“Arty Morty” is the stage name of Robbie Luster, a Canadian bar manager and anti-transgender extremist. Luster is best known for being sidekick to anti-trans extremist Graham Linehan and for co-founding LGB Alliance Canada.
“Arty Morty” is originally a pseudonym that refers to a Sherlock Holmes case.
Self-reported background
note: Luster’s self-reported biographical claims below have not been independently confirmed and should not be treated as facts.
Robbie James Luster was reportedly born in the United States, claiming “my Canadian mother was in the US when she gave birth to me.” Luster claimed this parent, who reportedly died in January 2023, “endured terrible abuse from my late father.”
Luster claimed: “I’ve been a prison rights (and reform) advocate ever since my father was murdered when I was a child and the man who murdered him was sentenced to death,” adding “My father was shot in the head.”
In the late 1990s, Luster reportedly worked at a Toronto bar frequented by trans people.
Independently confirmed details
In the 2010s, Luster was general manager at TRANZAC (originally Toronto Australia New Zealand Club), a nonprofit performing arts venue. Luster stepped down from the manager role in 2018 but continued working at the venue.
In around 2017, Luster moved into public housing managed by Toronto Community Housing Corporation. In March 2024, Luster wrote: “Right now as I write this, I’m sitting in my rental apartment, which has been in a state of construction for over a year. My landlord, an agency of the City of Toronto, has mired my building in a dodgy renovation contract with dubious claims to improve energy efficiency. The project managers evaded building code standards in order to slash costs — even going so far as to doctor the engineering plans in an attempt to circumvent regulators. Now, years of planning and tens of millions of dollars later, the work is halted and my apartment’s stuck in limbo. I’m sitting here writing this amid a heap of exposed wiring, hole-riddled drywall, and mechanical equipment where the finished walls and ceiling of my living room should be.” In June 2024, Luster spoke to CBC about the issue using the pseudonym “Robbie James.”
Katie Herzog is an American author and podcaster best known for gender critical views and anti-transgender activism. Herzog co-hosts the anti-trans “drama” podcast Blocked and Reported with Jesse Singal. Herzog’s work includes
Catherine Ronan “Katie” Herzog was born on May 18, 1983 in Asheville, North Carolina. Herzog’s parents are both emeritus professors who taught at Western Carolina University: Harold Albert “Hal” Herzog served as a psychology professor, and Mary Jean Ronan Herzog served as an education professor. Katie Herzog graduated from the University of North Carolina at Asheville with a bachelor’s degree in English literature and continued to graduate school before dropping out. Herzog has siblings.
Herzog has published writing in numerous outlets, listed below. Herzog got a start as a blogger on Tumblr and on a personal website. Herzog has attempted to delete much of this early work.
Herzog identifies as lesbian and lives in Washington state and North Carolina with spouse Janna Krein, a nurse.
Anti-trans activism at The Stranger
Herzog worked for Dan Savage as a freelancer for The Stranger, later serving as a staff writer from 2017 to 2020.
In 2017, Herzog wrote “The Detransitioners,” a piece critics considered a biased and flawed article supporting the ex-trans movement. The piece mentioned several people:
Brynn Tannehill, a trans journalist whose criticism of the ex-trans movement appears to have motivated Herzog’s piece
Marlo Mack, How to Be a Girl podcaster and supportive parent of a gender diverse child
John Otto, a happily transitioned trans man
Supporting Herzog’s views were several activists promoting the ex-trans movement:
James Cantor, a fellow gender critical troll in Toronto and promoter of many disease models of gender identity and expression
“Jackie” aka “Jackal,” a Seattle area resident who was 25 in 2017 and moderated detransinfo.tumblr.com
“Jane,” a Southern California resident who was 53 in 2017 and who joined the ex-trans movement after discovering radfem forums online
“Ryan,” who was 43 in 2017 and who underwent medical transition steps but was not socially transitioned at the time
“Cass,” who later came out as ex-trans whistleblower Ky Schevers
Schevers was deeply involved in the “gender critical” movement connected to trans-exclusionary radical feminism (TERF):
While hanging out among ourselves, I and other younger members of this scene would jokingly refer to ourselves and each other as “TERFs”, reclaiming what we viewed as a slur. Many of us got a kick out of having a secret life in a subculture outsiders (correctly) viewed as a hate group. We thought such people were ridiculous and misogynistic for seeing us as hateful and we frequently mocked them, acting as if they were ignorant, misled and/or overly sensitive. We would gather at a lesbian-owned coffee shop and complain about how trans activists were a threat to lesbian culture, talk about dangerous and disgusting “autogynephiles” trying to infiltrate “female-only” spaces, and the social forces supposedly pushing lesbians to “dis-identify from femaleness” and identify as trans.
Schevers 2021
Herzog never updated the original piece or covered the subsequent developments. No one has ever independently confirmed Herzog’s claims about “Jackie,” “Jane,” or “Ryan,” and the only one independently confirmed has come out against Herzog’s article and its thesis. This is probably the prime example that Herzog is not an objective source for information on trans issues.
In response, some critics burned copies of The Stranger and distributed stickers that said “Katie Herzog (writer at the stranger) Is A Transphobe.” Herzog claims to have been ostracized by some friends. The New York TimesandThe New Republicdescribed the reaction to “The Detransitioners” as an example of “cancel culture.”
In 2024, The Stranger allowed Schevers to set the record straight on Herzog’s coverage, but none of Herzog’s other sources have been independently verified.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Herzog was furloughed and was no longer employed there as of 2020. In 2020, Herzog founded Permabanned Media LLC and in March began the podcast Blocked and Reported with Singal. In July, Singal and Herzog both signed “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate” for Harper’s. That letter was signed by a disproportionate number of anti-transgender extremists.
After leaving The Stranger
Since leaving The Stranger, Herzog has become more outspoken on anti-transgender topics. Herzog has spoken frequently about the alleged cultural shift away from “lesbian” as an identity, promoted the disputed diagnosis “rapid onset gender dysphoria,” and suggested that the increase in trans-identified people is part of a “social contagion.” Herzog has also gotten money and attention for claiming that medical schools are “denying biological sex” by presenting more inclusive and value-neutral scientific terminology. Herzog’s posts on the topic via intellectual dark web promoter Bari Weiss were tagged as unreliable self-published sources by the r/medicine forum on reddit, causing the usual suspects to claim they were being censored.
As with most people who claim to be “canceled,” Herzog has seen an enormous increase in media appearances on conservative and anti-transgender shows and platforms since 2017. They include
In 2025, Herzog released a book titled Drink Your Way Sober, which outlined Herzog’s struggles with alcohol use and dependence. Herzog promotes the Sinclair Method, which involves taking the opioid inhibitor naltrexone.
Doyle, Jude Ellison S. (March 15, 2023). The making of a detransitioner.Xtra* https://xtramagazine.com/power/detransition-terf-movement-elisa-shupe-247592
Doyle, Jude Ellison S. (March 24, 2021). What’s So Scary About Detransitioning? GEN. https://gen.medium.com/whats-so-scary-about-detransitioning-a8340daf3132
Lieberman, Hallie (May 3, 2019). Why Is Reporting on Trans Issues So Fraught?News-to-Table / Pressland https://medium.com/news-to-table/https-medium-com-news-to-table-why-is-reporting-on-trans-issues-so-fraught-c3b52b4b97c4
A Special Place in Hell with Meghan Daum, Sarah Haider, and Katie Herzog (November 20, 2022). Katie Herzog Visits Hell. https://aspecialplace.substack.com/p/katie-herzog-visits-hell
PhilosophyInsights (June 19, 2020). [Edit] The Moral Panic and the Corruption of Journalism. YouTube / PhilosophyInsights. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjT9NVOQW10 [deleted]
The Versus Media Podcast with Stephen L. Miller and Katie Herzog (November 3, 2019). Episode 2 – The Very Cancelled Katie Herzog. https://millerversusmedia.substack.com/p/episode-2-the-very-cancelled-katie-aea
Chapter One: “And then I met Janna, the woman who would become my wife, and not only did I change my mind about dog fanatics, I’m ashamed to say I even became one myself.”
This profile originally misstated Herzog’s birthday. In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.
Aaron Julian Sibarium was born January 9, 1996. Sibarium’s parents are Michael Sibarium, a lawyer, and Laura Govoni-Sibarium, a nursing consultant and synagogue volunteer. Sibarium and sibling Ely (born January 24, 1999) both attended St. Andrew’s Episcopal School and Yale. Ely Sibarium has published work about gender diversity and neurodiversity with John Strang and Scott Leibowitz.
Sibarium earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University in 2018. Sibarium interned at the center-right American Enterprise Institute and was an editor at The American Interest prior to its closure. Sibarium is an associate editor at the Washington Free Beacon.
In 2023, Sibarium reported on instances of plagiarism by Harvard President Claudine Gay, which contributed to Gay’s resignation.
Anti-transgender activism
While working as an opinion columnist at the Yale Daily News in 2017, Sibarium was triggered by Yale’s move to the term first-years vs. freshmen.
Reason / Just Asking Questions with Zach Weissmueller, Liz Wolfe, and Aaron Sibarium (February 13, 2025). Aaron Sibarium: Is DEI over? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9W_YwEBCdo
Do No Harm podcast (September 17, 2024). S3E1b: Navigating the Voter Pulse on Pediatric Gender Medicine and DEI (Part 2/2) with Aaron Sibarium & Leor Sapir
Do No Harm podcast (September 10, 2024). S3E1: What Do Voters Think About on Identity Politics? (Part 1/2) with Aaron Sibarium & Leor Sapir
Wisdom of Crowds with Damir Marusic, Shadi Hamid, and Aaron Sibarium (January 8, 2024). Claudine Gay and the Culture Wars. https://wisdomofcrowds.live/p/claudine-gay-and-the-culture-wars
Subversive Podcast with Alex Kaschuta and Aaron Sibarium (May 31, 2021). Aaron Sibarium: Liberalism’s time to sober up. https://www.alexkaschuta.com/p/subversive-podcast-aaron-sibarium
Know Your Enemy with Matt Sitman, Sam Adler-Bell, and Aaron Sibarium (Dec 5, 2020). A Working Class GOP? (w/ Aaron Sibarium). https://www.patreon.com/posts/working-class-w-44702097
Richard Hanania is an American political scientist, right-wing eugenicist, and anti-transgender extremist.
In 2021 Hanania began hosting a podcast via Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology (CSPI). It was called The Richard Hanania Show through 2023. and later renamed CSPI Podcast.
Part of the panel “The Bailey brouhaha: Community members speak out on resisting transphobia and sexism in academia and beyond”
Joelle Ruby Ryan, moderator
National Women’s Studies Association conference Cincinnati, Ohio June 21, 2008
—
As is frequently the case in discussions that are conducted with a great show of emotion, the down-to-earth interests of certain groups, whose excitement is entirely concerned with factual matters and who therefore try to distort the facts, become quickly and inextricably involved with the untrammeled inspirations of intellectuals who, on the contrary, are not in the least interested in facts but treat them merely as a springboard for “ideas.”
Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil
The “controversy” about J. Michael Bailey’s book is a marketing ploy by academic opportunists whose careers involve exploiting oppressed minorities. Bailey claims his book’s third section on transsexual taxonomy triggered the response, but he had published that material years earlier as “Transsexualism: Women trapped in men’s bodies or men who would be women?” (Bailey 2000). His eventual title echoes that: The Man Who Would Be Queen (Bailey 2003a).
Nobody went after Bailey when his work was first published. I myself sent a critical but civil note in May 2000 (James 2000). No one went after Bailey’s “sex science” colleagues for their “science” on trans women in previous decades. While those writings epitomize institutionalized transphobia (such as labeling trans women attracted to men “homosexual transsexuals” (Bagemihl 1997)), the authors generally remain academically responsible. Their true colors appear when popularizing their ideas, such as Ray Blanchard’s interview claiming a transsexual woman is merely “a man without a penis” (Armstrong 2004).
The populist response to Bailey’s book in 2003 happened because
it was fraudulently marketed as science by the National Academies of Science
it became a cure narrative about gender-variant children
Why the populist response?
National Academies member Lynn Conway helped coordinate the populist response, titling her work “An investigation into the publication of J. Michael Bailey’s book on transsexualism by the National Academies” (Conway 2003). It wasn’t about Bailey’s third section, or Bailey’s ideas, or Bailey himself. It was about how this salacious bigotry got published by the National Academies of Science. It expanded because National Academies employees Stephen Mautner and Barbara Kline Pope never answered that question. Mautner even defended it as a “responsible work” (Mautner 2003).
Let’s examine Mautner’s outrageous claim. Let’s say your academic field comprises a pervasive stereotype about an oppressed minority; let’s say greediness in Jewish people. You and your colleagues have access to Jews through state-run programs which compel them to submit to your experiments. Historical examples abound, like the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male (Heller 1972), or Robert Ritter’s work classifying the two types of “gypsies” for the Nazis (Willems 1997). For trans people the historical example is Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (formerly the Clarke Institute), the source of much of the “science” Bailey alludes to in his book.
Via state-funded experiments, your colleagues assert all Jews exhibit one of two types of greed: innate greed, or greed driven by fantasies of wealth and power. You write a book about it, including memorable anecdotes about greedy Jews you’ve met at pawn shops and brothels. You frame your book with a Jewish child you saw cured through therapy. You devise a test to tell the two types of greedy Jews apart. You claim a hallmark of Jewish greed is denial, so any greedy Jew who objects to your taxonomy “proves” its validity. You quote eccentric Jewish people validated by your attention, who agree “most greedy Jews lie.”
Stephen Mautner at the National Academies of Science arranges a secret “peer review” and you’re set. You title it The Jew in Jewelry: The Science of Judaism. Mautner’s team creates a cover depicting a hook-nosed figure clutching a wad of money. Barbara Kline Pope sends out press releases and puts the book online, and you get tenure.
While that kind of foul play was certainly outrageous, what radicalized me was Bailey’s new framing device exploiting trans children (James 2003b). He compared his own children as the benchmark of normalcy (p. 52, p. 69). He also used his own children as evidence of his own normalcy: he calls himself a “single heterosexual man” (p. 141). He even dedicated his book to his children (p. v) and later trotted them out as evidence in the press (Wilson 2003).
Reparative therapy of gender-variant youth
Bailey’s book is first and foremost a cure narrative framed by the story of “Danny Ryan,” a pseudonymous child displaying “gender nonconformity.” Bailey writes of Danny’s mother, who has been frustrated by other therapists she has consulted about her son’s “feminine” behavior: “In spring of 1996 Leslie Ryan came to my Northwestern University office to seek yet another opinion” (p. 16).
Bailey describes the “curing” of “Danny Ryan” after he explains to Danny’s mother about reparative therapy developed by his Toronto cronies (p. 3, p. 214). Bailey warns that a world tolerant of feminine boys might “come with the cost of more transsexual adults” (p. 30), noting Ken Zucker thinks reparative therapy helps “reduce this risk” (p. 30). Bailey claims that Zucker considers transsexualism a “bad outcome” for children like Danny (p. 31). Zucker’s reparative therapy involves taking away anything “feminine” from the child (p. 31). Bailey notes, “learning more about the origins of transsexualism will not get us much closer to curing it” (p. 207).
Danny’s “curing” is complete when Bailey runs into Danny on the last page of the book: “This was not a girl in boy’s clothing” (p. 214). Bailey’s last paragraph claims Danny asks to use the men’s room. Bailey observes, “I am certain that as he said that, he emphasized ‘men’s’ and looked my way” (p. 214).
Clinicians compare Zucker’s efforts to “reparative therapy for homosexuals” (Pickstone-Taylor 2003), noting that reparative therapy “seeks to reverse sexual orientation or gender identification” (Dean 2000) [emphasis mine]. Zucker claims his “therapeutic intervention” is OK – he only cures “gender identity disorder,” not homosexuality. Zucker’s “problematic and harsh” (Lostracco 2008) reparative therapy is detailed in a 2008 NPR report: Zucker ordered a mother to take away her child’s “feminine” toys and ordered the child not to play with or even draw pictures of girls (Spiegel 2008).
The populist response to Zucker’s reparative therapy has been largely driven by the internet, the most significant advance for trans people that will happen in my lifetime. Our collected wisdom, once an oral tradition of drag mothers and pageant culture, a mish-mash of mimeographed pamphlets and clippings, mail-order newsletters, and answering machine recordings now has a permanent online home. Parents who once fought alone (Evelyn 1998) share alternatives to reparative therapy and refer families to supportive providers. Families are stepping forward as the public faces of gender-variant youth (TYFA 2008), organizing support groups and publicizing alternatives to Zucker’s reparative therapy (Brill 2008). We are in the midst of a paradigm shift as progressive providers really listen to the voice of the people and consider the true welfare of trans children.
Academia as a tool of trans oppression
Our populist uprising targets high-end academic research, which has become a corrupt, bloated money grab with almost no consequence if employees generate grant money and publicity. Bailey and colleagues like Alice Dreger exploit master narratives (Dreger 2008), consensus statements (ISNA 2006), college texts (LeVay 2003), and selective peer review (Mautner 2003) to reinforce their views and dismiss differing views, especially from their objects of study. They turned the Archives of Sexual Behavior into the house organ and bully pulpit for knowledge produced by Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. They’ve also developed a highly effective strategy of using personal validation to exploit vulnerable individuals in oppressed communities. Following his exploitation of Anjelica Kieltyka (p. xii), Bailey continued with validation-craving eccentrics like Anne Lawrence (p. xii), Maxine Petersen (p. xii), and Alice Dreger (Dreger 2008), and in turn Dreger exploited Cheryl Chase (ISNA 2006) and Anjelica Kieltyka again (Dreger 2008). This tactic strengthens their credentialist positions as outsider experts, a feedback cycle of reciprocal validation from these grateful individuals.
“Trolling” is internet slang for baiting people into a response. Online trolling is a highly developed subculture; academia and mainstream media have forms of trolling. Ann Coulter and Michael Moore turned trolling into entertainment. Trolls get money and publicity, and Bailey is a professional academic troll. His trolling template was the 1994 best-seller The Bell Curve, the “science” of racial differences in intelligence (Herrnstein 1994). Janice Raymond’s transphobic troll The Transsexual Empire (Raymond 1979) epitomizes an unanswered troll that took decades to undo. Academic trolls can’t lose. No response implies approval; any objection (however mild) becomes evidence they’re right.
In 2003, Bailey called a mild rebuke from biologist Joan Roughgarden (Roughgarden 2003) “insulting and scathing” and characterized it as a “screed” (Bailey 2003b). By framing my non-academic response as a counter-troll, I deliberately shifted the “extreme” edge of the debate, moving formerly “radical” views to the moderate position. I have no interest whatsoever in having a “scientific” or “civil” debate about this book; that’s one way academic trolls try to control the debate. Academics tend to be very thin-skinned and self-important, so they’re easy to troll. The key to good trolling is getting them to do what you want while thinking it was their idea. Bailey and I are public figures, so pretty much anything said about us is fair comment. I wanted to echo Bailey’s disrespect, to bring consequence to his actions, since no academic consequence could be expected. I made it very clear this was the tipping point: a defining moment in our history (James 2004).
Populist uprisings always use new media to great effect. The means of production and distribution of knowledge are no longer controlled by elites. Lynn Conway’s online investigation (Conway 2003) and my clearinghouse (James 2003a) had hundreds of contributors submitting thousands of items. In 2003 and 2004, it was everything we could do just to catalogue it all. The incident united the trans community as never before; a historically significant event (Surkan 2007). Academics attempting a feeble backlash against the Bailey backlash (Dreger 2008) are simply on the wrong side of history.
Reproduction and eugenics
Freudian psychology is being supplanted by a “bio-psych merge” (Ordover 2003). Sociobiology, behavior genetics, and evolutionary psychology all try to graft science onto social constructions, like “social Darwinism” and eugenics before them.
In Bailey’s evolutionary psychology, “homosexuality might be the most striking unresolved paradox of human evolution.” Because he believes “the number of healthy offspring one leaves is perhaps the best indicator of evolutionary success” (p. 116), Bailey frames his book within this essentialist discourse, where homosexuality is “maladaptive” (p. 116) in terms of evolution. Most people see “race science” as hopelessly biased pseudoscience, but most don’t see similarities between “sex science” and “race science” yet. In fact, many LGBT people have faith that their political salvation lies in “sex science” (Ordover 2003). Being labeled distinct, disordered, and diseased may rescue them from the “sin” and “lifestyle choice” arguments, but at what cost?
This controversy boils down to reproduction, specifically natural selection. Essentially (in every sense of that word), the controversy is about the eugenic ideology of the “unfit.” “Gender identity disorder” and “disorders of sex development” are eugenic heterosexism. Bailey thinks homosexuality may represent a “developmental error” (Bailey 1999). Blanchard thinks “nonhomosexual” transsexualism is a paraphilic “defect in a man’s sexual learning” (Blanchard 1991), echoing his mentor Kurt Freund’s “courtship disorders” (Freund 1983). The order to which eugenicists ascribe asserts that the purpose or function of life is to make more life, or more specifically, “better” life.
Conservatives hate the populist phrase “it takes a village to raise a child.” It takes a family to raise a child, they counter. Zucker blames childhood gender identity disorder on poor family dynamics and “maternal psychopathology” (Zucker 2002). Bailey, Lawrence, and Dreger obliquely assert their worth or fitness is evidenced by being breeding organisms. Bailey talks about screening for and aborting gay fetuses as a “parental right” (Greenberg 2001), hinting that the next wave of eugenics will occur in utero. The “parental rights” movement can be better thought of as distributed eugenics. One way to stop distributed eugenics is through populism, by helping regular people understand that individual choices affect the whole population and vice versa.
Conclusion
Bailey’s book is a self-aggrandizing exercise in identity politics, where he’s a heroic scientist who is “curing” gender-variant children and speaking “scientific truth” despite “hysterical” activists whose “identity politics” and “narcissistic” rage drive their efforts to “ruin” him (Bailey 2003c). Bailey outlines transsexuals’ “common lies and deceptiveness” (p. 232) and explains away those who take issue with his claims as inept (p. 176), mentally disordered (Dreier 2003), or lying (Krasny 2007).
But that’s not the real story. Essentially, Bailey’s book argues that he is a “single heterosexual man” (p. 141). He throws around the phrase “gay, straight, or lying” (p. 96, p. 133) because he hates sexologist John Money’s book Gay, Straight, and In-Between (Money 1990). By replacing “in-between” with “lying,” Bailey erases his bisexual and trans critics and extols his “open and honest” supporters of the “male essence” narrative. (Wyndzen 2008). Yet Bailey isn’t open and honest about his own sexual interests: “Everything that I’m willing to say about my personal life, I’ve already said” (Krasny 2007). For more on this hypocrisy, see my essay “Gay, Straight, or Bailey” (James 2003c). Bailey is only attracted to “homosexual transsexuals” who are “naturally feminine” (p. 168): “If a gay man wants to attract straight men, he should imitate a woman” (p. 138). Blanchard appeals to Bailey because transfans like Bailey “are not gay but are more like ‘scrambled up heterosexual men’” (p. 187). Blanchard’s taxonomy (and thus Bailey’s book) also affirms Anne Lawrence’s self-identity as a “real” transsexual (Lawrence 1998) rather than a non-transsexual under other taxonomies (Lawrence 2001). Bailey, Blanchard, and Lawrence are locked a feedback loop of personal and professional validation with like-minded supporters.
In my opinion, Bailey’s fraud extends beyond marketing this “controversy” as science. Bailey’s “Ryan” family is too perfect, embodying every element needed for Bailey to refute opponents, all in one convenient family. “Danny Ryan” would be an adult now, so I imagine a disinterested party will soon independently determine if “Danny” exists.
Bailey’s “controversy” was countered by a populist response that exposed his indefensible actions. He unwittingly started an unstoppable populist movement which still amazes me daily. It evokes a passage from Maya Angelou (Angelou 1978) that I first read in Les Feinberg’s Transgender Warriors (Feinberg 1996):
You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Angelou, Maya (1978). Still I Rise. And Still I Rise. Random House.
Arendt, Hannah (1963). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Reprint 1992, Penguin Classics.
Armstrong, Jane (2004). The body within: The body without. The Globe and Mail, June 12.
Toronto psychologist Ray Blanchard, one of Canada’s leading — and most controversial — gender experts, argues the transgendered movement is rife with delusion. “This is not waving a magic wand and a man becomes a woman and vice versa,” he says. “It’s something that has to be taken very seriously. A man without a penis has certain disadvantages in this world, and this is in reality what you’re creating.”
Bagemihl, Bruce (1997). Surrogate phonology and transsexual faggotry: A linguistic analogy for uncoupling sexual orientation from gender identity. In Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender, and Sexuality. Anna Livia, Kira Hall (eds.) pp. 380 ff. Oxford University Press.
A particularly revealing example of the heterosexist and generally biased reasoning of medical professionals can be found in the language used to categorize and pathologize transsexuality. Clinical studies and definitions have traditionally employed a confusing terminology in which, for example, a female-to-male transsexual who is attracted to women is labeled a “homosexual transsexual,” while a female-to-male transsexual who is attracted to men is labeled a “heterosexual transsexual.” In other words, the point of reference for “heterosexual” or “homosexual” orientation in this nomenclature is solely the individual’s genetic sex prior to reassignment (see for example, Blanchard et al. 1987, Coleman and Bockting, 1988, Blanchard, 1989). These labels thereby ignore the individual’s personal sense of gender identity taking precedence over biological sex, rather than the other way around. With this clinical terminology, people can be conveniently described as “escaping” a stigmatized homosexual identity when they become involved with members of the opposite sex following reassignment (erroneously assumed to be “the norm”). The myth of the heterosexual imperative and the primacy of biology is thereby reasserted and rebuttressed, while the transgressive status of all transsexuals is trivialized.
Bailey, J. Michael (1999). Commentary: Homosexuality and mental illness, Archives of General Psychiatry, October, vol. 56, no. 10, 876-880.
Bailey, J. Michael (2000). Transsexualism: Women trapped in men’s bodies or men who would be women? http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.psych.nwu.edu/psych/people/faculty/bailey/transsexualism.html
Bailey, J. Michael (2003a). The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism. National Academies/Joseph Henry Press.
Bailey, J. Michael (2003b). Book controversy question & answer. http://www.psych.northwestern.edu/psych/people/faculty/bailey/controversy.htm
Bailey, J. Michael (2003c). Identity politics as a hindrance to scientific truth. Paper presented at International Academy of Sex Research conference, July 19.
Blanchard, Ray (1991). Clinical observations and systematic studies of autogynephilia. Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, 17(4), 235-251.
Brill, Stephanie and Rachel Pepper (2008). The Transgender Child. Cleis Press.
Conway, Lynn (2003). An investigation into the publication of J. Michael Bailey’s book on transsexualism by the National Academies. http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/LynnsReviewOfBaileysBook.html
Dean, Laura, et al. (2000). Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender health: Findings and concerns. Journal of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, 2000.
Dreger, Alice (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. 37:3, pp. 366-421.
Dreier, Sarah and Kevin Anderson (2003). Prof’s book challenges opinions of human sexuality. Daily Northwestern, April 21.
“A lot of people think there is something weird about (being an autogynepheliac) and it is a narcissistic blow,” Bailey said. “I am very sympathetic to transsexuals. I like these people, except for the people who hate me — they scare me. […] I am not rejecting the claims (of transsexuals) for no reason,” he said. “There is good scientific research that says you should believe me and not them.”
Evelyn, Just (1998). Mom, I need to be a girl. Walter Trook Publishing.
Feinberg, Leslie (1996). Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman. Beacon Press.
Freund, Kurt, et al. (1983). The courtship disorders. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 12:369-79.
Greenberg, Aaron, and J. Michael Bailey (2001). Parental selection of children’s sexual orientation. Archives of Sexual Behavior. Aug;30(4):423-37; discussion 439-41.
Heller, Jean (1972). “Syphilis Victims in the U.S. Study Went Untreated for 40 Years” (Associated Press), New York Times, July 26, 1972: 1, 8.
Herrnstein, Richard, and Charles Murray (1994). The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. Free Press.
Hill, Darryl B., et al. (2006). Gender Identity Disorders in Childhood and Adolescence: A Critical Inquiry. pp. 7-34. In Dan Karasic and Jack Drescher (Eds.) Sexual and Gender Diagnoses of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM): A Reevaluation. Haworth Press.
Zucker and Bradley believe that reparative treatments (encouraging the child to accept their natal sex and associated gender) can be therapeutic for several reasons. They believe that treatment can reduce social ostracism by helping gender non-conforming children mix more readily with same sex peers and prevent long-term psychopathological development (1.e., it is easier to change a child than a society intolerant of gender diversity). Reparative therapy is believed to reduce the chances of adult GID (i.e., transsexualism) which Zucker and Bradley characterize as undesirable. Thus, “nipping” gender disorder “in the bud” holds a promise of an easier life for the child in adulthood, something that resonates with some parents.
Intersex Society of North America (2006). Consortium on Disorders of Sex Development. http://www.dsdguidelines.org/
James, Andrea (2000). Internet article on transsexualism. Personal email to J. Michael Bailey, May 3.
James, Andrea (2003a). Categorically wrong? A Bailey-Blanchard-Lawrence clearinghouse. Transsexual Road Map. http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/bailey-blanchard-lawrence.html
James, Andrea (2003b). Need your number. Personal email to Anne Lawrence, April 18.
When criticized for a deliberately offensive satire including Bailey’s kids, I replied, “It’s how he’s treating my kids.”
James Andrea (2003c). Gay, straight, or Bailey: J. Michael Bailey’s very personal crusade against bisexuality. Transsexual Road Map. http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/bailey-bisexual.html
James, Andrea (2004). A defining moment in our history: Examining disease models of gender variance. Transsexual Road Map. Reprinted in Transgender Tapestry issue 110, 2006. http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/gender-identity.html
Krasny, Stuart (2007). “Transgender Theories.” Forum with host Michael Krasny, KQED 22 August. http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/alice-dreger/bailey-kqed.html
Bailey: “I… Not only does ‘Danny’ exist, but I am… I have several informants who keep me apprised of his development, and now he’s a happy, out gay man, as I predicted in the book. And I would say that both the critics in the studio there, either have not read my book, or they are lying about it.
Bailey: You know, I don’t see how this campaign of defamation requires me to open up my entire personal life to everybody, so—
Bailey: Everything that I’m willing to say about my personal life I’ve already said, and you should probably be asking Alice Dreger”
Lawrence, Anne (1998). “Men trapped in men’s bodies:” An introduction to the concept of autogynephilia. http://home.swipnet.se/~w-13968/autogynephilia.html
Among transsexuals, autogynephilia is not quite respectable as a topic for discussion. For one thing, many transsexuals have a passionate dislike for the Clarke Institute, and tend to dismiss out of hand any findings that have come from it. Therefore Blanchard’s ideas are not often talked about; and when they are raised, they tend to get shouted down. Shame is undoubtedly another deterrent. It is probably just too threatening for many transsexuals to admit that they have had autogynephilic fantasies, and especially to admit that autogynephilic sexual desire may have been one of their motivations for seeking sex reassignment surgery. People are understandably reluctant to admit to having a paraphilia — more popularly known as a perversion. Most transsexual women want to be seen as a “real women,” and it is widely understood that paraphilic arousal is almost exclusively confined to men. Transsexuals who admit to autogynephilic arousal may not be seen as “real women” — and may not even be seen as “real” transsexuals!
Lawrence, Anne, and Sember R (2001). Not to cure: A conversation about health, gender and sexuality. Journal of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, Volume 5, Number 1, March 2001, pp. 27-29(3).
“When I deliberately reach for a sexually exciting image, I often think back to myself as a gender dysphoric adolescent, and the most sexually exciting thing I can imagine is the possibility of transforming my body at that young age.”
[author’s comment: That doesn’t sound like Blanchard’s “misdirected heterosexuality,” it sounds like redirected pedophilia.]
LeVay, Simon, and Sharon Valente (2003). Human Sexuality. Sinauer Associates.
Lostracco, Marc (2008). But for today I am a boy. Torontoist, May 9. http://torontoist.com/2008/05/but_for_today_i_am_a_boy.php
Mautner, Stephen (2003). [Untitled open letter], June 24. http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/stephen-mautner.pdf
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.
Money, John (1990). Gay, Straight and In-Between: The Sexology of Erotic Orientation. Oxford University Press.
Ordover, Nancy (2003). American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of Nationalism. University of Minnesota Press.
Pickstone-Taylor, S.D. (2003). Children with gender nonconformity. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 42, 266.
Raymond, Janice (1979, reprint 1994). The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male. Teachers College, Columbia University, New York; Editions du Seuil, Paris.
Roughgarden, Joan (2003). Psychology lecture lacks sensitivity to sexual orientation. The Stanford Daily, April 25. http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2003/4/25/psychologyLectureLacksSensitivityToSexualOrientation
Bailey was introduced as “controversial,” someone whose work has important implications for law, medicine and social policy and as a successful teacher whose courses feature “Transsexuals stripping after class.” (First big laugh.) The initial photographs included a male-bodied child wearing her mother’s shoes, when the second round of laughter erupted. A female-bodied child was then shown in male clothes and quoted as saying she “wanted a penis,” again producing laughter. In another example, an older child in a clinical setting was given the choice of toys and chose a doll and a wig. She was quoted as saying, “I hate my hair,” greatly amusing the audience.
Roughgarden, Joan (2004). The Bailey affair: Psychology perverted. http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Reviews/Psychology%20Perverted%20%20by%20Joan%20Roughgarden.htm
Spiegel, Alix (2008). Two families grapple with sons’ gender preferences. All Things Considered, NPR, May 7. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90247842
Surkan, K (2007). Transsexuals Protest Academic Exploitation. In Lillian Faderman, Yolanda Retter, Horacio Roque Ramírez, eds. ”Great Events From History: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Events, 1848-2006.” pages 111-114. Salem Press
TransYouth Family Allies [TYFA] (2008). Education through understanding: A guide for supporting transyouth and their families.
Willems, Wim (1997) [Don Bloch translation]. In Search of the True Gypsy: From Enlightenment to Final Solution. Routledge. See chapter 5, Robert Ritter (1901-51): eugenist and criminological biologist, pp. 196 ff, and Annex 5 and 6 summarizing Ritter’s work in defining “gypsies” into two types.
Wilson, Robin (2003). ‘Dr. Sex.’ Chronicles of Higher Education. June 20, 2003. http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i41/41a00801.htm
Wyndzen, Madeline H. (2008). A social psychology of a history of a snippet in the psychology of transgenderism. Archives of Sexual Behavior. 37:3, pp. 498-502.
Zucker, Kenneth J. et al. (2002). Gender-dysphoric children and adolescents: A comparative analysis of demographic characteristics and behavioral problems. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Vol. 7, No. 3, 398-411.
Appendix 1: Cited passages from The Man Who Would Be Queen
v For Drew/Kate [author comment: Bailey renders his children’s names as if dedicating this to one (trans) person who uses both a male and a female name]
3 After Danny Ryan became a proficient walker, not much more than a year old, he ventured into his mom’s closet. He came out with a pair of strappy heels and struggled to put them on.
16 In the spring of 1996 Leslie Ryan came to my Northwestern University office to seek yet another opinion. Jennifer, Danny’s sitter, was a student in my human sexuality class and was working in my laboratory on studies of sexual orientation.
30 [Kenneth] Zucker thinks that an important goal of treatment is to help the children accept their birth sex and to avoid becoming transsexual. His experience has convinced him that if a boy with GID becomes an adolescent with GID, the chances that he will become an adult with GID and seek a sex change are much higher. And he thinks that the kind of therapy he practices helps reduce this risk.
31 The central difference between Zucker and his critics on the left is that Zucker believes that most boys who play with girls’ things often enough to earn a diagnosis of GID would become girls if they could. Failure to intervene increases the chances of transsexualism in adulthood, which Zucker considers a bad outcome.
52 I think of my own daughter and cannot imagine her deciding to be a boy, even if I lied to her and told her that she was born one.
69 My son was 10 years old when we began our dance study. One day I explained what we were studying, and I asked him why I might expect to find a high rate of gay male dancers. He immediately answered, “Because dancing is feminine, and gay men tend to be feminine.” I was pleased by his answer, which was also mine.
69 Another anecdote involving my son: 70 When he was 10 years old, we were sitting in a theater waiting for the movie to start. A man behind us was speaking, and my son leaned over and said, “Dad, there’s someone for you to study.” My son knows that I study sexual orientation, and this was his way of suggesting that the man sounded gay.
75 Although their data are less scientific, gay men share [Kurt] Freund’s skepticism. They have a saying: 76 “You’re either gay, straight, or lying.” In contrast, many women are bisexual; perhaps most are, at least in their sexual arousal patterns.
116 Heterosexuality is a paradigmatic evolutionary adaptation. The desire to have sex with members of the opposite sex helps people have sex that might result in offspring. The number of healthy offspring one leaves is perhaps the best indicator of evolutionary success. Homosexuality is evolutionarily maladaptive. I think this is an undeniable fact, although gay-positive people (and I am one) tend to cringe when they hear words like these. “Evolutionarily maladaptive” sounds like an insult, but it isn’t one.
133 Recall gay men’s skepticism about men who claim to be bisexual. (“You’re either gay, straight, or lying.”) My lab has been trying to find bisexual men by studying men’s erections to male versus female sexual stimuli.
138 If a gay man wants to attract straight men, he should imitate a woman. If he wants to attract gay men, he must stay a man.
141 I see Kim for the first time, on the stairs, dancing, posing. She is spectacular, exotic (I find out later that she is from Belize), and sexy. […] It is difficult to avoid viewing Kim from two perspectives: as a researcher but also as a single, heterosexual man.
168 Autogynephiles are not “women trapped in men’s bodies.” (Anne Lawrence, a physician and sex researcher who is herself a postoperative transsexual, has called them “men trapped in men’s bodies.”) Homosexual transsexuals, so naturally feminine from early on, can make this claim more accurately, but as we shall see, it is not completely true even of them.
176 [Ray] Blanchard’s ideas have not yet received the widespread attention they deserve, in large part because sex researchers are not as scholarly as they should be and so don’t read the current scientific journals.
187 Blanchard thinks that a significant number of men who want she-males are “partial autogynephiles”—they are primarily aroused to the image of themselves as she- male. Blanchard says that the men are not gay but are more like “scrambled up heterosexual men.” The transsexuals I know who worked as she-male prostitutes confirmed this. “There was nothing gay about those men,” said one, who knows plenty about gay men.
207 One problem with [Paul] McHugh’s analysis is that we simply have no idea how to make gender dysphoria go away. I suspect that both autogynephilic and homosexual gender dysphoria result from early and irreversible developmental processes in the brain. If so, learning more about the origins of transsexualism will not get us much closer to curing it.
214 Looking at Danny, it was difficult to imagine him wearing high heels and a dress. He looked good as a boy—if an unusually formally dressed one. When the family friend’s daughter showed up, she told him how handsome he looked, and he beamed. This was not a girl in boy’s clothing. As we congregated in the hallway, I watched Danny interact. Shy at first, he whispered quietly to his sister. Then someone asked him about Convocation. He cocked his head back dramatically, threw his forearm across his eyes and said, “I thought it was entirely too long. Must they read every single name?” His word choice was obviously unusual, for an eight-year-old boy, and his speech style was precise and somewhat prissy. This was not a typical boy, either. 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.
232 [from the Index] Transsexuals Common lies and deceptiveness of, 172-176
PDF version of this paper
Abigail Shrier is an American author and anti-transgender extremist. Shrier is a key historical figure in the oppression of trans and gender diverse youth.
Shrier is author of the 2020 book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters and testified against the Equality Act before Congress in 2021. Shrier has contributed to numerous anti-trans publications, including The Wall Street Journal and group blogs Quillette and The Free Press. Shrier was affiliated with PragerU and is a fellow of Manhattan Institute, an anti-trans think tank.
Background
Abigail Brett Krauser Shrier was born June 21, 1978 and grew up in College Park, Maryland. Shrier’s parents are Sherrie L. Krauser, a judge of the Circuit Court of Maryland, and Peter B. Krauser, a judge of the Maryland Court of Special Appeals and former chair of the Maryland Democratic Party.
Shrier attended Sheridan School and Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School. After earning a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University in 2000, Shrier earned a bachelor’s degree from Oxford in 2002. Shrier then earned a law degree from Yale University in 2005. After clerking for Judith W. Rogers and Chief Justice Aharon Barak of the Supreme Court of Israel, Shrier was admitted to the New York Bar in 2006 and the California Bar in 2007. Shrier was an associate attorney at Irell & Manella from 2006 to 2008 before becoming a full-time writer in 2009. Shrier’s California license became inactive in 2009.
Shrier is a registered Republican and married wealth manager Zachary Loren Shrier in 2007.
(March 26, 2019) The Transgender War on Women: The Equality Act sacrifices female safety in restrooms, locker rooms and even domestic-violence shelters.
(May 3, 2019) Standing Against Psychiatry’s Crazes: In 1979 Dr. Paul McHugh closed the sex-change clinic at Johns Hopkins. In the ’80s he testified against phony ‘recovered memories.’ He hasn’t given up the fight.
(November 15, 2020) Does the ACLU Want to Ban My Book? Target stopped selling it in response to two Twitter complaints. A professor even wants to burn it.
(May 14, 2021) To Be Young and Pessimistic in America: Generation Z is lonelier than millennials and more reluctant to embrace the responsibilities and joys of adulthood. Life online seems to be a reason.
(May 31, 2021) Male Inmates in Women’s Prisons: If Congress passes the Equality Act, California’s dangerous policy would go nationwide.
In January 2019, Shrier published a opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal promoting “rapid onset gender dysphoria.” Titled “When Your Daughter Defies Biology: The burden of mothers whose children suffer from ‘rapid onset gender dysphoria,” that article claims that increase in trans visibility is part of a “social contagion.” The piece received so much response that Shrier turned it into a book for conservative publisher Regnery. The op-ed was first promoted by Shrier’s PragerU colleague Candace Owens, followed by Ben Shapiro at the Daily Wire and Benjamin A. Boyce at Calmversations.
The book’s cover depicts a young girl with a void where her reproductive organs would be. One historian linked it to Nazi propaganda. The book was blurbed by other key anti-trans extremists, including:
Following the book’s release on June 30, 2020, Shrier appeared on BlazeTV with Steve Deace and on the podcast Walk-Ins Welcome with Bridget Phetasy. Amazon declined to run ads for the book on their site, which led to claims of censorship.
Shrier and the book got an enormous boost on July 16 after Shrier appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience. Philip Ellis noted in Men’s Health:
“Shrier invalidated the lived experience of trans and nonbinary kids and teens, and made numerous dangerous, entirely unsound false equivalencies. She compared transitioning among teenagers to historic adolescent phenomena such as eating disorders, self-harm, and (bafflingly) the occult, calling this age group ‘the same population that gets involved in cutting, demonic possession, witchcraft, anorexia, bulimia.’ She even described wanting to transition as a ‘contagion’ with the potential to infect other children with the same ideas, drawing yet more scientifically baseless parallels with eating disorders.”
Target briefly pulled the book in response to concerns, which led to more claims of censorship. Several book launches were canceled, leading to more claims of censorship. Several local libraries faced backlash after including it. After lawyer Chase Strangio posted support for banning the book, conservatives claimed this was the view of Strangio’s employer, the ACLU. Some translators refused to translate the book into other languages. In July 2021, the American Booksellers Association apologized after including the book in a monthly mailing.
The book is notable for how a network of anti-trans academics and media figures worked together to present Shrier as a free speech martyr being “candeled” by the “trans mob,” similar to how the 2003 anti-trans book The Man Who Woould Be Queen was promoted.
Quillette (2020–present)
Around the time Irreversible Damage was released, Shrier began posting self-promotional pieces on anti-trans group blog Quillette, including:
Shrier’s friend Bari Weiss hired Shrier to write for anti-trans group blog The Free Press in 2021. On October 5 of that year, Shrier published a piece featuring Erica Anderson and Marci Bowers where they “sound off on puberty blockers, ‘affirmative’ care, the inhibition of sexual pleasure, and the suppression of dissent in their field.” Many of Bowers’ peers were stunned by the report, and both WPATH and USPATH released a statement in the wake of negative community response.
Hsu, V. J. (2022). Irreducible Damage: The Affective Drift of Race, Gender, and Disability in Anti-Trans Rhetorics. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 52(1), 62–77. https://doi.org/10.1080/02773945.2021.1990381
Novella, Steven (June 30, 2021). The Science of Transgender Treatment.Science-Based Medicine https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-science-of-transgender-treatment/
Gil, Vincent E. (January 2023). Review: Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. On Knowing Humanity Journal 7(1), January 2023 https://doi.org/10.18251/okh.v7i1.182
Beattie, Tina (March 10, 2021). No Turning Back.The Tablet https://www.thetablet.co.uk/books/10/19579/no-turning-back-polemicist-abigail-shrier-on-transgenderism
Riley, Naomi Schaefer (June 16, 2020). The Trans Cult.Commentary https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/naomi-schaefer-riley/transgender-children-craze/
Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University (February 15, 2021). C-SPAN Book TV: Irreversible Damage. https://www.c-span.org/program/book-tv/irreversible-damage/589785
Gender identity and expression take on different meanings within different systems of thought. Because medical technologies are available to assist in the somatic expression of these identities, several medicalized disease models of the phenomena have developed. This article examines three disease models as typically applied to those who seek feminization:
The GID model is currently considered legitimate within psychological literature and is a required diagnosis to receive access to trans health services in many places. The author reviews several problems with mental illness models, including “childhood gender nonconformity” and “transvestic fetishism,” two other “mental disorders” currently considered legitimate diagnoses. The article makes several analogies, asking readers to consider whether “racial nonconformity” or “religious identity disorder” seem legitimate as well.
Pathology (“birth defect” model)
This third metaphor of impairment describes a physical disorder rather than a mental one. The “order” implied by positioning these traits and behaviors as diseases reinforces heteronormative hierarchies. These models use scientific-sounding terminology to reinforce the social belief that the “purpose” or “function” of sex and sexuality is procreation. This leads to an examination of historic problems with anatomical thresholds for determining sex. The author then draws parallels with other bioethical debates about technologies that disrupt the “natural” order of procreative sexuality. Interest in feminization is stigmatized in many cultures, and the article concludes with some suggestions for ways to consider it independently from models of sin or disease.
Author’s note: This personal viewpoint is not intended to be representative of any side or group participating in these discussions.
Download a printer-friendly version: A defining moment in our history (PDF)
Introduction Interest in feminization, historically revered or feared, has benefited from advances in science that expand possibilities for its physical expression. These advances led to scientific models of gender variance, which were positioned as objective alternatives to the judgmental “sin” models promoted by some religions. Unfortunately, some allegedly scientific models being used merely replace metaphors of sin with metaphors of disease and impairment, rather than using objective scientific language. The time has come to examine these judgmental models: the assumptions behind their definitions, how they masquerade as science, their roots in eugenics, their impact on our access to health services, and their political implications.
The most insidious disease model appears at first glance to be progressive, even liberal, but on closer examination, it views gender variant behavior in children and adults as a psychosexual pathology (a fancy way of saying it’s a sex-fueled mental illness). Though the idea has been around since the 19th century, new language for this “disorder” was proposed by Ray Blanchard (1989) and restated by Anne Lawrence (1997) and J. Michael Bailey (2003). Though the Bailey-Blanchard-Lawrence (BBL) model claims to be non-judgmental in a moral sense, it is undeniably judgmental in suggesting gender variance is a disease.
These old school sexologists still use terminology based on century-old ideas about gender-variant behavior as a sex-fueled disease. Their definitions tangle up several distinct threads about sex and sexuality in our community. Inflammatory language about transwomen like “man who would be queen,” 1 “man without a penis,” 2 or “men trapped in men’s bodies” 3 has led to responses in kind about BBL and their apologists, but thankfully, such polemics are now limited to shrill but secluded fringes of discussions about untangling the mess they’ve made.
Definitions and thresholds
Scientific language evolves with understanding, and scientific discussions require that words be used with scientific precision. In short, definitions matter. A definition simultaneously includes and excludes. It affects how people view our community, especially those who expose problems with existing definitions. BBL and their apologists mock the evolution of definitions and ideas as “politically correct,” 4, 5, 6, 7 a term used by guardians of convention that signals a lack of intellect and contempt for scientific progress. For instance, Lawrence’s opening salvo brags of being one of the “troublesome people who are inclined to doubt the conventional wisdom” about transgender eroticism, then just ten sentences later defends Blanchard’s use of the inaccurate and offensive term “homosexual transsexual” because it is “conventional usage in the psychiatric literature.” 8 [emphasis mine]
Specialized definitions for many words in this debate evolved within separate institutional realms. Though used differently, a term as defined in one field influences another field, especially as we see attempts to merge biology, psychology, law, and medicine into biopolitics. 9 Within the current medico-juridical system, clinical thresholds affect legal thresholds and vice versa.
Imprecise and idiosyncratic definitions plague this debate. The BBL model declares transsexual women are men with one of two sexual desires: “homosexual” (males aroused by males) and “autogynephilic” (males aroused by the thought or image of themselves as women). Both categories efface our identities as women, but “autogynephilia” is more problematic in many ways. One major problem is the tendency for some who embrace the term to look at the etymology and think it denotes an innocent and happy form of feminist self-esteem: “I love myself as a woman!” they’ll say. I do too, but that’s not what this word denotes. When I say, “‘Autogynephilia’ is defined by its creator as a type of paraphilia,” some say, “Well, that’s not how I use it.” That’s like saying someone is a pedophile because she loves children, or that someone is a zoophile because he loves his pets. Those terms are clinical and legal descriptors. Yes, “pedophile” literally means “love of children” in Greek, and “autogynephile” means “love of self as woman,” but both terms are inexorably linked to their clinical origins as psychosexual pathologies.
Calling oneself or others “autogynephilic” is participating in one’s own pathologization, and it legitimizes this fake disease when people claim they don’t have it. BBL are engaging in scientific McCarthyism, where they claim a hallmark of “autogynephilia” is that those afflicted will deny it. Any refutation becomes proof they are right, a no-win situation like asking “when did you stop beating your wife?”
When we say “autogynephilia” is a made-up disease, some mistakenly think we are claiming erotic interest in feminization is made-up, too. Obviously, this exists. Many women in our community have been very open and honest about their erotic interest, 10 yet still take issue with labeling it a disease. 11
Sex and sexuality
My response to “sexology” is similar to how a person of color might respond to “raceology.” I question anyone who seeks to draw bright lines between nuanced possibilities of sex and sexuality, especially when they claim their attempt is science instead of something arbitrary and subjective. Trying to map a scientific schema onto complex traits and behaviors is like turning an impressionist painting into a paint-by-numbers. Those who fear miscegenation of the sexes or sexualities are just like those racists who use “science” to reinforce socially constructed categories of ethnicity. As Anne Fausto-Sterling notes, “Labeling someone a man or a woman is a social decision. We may use scientific knowledge to help us make the decision, but only our beliefs about gender—not science—can define our sex. Furthermore, our beliefs about gender affect what kinds of knowledge scientists produce about sex in the first place.” 12
What kinds of knowledge about sex are BBL producing? They claim variously that homosexuality appears to be an evolutionary mistake 13 and a “developmental error” 14, and gender variance is a “defect in a man’s sexual learning,” 15 and a “sexual problem.” 16 It makes sense that a doctor would choose a disease metaphor and psychologists would use a mental disorder model to describe their observations and impressions. If we have a disorder, then what is the “order” to which they adhere? They imply the “purpose” and “function” of sex and sex organs is procreation. Why, it’s so obviously true that the belief shouldn’t even be examined, right? According to people who believe this overly simplified idea, males have evolved (or were designed) to be attracted to females, and vice versa. In their worldviews, anything that deviates from that is, well, deviant.
Well, to borrow a phrase, a few troublesome people are inclined to doubt this conventional wisdom. 17 Many of us question Lawrence’s claim that sexual desire is “that which moves us most.” 18 We point to our experiences and feel our identities are what drive us; Wyndzen shows psychology supports our recognition of how powerful a force “identity” can be. 19 We even question some passages of Darwin and the Bible (at the same time, no less!). BBL get very upset when highly respected evolutionary biologists like Roughgarden 20 or Gould 21 question their most deeply-held beliefs about sexual selection and human behavior.
Eugenics, genetics, degenerates, gender
The words “eugenics,” “genetics,” “degenerates,” and “gender” all derive from the same Greek root meaning “to produce or bring forth life.” Some sciences and some religions seek to explain our genesis and control our reproduction of subsequent generations. New reproductive technologies are ushering in a host of bioethical issues and raising the specter of a new wave of eugenics, where the genocide (another related word) will happen before or shortly after conception, after genetic material is screened for “undesirable” traits. Should people with Down Syndrome or dwarfism be eliminated from the gene pool? How about intersexed people? If Bailey’s colleagues find the “gay gene,” 22 should we wipe out sexual minorities, too? What about gender minorities? Will we see a “transgenocide”? Who decides what’s a disease or a degeneracy?
As evidenced by BBL’s metaphors of disorder and disease, people can only express ideas in the language they have available. Their models of sex and sexuality originated with doctors and criminologists in the late 19th century eugenics movement, and BBL’s ideas haven’t evolved much from the influential works that shape their thinking. After Darwin’s Origin of the Species (1859) came Francis Galton’s Hereditary Genius (1869). Following ideas in that book, Galton coined the term “eugenics” in 1883, which melded with the emerging fields of criminology and sexology. Though the term “eugenics” is now rightfully associated with Nazism, a few modern adherents hope to usher in an “Age of Galton.” Bailey and Blanchard are charter members of a conservative-run eugenics discussion group devoted to this pursuit. 23
Three physicians who were Galton contemporaries are central to the BBL worldview: Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing, who wrote Psychopathia Sexualis (1886); Havelock Ellis, who wrote The Criminal (1889) and Sexual Inversion (1897); and Magnus Hirschfeld (coiner of both “transvestite” and “transsexual”), who in 1897 founded Germany’s Scientific Humanitarian Committee, whose motto was “justice through science.” Like BBL, these doctors genuinely believed that social ostracism of sexual minorities would be eliminated through science, but we all know what happened next in Germany. These doctors’ “scientific” models were imbued with eugenic paternalism (they believed homosexuals had a pathology and were unfit for procreation), and they claimed those who engaged in non-procreative sex were biologically different. By mid-century, Hirschfeld’s institute had been destroyed, and persecuted minorities had been rounded up and murdered based on “scientific” models that claimed groups like Jews, gays, and other persecuted minorities were “degenerate,” biologically distinct, and a threat to “social hygiene.”
Lest we think this is an isolated phenomenon that only happened in Nazi Germany, in America, disability and race took center stage in the eugenics movement, 24 which focused on sterilization and birth control for the “unfit.” 25 In Canada during the same period, the focus was immigrants, and the method of control was psychiatry. A physician named Charles Kirk Clarke oversaw the two largest Canadian asylums before accepting Canada’s top mental-health post. Clarke advocated eugenic policies to limit the immigration and marriage of the “defective.” He also used psychiatric diagnoses to incarcerate new citizens. Foreign-born patients were 50% of his institutionalized population, including political activists, homosexuals, and other “defectives.” 26
Clarke’s sociobiological leanings are still alive and well at the institution named after him, The Clarke Institute in Toronto, where Ray Blanchard works. 27 There, Kurt Freund and Blanchard used Freund’s controversial plethysmograph to delineate deviance. 28 Though the quack device is just a lie detector for the penis (open to manipulation and interpretation by both subject and observer), they used it extensively to separate homosexual from “non-homosexual,” and later to do sex experiments on “male gender dysphorics, paedophiles , and fetishists,” which they lumped together, yet divided into homosexual and “non-homosexual.” 29
In historic diagnoses for sex problems, homosexuality and masturbation were “diseases” that could strike either sex, but other problems were gendered degeneracy: women who had “too much” interest in straight sex had the now-discredited disease “nymphomania,” while men who had “too little” interest in it were inverts or perverts, a still legitimate disease category called “paraphilia.”
Dysphoria, disease, disorder, disability, defect
According to my medical records, I am mentally ill. The psychiatry industry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) alleges that I am afflicted with “gender identity disorder” (GID). Before that, I had “childhood gender nonconformity,” from their special “kids’ menu” of mental disorders. Others with an interest in feminization get diagnosed with the “disorder” of “transvestic fetishism.” 30 For many years, some in our community have relied on mental illness models as a form of validation. I ascribe to the view that “psychiatric diagnoses are stigmatizing labels, phrased to resemble medical diagnoses and applied to persons whose behavior annoys or offends others. ‘Mental illness’ is not something a person has, but is something [a person] does or is.” 31
I suppose I had a “dis-ease,” an uneasiness, a dysphoria about the sorts of social and sexual expression I was allowed in the gender roles assigned to me at birth. I did not conform until it became clear in 7th grade that the other option was ever-increasing ostracism and violence, but since when is non-conformity a disease? Imagine a mental illness diagnosis for “racial nonconformity” or “religious identity disorder.”
Disease models affect the kinds of knowledge produced by those who use them. Bem called sex researchers’ preoccupation with the causes of homosexuality “scientifically misconceived and politically suspect” because embedded in their preoccupation with causality is the idea that something went wrong that needs to be diagnosed and fixed. 32 The situation is no different when we look at how sex researchers study transgender persons. BBL are what Ordover calls “biological apologists” who look to the body for absolute truths. A major medicalization of homosexuality occurred in the 1990s, in response to AIDS (a disease which led to renewed interest in a “gay gene” and later a “gay germ” disease model of homosexuality). 33 While Bailey was drawing federal funds to isolate homosexuality the way others looked for HIV, nobody was looking for the “straight gene” or “straight germ.” Like a good eugenicist who believes biology is destiny and genetics dictate human behavior, Bailey started linking gender roles to genetic discussions: “childhood gender nonconformity does not appear to be an indicator of genetic loading for homosexuality.” 34 Is gender genetic?
Despite these problems, many in our community embrace a disease metaphor. Lawrence intones about “symptoms” of transsexualism, its “clinical course,” the benefits of “palliative treatment.” 35 Lawrence then magnanimously claims that “everyone has a right to self-define,” yet asserts that those who disagree with Lawrence’s diagnosis aren’t being very honest with themselves or others. A “palliative treatment” helps symptoms while leaving the disease uncured, and the uncured disease can be a personal and political identity. In her important series of scientific criticisms of Blanchard, Wyndzen cites studies on self-verification where people “assimilated their illnesses into their identities.” 36 Almost everyone who is attracted to the concept of “autogynephilia” identifies through metaphors of impairment. Many participants in the main “‘autogynephilia’ support” newsgroup are on public assistance, which seems related to their fears about removal of gender variance from the DSM. They fear subsidized medical services will be denied if there is no mental illness classification. But what do they think will happen if there is differential diagnosis that claims their subgroup does all this to indulge an autoerotic interest? Should insurance companies give out high heels as “palliative treatment” for shoe fetishists?
As Lawrence notes, “There are many human behaviors that look like the same thing, but really aren’t.” 37 Previous medical attempts to catalogue behavior like Lawrence’s were not only pathologizing, but insulting: People like Lawrence were “transvestitic applicants for sex reassignment” 38 who are “aging” 39 and “distressed,” 40 suffering from “pseudotranssexualism” 41 a “non-transsexual” variant of “gender identity disorder” (GIDAANT), 42 and “iatrogenic artifact.” 43 Many notable “borderline” cases are doctors: Renee Richards, Anne Lawrence, Gregory/Gloria Hemingway. They may epitomize these published observations. They all self-treated, vacillated, and “detransitioned” to varying degrees, and all three challenge existing diagnostic categories. 44 If interest in feminization is an iatrogenic artifact (a disease made up by doctors), wouldn’t doctors be the best evidence of that? Further, why would Dr. Marci Bowers transition without incident in the same hospital group that forced Anne Lawrence to resign? Do they really have the same “disease”? I have never heard Dr. Bowers have to assert she’s a “real” transsexual, as Dr. Lawrence has.
I do not defer to people just because they are clinicians. My work fighting quacks and consumer fraud has put me in touch with countless “experts” who have no business in science or medicine. Some “expert” will probably diagnose my questioning “experts” as “authority nonconformity” or some other made-up disease to undermine my credibility. After all, my questioning the legitimacy of “autogynephilia” is evidence I’m afflicted with it. To refute that kind of argument, we need to contextualize the term. “Paraphilia” and “autogynephilia”
The term “paraphilia” first appeared in 1923, in a book prepared for doctors and criminologists by physician Wilhelm Stekel. 45 Over eighty years later, BBL collaborator Simon LeVay still calls paraphilias “illnesses that need treatment.” 46 “Paraphilia” is the psychiatric term for problematic sexual desire or behavior. The current name for this alleged mental disorder first appeared in the DSM in 1980. 47 It describes “paraphilia” as “recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving (1) nonhuman objects (2) the suffering or humiliation of oneself or one’s partner, or (3) children or other non-consenting persons…. The behavior, sexual urges or fantasies cause clinically significant distress in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning” 48
Some people who identify with the diagnosis of “autogynephilia” chime in at this point and say, “Well, then I don’t have a paraphilia, because I don’t think I have a problem.” The most recent version of DSM was revised just for them—it says this illness can be diagnosed even if the person does not experience any subjective distress or impaired functioning. 49 LeVay notes: “This is quite a significant shift; it emphasizes that psychiatrists may go beyond responding to clients’ complaints and may use their expertise for other purposes, such as protecting society from sex crimes.” 50
“Autogynephilia” is not a behavioral model, it describes a sex-fueled mental illness that lumps gender variance in with sex crimes. BBL believe that paraphilias cluster, meaning that they believe that “autogynephiles” are more likely to be aroused by children, corpses, excrement and other illegal and socially unacceptable things. This diagnosis was widely ignored after Blanchard first suggested it in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease in 1989. 51 By the end of his series of papers, Blanchard was shoehorning other behaviors into his model with crackpot variants like “partial autogynephilia.” 52 However, Blanchard and his colleagues had enough influence in this rarely-studied subspecialty to get “autogynephilia” mentioned in the DSM. 53 The work would have remained an obscure intradisciplinary skirmish until Lawrence found Blanchard’s articles in 1997, during a time of great need. A year earlier, Lawrence’s erotic interest in ritualized genital modification led to indulging that interest. 54 Lawrence had taken “physician, heal thyself” to heart previously, and after yet another failed “cure” in the form of vaginoplasty, Lawrence’s fascination did not wane. In 1997, a lack of social acceptance at work (described in one account as “bizarre behavior”) 55 and an incident where Lawrence examined an unconscious patient for signs of ritualized genital modification ended a respected career. 56 Discovering Blanchard was clearly revelatory for Lawrence, who now had a diagnosis to explain what happened. Suddenly, this forgotten diagnosis had a vocal and influential champion. I dismantle the pseudoscience behind “autogynephilia” in a longer essay elsewhere. 57
A scientific or reasonable discussion of “autogynephilia” is like a scientific discussion of horoscopes: there’s no science to discuss, only pseudoscience. Yes, both concepts exist, but that does not mean either are legitimate science. Some people have a need to create an identity based on a worldview where people are predictable based on vague, unproven categories that arbitrarily assign traits to everyone, imposing order onto an unpredictable and incomprehensibly complex world.
“Transsexual” defined
BBL have proposed several definitions for “transsexual” that include people not previously considered within that definition. Their definitions view gender variance through the lens of disordered sexual desire. Bailey defines “transsexual” as anyone who has “the desire to become a member of the opposite sex.” 58 They do not have to act on this desire—“only serious thoughts” are enough to qualify. 59 This model reflects Bailey’s definitions of sexual orientation: someone is a homosexual whether they act on their desire or not. Lawrence believes transsexuality is “fundamentally about changing one’s anatomy, or sex; and that sometimes it may have little to do with gender identity, or with gender role.” 60 Some do this “not primarily because they have a gender problem, but because they have a sex problem, and indeed a sexual problem… the expression of a paraphilia” 61Blanchard says he’s reluctant to label children as “transsexual,” 62 which is reminiscent of the “pre-homosexual” language used by his homophobic counterparts in “gay cure” groups like NARTH. 63 Blanchard’s colleague Ken Zucker is a vocal advocate of reparative therapy for gender-variant children, and he considers transsexuality “a bad outcome.”64 In fact, Bailey has noted that unchecked, this disease could spread: a world tolerant of gender-variant children “might well come with the cost of more transsexual adults.” 65
Echoing Lawrence’s strict anatomical construction of “transsexual,” a quaint aphorism claims, “If you aren’t a transsexual before surgery, you are after.” Really? What about David Reimer or others surgically altered as children who do not identify as transsexual? 66 Conflicting definitions occur within any demographic grouping. Extremist separatists from both sides of any constructed binary often create unlikely alliances: for instance, “people of color” and “African-American” are terms debated by both ethnic separatists and conservatives. 67 In our community, pluralist concepts like “queer” or “transgender” are debated in circles where distinctions between gay men and transwomen, or between crossdressing and transsexualism, are very important.
Lawrence insists the few who embrace this diagnosis “do not declare ourselves sick.” 68 Not morally sick, anyway, but physically sick. Lawrence’s self-descriptions have remarkable parallels with descriptions of binge-and-purge cycles among crossdressers who hate their behavior, or those “afflicted” with “unwanted homosexuality”: “The loneliness and disconnection from others that typically accompany autogynephilia [sic] are a large part of what makes this condition feel like genuine paraphilia (i.e., a “disorder”) to many of us who experience it (and I’m including myself here) and not merely a “benign variant” form of human sexuality.” 69 Swap “autogynephilia” with the word “homosexuality,” and Lawrence’s comment would feel right at home in a NARTH publication. Lawrence’s “problem” is not self-love, but self-hate.
For those of us who view “gender” and “sex” as socially constructed, transsexualism can’t be separated from its social component. Phenotype can trump genotype; gender expression can trump anatomy. Those who need to use anatomy as evidence of their identity have failed in gaining acceptance within a social or institutional framework. Everyone has a right to self-identify, but if others don’t accept that proclaimed identity, we must either accept their lack of acceptance, or work to change their minds. People can legislate rights, but not acceptance. That has to be earned.
Audre Lorde said “Your silence will not protect you.” 70 I say your anatomy will not protect you, either. Legal and medical models based on anatomical benchmarks for “male” and “female” will inevitably conflict and fail. Sexists who wish to efface the identities of women like me can always find a physiological or behavioral reason to say I am “‘really’ a man,” and some of the worst offenders are “helping professionals” and people in our community. They echo the racists who came up with “scientific” schemes to determine who was “‘really’ black,” or heterosexists like BBL who create ways to determine who is “‘really’ gay.”
Gatekeeping versus services on demand
Much of my early activism was informed by sex-positive, pro-choice feminism. We passed out condoms and “Just Say Yes” sex-ed books at Chicago Public Schools, and we defended clinics from Operation Rescue. One of our major initiatives was family planning services (including abortion) that were “safe, free and on demand.” I have always seen parallels between family planning and transition-related medical services, both of which were once only available through back alley clinics and black market sources. Women in our community died from this, and still die from illegal and unregulated products and procedures because of our legal status. I believe controlling our bodies is a fundamental human right. If someone wishes to undergo a vasectomy, vaginal rejuvenation, abortion, facial tattoo, piercings, tongue splittings, facial feminization, breast implants, mastectomy etc., I believe these procedures should be available to anyone who is willing to sign a release. I find it quite telling that our surgical procedures and abortion both face similar challenges, since both involve altering one’s capacity to reproduce.
Psychiatric gatekeeping only works for those who are unwilling or unable to find easier and faster ways. Before the internet, most young people got what they needed through extralegal networks (many poor people still do), and anyone who had the means would skip gatekeeping altogether and jet off to an exotic locale, as it had been done for many years before the gender clinics began imposing controls. At the apex of the gender clinic system, only those willing to endure a process akin to criminals at a parole hearing took that route—people who would say whatever the gatekeeper wanted to hear in order to get what they desired. 71 Ironically, many who tried to get around gatekeeping during their own involvement now insist it remain in place. 72 Lawrence, who is fond of quoting Audre Lorde, 73 must have missed “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” 74 Gatekeeping also appeals to those who don’t get much validation except from gatekeepers. The acceptance letter becomes about the only acceptance they get. Not only is getting a vagina a status symbol and evidence of identity for this tiny group, but “beating the system” is a status symbol, too (which might also explain the correlation between online “‘autogynephilia’ support” and welfare support).
I should note that I had a great therapist who helped me immensely. I probably would have gone even without being required. Therapy and support should be encouraged, but voluntary, and without the stigma of disease, in the way that someone questioning their spiritual beliefs might find therapy helpful without needing their spiritual journey labeled as a “religious identity disorder.” With gatekeeping, we end up with people like BBL controlling access to services in exchange for money or sex. “Sexology” is an unregulated activity in most states, meaning anyone could set up shop as a sexologist or sex therapist. Bailey, Lawrence, and others have all used their “sexologist” credentials to gain easier access to sex partners. Some dismiss this as OK because they sign our little permission slips so we can get medical services. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t feel it’s ethical or scientific for gatekeepers and sex researchers to have sex with clients and research subjects. I also don’t want my tax dollars federally subsidizing the sex life of a self-hating [trans]-chaser like Bailey, so he can meet women like me and later claim we “have the brains of men but the genitals of women” 75 or are prone to criminal activity and sexual promiscuity.
Here’s my question: why not cut out these middlemen and simply request and receive services? If people go to their physician and say they are depressed or anxious, the doctor believes their self-report and suggests options. Why can’t it be that simple for us?
Replacing GID as the principal diagnostic means for obtaining medical service is considered a top health priority in our community. Citing a progressive San Francisco program, the National Coalition for LGBT Health states: “There is a great need for more such programs that avoid GID as a requirement for access… this [requirement] results in many transgender people avoiding the psychiatric diagnosis process altogether, and not accessing medically regulated Trans Health Services.” 76 The interest itself isn’t the problem, it’s the anxiety and depression caused by depriving its expression. 77 If in some cases hormones and surgery help relieve anxiety and depression, they should be available as an effective, time-tested option.
Roughgarden notes: “Their bogus categories and made-up diseases are intended to subordinate, not to describe.” 78 Until we get away from this childlike dependence and deference to so-called “experts” simply because they take our money or don’t kick us out of their offices, our accommodation in healthcare and law will not be fully realized.
Beyond BBL
People like BBL rarely admit they are wrong, because they are very concerned about their academic legacy (which mirrors their beliefs about offspring). They will spend the rest of their lives fighting tooth and nail to defend their words and actions, but in the end BBL will be regarded as an interesting curiosity from the waning years when our community was considered disordered and diseased because of our interest in feminization, in whatever form that interest might take. Luckily, we don’t have to convince them they are wrong; we just have to convince everyone else.
We need to embrace judgment-free models to describe these phenomena. I hereby suggest the phrase that leads off this article: interest in feminization (IF) and the subset erotic interest in feminization (EIF) as umbrella terms without the stigma of disease. It encompasses not only our community, but anyone regardless of motivation, affectional orientation, or gender assigned at birth. Change “F” to “M” in the acronym for the F to M folks. I can think of a laundry list of problems with this proposed terminology, but this article is part of an ongoing evolution of ideas. I’ll leave the definitive statements to those who fancy themselves “experts” who claim they know “the truth.” My thoughts here won’t be the end of old ways of thinking, but with luck, it will spark some new ones, where we describe ourselves and our identities without the stigma of sin and disease.
From the day in April 2003 when Professor Lynn Conway began an investigation into Bailey’s book, 79 it was clear that this was a defining moment for our community. We mobilized all around the world as never before. 80 We made sure this book did not become another Transsexual Empire. 81 BBL underestimated everything about us, from our numbers, 82 to our intelligence, 83 to our ever-strengthening network, to the direct contact we have with our youngest and most vulnerable, to our influential positions in every career and profession, to our ability to effect positive change. 84 This isn’t just evolution, it’s revolution. We’re replacing sin and disease with pride and strength, and this is only the beginning.
Los Angeles September 2004
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Drs. Madeline Wyndzen and Nancy Ordover for key insights and research that informed this article.
References and notes
Please note: Anne Lawrence is notorious for removing website materials as soon as comments in them become difficult to defend. While every effort has been made to keep up-to-date links, some materials may no longer be available online.
4. Lawrence AA (2000). Sexuality and transsexuality: A new introduction to autogynephilia [sic] http://www.annelawrence.com/autogynephilia.html
5. Pinnel R (2003). Gay, straight, or lying? Science has the answer. Joseph Henry Press sales materials for The Man Who Would Be Queen. http://www.jhpress.org/press_release/10530.pdf [archive]
6. Petersen M (2003). Resignation letter to HBIGDA, 4 November 2003. http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/maxine-petersen.html
16 Lawrence AA (1999). Lessons from autogynephiles [sic]: eroticism, motivation, and the Standards of Care. http://www.annelawrence.com/1999hbigda1.html
23 Bierich H, Moser B (2003). Queer science: An ‘elite’ cadre of scientists and journalists tries to turn back the clock on sex, gender and race. SPLC Intelligence Report, Winter 2003. http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?sid=96 Sailer founded the group on 3 March 1999; Bailey and Blanchard both joined on 4 March. Like early eugenicists, this group advocates what they believe is a “benign” form of eugenics called positive eugenics, where “good” traits are encouraged, but this inevitably leads to negative eugenics, where “bad” traits are eliminated. For a Who’s Who of the modern eugenics movement, see the full list at: http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/human-biodiversity.html
25 Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S., 200, 207 [1927]: Associate Justice Holmes: “It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes.” http://www.dnalc.org/resources/buckvbell.html (click “Court’s decision” and see page 3 for full text)
45 Stekel W (1923). Der Fetischismus dargestellt für Ärzte und Kriminalogen. Störungen des Trieb- und Affektlebens (die parapathischen Erkrankungen) 7. [Volume 7: The fetishes, prepared for doctors and criminologists. Disorders of the Instincts and the Emotions (the parapathic illnesses)] Berlin/Wien: Urban & Schwarzenberg, 1923. First English translation by S. Parker as Sexual Aberrations. 1930 Liveright Publishing, New York. 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
62 Federoff JP, Blanchard R (2000). The case for and against publicly funded transsexual surgery. Psychiatry Rounds, April 2000. http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/psychiatry_rounds.pdf
63 Byrd AD (2004). Book review: The Man Who Would Be Queen. via NARTH (National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) e.g. “Bailey’s focus on femininity among pre-homosexual boys and homosexual men…” http://www.narth.com/docs/queen.html
64 Bailey JM (2003). The Man Who Would Be Queen, p. 31. http://books.nap.edu/books/0309084180/html/31.html
65 Ibid. p. 33. http://books.nap.edu/books/0309084180/html/33.html
66 Colapinto J (2001). As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl. Perennial. As I discuss in my essay “Wannabes?”, transsexual women seek medical options to confirm their identities as women; others seek them to confirm their identities as transsexuals. Differential diagnosis appeals to some people who wish to be distinguished from or included with a group of people. Some people who seek bodily feminization base their evidence of inclusion on these procedures and use the disparaging term “just a crossdresser,” as if that is a less legitimate interest or identity. http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/wannabes.html
67 Swarns RL (2004). “African-American” becomes a term for debate. New York Times, 29 August 2004. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60614FA345A0C7A8EDDA10894DC404482
68 Lawrence AA (2000). Sexuality and transsexuality: A new introduction to autogynephilia [sic]. http://www.annelawrence.com/autogynephilia.html
69 Lawrence AA (2004). Posted as “autogynephile1,” 25 August 2004. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/autogynephiliasupport/message/3682
70 Lorde A (1984). The transformation of silence into language and action. Sister Outsider. The Crossing Press. p. 41. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0895941414/qid=1094418917/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/002-8778638-7938457?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
71 Bornstein K (1995). Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us. New York: Vintage Books. e.g.: “Transsexuality is the only condition in Western culture for which the therapy is to lie.” http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679757015/qid=1094418971/sr=ka-1/ref=pd_ka_1/002-8778638-7938457
72 Lawrence AA (1998). Absence of regrets after a “short real-life test.” http://www.annelawrence.com/shortrlt.html
73 Lawrence AA (1999). Autogynephilia [sic]: Frequently-asked questions. http://www.annelawrence.com/agfaqs.html
74 Lorde A (1984). The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. Sister Outsider. The Crossing Press. p. 110. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0895941414/qid=1094418917/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/002-8778638-7938457?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
75 Tremmel PV (2003). Study suggests difference between female and male sexuality. Northwestern University press release, 12 June 2003. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-06/nu-ssd061203.php
76 National Coalition for LGBT Health (2004). An overview of U.S. Trans Health Priorities. August 2004 update. http://www.lgbthealth.net/TransHealthPriorities.pdf (requires reader)
77 Vitale A (1997). Gender dysphoria: Treatment limits and options. http://www.avitale.com/treatmentoptions.htm
78 Roughgarden J (2004). The Bailey affair: Psychology perverted. http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Reviews/Psychology%20Perverted%20-%20by%20Joan%20Roughgarden.htm
79 Conway L (2003-2004). An investigation into the publication of J. Michael Bailey’s book on transsexualism by the National Academies. http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/LynnsReviewOfBaileysBook.html
80 Burns C and 1,460 signatories (2004). J. Michael Bailey book petition. http://www.petitiononline.com/bailey/petition.html
81 Allison R (1998). Janice Raymond and autogynephilia [sic]. http://www.drbecky.com/raymond.html Reviewing Raymond JG. The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male. Beacon Press, 1979. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0807021644/qid=1094430439/sr=8-4/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i4_xgl14/002-8778638-7938457?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
82 Conway L (2002). How frequently does transsexualism occur? http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/TSprevalence.html
83. Bailey JM (2003). The Man Who Would Be Queen, p. 179. http://books.nap.edu/books/0309084180/html/179.html
84 Letellier P (2004). Group rescinds honor for disputed book. PlanetOut.com Network, 16 March 2004. http://www.gay.com/news/article.html?2004/03/16/3
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Roberto C. Granato, Sr. (April 10, 1926 – October 26, 2014) was an Argentine-American urologist and surgeon.
Granato performed 300 bottom surgeries for trans people, including ophthalmologist and athlete Renée Richards.
References
Cowan, Zagria (2009). Roberto C. Granato, Sr. (1926 – 2014). A Gender Variance Who’s Who https://zagria.blogspot.com/2009/09/roberto-c-granato-sr-193-urologist.html
Gloria Steinem is an American author and activist. Steinem is a key historic figure in second-wave feminism.
After publishing anti-transgender writings in the 1970s, Steinem revised some of those views and now supports trans-inclusive feminism.
Background
Gloria Marie Steinem was born March 25, 1934 in Toledo to Leo Steinem, a Jewish traveling antiques dealer, and Ruth Nuneviller Steinem, a Presbyterian homemaker. Steinem’s parents split in 1944.
Ruth Steinem grew increasingly unstable, leading Steinem to move in with older sibling Susanne Steinem Patch in Washington DC. After graduating from high school there, Steinem earned a bachelor’s degree from Smith College in 1956.
In 1957, Steinem had an abortion in London while traveling to India. After two years in India, Steinem returned to the United States and began researching and writing, publishing work in Help! Show, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, and New York.
In 1972, Steinem co-founded Ms. magazine. In July 1974, the magazine published an excerpt from trans travel writer Jan Morris, which led to backlash.
Throughout the 1970s, Steinem played a central role in the women’s rights movement and became a favored author and source on the subject.
Anti-trans views and reconsideration
In February 1977, amid increasing anti-trans sentiment surrounding transgender athletes in general and Renée Richards in particular, Steinem published an anti-trans article titled “If the Shoe Doesn’t Fit, Change the Foot.” Steinem claimed “transsexuals are paying an extreme tribute to the power of sex roles. In order to set their real human personalities free, they surgically mutilate their own bodies…” Steinem also embraced the conspiracy theory of “the transsexual empire” promoted by Janice Raymond.
In 2013, Steinem addressed “words circulated out of time and context” from those previous writings:
So now I want to be unequivocal in my words: I believe that transgender people, including those who have transitioned, are living out real, authentic lives. Those lives should be celebrated, not questioned. Their health care decisions should be theirs and theirs alone to make. And what I wrote decades ago does not reflect what we know today as we move away from only the binary boxes of “masculine” or “feminine” and begin to live along the full human continuum of identity and expression.
In 2021, Steinem signed an open letter supporting trans women and girls, saying, “I am proud to sign this letter because we all must fight against the unnecessary barriers placed on trans women and girls by lawmakers and those who co-opt the feminist label in the name of division and hatred.”
Steinem, Gloria (October 2, 2013). Op-ed: On Working Together Over Time.The Advocate https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2013/10/02/op-ed-working-together-over-time
Steinem, Gloria (1983). Transsexualism. in Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions. pp. 224–226. Henry Holt & Co, ISBN 978-0030632365
Steinem, Gloria (February 1977). If the Shoe Doesn’t Fit, Change the Foot. Ms. p. 76ff.
Martina Navratilova is a Czech-American tennis player and anti-transgender activist.
Navratilova is a sex segregationist whose primary concern is maintaining segregationism that keeps women and girls in inferior roles in society. Of particular interest is maintaining women’s subordinate place via sex-segregated competitive sport, primarily by attacking transgender athletes.
Martina Šubertová was born October 18, 1956 in Prague, Czechoslovakia to an athletic family. Martina’s stepparent Miroslav Navrátil coached Martina in tennis. Martina took that surname and went pro in 1975. Navratilova dominated professional tennis for the next three decades and is considered one of the greatest players of all time.
Navratilova was coached for a time by trans athlete Renée Richards.
Anti-transgender activism
In 2019, Navratilova made a number of comments about trans athletes that led to LGBT organizations cutting ties, including Athlete Ally.
