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Marc Breedlove is an American psychologist and anti-transgender activist.

Background

Stephen Marc Breedlove was born in 1954 in Missouri. After graduating from Springfield High School in 1952, Breedlove aerned a bachelor’sdegree from Yale University, then attended University of California, Los Angelesm earning a master’s degree and doctorate.

Breedlove was a professor of psychology at the notoriuosly transphobic psychology department at University of California, Berkeley, from 1982 to ~2002.  Breedlove then moved to Michigan State University.

Breedlove publishes on brain sexual dimorphism and the biology of sexual orientation.

The Sex Files (2000)

Breedlove was featured on a show about homosexuality with Bailey and his usual suspects:

The Sex Files
HOMOSEXUALITY
IN THIS EPISODE

Why are some people gay? That’s the $64,000 question – at least in the scientific community. Is it something genetically predetermined? Or does environment have an impact on whether an individual turns out to be gay or lesbian? These questions are beginning to be probed in ways that might finally be leading to an answer, and the Sex Files has interviewed the foremost authorities on the topic to uncover some of those scientific clues:

  • Dr. Devendra Singh, University of Texas psychologist specializing in the evolutionary significance of human physical attractiveness
  • Dr. Ken Zucker, head of the Child and Adolescent Gender Identity Clinic at the University of Toronto’s Clarke Institute of Psychiatry
  • Dr. Ray Blanchard, head of the Clinical Sexology program at the University of Toronto’s Clarke Institute of Psychiatry
  • Dr. Michael Bailey, professor of psychology at Northwestern University in Illinois and specialist in the genetics and environment of sexual orientation
  • Dr. Marc Breedlove, professor* specialising in the sexual differentiation of the brain.

* The original episode guide described Dr. Breedlove as a “professor of psychology at UCLA.” Dr. Breedlove noted in 2008 “I am not, and have never been, a professor of psychology or of anything else at UCLA.” Breedlove earned his Ph.D. at UCLA but taught at UC Berkeley before taking an appointment at Michigan State.

The Man Who Would Be Queen (2003)

Breedlove was one of the first to write an Amazon shill review for the transphobic book The Man Who Would Be Queen by J. Michael Bailey on 30 April 2003:

What’s the fuss about? Read the book, think for yourself

Why this vehement response to this terrific book? Because Bailey describes male-to-female transsexuals who report an experience that is quite different from the familiar “a woman trapped in a man’s body”. Bailey never casts doubt that there are such people, in fact he interviews and describes several. But he finds that not all M2F transsexuals fit that mold. So the fuss you’re reading in these reviews are from M2F transsexuals who refuse to acknowledge that other M2F transsexuals might have a different experience than their own. There’s no reason to think the women Bailey interviewed would have been lying to him, and why isn’t their experience as valid as yours, mine or that of other transsexuals?

So get past all the landmines the critics are trying to use to deflect you from reading a thought-provoking, honest and entirely sympathetic view of the fascinating phenomenon of transsexuality.

By the way, it’s a great read, not at all stodgy. I promise you the pages will fly by.

Whom You Love (2014)

In 2012 Breedlove launched a failed crowdfunding campaign for a film called Whom You Love: the biology of sexual orientation. The project was then relaunched and reached half its original funding goal.

In 2014, Breedlove released a series of YouTube videos on a channel with that name, featuring many key anti-trans activists in academia.

References

-http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/99legacy/6-21-1999.html

Suplee, Curt (November 1, 1995). Possible transsexual brain trait found. Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/11/02/possible-transsexual-brain-trait-found/0c9cf0e8-2182-4f68-8cce-2367ec7c7ca9/

Resources

Michigan State University (msu.edu)

  • Breedlove’s page
  • https://www.msu.edu/~breedsm/mb.htm [archive]
  • https://msu.edu/honoredfaculty/directory/breedlove-marc-stephen.html

Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

YouTube (youtube.com)

Bradley M. “Brad” Cooke is an A,erican psychologist who works on brain sexual dimorphism and studied under S. Marc Breedlove.

Cooke was at UC Berkeley before taking an appointment at National Institutes of Health.

Resources

Google Scholar (scholar.google.com)

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (niddk.nih.gov)

  • Brad Cooke, Ph.D.
  • https://www.niddk.nih.gov/about-niddk/staff-directory/biography/cooke-brad

Seth Roberts was an American psychologist and “autogynephilia” activist. A fan of transphobic psychologist J. Michael Bailey of Northwestern University, Roberts claimed Bailey’s controversial 2003 book The Man Who Would Be Queen was “a masterpiece” and “the most impressive professorial truth-telling in my lifetime.”

Background

Seth Douglass Roberts was born on August 17, 1953. Roberts earned a bachelor’s degree from Reed College in 1974 and a doctorate from Brown University in 1979.

Roberts taught in the notably conservative psychology department at University of California, Berkeley from 1978 until retiring in 2008. Roberts joined the faculty of Tsinghua University in Beijing from 2008 until 2014.

In late March 1998, Bailey and Roberts both presented at the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics. Bailey promoted “gay gene” work, and Roberts presented on “neuroticism and self-esteem as indices of the vulnerability to major depression in women.”

“Autogynephilia”

Roberts gave Bailey’s book one of many 5-star Amazon shill reviews after Bailey solicited them. This is the only book review Roberts ever made on Amazon.com under that account:

a masterpiece, May 6, 2003
Seth Roberts (Berkeley, California USA)

This is the best book about psychology for a general audience I have ever seen. And I’ve seen a lot of them. When I taught introductory psychology, I used to assign several books of this sort, so I was always keeping an eye out.

It is extremely well written; it is based on excellent research; and its subject is complex, powerful, and poignant. That’s why it is so good. If How The Mind Works deserves to be a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize then Bailey deserves a Nobel Prize in Literature.

Roberts (2003)

Roberts also had a correspondence with Deirdre McCloskey after Alice Dreger and Benedict Carey teamed up to present Bailey as a “scientist under siege.” McCloskey had previously published the review “Queer Science” in Reason in 2003.

Death

Roberts was a kind of quack that appeals to techno-utopianists and self-styled “rationalists” by claiming to succeed at “lifehacking” via self-experimentation. Roberts was a regular contributor at Quantified Self and other lifehack platforms. Roberts claimed to have personally cured acne, insomnia, poor mood, and weight gain, among other things, through self-experimentation.

Roberts was a self-proclaimed diet guru who sold a popular 2006 book called The Shangri-La Diet. Despite having no good peer-reviewed evidence that it worked, Roberts recommended drinking oil and personally ate unhealthy amounts of butter, claiming it had health benefits. On January 4, 2014 Roberts boasted:

I eat a half stick (60 g) of butter daily. It improves my brain speed. After I gave a talk about this, a cardiologist in the audience said I was killing myself. I said I thought my experimental data was more persuasive than epidemiology, with its many questionable assumptions. The new data suggests I was right — butter does not increase heart attacks. It also supports my belief that by learning what makes my brain work best, I will improve my health in other ways (such as reduce heart attack risk).

Roberts (2014)

Roberts collapsed and died a few months later, on April 26, 2014. The cause of death was ruled “occlusive coronary artery disease” and “cardiomegaly.” Roberts’s final column was published posthumously “with a heavy heart” and titled “Butter Makes Me Smarter.”

References

Staff report (September 2014) Seth Douglass Roberts ’74. Reed https://www.reed.edu/reed-magazine/in-memoriam/obituaries/september2014/seth-roberts-1974.html

Dubner, Stephen J. (May 12, 2014). Seth Roberts R.I.P. Freakonomics https://freakonomics.com/2014/05/seth-roberts-r-i-p/

Obituary (May 8, 2014). Seth Douglass Roberts. San Francisco Chronicle https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/sfgate/name/seth-roberts-obituary?id=17645317

McCloskey D (2007). McCloskey’s Back-and-Forth with Seth Roberts on the Bailey Controversy. https://www.deirdremccloskey.com/gender/bailey.php

Slack, Gordy (March 2007). The self-experimenter. The Scientist vol. 21, issue 3, p. 24. https://www.the-scientist.com/the-self-experimenter-46756

Dubner, Stephen J. (September 16, 2005). Seth Roberts, Guest Blogger: Finale? Freakonomics https://freakonomics.com/2005/09/seth-roberts-guest-blogger-finale/

Dubner, Stephen J.; Levitt Steven D. (September 11, 2005). Freakonomics: Does the Truth Lie Within? New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/magazine/does-the-truth-lie-within.html

Publications by Roberts

Roberts, Seth (April 28, 2014). Seth Roberts’ Final Column: Butter Makes Me Smarter. Observer https://observer.com/2014/04/seth-roberts-final-column-butter-makes-me-smarter/

Roberts S (2009). Plot your data. Nutrition, vol. 25, pp. 608-611. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nut.2008.12.005

Roberts S (2008). McCloskey and me: A back-and-forth. Archives of Sexual Behavior, vol. 37, pp. 485-488. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-008-9344-y

Roberts S (2008). Transform your data. Nutrition, vol. 24, pp. 492-494. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nut.2008.01.004

Roberts Seth (August 13, 2007). Can Professors Say the Truth? https://sethroberts.net/2007/08/13/can-professors-say-the-truth-part-1/ [archive] also on HuffPost: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/can-professors-say-the-tr_b_60781

Gelman A, Roberts S (2007). Weight loss, self-experimentation, and web trials: A conversation. Chance, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 59-63. https://doi.org/10.1080/09332480.2007.10722875

Roberts S (2007). Something is better than nothing. Nutrition, vol. 23, pp. 911-912. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nut.2007.08.010

Roberts S (2006). Dealing with scientific fraud: A proposal. Public Health Nutrition, vol. 9, pp. 664-665. https://doi.org/10.1079/PHN2006963

Roberts S, Gharib A (2006). Variation of bar-press duration: Where do new responses come from? Behavioural Processes, vol. 72, pp. 215-223. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2006.03.003

Sternberg S, Roberts S (2006). Nutritional supplements and infection in the elderly: Why do the findings conflict? Nutrition Journal, vol. 5. https://doi.org/10.1186/1475-2891-5-30

Roberts S (2005). Diversity in learning. Ideas That Matter , vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 39-43. Longer version (with different title: “What do students want?”). https://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/freakonomics/pdf/whatdostudentswant.pdf

Roberts S (2005). Guest-blogs at www.freakonomics.com: Pleased to Meet You, Dietary Non-Advice, Freakonomics and Me, Acne, The Elephant Speaks, Thank You.

Roberts S (2004). Self-experimentation as a source of new ideas: Examples about sleep, mood, health, and weight. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol. 27, pp. 227-262. replications. Excerpt in Harper’s. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x04000068

Gharib A, Gade C, Roberts S (2004). Control of variation by reward probability. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, vol. 30, pp. 271-282. https://doi.org/10.1037/0097-7403.30.4.271

Roberts S, Sternberg S (2003). Do nutritional supplements improve cognitive function in the elderly? Nutrition, vol. 19, pp. 976-980. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0899-9007(03)00025-X

Carpenter KJ, Roberts S, Sternberg S (2003). Nutrition and immune function: Problems with a 1992 report. The Lancet, vol. 361, p. 2247. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(03)13755-5

Roberts S, Pashler H (2002). Reply to Rodgers & Rowe (2002). Psychological Review, vol. 109, pp. 605-607. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.109.3.605

Roberts S, Temple N (2002). Medical research: A bettor’s guide. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, vol. 23, pp. 231-232. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0749-3797(02)00503-2

Roberts S (2001). Surprises from self-experimentation: Sleep, mood, and weight. Chance, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 7-12. https://doi.org/10.1080/09332480.2001.10542259

Gharib A, Derby S, Roberts S (2001). Timing and the control of variation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, vol. 27, pp. 165-178. https://doi.org/10.1037/0097-7403.27.2.165

Roberts S, Pashler H (2000). How persuasive is a good fit? A comment on theory testing. Psychological Review, vol. 107, pp. 358-367. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.107.2.358

Roberts S, Neuringer, A (1998). Self-experimentation. In K. A. Lattal and M. Perrone (Eds.), Handbook of research methods in human operant behavior (pp. 619-655). New York: Plenum. ISBN 9781489919472 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-1947-2

Roberts S, Sternberg S (1993). The meaning of additive reaction-time effects: Tests of three alternatives. In D. E. Meyer and S. Kornblum (Eds.) Attention and Performance XIV: Synergies in Experimental Psychology, Artificial Intelligence, and Cognitive Neuroscience. MIT Press. pp. 611-653. ISBN 9780262290906 https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/1477.001.0001

Roberts S (1987). Less-than-expected variability in evidence for three stages in memory formation. Behavioral Neuroscience, vol. 101, pp. 120-125. https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7044.101.1.120

Resources

Seth Roberts (sethroberts.net) [archive]

  • Blog [archive]
  • blog.sethroberts.net
  • Archive from date of death
  • Death announcement [archive]
  • blog.sethroberts.net/2014/04/27/seth/

Seth Roberts Memorial (seth-roberts-memorial.com)

  • maintained by Alex Chernavsky

Quantified Self (forum.quantifiedself.com)

  • Seth_Roberts
  • https://forum.quantifiedself.com/u/Seth_Roberts/summary

Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

University of California, Berkeley (socrates.berkeley.edu) [archive]

  • Seth Roberts [archive]
  • socrates.berkeley.edu/~roberts/
  • Self-experimentation [archive]
  • socrates.berkeley.edu/~roberts/self/

Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.


Robert Carson is a psychologist at Duke University who wrote a book on Abnormal Psychology which was influenced by bailey-Blanchard-Lawrence thinking on gender variance.

Abnormal Psychology and Modern Life 

by Robert C. Carson

James N. Butcher

Susan Mineka

Robert VerBruggen is an American writer and conservative activist. VerBruggen was editor of Northwestern University‘s conservative student publication The Northwestern Chronicle when it published defamatory statements about me in 2005 that VerBruggen later retracted. VerBruggen’s unprofessional response was more troubling in many ways than the initial error.

Background

Robert Allen VerBruggen was born on March 28, 1984 and grew up in Wisconsin with a sibling.

Since 2003, I have been a vocal critic of Northwestern psychologist J. Michael Bailey, primarily because of the way Bailey exploits sex and gender minorities, especially children.

Unlike the real student newspaper The Daily Northwestern, contributors to the Chronicle posted articles that apparently received little or no journalistic oversight from VerBruggen or staff before publication. When VerBruggen allowed Bailey to post a rambling defense of questionable research and ethics, VerBruggen wrote, “To my knowledge, it is the first professor-written article we’ve ever run. There are of course conflicts with this setup, especially in that he is both a source and a writer” [emphasis added]. The Chronicle also listed Bailey as staff.

“Raw Data”

The Chronicle published many pieces under the title “Raw Data,” which apparently meant any unsubstantiated, unedited materials a staff member chose to put on the Chronicle website.

As an example, VerBruggen ran a 12 October 2005 story mentioning me. It contained libelous claims that I filed for bankruptcy and other defamation. The article was written by internet troll Willow Arune and put online by Bailey. VerBruggen’s predecessor, who was was still listed on the Chronicle site as editor, was smart enough to remove the article in question immediately upon receipt of my complaint. VerBruggen was clearly upset by this, writing:

I apologize that our former editor took it upon herself to resolve the situation. It was not her place to.

I also apologize for posting the article without reading it more closely; I received a handful of documents meant to complement the story as raw data, so I did not edit them. I presumed the person who gave them to me would have the evidence necessary to support the statements.

I have removed the section of the account pertaining to bankruptcy, and I apologize for its initial inclusion.

VerBruggen was apparently more upset about the previous editor usurping VerBruggen’s authority than about shirking all duty as an editor. When I asked for the name of the publication’s advisor at Medill and pointed out that contributor and “self-confessed eccentric” Willow Arune claims to be an international fugitive charged in a multimillion dollar forgery, VerBruggen started getting a little snippy:

Anything you want to resolve, you will discuss directly with me.

Retraction

On 15 October 2005, VerBruggen printed a tepid retraction:

EDITOR’S NOTE: A previous posting of this article contained an assessment of Andrea James’ financial situation. James has asserted this assessment was not accurate, and the Chronicle has no independent evidence that it was. (Willow Arune had previously made the same assessment in Transgender Tapestry).

Upon reading VerBruggen’s retraction, the Transgender Tapestry subscription manager confirmed these libelous claims by Arune do not appear anywhere in their publication. Once again, the Chronicle had no independent evidence, and this time the bogus reporting was written by VerBruggen.

VerBruggen dragged another publication’s name into this mess with irrelevant and unjournalistic justification for the earlier misstep. On 25 October, VerBruggen finally retracted the parenthetical excuse:

EDITOR’S NOTE: A previous posting of this article contained an assessment of Andrea James’ financial situation. James has asserted this assessment was not accurate, and the Chronicle has no independent evidence that it was. The Chronicle regrets the error, especially because the issue is irrelevant to the topics discussed in J. Michael Bailey’s article.

It appears VerBruggen saw this “Editor-In-Chief” title as more of a way to pad a rĂ©sumĂ© than an actual journalistic responsibility. Pseudoscientists like Bailey will continue to get uncritical carte blanche coverage and “balance” as long as editors like Robert VerBruggen exist.

Subsequent developments

VerBruggen graduated from Northwestern in 2006 and married Jaclyn Theresa Stewart.

VerBruggen went on to be a book editor at the conservative Washington Times, followed by positions as The American Conservative and the National Review.

VerBruggen joined the anti-trans Manhattan Institute in 2021.

References

VerBruggen, Robert. Correspondence with the author. 13-14 October 2005.

VerBruggen, Robert. From the editor. Northwestern Chronicle. 25 October 2005.
http://www.chron.org/tools/viewart.php?artid=1270 [archive]

Staff profile for J. Michael Bailey. Northwestern Chronicle. Retrieved 25 October 2005.
http://www.chron.org/tools/bio.php?id=jmbail [archive]

  • Bailey JM. Academic McCarthyism. Northwestern Chronicle. 9 October 2005. 
    http://www.chron.org/tools/viewart.php?artid=1248 [archive]

Resources

GeoCities (geocities.com)

  • robertv4311 [not archived]

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

Muck Rack (muckrack.com)

Twitter (twitter.com)

Materese in 2018. Source: NIST

Robin Ferrier Materese (born 1976) was a publicist at Joseph Henry Press, the publishing arm of the National Academies Press in 2003. At the time, she was known as Robin Pinnel and was listed as author of some of the defamatory materials about sex and gender minorities put out in support of their book The Man Who Would Be Queen by J. Michael Bailey. In 2020, she reached out to clarify that she authored only one of the pieces attributed to her. She also asked that this page include her statement below. Per the name she used in her 2020 correspondence, she is referred to as Robin Ferreier below.

Biography

Ferrier is a University of Virginia graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in English, and the former Daily Cavalier student newspaper editor. She also has a Master’s degree in writing from Johns Hopkins. Ferrier used to work for literary agent/lawyer Gail Ross. After leaving Joseph Henry Press in 2005, she worked in communications positions at Choice Hotels International, Johns Hopkins University, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Statement from Robin Ferrier (2020)

On June 24, 2020, Robin Ferrier issued the following statement:

In 2003, I worked as a publicist at the National Academies Press / Joseph Henry Press. I was not part of the editorial decision making or editorial process. My job was to promote the authors / books that we published and help the authors get book reviews, media appearances, event bookings, etc. J. Michael Bailey’s book, ‘The Man Who Would Be Queen,’ was one such book. Ultimately, the Press’ decision to publish that book, and stand by it when legitimate concerns were raised, was the impetus behind my decision to leave that job. 

I joined the Academies because I believed in what it did as an organization. I believed in the power of reputable science. I still believe in the power of reputable science. However, thanks to a number of events in the last few years, and to my recent correspondence with Ms. James, my eyes have been opened to the dangers and damages that can come from bad science. 

When Ms. James tells me stories like that of Leelah Alcorn, I feel truly sick to my stomach that I played any role in promoting that book and spreading the damaging ideology it espoused.

Press and promotional materials

She has stated she was author of the following piece:

She said in 2020, “I was listed as the media point of contact on the press release and my name was on the reviewer copy cover letter; however, the text used in all those materials was pulled from pre-approved text written by the senior leadership team at the Joseph Henry Press.”

Materials sometimes attributed to her include:

Community responses

Caitlyn Antrim‘s letter (2003)

Lynn Conway’s commentary (2003)

References

Items in [brackets] are attributed to Ferrier but were “by the senior leadership team,” according to her.

[Pinnel R] (April 3, 2003). new book on homosexuality, transsexualism and science. http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-atlanta-audio/2003-April/000188.html Attachments:

  • “controversial ideas” by J. Michael Bailey
  • “praise” compiled by Ann Merchant
  • “timeline” by Robin Pinnel

[Pinnel R] (March 21, 2003). Gay, Straight or Lying? Science has the answer (21 March 2003) http://glbchat.com/Home/news.asp?articleid=4126 http://www.outintoronto.com/home/news.asp?articleid=4126

National Academies Press (retrieved June 2003) http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10530.html

Joseph Henry Press (2003) [open letter] http://www.jhpress.org/press_release/10530openletter.pdf

Joseph Henry Press (April 28, 2003). [press release] http://www.jhpress.org/press_release/10530.pdf

Resources

LinkedIn: robin-materese-9458134

Twitter: rmaterese

Instagram: rlmaterese

Note: an earlier version of this page included inaccuracies that were corrected and clarified with the subject’s input in 2020.


Dr. Sharon Valente, PhD, coauthored a book with Simon LeVay which Bailey uses in his human sexuality course.

Valente is assistant professor and RN-BSN coordinator, is internationally known for publications and scholarship in mental health, particularly suicide. Her research on suicide, life threatening illness, and professionals’ attitudes toward suicide/assisted suicide, and media presentations have helped set suicide prevention postvention standards. Her appointments include the National Youth Suicide Council, Death with Dignity, American Academy of Nursing Expert Panel on Culture, and she was elected to membership of American Academy of Nursing, Phi Kappa Phi and Chi Eta Phi, Int. She conducts writing workshops and serves as consultant at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Her research has been funded by Oncology Nursing Society, Glaxo, Bristol Myers, Zumberge, and American Cancer Society.

She’s taught at USC, won some accolades, began in nursing, has some “obsessive / compulsive disorder” presentations to her credit. Interestingly she was, however, one of the additional editors to the book “Before Stonewall” by Vern Bullough, and apparently published a paper on suicide risk in the Gay & Lesbian community. Also involved with the Death with Dignity folks (assisted suicide on terminal illness).

There’s nothing else really tying her to the G&L community per se. Just with this cursory look, I’m going to go out on a limb and say she’s not really the prime culprit here. Rather, I think she was brought in more as the emotional pathology expert from a risks sensibility, rather than a LeVay who appears more inclined toward questioning the ulterior mental motivations. Valente probably is the input of anything dealing with “risks of depression / suicide among those who feel they made a mistake” and the prevalence data relating to that, if I had to venture a guess.

On this LaVey/Valente book, Dartmouth noted this as one of their new texts, as well as Michigan State’s Psych 492 Syllabus, Univ. of Nottingham (UK), Univ. of Texas Health Science Center-San Antonio, and presumably one would think USC as well.

Stephen Mautner is an American publishing executive responsible for fact-checking and releasing one of the most transphobic books ever written, The Man Who Would Be Queen by J. Michael Bailey.

Background

Stephen M. Mautner was born on April 13, 1952. Mautner earned a bachelor’s from Brown University and a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University. Mautner met spouse Ellen in Chicago and married there in 1986. They moved to Rockville, Maryland in 1989 for Mautner’s new job, and Mautner joined the National Academies around 1991. The Joseph Henry Press imprint began operation in 1992. After it was disbanded in 2008, Mautner remained Executive Editor of the National Academies Press (NAP), publisher for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington, D.C. Mautner has helped develop online projects to make those works more accessible to general audiences.

Anti-transgender activity

Mautner was responsible for fact-checking and publishing psychologist J. Michael Bailey’s 2003 book The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism.

Mautner edited and published what is widely considered the most unscientific and deliberately offensive book on gender diversity since Janice Raymond’s 1979 screed The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male. Mautner was completely surprised by the 2003 response, which shows how poorly he handled his editing responsibilities on this controversial book.

After selling about 4,200 print copies, The Man Who Would Be Queen went out of print in 2008. It remained available for purchase as a PDF on the National Academies site.

The question of how this salacious bigotry got past Steve Mautner and got published by the National Academies Press remains unanswered. National Academies employees Mautner and Barbara Kline Pope refuse to disclose who did the “peer review,” because it’s clear Mautner’s choices were Bailey cronies. In the wake of the 2003 protests, Mautner even defended this book as a “responsible work.”

Open letter from Stephen Mautner (2003)

On 24 June 2003, Mautner sent out the following open letter. See below for Mautner’s letter as a PDF. Notations and links in the text are mine.

In March of 2003 the Joseph Henry Press published J. Michael Bailey’s The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism, a work intended to inform general audiences about one scholar’s efforts to understand aspects of homosexuality and gender identity within a psychological framework. Some readers have vehemently disagreed with the book, calling it defamatory and offensive to the transgender community. For example, they contest the implication that most transsexuals fit the categories described by Bailey.

Overall, the book has been greeted with a wide range of responses, from high praise to harsh criticism. Kirkus Reviews called the book “a scientific yet superbly compassionate exposition” (January 2003). Publishers Weekly said “Bailey writes with assuredness that often makes difficult, abstract material–the relationship between sexual orientation and gender affect, the origins of homosexuality and the theoretical basis of how we discuss sexuality–comprehensible. He also, especially in his portraits of the women and men he writes about, displays a deep empathy that is frequently missing from scientific studies of sexuality” (April 2003). However, the same review in Publishers Weekly goes on to say that “Bailey tends towards overreaching, unsupported generalizations.” And a reviewer in Frontiers, a Southern California gay news magazine, states that the author “doesn’t need to inject his biases as often as he does” (March 2003). A sense of the polarity of opinion about the book can also be derived from a scan of the reader responses to the work on Amazon.com, where among the forty-three responses posted on June13, 2003, twenty-seven gave the book a 1-star (lowest) rating and eleven gave it a 5-star (highest) rating, with only five responses in between.

The Joseph Henry Press (JHP), publisher of Bailey’s book, is an imprint of the National Academies Press engaged in publishing books on science, engineering, and medicine for popular audiences. JHP books are individually authored works, each carrying a notice that the opinions expressed are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Academies. JHP follows clear decision rules for selecting books for publication and for scientific review of manuscripts. The work in question was reviewed as a well-crafted and responsible work on a difficult topic, reflecting one approach to a legitimate avenue of scholarship and research.

None of us involved in the publication of The Man Who Would Be Queen imagined the extent of the controversy that its publication would trigger. We deeply regret the fact that some have found the book harmful or offensive. Our intention in publishing it was certainly not to offend any individual or group, but rather to offer insight into how one scientist has arrived at his views on certain aspects of sex and human behavior.

The appropriate response to this endeavor, we believe, is not to silence the scientist or to censor the expression of his findings and opinions. Rather we hope that the publication will inspire a productive discussion about future directions and methodologies in research on issues of gender and sexuality, and thereby promote the proper course of future scientific investigation on this important but very sensitive topic.

Sincerely,
[unsigned]

Stephen Mautner
Executive Editor
The National Academies Press
The Joseph Henry Press

Correspondence with Steve Mautner

Below is selected correspondence about Mautner’s editorial choices.

My response of 16 July 2003

Mr. Mautner:

I have recently read an open letter with your name affixed regarding your responsibility for the publication of The Man Who Would Be Queen by J. Michael Bailey. The version I read was electronic and was unsigned and undated.

Please provide me with verification that you are responsible for this letter, as well as the date(s) it was written and released by JHP, as these dates will be important in understanding what you knew about Professor Bailey at the time you wrote the letter.

Thank you.

Mautner’s reply of 18 July 2003:

The date of the open letter was June 24, 2003. I will ask that the date be added to the letter.

Sincerely,

Stephen Mautner
Executive Editor
The National Academies Press/Joseph Henry Press

2 August 2003 letter to Mautner from prominent trans scientists

August 2, 2003

Stephen Mautner, Executive Editor
The National Academies Press
The Joseph Henry Press
500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001

Dear Mr. Mautner,

We are writing in response to your recent open letter regarding your publication of the Man Who Would Be Queen by J. Michael Bailey. You are probably now aware that several individuals who were subjects of Bailey’s research have filed formal complaints with his institution to the effect that he apparently did not seek review or approval by Northwestern’s Institutional Review Board for the research involving human subjects described in detail in his book. In particular, they were not informed that they were subjects of his research nor did they sign consent forms as is required by federal regulations governing protection of human research subjects.

Federal regulations define research as “a systematic investigation, including research development, testing and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge”. Human subject “means a living individual about whom an investigator conducting research obtains data through intervention or interaction with the individual”, where interaction “includes communication or interpersonal contact between investigator and subject”. The Joseph Henry Press describes Professor Bailey’s work as based on his own research, and the book contains detailed interviews with human subjects.

In recent years publishers of scientific research involving human subjects have established procedures to assure that research studies whose results they publish have complied with ethical standards for the treatment of human subjects, and that authors have stipulated in writing that the conduct of their research was in compliance with those legally mandated standards. For example, instructions to authors for Nature Genetics state:

In cases where a study involves the use of live animals or human subjects, the Methods section of the manuscript should include a statement that all experiments were performed in compliance with the relevant laws and institutional guidelines, and should identify the institutional committee(s) that have approved the experiments. A statement should also be included that informed consent was obtained for any experimentation with human subjects. Referees may be asked to comment specifically on any cases in which concerns arise.

Similar requirements are adhered to by other major publishers of scientific research, and we have appended the guidelines for several publications, including JAMA, the New England Journal of MedicineScience, and journals of the American Psychological Association which has its own comprehensive statement of Ethical Principles that provides for the protection of human subjects.

In your letter you say that “Our intention in publishing it was … to offer insight into how one scientist has arrived at his views on certain aspects of sex and human behavior”, and that “we hope that the publication will inspire a productive discussion about future directions and methodologies in research on gender and sexuality…” In regard to how Professor Bailey “arrived at his views” and “discussion about … methodologies”, we have two questions to ask of you.

1. Does the National Academies Press – Joseph Henry Press require that authors affirm in writing that their research involving human subjects has been approved by an appropriate institutional review committee and that informed consent was obtained from human subjects involved in the research?

2. If such a policy is in place for the Joseph Henry Press, did J. Michael Bailey stipulate to having adhered to that policy?

If you do not have a policy that requires authors to stipulate that they have adhered to ethical standards for research involving human subjects, we strongly urge you to develop one along the lines of other publishers of scientific research. Note that Genetics Nature invites comment from reviewers in cases where there may be concern about the ethical use of human subjects. It is clearly inappropriate for the National Academies to publish and promote the results of research that fails to conform to federally mandated requirements for the protection of human subjects in research.

We appreciate your assistance in answering our inquiry and in addressing these serious concerns about the conduct of the research in question.

Sincerely,

Barbara Nash., Ph.D.
Professor of Geology and Geophysics
University of Utah

Lynn Conway, Ph.D.
Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Emerita
University of Michigan
Member, National Academy of Engineering

Deirdre McCloskey, Ph.D.
UIC Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, and English
University of Illinois at Chicago
Tinbergen Professor of Philosophy, Economics, and Art and Cultural Studies,
Erasmus University of Rottterdam

Ben Barress, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Neurobiology and Developmental Biology
Stanford University

Joan Roughgarden, Ph.D.
Professor of Biological Sciences
Stanford University

c: Bruce Alberts, President, the National Academy of Sciences
Harvey V. Fineberg, President, the Institute of Medicine

Conway et al. (2003)

My letter of 12 August 2003:

Mr. Mautner:

Thank you for adding the release date to your June 24 letter regarding your responsibility for bringing out the Bailey book under the Joseph Henry Press imprint. Your letter states:

“JHP follows clear decision rules… for scientific review of manuscripts. The work in question was reviewed as a well-crafted and responsible work.”

As you may know, this was not the expert assessment of Dr. John Bancroft, the Director of the Kinsey Institute, who stood up immediately after a Bailey presentation in July and told a lecture hall full of sex researchers that Bailey’s book “is not science.”

Please provide the names and credentials of those who participated in the scientific review of this manuscript and came to the conclusion it was well-crafted and responsible.

I look forward to learning the names of the scientific reviewers you selected who disagree with Dr. Bancroft.

Thank you in advance.

cc: Suzanne Woolsey

My letter of 21 August 2003:

Mr. Mautner:

I have not yet received a reply to my August 12 email requesting the names and credentials of those who participated in the “scientific review” of J. Michael Bailey’s manuscript and came to the conclusion it was “well-crafted and responsible” (see below).

I already have my copy of the dismissive form letter from Dr. Woolsey advising everyone with opposing views to present and publish evidence and reasoning. I’d appreciate the courtesy of a personal reply with this evidence so I can do just that.

cc: Suzanne Woolsey, Bruce Alberts, Harvey V. Fineberg

Dr. Dana Beyer’s correspondence of 30 July 2003 with Mautner

Dear Mr. Mautner:

[…] I recently discovered that your press was located here in DC, and I would like the opportunity to visit with you to discuss J Michael Bailey’s recently published book, “The Man Who Would Be Queen.”

Thank you very much. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Dana Beyer, M.D.

Mautner’s reply on 7 August 2003

Dear Dr. Beyer,

I apologize for the delay in responding.

Given the deluge of mail we have received concerning Dr. Bailey’s book and our wish to catalog the responses, I would much prefer it if you could submit your comments in writing.

Sincerely,
Stephen Mautner

My follow-up with Mr. Mautner one year after he brought out The Man Who Would Be Queen

15 March 2004

Mr. Mautner:

Lest you think we have forgotten about you and your JHP team, I wanted to update you on the J. Michael Bailey situation and your historical role in this matter.

Unlike you, the Lambda Literary Foundation had the integrity to admit last week they had made an “unprecedented” error in their initial assessment of The Man Who Would Be Queen. Though it was a “humbling experience” according to their Executive Director, they had the integrity to withdraw support for the book when it became clear to them it was not science but propaganda in service of the neo-eugenics movement.

I also wanted to update you on an ongoing problem at Amazon.com. As many lazy editors and publishers are wont to do, you cited Amazon.com reviews in your 24 June 2003 open letter as an accurate gauge of response to this book:

http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/bailey-reviews.html

Publishers increasingly use these unconfirmed reviews edited by an unnamed editor as evidence about a book’s reception.

“As of June 13, 2003 there were 27 1-star (lowest) ratings, and 11 5-star (highest) ratings, with only 5 in-between.”

Since Amazon has rewritten history by removing 18 of the reviews you cite in March, you need to revise your letter:

“As of June 13, 2003 there were 9 1-star (lowest) ratings, and 11 5-star (highest) ratings, with only 5 in-between.”

This new statistic suggests that the world is evenly split on this book. That does not reflect the 1300+ signatures gathered in a few days from people in 35 countries who protested the book, or the consensus of almost every professional organization that deals with gender variance.

Clearly, Amazon needs to be more transparent in the process, as do editors like JHP and publishing trade groups like Lambda Literary Foundation. These organizations are covering book promotion with a façade of objectivity and editorial rigor that simply does not exist.

As I have said all along, this is being waged as a war of propaganda and not a science fight. Once again, we have more evidence.

I can assure you that you will be held personally accountable for what is the most spectacular misstep of your career as an editor, and we will most certainly get to the bottom of who gave you the go-ahead on this book. I’d bet money they are listed here:

http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/bailey-usual-suspects.html

This is going to be painstaking and methodical, and no stone will go unturned in determining who allowed this book to be published by the National Academies Press.


Additional Mautner information

Here’s a rather inaccurate description from 2004 detailing what Mautner does (emphasis mine):

Stephen Mautner, executive editor of Joseph Henry Press, an imprint of the National Academies Press, was the fourth panelist. The Joseph Henry Press was founded to look for authors outside the national academies and to contract with individual authors to write books on science topics for general audiences. Editors look for serious scientific books that will have commercial success. Mautner sees a great future for work that takes content from the National Academies and massages it into a form accessible to a wider audience. How do editors at the Joseph Henry Press hire writers? Currently, they recruit very few book writers because they can only award contracts to six or eight authors a year. However, Mautner said that they are willing and eager to give writers who have a compelling record of excellent journalism a chance to write their first book.

Mautner sent his children to St. Albans, an exclusive Washington DC-based private prep school, using the money he made disseminating Bailey’s tripe.

Anyone with additional information on Steve Mautner’s responsibility for the review and publication of Bailey’s defamatory book is encouraged to contact the author of this site.

According to anti-trans activist Alice Dreger, as of August 2006, the book had sold about 4200 copies and had about 900,000 visits to the electronic version.

References

Weintraub, Judith (April 27, 1997). Intertwining Roots. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/magazine/1997/04/27/worlds-apart/1b438573-c351-4711-b0b3-734fa7770c06/?utm_term=.42613ccc11be

(Stephen Mautner to Michael Bailey, copy to Alice Dreger, p.e.c., August 11, 2006).

Media

CPNAS (May 7, 2013). Stephen Mautner. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7Ya6nNA5jk

Resources

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

Suzanne Woolsey was Chief Communications Officer for the publisher of the transphobic 2003 book The Man Who Would Be Queen by J. Michael Bailey.

Background

Suzanne Haley “Sue” Woolsey was born in 1941. Woolsey is spouse of James Woolsey, who, among other things, served as Jimmy Carter’s first director of the CIA. James Woolsey is also a notable neoconservative, reaching that philosophy via a circuitous route through the corridors of liberal power.

Suzanne Woolsey’s 1970 dissertation was titled “Effects of experimenter race and segregated or desegregated school experience on some aspects of the social interaction of white and negro children.” Interestingly, experimenter effect is one of the chief scientific criticisms of the methodology used by Bailey, Ray Blanchard, and Anne Lawrence.

During the Carter Administration Woolsey served in high level positions in the Office of Management and Budget. During the Reagan Administration Woolsey worked outside of the government.

Woolsey began work at the National Academy of Sciences in 1989 as Executive Director of the Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences, responsible for oversight of all of the boards in those fields. Later Woolsey became chief operating officer of the NAS and then Chief Communications Officer whose responsibilities included National Academies Press and Joseph Henry Press.

Woolsey’s canned response

Woolsey sent the following form letter to anyone who wrote to express concern about the lack of science in J. Michael Bailey’s The Man Who Would Be Queen. I received my copy on 22 May 2003.

Office of Communications

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001
Phone: 202 334 1212
Fax: 202 334 1210
E-mail: [email protected]
www.nationalacademies.org

We have received your message about the book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, by J. Michael Bailey, and I am responding on behalf of the National Academies. We appreciate knowing of your concerns and recognize that the contents of this book are controversial. The copyright page of the book carries the following notice: “Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this volume are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Academy of Sciences or its affiliated institutions.” This statement applies to all books published by the Joseph Henry Press. Joseph Henry Press publications are not reports of the National Academies, but are individually authored works on topics related to science, engineering, and medicine.

In our opinion, the best response to writing with which one disagrees is more writing. Those who hold views contrary to those expressed in this book are encouraged to present and publish the evidence and reasoning in support of their conclusions.

Sincerely,
Suzanne H. Woolsey, Ph.D.
Chief Communications Officer

After the book controversy

In January 2004, Woolsey became a director of Fluor Corporation, which has $1.6 billion in Iraq related contracts. Woolsey also served as a director of the Institute for Defense Analyses which also has war interests, and received modest compensation for that role according to the article.

The Woolseys’ overlapping affiliations are part of a growing pattern in Washington in which individuals play key roles in quasi-governmental organizations advising officials on major policy issues but also are involved with private businesses in related fields. Such activities generally are not covered by conflict of interest laws or ethics rules. They underscore an insiders network in which contacts and relationships developed inside the government can meld with individual financial interests.

Suzanne Woolsey is also affiliated with other firms, including the Paladin Capital Group, a Washington venture capital firm in which Woolsey’s spouse is a partner. Suzanne Woolsey did not respond to messages left at Paladin and at Fluor.

References

Roche, WF (8 August 2004). Private, Public Roles Overlap in Washington. Los Angeles Times. [archive]

Holloway J, Boyette L. (27 January 2004.). Fluor Adds Suzanne H. Woolsey to Board of Directors. Fluor website.
http://investor.fluor.com/visitors/print_release.cfm?ReleaseID=127565 [archive]

Clemons SC (8 August 2004). Woolsey’s web: Structure and corruption in Iraq. The Washington Note.
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000015.html [archive]

Ted Barlow (born 1974) is a former J. Michael Bailey student at Northwestern University who wrote a biased undergraduate paper on transsexualism. Barlow’s paper is a good indication of how Bailey teaches students harmful ideas about gender identity and expression, sexuality, and attraction to transgender people.

Bailey’s exploitative undergraduate human sexuality course was permanently canceled by Northwestern in 2011.

Background

Barlow attended Northwestern from 1992–1996, earning a BS in psychology in 1996. His senior honors thesis was done with J. Michael Bailey, where Barlow served as a sort of wing man as they trolled Chicago bars for attractive young trans women to “research.”

He earned an MA in psychology from the University of Chicago in 1998 and an MBA from UT Austin in 2008. He has held various roles in the legal services industry in Texas.

Barlow had an extensive online presence as a blogger prior to going into legal services. He has since tried to minimize his connections to past published work.

Resources

Blogspot (blogspot.com)

  • tedbarlow.blogspot.com
  • A few things that I learned studying transsexuals [archive]
  • http://tedbarlow.blogspot.com/2002_12_15_tedbarlow_archive.html

Crooked Timber (crookedtimber.org)

  • Author: Ted [surname apparently removed by author request]

Lynn Conway (lynnconway.com)

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

BVA Group (bvagroup.com)

  • Ted Barlow
  • https://www.bvagroup.com/team/ted-barlow
  • https://www.bvagroup.com/viewer/?path=/pdf/bios/Ted-Barlow.pdf