transgender Tapestry, published by the International Foundation for Gender Education.
Books include:
- Gender Dysphoria: A Guide to Research (1994)
- Current Concepts in Transgender Identity (1998)
Honors include:
- IFGE’s Trinity Virginia Prince Lifetime Achievement Award
- Real Life Experience’s Transgender Pioneer Award
Letter to National Academies (2003)
Denny sent the following letter to the National Academies regarding J. Michael Baileyâs transphobic book The Man Who Would Be Queen. Denny got the same form letter from Suzanne Woolsey as everyone else.
25 June, 2003
Bruce Alberts, President, the National Academy of Sciences
Harvey V. Fineberg, President, the Institute of Medicine
The National Academies
2101 Constitution Avenue NW
Washington DC 20418
Dear Dr. Alberts and Dr. Fineberg:
I am writing in regard to a recent publication under the National Academies of Sciences imprimatur, namely Michael Baileyâs The Man Who Would be Queen. As you know, Baileyâs book is deliberately provocative and is considered highly offensive by many who have read it. I count myself in this growing number.
Also as you know, Bailey is claiming he is advancing a science-based argument in his deliberately objectional depictions of gay men and transsexuals. However, there is no science in his book, merely sweeping generalizations and grand statements which are not backed up by data or even citations for publications which might contain such data.
Controversial books often serve to advance science, but only when they use carefully considered arguments and present data to convince the reasoned reader of the validity of the authorâs arguments. Darwin did this. Thomas Kuhn did this. Even popular works such as the late Stephen Jay Gouldâs The Mismeasure of Man discuss actual research and interpret the findings. The Jerry Springer approach used by Bailey informs no one; it serves merely to further polarize an already-polarized issue.
My question to you is: why has the esteemed National Academies of Sciences lent its credibility and dignity to such a discreditable and undignified work as The Man Who Would Be Queen? In this age of reality TV and junk journalism, are you deliberately tarnishing your heretofore respected imageâ or was someone asleep at the wheel?
Thank you.
Dallas Denny, M.A., Licensed Psychological Examiner (Ret.)
Resources
Dallas Denny (dallasdenny.com)
Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)