National Convener Mr Gordon Walker Department of Psychology, Monash University PO Box 197, Caulfied East, VIC, 3145 Tel: (03) 9903 2728 Fax: (03) 9903 2501 Email: [email protected]
GLIP News Gay and Lesbian Issues and Psychology An Interest Group of the Australian Psychological Society Ltd. Volume 2, Issue 2 August 2003 page 5
by Gordon Walker, Convener
Book review: Bailey, J.M. (2003). The man who would be queen: The science of gender-bending and transsexualism. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press.
This is a book, written by a leading researcher in the field, is about understanding sexual orientation and identity. Although the author makes much use of research, this is not a textbook; any educated person with an interest in this topic would find the material very accessible. The stories of various boys and men are woven together with the discussion of research to create a highly interesting and very worthwhile book. In fact once I started I had difficulty putting down! Broadly speaking it is an examination of the relationship between male homosexuality and femininity. As the author says, to say that femininity and homosexuality are closely bound together has been politically incorrect for some time now, but nevertheless factually correct. The book then goes on to demonstrate this across the sexual orientation spectrum.
The book is therefore a challenge to the postmodern position on gender, although the author clearly occupies the middle ground between social constructionism and essentialism. This is demonstrated in his discussion of feminine boys and of those labeled gender identity disordered (GID) in particular. In looking at the debate between those on the left who want them left alone to be as feminine as they want to be and those on the extreme right who view homosexuality as arrested psychosexual development, he draws the reader’s attention to research that shows that therapy directed at reducing femininity in highly feminine boys reduces the number who ultimately seek a sex-change, and therefore increases the number who as adults identify as gay. He suggests that an alternative to this would be to allow such boys to become women very early (pre-puberty) so that they can have better outcomes as women.
The author uses a range of research to clearly challenge the view that pronounced femininity in boys is the result of socialisation. The question of where does extreme femininity come from is also examined
Similarities and differences between gay and straight men are also examined. Broadly speaking, although gay men have interests more in line with those of women, in attitudes to sex and the body homosexual and heterosexual men were shown to be essentially the same; the differences in behaviour come about because heterosexually men are basically constrained in their behaviour by women. The author provides a very accessible and readable account of the sometimes confusing array of studies that have attempted to account for sexual orientation and draws the conclusion that there is some fundamental biological influence that transcends culture. The last section of the book focuses on transsexualism, and produces a compelling argument for recognising two main types: homosexual and non-homosexual types, with the latter being erotically obsessed with the image of themselves as women. A very much more complex picture emerges than the popular image of a woman being trapped inside a man’s body.
The great value of this book lies in the way it has brought together a wide range of research on important questions relating to sexual orientation. This gives the reader a wonderful opportunity to reflect further on what being other than heterosexual might mean.
Gordon Walker Department of Psychology School of Psychology, Psychiatry and Psychological Medicine Monash University
Letter to Dr. Walker from WOMAN Network
“We write to express our concern that the Special Interest Group on Gay and Lesbian Issues of the Australian Psychological Society has been implicated in support for the writings of Prof J Michael Bailey of Northwestern University.
In this respect, we draw your attention to the following quote from GLIP News, August 2003:
“…any educated person with an interest in this topic would find the material very accessible. The stories of various boys and men are woven together with the discussion of research to create a highly interesting and very worthwhile book. In fact once I started I had difficulty putting down! … The author provides a very accessible and readable account of the sometimes confusing array of studies that have attempted to account for sexual orientation and draws the conclusion that there is some fundamental biological influence that transcends culture. … The great value of this book lies in the way it has brought together a wide range of research on important questions relating to sexual orientation. This gives the reader a wonderful opportunity to reflect further on what being other than heterosexual might mean.”
The book referred to is “The Man Who Would Be Queen” which was published under the imprimateur of the National Academies of Sciences. It has brought huge condemnation for its inaccurate and highly offensive portrayal of transsexualism and the people who are affected by it. This has culminated recently in legal action against the author, who is accused of failing to obtain the necessary informed consents of the subjects of his material. Importantly, the scientific veracity of the work has now been shattered in a most public way at the recent IASR Conference in the United States.
Bailey seized on earlier work by Ken Zucker of the somewhat infamous Clarke Institute, and categorised us as either excessively homosexual males or autogynaephilic males. He deliberately excluded the anecdotal evidence of those, the vast majority, who did not fit with his theory and ignored completely the prevailing hard science pointing to the somatic nature of transsexualism. The fall out from this scientific fraud is gaining momentum and it would be very unfortunate if Monash University were to be included in this.
You can gauge the international responses to the issue by visiting these websites:
One matter of very real concern is the way in which the religious right has already seized on Bailey’s writings to further justify their rejection of transsexualism as a valid condition of human sexual formation and their condemnation of those affected by it. These same condemnations will undoubtedly be directed at gay and lesbian people to the detriment of us all.
We therefore ask you to consider repudiating Bailey’s work and ensure your next newsletter contains a suitable disclaimer.”
It is reported that Dr. Walker is making inquiries about the matter and will respond after he’s had time to review the matter.
The CAMH Gender Identity Clinic is delighted to announce that our clinic received a Presidential Citation from Division 44 of the American Psychological Association (the Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Issues) at a ceremony on August 9, 2003.
The text of the Citation reads as follows:
The Gender Identity Clinic has established itself as the premier research center on gender dysphoria research and clinical care since 1968, and is celebrating its 35th year.”
APA DIV 44 also allowed James Cantor to write a glowing review of The Man Who Would Be Queen by J. Michael Bailey. Joseph Henry Press was later forced to attribute the review to Cantor by name, rather than their earlier attempts to imply that the review was the consensus of APA DIV 44.
James Neal Butcher (born November 20, 1933) is an American psychologist who has published pathologizing materials about sex and gender minorities. His college textbook Abnormal Psychology and Modern Life was influenced by the toxic ideology of Ray Blanchard, who promotes disease models of gender identity and expression.
Background
Butcher was born in Bergoo, West Virginia. His father was killed in a coal mining accident when Butcher was 8. His mother and five children moved to Charleston, where she died when Butcher was 11. Butcher then took a job selling newspapers, and he and three minor siblings raised themselves without an adult in the home.
In 1950, Butcher enlisted in the Army, serving in Korea. After his discharge, he earned a BA in psychology from Guilford College in 1960. In 1964 he earned a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He then served as a professor of psychology and as Director of the Clinical Psychology Program at the University of Minnesota, where he was appointed Professor Emeritus after 40 years. He is best known for his work on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and has published fifty-eight books and more than two hundred fifty articles in personality assessment, abnormal psychology, and crisis-intervention.
Michelle DiMeo works with Pam Harcourt, who is also on the committee.
Michelle DiMeo and Pam Harcourt
Women and Children First 5233 N. Clark St. Chicago, IL 60640 773.769.9299 Fax: 773.769.6729 [email protected] http://www.womenandchildrenfirst.com
On 24 February 2004, the selection committee including Sara Look voted to retain the nomination of this book over the objections of transexual people and other concerned parties around the world.
In March 2004, the committee reconsidered and withdrew this nomination.
I will publish any comments or responses from Sara Look regarding this matter as I receive them.
Joseph Henry Press (1992–2008) was a trade publishing arm for the National Academies Press. In 2003 the six people below were responsible for fact-checking, publishing, promoting, and defending J. Michael Bailey’s 2003 book The Man Who Would Be Queen, one of the most transphobic books ever written.
Reviews excerpted for publicity (click authors for more details)
Praise
After I started systematically tracking down the reviews listed in the original Praise (PDF) document, the marketing team started adding others to the book’s webpage as they became available. Most of the praise was written by Bailey’s colleagues. Some wrote more than one review. I tracked down all the authors where possible, listed here as:
This sheds some light on the academic culture that encouraged the JHP to publish Bailey’s book. Her thesis is basically that as the academic community adopts business values, it starts to judge scholarship by how well it sells rather than how well it answers questions. I think the following quote pretty much exactly describes how TMWWBQ got published:
“It used to be an important role of the academic presses to publish significant books too specialized to be economic. Increasingly, however, as subsidies from their universities have shrunk, university presses seek to publish books they believe will make money. This too is discouraging, to put it mildly, to the investment of effort in difficult problems. Better, from the point of view of making oneself heard, to write the kind of book that might interest a trade publisher, or at least the kind of book that will get reviewed in the non-academic press. And this too, inevitably, favors the simple, startling idea, even, or perhaps especially, the startlingly false or impressively obscure idea. . . .”
Publisher description
2002 pre-publication version
A frank and fascinating look at what science has to tell us about sex and gender identity written by a leading authority on this very complicated subject. Equally important, the book explores some deeply personal and often strikingly poignant stories of femininity, masculinity, and gender confusion.
2003 to present version
Gay. Straight. Or lying. It’s as simple and straightforward as black or white, right? Or is there a gray area, where the definitions of sex and gender become blurred or entirely refocused with the deft and practiced use of a surgeon’s knife? For some, the concept of gender – the very idea we have of ourselves as either male or female beings – is neither simple nor straightforward.
Written by cutting-edge researcher and sex expert J. Michael Bailey, The Man Who Would Be Queen is a frankly controversial, intensely poignant, and boldly forthright book about sex and gender. Based on his original research, Bailey’s book is grounded firmly in science. But as he demonstrates, science doesn’t always deliver predictable or even comfortable answers. Indeed, much of what he has to say will be sure to generate as many questions as it does answers.
Are gay men genuinely more feminine than other men? And do they really prefer to be hairdressers rather than lumberjacks? Are all male transsexuals women trapped in men’s bodies – or are some of them men who are just plain turned on by the idea of becoming a woman? And how much of a role do biology and genetics play in sexual orientation?
But while Bailey’s science is provocative, it is the portraits of the boys and men who struggle with these questions – and often with anger, fear, and hurt feelings – that will move you. You will meet Danny, an eight-year old boy whose favorite game is playing house and who yearns to dress up as a princess for Halloween. And Martin, an expert makeup artist who was plagued by inner turmoil as a youth but is now openly homosexual and has had many men as sex partners. And Kim, a strikingly sexy transsexual who still has a penis and works as a dancer and a call girl for men who like she-males while she awaits sex reassignment surgery.
These and other stories make it clear that there are men – and men who become women – who want only to understand themselves and the society that makes them feel like outsiders. That there are parents, friends, and families that seek answers to confusing and complicated questions. And that there are researchers who hope one day to grasp the very nature of human sexuality. As the striking cover image – a distinctly muscular and obviously male pair of legs posed in a pair of low-heeled pumps – makes clear, the concept of gender, the very idea we have of ourselves as either male or female beings, is neither simple nor straightforward for some.
Toby Roger Meltzer (born September 19, 1957) is an American plastic and reconstructive surgeon.
Background
Meltzer earned his medical degree from Louisiana State University School of Medicine. He completed his plastic surgery residency at the University of Michigan. He was appointed clinical professor of plastic surgery at Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU).
In 1993 he began performing vaginoplasty, and he became widely known in the community. In 1996, he opened his own private practice in Portland, Oregon. In 2003, Meltzer was forced to relocate to Scottsdale, Arizona after a conservative physicians consortium, Symphony Healthcare, purchased Eastmoreland Hospital. Symphony Healthcare filed for bankruptcy soon after, and the entire hospital was torn down.
In 2016, The Meltzer Clinic added surgeon Ellie Zara Ley to their roster of providers. Ley left to start her own practice, after which Nick Esmonde joined the clinic.
LINK: The Meltzer Page by raspy (1997) http://www.netdesign.net/%7Eraspy/Meltzer/index.html
LINK: Taking Portlandia’s Hand by Anne Lawrence (1996) http://www.annelawrence.com/portlandia.html
Tuan Anh Nguyen MD DDS FACS (born November 26, 1955) is an American plastic surgeon who serves our community.
Background
Nguyen earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from University of Texas at Arlington in 1977 and his dental degree from University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston in 1981. He earned his medical degree from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine in 1989. Following a plastic surgery fellowship at Oregon Health Sciences University, he went into private practice.
Services
Masculinization
Breast Reduction (Chest Surgery)
Metoidioplasty (Clitoral Release)
Testicle Implants
Feminization
Orchiectomy
Vaginoplasty
Urethroplasty
Clitoroplasty
Labiaplasty
Breast Augmentation (Breast Implants)
Body Contouring
Waist Cinching (“Hour-Glass Procedure”)
Abdominoplasty
Liposuction
Tracheal Shave
Facial Feminization
Brow Reduction
Cheek Implants
Chin Augmentation (Genioplasty)
Face Lift (Rhytidectomy)
Hair Replacement
Jaw Line Contouring
Nose (Rhinoplasty)
Eye-lid (Blepharoplasty)
Ears (Otoplasty)
Voice Surgery: Referred to Dr. Jim Thomas, a well-known voice surgeon and long-time consulting surgeon with Dr. Nguyen.
Address: 15820 Quarry Road, Lake Oswego, Oregon, 97035 USA
Phone: 503 635-1955
Fax: 503 635-1958
Former URLs: mdtnguyen.com
mdtnguyen.com/m2f.htm
mdtnguyen.com/orchiectomy.htm
mdtnguyen.com/labiaplasty.htm
mdtnguyen.com/vagioplasty.htm
mdtnguyen.com/vagioplasty.htm
Nancy Henley was an American psychologist and sibling of the birth parent of notorious transgender troll Kiira Triea aka Denise Magner. Henley’s sibling Dorothy Main Magner was Magner’s birth parent. Magner incorporated aspects of Henley’s work and life into a fabricated autobiography. Magner was also involved in maintaining Johns Hopkins email servers through family connections there.
Background
Nancy Eloise Main Henley was born on October 27, 1934 in Palatka, Florida. Henley began her education at Johns Hopkins after getting married and starting a family, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1964, a master’s degree in 1967, and a doctorate in 1968. Henley was affiliated with University of Maryland, Baltimore County from 1968–1971, Lowell Technological Institute/University of Lowell, from 1974–1980, and University of California, Los Angeles from 1980–1994. Most of Henley’s writing was on gender, feminism, language, and the social psychology of power.
Henley retired to Glen Burnie, Maryland and died there from a stroke on June 4, 2016.
My name is Andrea James. I am a writer and activist based here in Los Angeles. You can read about my work at the link below. Like you, my areas of interest include gender and violence (I have done anti-violence projects with Jane Fonda and Eve Ensler as well as Patti Giggans at Peace Over Violence/LACAAW), and I know much of your work covers these topics.
I am writing to you because I am doing some fact checking on an upcoming project, and I am interested in profiling a woman named Denise Tree, who says she is your niece. In the interest of being thorough, I felt it would be prudent to confirm this directly with you prior to publication.
Below is the quotation from Denise that prompted my note (presented verbatim):
“I strongly reccommend _Language, Gender and Society_ ed. in part by my aunt, Nancy Henley. Chock full of good reading about sex dichotymous verbal and non-verbal communications and also how “sex” is hardwired into language itself.
🙂 Yes it’s afavorite – The Estelle and Dorothy in the dedication is my grandmother and mother.”
Because the dedication in your book Language, Gender and Society lists Estella, not Estelle, I felt I should confirm with you. Denise also says your sister Dorothy lived in the Philippines in the 1950s and was in a relationship with Denise’s father, a Finnish man. She says Dorothy gave birth to her on Clark Air Base in the Philippines and later moved from Finland to Baltimore in the 1960s, where Dorothy married someone else.
If Denise is your niece, I hope you understand that I am merely trying to be as thorough as possible in my fact-checking. I have been doing research for a long time, and my instincts told me I should confirm this information directly with you. If this information about your sister is not correct, I obviously do not want to publish any misinformation, and I would like to get a correction out there.
Thanks for any confirmation you can provide. I will follow up with a call as well, and I appreciate your time!
Sincerely, Andrea
I did not receive a reply.
References
Rutherford A, Dean K (2016). Nancy Main Henley (1934–2016). American Psychologist, Vol 71(9), Dec 2016, 976. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/amp0000088
Donald Rudolph Laub, Jr. is an American plastic surgeon who has served the transgender community.
Background
Laub got his medical degree at Medical College of Wisconsin, then did residencies at Oregon Health & Science University and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.
Laub ran Green Mountain Gender Clinic in Williston, Vermont from 1999 until around 2007. William B. “Bill” Nash was the psychologist.
Note: His father Donald R. Laub, Sr. is also a plastic surgeon who was at Stanford University.
References
Archival links and contacts:
http://hometown.aol.com/grnmtclin
http://hometown.aol.com/grnmtclin/surgery.html
Dr. Laub Jr. 3 Timberland South Burlington, VT 05403 (802) 860-3340
or
Green Mountain Gender Clinic 183 Talcott Rd. Suite 206 Williston, VT 05495 (802) 879-5333 Fax : (802)879-5333 http://hometown.aol.com/grnmtclin/index.html [email protected]
https://www.wbnphd.com/ Metoidioplasty and FTM Top surgery using double incision
Selected publications
Vaginoplasty for gender confirmation.Laub DR Laub DR 2nd Biber S
The Post-Modern Phalloplasty: Another Method to Consider.Laub D Jr
Dr. Ousterhout retired in 2014, and his practice was taken over by Jordan Deschamps-Braly.
Douglas K. Ousterhout (born August 30, 1935) is an American plastic surgeon who popularized facial feminization surgery for transgender women through a series of innovative techniques starting in 1982 until his retirement in 2014. For over 30 years “Dr. O,” as he was affectionately called, performed facial feminization for many trans people, including Lynn Conway, Donna Rose, Nicole Hamilton, and myself.
Jordan Deschamps-Braly trained directly with Dr. O for years before taking over his practice. I recommend making Dr. Deschamps-Braly your primary consideration for any work you’d like to have done.
Dr. O purchased a vineyard after retiring and produces Ousterhout Wine.
My experiences
I had facial feminization surgery in 1996, and it still remains the best investment I have ever made. Period. Since I wrote about my experiences, many other women have shared their experiences and results. I’m very proud to have raised awareness of the life-changing potential of this option.
Excellent 185-page consumer overview of available procedures, with many illustrations and images. I highly recommend it for anyone considering these procedures, as it is the definitive consumer guide. It includes an introduction by Donna Rose, who, like me, had life-changing results from these procedures. Both of us are among the many patients who consented to having our results included in the book.
Ousterhout DK, Deschamps-Braly JC. Special Edition on Transgender Facial Surgery. J Craniofac Surg. 2019 Jul;30(5):1326-1327. doi: 10.1097/SCS.0000000000005387. No abstract available.PMID: 31299711
Ousterhout DK. Facial Feminization Surgery: The Forehead. Surgical Techniques and Analysis of Results. Plast Reconstr Surg. 2015 Oct;136(4):560e-1e. doi: 10.1097/PRS.0000000000001425. No abstract available.PMID: 25938955
Ousterhout DK. Dr. Paul Tessier and facial skeletal masculinization. Ann Plast Surg. 2011 Dec;67(6):S10-5. doi: 10.1097/SAP.0b013e31821835cb.PMID: 22123544
