J. Michael Bailey is Chair of the Department of Psychology and Professor at Chicago’s prestigious Northwestern University. A Ph.D. graduate of Louisiana’s Baylor University [sic – Bailey’s PhD was at University of Texas at Austin], he is trained in clinical psychology and known as a sexologist. The bulk of his research has concerned the behavioral and vocal mannerisms of gay men.
This year, Bailey made a play for the big time–if one considers the talk show and lecture circuit the big time–via a book published under the imprint of the prestigious National Academies of Science. The title is The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism.
This choice of title is unfortunate in any number of ways. First, despite Bailey’s claims otherwise, it is deliberately sensationalistic, misleading, and demeaning to the purported subject population. It seems designed to sell books rather than describe what Bailey’s book is about. There is, in fact, no man “who would be queen.” Second, most of the book is devoted to male homosexuality rather than transsexualism; why does the subtitle not reflect this? Third, and far worse, both the author and publisher have touted the book as being based on science and research. It is not science. Fortunately, most reviewers have recognized this. Finally, both the subtitle and NAS imprint imply that Bailey has widespread knowledge of transsexualism. This is not true; Bailey met his (few) transsexual subjects in Chicago’s gay and trans bar scene at two in the morning.
Moreover, according to at least five transsexual women who have filed complaints at Northwestern in regard to Bailey’s behavior, he misled them by not telling them that they were research subjects. Bailey is now under investigation by Northwestern’a most serious matter.
Bailey’s book is important because it has brought to the forefront two issues; gay femininity and autogynephilia. Gay men have been slow to react to the exaggerated and stereotypic pictures Bailey paints of them in his books and at his lectures, but transsexuals, outraged by Bailey’s blanket statements that he “knows” their intimate psychologies and his intimations that if transsexuals disagree with his assessments of them, they’re lying, have been quick on the uptake. Reactions have been critical and in some cases personal.
The real importance of Bailey’s book is not that it paints a sloppy and inaccurate picture of transsexuals (it does), but that it hoists the petard of autogynephilia, a theory that depicts transsexuals as sexual fetishists and denies the existence of gender dysphoria–and that he has done so with the tacit approval of the National Academies of Science.
Here are the highlights of the controversy to date.
MarchTMWWBQ is released, with claims by the author and publisher that it is based on science. A cover blurb by Dr. Anne Lawrence calls the book “… a wonderful book on an important subject.”
April University of Michigan Professor Emerita Lynn Conway fires the opening salvo to a group of trans friends via e-mail, expressing her “extreme concern about the publication of Bailey’s book by the National Academy Press–and her fears that the Academy imprimatur would mislead people into thinking the book was sound science, when in fact it was very one-sided and very defamatory of transsexual women.” Conway continues to document happenings on her website, updating it frequently.
25 April On Conway’s website, Stanford Professor of Biological Science Joan Roughgarden reviews a presentation by Bailey on 23 April at Stanford University; she describes Bailey as mocking and stereotyping gay men and transsexuals.
4 May Saralyn Chesnut, Ph.D., Director of the Office of GLBT Life at Emory University, describes a lecture by Bailey at Emory on 8 April. Chestnut writes, “I found him to be arrogant, unprofessional (he smelled of alcohol at 4:00 in the afternoon) and absolutely boastful about how ‘scandalous’ and ‘outrageous’ his book is, as if that were more important than academic rigor. I’ve never heard an academic proudly use words like that to describe his/her work.” (from Conway’s website).
5 May The National Academies of Science begin to get letters of complaint about TMWWBQ. The Academies eventually receives letters from, among others, Christine Burns of Press for Change, Joan Roughgarden, Karen Guerney of the Australian W-O-M-A-N Network, Dallas Denny, editor of Transgender Tapestry, Monica Casper, Executive Director of the Intersex Society of North America, and faculty members of leading universities.
9 MayAnjelica Kieltyka, “Cher” in Bailey’s book, sends e-mail pleas to Andrea James and Lynn Conway, explaining what had happened to her and seeking their help.
20 June “Dr. Sex,” an article on the TMWWBQ controversy, appears in The Chronicle of Higher Education; this is the first mention of the controversy in the mainstream press. “Mr. Bailey’s work on transsexuals, unlike his scientific research on gay men, is anecdotal and his book doesn’t cite any figures to back up his claims. In his defense, he says he ‘went every place I could think of that I’d find a decent chance of finding transsexuals’ to talk to and observe. That often meant gay bars near his home…”
23 June Conway sends an open letter to the administration of Northwestern University, alerting them to the NTAC press release.
23 June Andrea James, who has been tracking the Bailey brouhaha on her website, posts a blistering critique of Anne Lawrence, in which she describes Lawrence’s 1997 resignation from her position as an anesthesiologist after conducting an unauthorized and clearly unethical genital examination of an unconscious patient. This resulted in an investigation by the State of Washington Department of Health. James’ website includes images of the Adverse Action Report generated by the investigation.
23 June James also alleges that Lawrence made unwanted sexual overtures to her while photographing James’ genitalia.
3 July Kieltyka files a formal complaint with Northwestern University. Kieltyka had previously revealed that she was the subject called “Cher” in TMWWBQ. She states that she was misled by Bailey, who she had contacted years ago after seeing him on television, and who she says did not reveal to her or other transsexuals that he was doing research. By mid-July, four more subject-complainants have come forward.
17 July Articles in The Daily Northwestern and The Chronicle of Higher Education report that the university has begun investigatory proceedings in response to complaints about unauthorized use of human subjects.
17 July An article on Conway’s website, posted on 29 July, reports that Kieltyka, who attended the annual meeting of the International Academy of Sex Research at Indiana State University to call attention to Bailey’s behavior, reports that she was prevented from handing out information there and was asked to leave by the police.
19 July According to an account from an attendee of the conference, posted on 28 July on Conway’s website, Kinsey Institute Director John Bancroft rises from the audience at the Q&A session after a presentation by Bailey at the national meeting of the International Academy of Sex Research and tells Bailey, “Michael, I would caution you against calling this book ‘science’ because I have read it … and I can tell you it is NOT science.”
19 July Bailey “vacates his position” as IASR Secretary-Treasurer.
29 July Lynn Conway and Dierdre McCloskey file a formal complaint with Northwestern about Bailey’s research behavior.
31 July Bailey tells The Daily Northwestern that he told IASR in February about his decision to resign. The article also reports that Bancroft would not confirm that he made the statement reported on Conway’s website. The Daily Northwestern article reports that two more transwomen have filed complaints against Bailey, bringing the total to five.
20 Oct. HBIGDA President Walter J. Meyer III, M.D. and HBIGDA Executive Director Bean Robinson, Ph.D. respond on behalf of the HBIGDA Board of Directors to a letter sent on 14 June by Drs. Lynn Conway, Dierdre McCloskey, Ben Barres, Barbara Nash, and Joan Roughgarden, expressing their concerns about Bailey. HBIGDA declines to investigate Bailey on the grounds that he is not a member of the association, and calls for all parties in the controversy to exercise professionalism. Meyer and Robinson write that HBIGDA has plans to express its concerns about Bailey directly to Northwestern University.
4 Nov. The Clarke’s Ray Blanchard, who coined the term autogynephilia based on his empirical work in the late 1980s and early 1990s, writes Meyer & Robinson, resigning from HBIGDA on the grounds of HBIGDA’s “appalling decision… to intervene in Northwestern University’s investigation into the allegations… against Prof. J. Michael Bailey.”
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Background
Homosexuality may represent “a developmental error.”
Bailey JM (1999). Homosexuality and mental illness. Archives of General Psychiatry. 1999 Oct;56(10):883-4. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=10530627
“Prostitution is the single most common occupation that homosexual transsexuals in our study admitted to.”
Bailey JM (2003). The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism. Joseph Henry Press. p. 184 http://books.nap.edu/books/0309084180/html/184.html
“To focus on this question, we have to assume that whatever means parents will use to do this are, in themselves, morally acceptable. So, if you have any problem at all with abortion, assume that pregnant women can guarantee a heterosexual child by, say, taking a pill, or avoiding certain foods, or even by reading their children certain bedtime stories. What would make avoiding gay children wrong?”
Bailey JM (2003). The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism. Joseph Henry Press. p. 114 http://books.nap.edu/books/0309084180/html/114.html
Selected letters and comments from correspondentsI am very happy to announce that I’m getting inundated with email on this matter. All of it is very welcome, but I feel some of it is worth sharing with everyone. This page puts forth wisdom and insight from readers just like you, and my responses when applicable. Please note that I do not necessarily agree with all the comments below, but I felt they might be helpful or interesting for others who are working to deal with this issue. Excerpts from V__’s letter on “autogynephilia” and its flaws: But before I get too lengthy, I want to get to the heart of my purpose for this e-mail. And that is the concept of “Autogynephilia”. I’ve recently come to believe that this concept is the result of research that didn’t quite go far enough. A few months ago I attended a lecture about sexual addictions given by a prominent local Psychologist who specializes in addictions of all kinds. Additionally, in a brief follow-up, I attended a few group-therapy sessions of men with various sexual addictions. In this lecture he came to a point of describing his own sexual addiction throughout much of his adolescence and early adulthood – compulsive masturbation. In tying this anecdote to his patient-studies, he illustrated what to me was a very lucid observation and one which I feel could shed new light on the whole concept of Autogynephilia.
The observation is/was that, like many other addictions, sexual addictions can be born out of deep suppression and/or internal self-loathing, primarily as secondary to things such as trauma or over-controlling parents/spouses, for examples. The causes of suppression and self-loathing are, of course, virtually innumerable, so he didn’t go much into that except to describe his own awful upbringing and how, indirectly, compulsive masturbation became an escape? a way of self-medicating, if you will. Not that this was a conscious effort. Rather, he explains it as a subconscious process.
Without going into much more extensive detail, I feel that I cannot do this the justice it deserves, but I hope what I’ve described can offer you some idea of the conclusion I’d LIKE to draw – that perhaps erotic arousal associated with cross-dressing has much more to do with internal conflict and suppression than with some skewed sexual proclivity. I have to say that, as I sat in this lecture, the lights started coming on. Add to that the credible research found in more recent publications and I feel that the issue of autogynephilia is one which needs to be revisited and, hopefully revised. Excerpts from R__’s letter on Bailey, with my reply on “social canalization”: The transsexual portion of this book dwells on the path taken. Does this mean they started from different places? Maybe. But maybe it is based on the decisions we make at a young age. Those who decide to hide their differences at a young age to try and fit in and those who don’t. The crux of that decision can flavor the rest of someone’s life. Someone who doesn’t try to suppress it will have a rougher time socially, hence a rougher time in schoolwork and at home, and THAT causes the situation where they end up in the different job roles. One who suppresses and tries to fit in, may shut inside themselves a lot more. They apply themselves to schoolwork or some other safe activity. Being too social is opening the opportunity for the hidden information to slip out. To hide in a world of controllable logic (computers) is a natural reaction to a fear of socialization. Further attempts at suppression lead to military careers and/or marriage. Okay, its just a theory, but it covers the split.
My reply: This is an extremely important issue, and one I would love to hear more on. Here’s something I’ve been reading on the matter:
http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v2n2/dalli.html
According to Valsiner (Valsiner, 1985; Valsiner & Hill, 1989), children are socialized into culturally acceptable ways of acting in given situations through a process of social canalization. In Valsiner’s framework, children’s development of acting and of thinking is explained through the mutually related functioning of three zones. The first zone is called the “zone of freedom of movement” (ZFM) and refers to the structure of the environment that is functionally available to the developing child at a given time. The limits of this zone are negotiated with the caregivers and change as the child develops or moves into an area with a different physical structure. For example, the ZFM of a child may be the playpen or the front yard.
The second zone is the zone of promoted action (ZPA). This term refers to the set of objects and actions that the child’s social environment actively promotes to the child to use and perform. The ZPA may be observed in the parents’ and other people’s preference structure of the child’s different actions. This preference structure includes the actions and social expectancies that others promote as desirable for the child. As the child develops, he or she internalizes the social expectancies and gains knowledge about the acceptable and expected way of acting in a given situation. Once gained, this knowledge may be used in any way by the child. Valsiner and Hill (1989) give the example of an adolescent who in a social situation knows the rules of courtesy well but decides to not act appropriately and instead “cuts” another (p. 165). Valsiner (1985) calls the ZPA an important “selective canalizer of the child’s actions” but also says that the structure of the ZPA can undergo dynamic transformation because it is negotiated in adult-child interaction.
The third zone is the well-known Vygotskian zone of proximal development (ZPD) and refers to the subset of ZPA actions that could be actualized with the help of other people. According to Valsiner (1985), the difficulty with this zone is that often one cannot know which actions actually constitute the ZPD because the existing structure of the ZFM and ZPA may restrict the opportunities of testing the limits of the ZPD. For instance, if the act of holding a fork is not within the ZPA or ZFM of a 16-month-old, it may not be possible to see if the 16-month-old child is physically capable of holding the fork. Thus, the ZPD-ZPA relationship is seen to determine what can or cannot be performed next by the child.
Valsiner, Jaan. (1985). Parental organization of children’s cognitive development within the home environment. Psychologia, 28, 131-143. Valsiner, Jaan, & Hill, Paula E. (1989). Socialization of American toddlers for social courtesy. In Jaan Valsiner (Ed.), Child development in cultural context (pp. 163-179). Toronto: Hogrefe & Huber. An e-mail from a Jewish transgender woman concerning her reactions to Bailey’s lectures [ 4-30-03 ]: Frankly, the report of Bailey’s lecture disgusts me more than almost anything else I’ve read about him. As a Jew whose mother grew up in Nazi Germany, it reminds me of nothing more than one of those lectures by Nazi “experts” on “physiognomy” about how you tell someone’s a Jew — by their big hooked noses, naturally. Just like you tell gay people by how they talk. I’m sure such lectures were accompanied by similar gales of laughter.
I (and the wonderful woman who is my partner) had such strong personal reactions to the whole idea of trying to identify and single people out in that disgusting way, that I felt I had to say something. I still remember my mother’s story about how when she was a child in Germany, after Hitler came to power but before she was prohibited from attending school with non-Jewish children, a Nazi party official came to her school one day to lecture on the “Aryan” ideal — and, out of the whole class, actually selected my mother, who had light hair, green eyes, and “Aryan” features, as the perfect example of Aryan girlhood. As you can imagine, he wasn’t pleased when he found out she was Jewish. So, you can see, sometimes the “experts” are wrong. From www.greengourd.blogspot.com Is this what research about gay sexuality has come to? This is from a Chronicles of Higher Education piece on J. Michael Bailey, author of The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism:Gay men have more feminine traits than straight men, he writes, including their interests in fashion and show tunes and their choice of occupations, including florist, waiter, and hair stylist. If a man is feminine, says Mr. Bailey, it is a key sign that he is gay. And if a man is gay, Mr. Bailey says he can tell a lot about what that man’s childhood was like. He “played with dolls and loathed football” and “his best friends were girls,” he writes in the book.
Um, maybe the problem here is that Bailey refined his so-called theory “during his visits to gay bars near his home” in a gay neighborhood in Chicago. Would he have found men with different interests and experiences in a different neighborhood? At leather bars or biker bars? Mightn’t the gay men who “played football and loathed dolls” have been at a baseball game, or at home watching a Blackhawks game, or changing their transmission fluid? Maybe visiting bars at one time and place isn’t the best way to gather information about a phenomenon that has transcended particular times and places? From The Guardian Steven Pinker
J Michael Bailey’s The Man Who Would Be Queen (Joseph Henry) is an engaging book on the science of sexual orientation. Though highly sympathetic to gay and transsexual men, it has ignited a firestorm by claiming that transsexuals are not women trapped in men’s bodies but have either homosexual or autoerotic motives. http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,986174,00.html From K on 15 June 2003 I’m thinking that a point being missed in all of the discssion is that this isn’t just about transphobia.
Let’s say J. Michael is describing non-transsexual women. It might look like this:
“There are two types of women – the first are pretty, feminine love to please their man and are limited quite naturally to occupations such as hairdressers, entertainers and prostitutes.” One can imagine it not being far off for him to advise this group that to keep her man happy; she should meet him when he comes home from work everyday with a martini and wearing a neglegee’
“The other are “mannish looking”, work in fields like science, law enforcement and construction. They are attracted to other women and the defining point of their existence is this deviant compulsive sexual thought and behavior” Sound familiar?
Besides the horrible transphobia – the misogyny is appalling!!! Let’s remember this is a guy who states he doesn’t understand female sexuality at all. Not transwoman or non-transwoman – he certainly seems to feel a need to define and control it though; doesn’t he? Again – sounds familiar. Faculty members show off talents at DM fund-raiser “Hansen said DM[Dance Marathon] hopes to have more faculty performers at future talent shows. For example, if students raise $3,000, Fenrich and psychology Prof. Michael Bailey will dress in drag and sing a duet together during DM.” Daily Northwestern 3 March 2003 http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/03/03/3e636ad17fbdf
Letter from Sarah
I got the following letter in July 2003:
I don’t know if this is of interest to you, I wrote it at as an answer to a woman (with a TS history) who couldn’t understand our hate against B, B and L. If you find use of it, feel free to do so. The language has been slightly revised.
Kind regards
Hi T
Yes. There are a lot of hate in all this. If one hate, one expresses ones anguish and fears, but one do not necessarily communicate, that is trying to get the other person to understand. As many on this list I hate. But I will try to explain WHY to you (I am not trying to patronize you!):
Some of my ancestors lived in the ghetto. Outside Venice in Italy, In Prag and at the then German-Polish border. They didn’t want to live in the ghetto. They where forced to; by the Venetian merchant nobles, by the Habsburg monarch and the German Kaiser. The where forced to live there because they where considered as “untermenchen” (the term existed looong before Hitler). What my ancestors wanted was to leave the ghetto, live the life of “normal” people. When Hitler and his gang came to power they used the noble science of race biology to legitimize their ideology that Jews (and Gypsy’s) where “untermenchen”. They even turned the star of David to the sign of stigmatization of the Jews, to identify them as non-humans. And they reinforced the ghetto. Then came the final solution…
Many of us has felt since our infancy that we are women, but that we were born with an handicap that we had to correct. And we did. Now we only want to go on with our lives – be normal women. As my ancestors wanted to be normal people.
But no, there are people out there, who in the name of the noble science of psychology, want to give us a David’s star, to confine as in the pathologic ghetto of transgenderism. These people (it may the Protestant extreme right, the Catholic extreme right, the Islamic extreme right or the Orthodox Jewish extreme right) are happy to get science to legitimize their claims. And many scientists are profiteers of their need.
These scientists now tell us (and the world at large) that we are not women. We are perverted men. Either extremely feminine gay men, who like to live out our attraction to men, or fetishised heterosexual men, who want to live out our fantasy to inhabit a female body.
Some of these scientists just like us to accept (in a positive spirit) these desires and live with them. But that means that they want to force us to live in the transgender ghetto, as body-modified men. In the ghetto, because outside no-one accepts a body-modified man.
This seems to be the standpoint of Anne Lawrence (Some people have insulted Anne Lawrence by calling her Mr Lawrence. But in some respect this insult is logical because she cannot live out her fantasy of inhibiting a woman’s body, if she was forced to live the life of a woman. She can only live it out if she is recognized just for living out her fantasy. So she stays in the ghetto. By choice; an uncle Tom).
But others would like to treat us, give us therapy so that we could become “normal”. And it is perhaps not by hazard that electric chocks are gaining in popularity again among American psychiatrists.
Some, like Reker, even want to force a reverse srs on us.
Racial biology never recommended extermination of the “untermenchen”, they just studied the “objective” differences between them and real humans. The psychologists claim to do the same with us.
But then the “plan” (or rather plans) in the minds of their political patrons is bigger than us. Gays should get therapy also. And in the mind of some of them women are also “untermenchen”. The Talibans didn’t even give women passports or identity cards, as they where not considered as humans.
Farfetched? In the early 1930’s Germany was one of the most modern societies in the world. Hitler was VOTED to power in 1932.
Long ago? Not more than that when in school in the 1960’s I had a friend whose father woke up every night out of nightmares produced by the anguish that while in the resistance of the Warsaw ghetto he had killed German soldiers with piano wire.
It is evident from what I have written that I hate. I don’t necessarily expect you to share this hate, or even accept it. But I hope I have managed to communicate my motivations to hate.
“A Sex Difference in the Specificity of Sexual Arousal.” The study is forthcoming in the journal Psychological Science.
The study’s four authors include Bailey and three graduate students in Northwestern’s psychology department, Chivers, Gerulf Rieger and Elizabeth Latty.
To rule out the possibility that the differences between men’s and women’s genital sexual arousal patterns might be due to the different ways that genital arousal is measured in men and women, the Northwestern researchers identified a subset of subjects: postoperative transsexuals who began life as men but had surgery to construct artificial vaginas.
In a sense, those transsexuals have the brains of men but the genitals of women. Their psychological and genital arousal patterns matched those of men — those who like men were more aroused by male stimuli and those who like women were more aroused by the female stimuli — even though their genital arousal was measured in the same way women’s was.
“This shows that the sex difference that we found is real and almost certainly due to a sex difference in the brain,” said Bailey
Bailey’s systematic distortion of transsexualism
by Elizabeth
Editor’s note: Elizabeth has contributed several pieces for this section.
Andrea has stated, correctly, that a lot of the problems surrounding B-B-L involve their use of language. Bailey describes us in highly insulting terms throughout his book, Blanchard and the Clarke idiots insist on calling us men, Lawrence promoted that stupid “men trapped in men’s bodies” phrase that got so many people at each other’s throats, etc. Focusing solely on the insensitivity of the language and how insulting it is however has two unfortunate effects: it enables Bailey to claim we just can’t handle him being such a politically incorrect badass, and it overlooks the fact that their particular word choices can paint a very distorted picture of the facts simply by a slight alteration of the terminology.
Bailey’s KOOP-Fm interview is an excellent illustration of how supporters of Blanchard’s typology alter terminology to make extremely misleading statements without technically lying. When discussing the idea of “autogynephilic” transsexuals Bailey states:
Autogynephilic males will become sexually aroused in the lab if they listen to a narrative about cross-dressing whereas men without any history of erotic cross-dressing do not become aroused. Regardless, some of them insist that, you know, that it’s not about autogynephilia, it’s just they feel like women so they dress like women and any male who wore frilly lacy panties would become sexually aroused. I don’t think so.
Note that he didn’t actually use the word transsexuals. He just said “autogynephilic males.” This is a reference from page 173 of Bailey’s book, concerning heterosexual crossdressers, not transsexuals. However, since in Blanchard’s crazy little world transvestism and transsexuality are both subtypes of “autogynephilia,” Bailey can use “autogynephilic males” to make a true statement about crossdressers which, applied in this misleading context, will sound like a statement about transsexuals. He made an even more misleading statement in his next response in the interview, where he claimed:
I think that those types of transsexuals tend to dislike discussion of autogynephilia; many of them deny that it applies to them. However, Blanchard showed the ones who deny it also show evidence for it. So, for example, males who denied ever cross-dressing fetishistically, if you bring them to the lab and you measure their erections while they listen to a narrative saying, “Well, you’re getting ready…you’re putting on your panties…you’re putting on your stockings…” they get erections!
The “evidence” on “males who denied ever crossdressing fetishistically” is Blanchard’s 1986 paper “Phallometric detection of fetishistic arousal in heterosexual male cross-dressers.” Again, this is a study of crossdressers, not transsexuals, but since both are presumed “autogynephilic” Bailey can make statements about “autogynephilic males” and be presumed to be talking about transsexuals when he’s actually talking about crossdressers. This is a pretty standard tactic in pseudo-science: just redefine the terminology to make your thesis correct, e.g. Bailey redefines transsexual as anyone seriously considering a sex change, Blanchard redefined it as anyone who said they felt like a woman (even though crossdressers do both those things all the time). Bailey plays the same trick in his book, where chapter nine is supposed to tell us about “autogynephilic transsexuals” but then ends up discussing mostly heterosexual crossdressers and justifies lumping them together on the basis of research which itself confused the differences between the two groups. He plays the language trick again on the page on his website devoted to the book controversy, where under the heading about TSs who deny being autogynephilic he uses terms like “autogynephilic individuals” to hide the fact that he’s actually talking about crossdressers, not transsexuals. Even then, it’s a pretty tenuous leap.
He’s essentially arguing that:
1. Blanchard did a study showing that what he terms “non-homosexual” transsexuals at the Clarke showed a lot of social desirability bias, while what he terms “homosexual” transsexuals at the Clarke showed a little social desirability bias, and crossdressers at the Clarke showed none. (from Blanchard’s 1985 paper “Social desirability response set and systematic distortion in the self-report of adult male gender patients”)
2. Blanchard then did a study showing that heterosexual crossdressers who deny an erotic component to their crossdressing became aroused hearing crossdressing narratives.
3. Since the crossdressers lied about sexual arousal to crossdressing, “nonhomosexual” transsexuals probably lie about it too, because the ones at the Clarke showed social desirability bias.
Even if you take Blanchard’s interpretation of his data at face value, this is questionable at best. If you compared “non-homosexual” transsexuals to, say, people you suspect are pedophiles, both would probably deny molesting children, but that doesn’t mean both groups are lying. This argument falls completely flat when you consider that the transsexuals at the Clarke are desperately trying to convince the clinicians to let them access medical services while the crossdressers aren’t, and transsexuals the Clarke considers to be “homosexual” have a somewhat easier time doing so than those the Clarke considers to be “non-homosexual.” In other words, social desirability isn’t a personality feature of transsexuals per se, it’s just something brought on by the repressive treatment environment of the Clarke.
Of course, Maxine Petersen says we all lie, and Maxine Petersen is an “ace gender therapist.” (Is that statement supposed to make us laugh or cry?) Then again, Maxine Petersen is transsexual herself, so maybe she’s lying? Oh wait, that’s right, we only lie when we say anything the Clarke clinicians don’t want to hear.
Oh, there’s also something on Bailey’s webpage about how transsexuals probably lie about autogynephilia because of the way some people choose socks. Yeah, I didn’t get it either.
This page gives an overview of issues raised by J. Michael Bailey’s book on gender variance.
J. Michael Bailey is Chair of the Psychology Department at Northwestern University. In March 2003, he published a book called The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism. Many see this book as the most defamatory book written about gender variance since Janice Raymond wrote The Transsexual Empire in 1979.
Introduction to taxonomies and theory
• A Critique of the Autogynephilia Hypothesis (by Catherine Anderson, Ph.D.)
• A note on gender tests http://www.tsroadmap.com/mental/gendertests.html
• DSM-IV-TR on gender identity “disorder” by American Psychology Association /info/gender-identity-disorder.html
• LINK: The Empire Strikes Back: A posttranssexual manifesto (by Sandy Stone, Ph.D.) http://sandystone.com/empire-strikes-back
• LINK: Beyond gatekeeping: truth and trust in therapy with transsexuals (by Maureen Osborne, Ph.D.) http://www.antijen.org/psychol/osbo1.html
• LINK: Joan Roughgarden’s works
Dr. Roughgarden is a Stanford biologist whose new book Evolution’s Rainbow explores the “social selection” theory of gender variance and sexual orientation. She has just published two excellent articles highly critical of recent books by evolutionary psychologists Thornhill & Palmer and J. Michael Bailey.
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American-Canadian sexologist Ray Blanchard is a key figure in anti-transgender extremism. This biographical page supplements the overview of the harm his biased and unscientific ideas have caused.
Background
While working at Toronto’s notorious Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Blanchard accused me of spreading “misinformation” (Blanchard 2009), so let’s get all of Blanchard’s biographical details out on the table in order to make my point more clearly.
As I mentioned in the earlier article (James 2009), Blanchard is widely reviled by trans people. Blanchard once declared that a trans woman who has transitioned is merely “a man without a penis,” and said of trans men, “They get a kind of lump that in the best, most expensive, $100,000 cases, kind of, maybe, look like a penis from across a room.” (Armstrong 2004). Blanchard’s comments on trans people’s genitalia reflect a fixation on “phallometrics,” the measurement of penile length, width, and tumescence when subjects are exposed to erotic stimuli. The field of phallometrics was developed by Blanchard’s mentor Kurt Freund at CAMH to determine if army recruits were lying about being gay to avoid military service where gay men were banned from serving. Blanchard, who obviously gay, is considered an expert in determining the size and tumescence of male genitalia.
Blanchard and since-fired sexologist Kenneth Zucker weaseled their way onto the committee rewriting the section on sex and gender minorities in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V). Zucker is the world’s foremost proponent of reparative therapy to “cure” gender-variant youth. Blanchard seeks a broad expansion of the definition of “paraphilia” to expand this mental illness to include anyone attracted to someone who is not “phenotypically normal.”
Blanchard took umbrage at my publication of publicly available 2008 taxpayer-funded salary info and my comment that Blanchard and Zucker both left America for Canada during the Vietnam War.
Why is Blanchard so touchy about military matters, and what personally motivates Blanchard’s life’s work? What drives this key figure in the oppression of sex and gender minorities? Since Blanchard feels entitled to ascribe labels and motivations to others, let’s turn the tables. Why is Ray so reticent about revealing his own sexual interests and behavior, when his career involves “catching” people not being open and honest about their sexual interests and behavior?
Early years
Blanchard’s full name is Ray Milton Blanchard III.
Blanchard’s parent Angelina Celi was born in 1917. Blanchard’s other parent was Aviation Metalsmith Second Class (AM2c) Ray Milton Blanchard Jr.
Ray III was conceived in early 1945, and Ray Jr. was lost at sea on 19 March of that year in the Japanese attack on the USS Franklin (USS Franklin 2008). Ray III was born 9 October 1945, according to a bio Ray III paid to place in Marquis Who’s Who (Marquis 1984), a questionable vanity publication for narcissistic strivers (Carlson 1999).
Ray III identifies as Ray Jr.’s “first, only, and posthumous child” (Blanchard 2009). That’s quite a burden to bear. Here’s the scenario: young closeted kid with strong Catholic roots spends formative years alone with a widowed parent, who is understandably depressed about Ray Jr.’s being killed in action. Ray III’s namesake made the ultimate sacrifice, and Ray III gets Catholic indoctrination about carrying on the family name, hereditary line, and what-not. Ray III is taught by priests about sin and is expected to produce Ray Milton Blanchard IV after settling down with a nice Catholic girl. Only problem: Ray III thinks girls are icky.
Then the day comes when it’s no longer just Ray III and widowed parent. Enter a stepparent, a Navy veteran and a volunteer firefighter (Inquirer 1992). In a nice Catholic ceremony, Angelina (Celi) Blanchard marries Anthony F. Ruggero (1917-1992). They start their family in Hammonton, New Jersey, where Angelina and Anthony are residents. By the time Ray III in grade school, there are two stepbrothers, Jim and Bill, about a decade younger than Ray III. Quite a shift in family dynamics. Angelina Ruggero has a new surname, so Ray III is the only remaining Blanchard in the household, in memory of Ray Jr.
Academia and “fitness” for military service
Blanchard is a pretty brilliant person who puts great energy into living up to the high expectations for a sole surviving namesake. Knowing deep down that the Catholic ideal of marrying and procreating is never going to happen, Blanchard focuses on other forms of getting approval, like school. With the likely help of the Survivors’ and Dependents’ Educational Assistance Program, Blanchard goes to a great school, then on to grad school in Illinois in 1967.
Vietnam sidebar: Meanwhile, further south in Illinois, Blanchard’s future CAMH collaborator Kenneth Zucker is one of the key campus leaders in the Vietnam protest movement at Southern Illinois University, staging mock trials and declaring people war criminals in absentia (Lagow 1977). Zucker headed to Canada eventually just to be safe. Their future collaborator Richard Green had the same idea: “I left Los Angeles in 1964 to avoid the Vietnam War by going to NIMH [National Institutes of Mental Health]” (Green 2004). One interesting phenomenon with anti-Vietnam people: they were right once as young people in the 1960s, so they often think they are always right, even decades later. Green handed over the editorial control of Archives of Sexual Behavior to Zucker, to continue pushing their ideology about sex and gender minorities.
Hearing your whole life that your namesake you never knew got killed in war is pretty good incentive for self-preservation. As Blanchard asserts, avoiding the draft was a moot point, since Blanchard was classified 4-A, as the sole surviving offspring of a servicemember killed in action. As long as war was not officially declared, Blanchard was safe. Further, the draft was implemented for those ages 18 to 26, and Blanchard was at University of Illinois until 1973, the year he turned 28. That would have allowed for a student deferment even if war had been declared. As I said earlier, Ray moved to Canada in the midst of the Vietnam War (1973) and has remained, even after all the drama about the U.S. draft was resolved.
What Blanchard fails to address is the real misrepresentation here, the elephant in the room, and my original point: not the 4-A classification, but the 4-F classification. 4-F was the designation used to declare gay servicemembers “unfit” for military service (Dode 2004). In other words, 4-A was pretty much the best reason to be exempt; 4-F was pretty much the worst reason to be exempt. While Blanchard was never classified 4-F because of the superseding exemption, had Blanchard been drafted, there was a very real possibility of outright rejection at induction or dishonorable discharge for being gay, had he made it through the screening process. As of late 2009, the US military still has this as official policy. His father’s military service stands as the height of honor and the ultimate sacrifice, yet Ray might have been denied outright as “unfit,” or if he got in, he might have been discharged at the hands of military psychiatrists, the ultimate dishonor.
World War II sidebar: From when it was first implemented, the 4-F designation had become a badge of dishonor, using the eugenic terminology “unfit” for service. It included a broad range of physical and mental reasons. Even after the war, people labeled 4-F were subject to discrimination and were seen by many as less valuable than those who served. It created a significant rift and a social hierarchy that suggested all men were not created equal, a sentiment at the heart of eugenic ideology (Wake 2007).
The best way to understand Ray Blanchard as a human is to consider the mindset of gay priests. Good Catholics who thought girls were icky often saw the priesthood as the Catholic version of 4-A instead of the Catholic version of 4-F. Priesthood is the most honorable reason not to have a family. Being a sodomite was the most “unfit” reason.
Gay priests and gay psychologists serve the same purpose and hold the same position within an oppressive power dynamic. More on this in the following sections,
First published 2 November 2009. In this section:
Ray Blanchard motivations for oppressing sex and gender minorities https://web.archive.org/web/20130324133848/tsroadmap.com/info/ray-blanchard-motivations.html
Toronto: epicenter of pathologization of sex and gender minorities
Blanchard, Ray, Collins, Peter (1993). Men with sexual interest in transvestites, transsexuals, and she-males. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Volume 181 – Issue 9.
Blanchard, R., & Bogaert, A. F. (1996). Homosexuality in men and number of older brothers. American Journal of Psychiatry, 153, 27–31.
Blanchard, Ray @ ASSTAR (2009). “DSM-IV Paraphilias Options: General Diagnostic Issues, Pedohebephilic Disorder, and Transvestic Disorder,” Annual Meeting of the Society for Sex Therapy and Research, Alexandria VA, April 2009, http://individual.utoronto.ca/ray_blanchard/index_files/SSTAR.html
Blanchard, Ray (22 October 2009) [via Maxine Petersen]. Response to “$325,000+ in salaries for Zucker & Blanchard to pathologize trans people.” http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/zucker-blanchard-salary.html
Thank you for calling my attention to the misleading information posted on the Internet by Andrea James.
My 2008 salary included a one-time buyout for unused vacation time (I had about six months’ worth of it) and does not reflect my annual base income.
At the time of the Vietnam war, I had an unusual exemption. According to my draft card (which I still have) it was a 4-A. This exempted me from the draft, in peacetime, as the sole surviving male heir of a serviceman killed in a foreign war. The US Congress never declared war on Vietnam, so it was technically peace time for the purposes of this draft law (or policy, whatever it was). My father, Ray Milton Blanchard Jr, a sailor in the US Navy, was lost at sea on 19 March 1945, in the bombing of the aircraft carrier, the USS Franklin. My mother was a few months pregnant with me at the time. I was the first, only, and posthumous child of Ray Jr.
In brief, I did not come to Canada to escape the draft. I had no incentive to do so.
Regards, Ray
[editor’s note: this base salary is only one of Blanchard’s revenue streams.]
Carlson, Tucker (8 March 1999), “The Hall of Lame”, Forbes Magazine. http://www.forbes.com/forbes-life-magazine/1999/0308/063.html
As most of those listed in the book know, entries in Who’s Who are mostly self-reported and largely unchecked, making it the ideal place to tidy up an uneven educational or work history… Indeed, the first clue that Who’s Who is a vanity publication is the “Thoughts on My Life” feature that appears beneath some entries.
Diamond, Milton and H. Keith Sigmundson (1997). Sex reassignment at birth: Long-term review and clinical implications. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 1997;151(3):298-304.
Dode, Lee (2004). A History of Homosexuality. Trafford Publishing, ISBN 9781412015387, p. 87
The psychiatrists had several choices of phraseology if they considered homosexuality a personality disorder or the expression of another kind of personality disorder. They could term a person a “psychopath,” “schizophrenic,” “normally imbalanced,” “weak psychological origins,” “arrested aggressive,” “purposefully immoral,” “containing a neurosis” or maybe “another natural human trait” which psychiatrists knew would not be acceptable to military standards. All categories were considered by the military to classify the person as “4 F”, undesirable for military service. Habitual criminals were also considered “4 F”.
In WWII, there were 2400 Army doctors and 700 Navy doctors who served as psychiatrists, many inadequately trained with poorly trained back-up personnel. Their policy was to discharge, court-martial, or reassign suspected homosexuals.
Military intelligence officers interrogated suspected military men for the names of other gay military and places the homosexuals met. Many innocents were arrested and imprisoned. Congress passed the May Act in 1941 giving the military the power to arrest and close businesses, and it was used against gays and their meeting places. Imprisonment gave way to military discharges for “4 F”, unfit for military service.
Freund, K., J. Diamant, and V. Pinkava. 1958. “On the validity and reliability of the phalloplethysmographic (Php) diagnosis of some sexual deviations.” Rev Czech Med 4:145-51.
Freund, Kurt (1963). “A Laboratory Method For Diagnosing Predominance Of Homo- Or Hetero-Erotic Interest In Male.” Behav Res Ther 21:85-93.
Green, Richard (2004). In Memoriam: Judd Marmor, MD. Archives of Sexual Behavior, Volume 33, Number 4 / August, 2004, pp. 327-328.
“I left Los Angeles in 1964 to avoid the Vietnam War by going to NIMH.”
Hill D.B., Rozanski C., Carfagnini J., Willoughby B. (2006). Gender Identity Disorders in Childhood and Adolescence: A Critical Inquiry. pp. 7-34. In Karasic D, Drescher J (Eds.) Sexual And Gender Diagnoses of the Diagnostic And Statistical Manual (DSM): A Re-evaluation . Haworth Press ISBN 0789032147
Inquirer staff report (December 29, 1992). South Jersey Deaths: Anthony Ruggero. Philadelphia Inquirer
ANTHONY RUGGERO, 75, of Hammonton, died Sunday at home.
Mr. Ruggero was a former lieutenant with Hammonton Volunteer Fire Co. 1 and a lifelong resident of Hammonton. He was a World War II Navy veteran and a member of American Legion Post 186, Hammonton.
Survivors: his wife, Angelina; three sons, Ray Blanchard of Toronto, Jim of Haddonfield and Bill of Monmouth Junction; two grandchildren, and a sister, Marie Stretch of Ocean City.
Services: friends may call, 11 to 11:45 a.m. today, Marinella Funeral Home, 102 N. Third St., Hammonton; Mass, noon today, St. Martin de Porres Church, South Egg Harbor Road, Hammonton; entombment, Greenmount Cemetery, Hammonton.
Lagow, Larry Dwane (1977). A history of the Center for Vietnamese Studies at Southern Illinois University. Ph.D. dissertation; typescript in Hoover Institution Archives.
Ken Zucker, a member of the SIPC*, was reported in the student newspaper the Daily Egyptian as conducting mock trials. At least one person was found “guilty” of “all the war crimes he committed against the Vietnamese,” according to Zucker. Student body Vice President Rich Wallace later introduced Zucker at a Board meeting, where Zucker read a list of demands which called for immediate withdrawal from Vietnam first and foremost. On Wednesday, January 21, 1970, the Student Senate passed what was reported by the Dally Egyptian as a “hastily drawn” resolution supporting the SIPC.
*Southern Illinois Peace Committee, founded by Bill Moffett in 1967 as an anti-war splinter group of Students for a Democratic Society.
Lalumière, M.L.; Blanchard, R.; Zucker, K.L. (2000): “Sexual orientation and handedness in Men and Women: a meta-analysis.” Psychological Bulletin 126, 575-592.
Lawrence, Anne (1996). Taking Portlandia’s hand.
http://www.annelawrence. com/twr/portlandia.html [deleted by Lawrence]
Lawrence, Anne (2008). Shame and Narcissistic Rage in autogynephilic transsexualism. Archives of Sexual Behavior, Volume 37, Number 3 / June, 2008.
“Bancroft’s remark was followed by utter silence in the room, as though no one could believe that anyone would say something so tactless. It was as though Bancroft had stood up and loudly farted — people looked at each other in embarrassment for him. “
Lawrence, Anne (August 23, 2004). Bancroft’s “not science” comment.
According to another attention-craving eccentric who defends Blanchard, Lawrence is the source of false rumors that the author of this profile declared bankruptcy. I’ll have additional examples of Lawrence’s rage in an upcoming profile.
Marquis Who’s Who, Inc. (1984) Blanchard, Ray. Who’s Who in Frontier Science & Technology , p. 66. ISBN 083795701X
BLANCHARD, RAY MILTON, psychiatry institute research psychologist; b. Hammonton, N.J., Oct. 9, 1945; s. Ray Milton and Angelina (Celi) Ruggero. A.B., U. Pa., 1967; M.A., h4U. Ill.-Urbana, 1970; Ph.D., 1973. Cert. psychologist Ont. Bd. Examiners. Psychologist Ont. Correctional Inst., Brampton, Can., 1976-80; research psychologist Gender Identity Clinic, Clarke Inst. Psychiatry, Toronto, Ont., 1980–. Killam fellow Dalhousie U., Halifax, N.S., Can., 1973. Mem. Internat. Acad. Sex Research, A, Psychol. Assn., Can. Psychol. Assn. Subspecialty: Gender identity disorders. Current work: Taxonomy of gender identity disorders; psychosocial adjustment of transsexuals; phallometric assessment of sexual anomalies. Home: 32 Shaftesbury Ave Toronto ON Canada M4T 1A1 Office: Gender Identity Clinic Clarke Inst Psychiatry 250 College St Toronto ON Canada M5T 1R8
Newbery, Lillian (November 27, 1984). Trans-sexuals happier after operation, MD says. Toronto Star.
Sullivan, Nikki (2008). Dis-orienting Paraphilias? Disability, Desire, and the Question of (Bio)Ethics. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry Volume 5, Numbers 2-3 / June, 2008, 183-192. See also Moser, Charles (2008). A Different Perspective. Archives of Sexual Behavior, Volume 37, Number 3 / June, 2008, 472-475.
Wake, Naoko (2007). The Military, Psychiatry, and “Unfit” Soldiers, 1939–1942 Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 2007 62(4):461-494; doi:10.1093/jhmas/jrm002
Harry Stack Sullivan’s failure to protect homosexual men from medical and social stigmatization by screening them out of the armed forces.
Wise TN, Lucas J. (1981). Pseudotranssexualism: iatrogenic gender dysphoria. J Homosex. 1981 Spring;6(3):61-6. See also Prince, Virginia (1978). Transsexuals and pseudotranssexuals. Archives of Sexual Behavior, Volume 7, Number 4 / July, 1978, 263-272.
USS Franklin (CV-13) (21 February 2008). Ship’s Company Killed In Action.
http://www.ussfranklin.org/kia/sc.html Ray M. BLANCHARD, Jr. AM2C 19 March 1945
Previous: Toronto: epicenter of pathologization of sex and gender minorities
All of Ray Blanchard’s work is about to be eclipsed by what will be Blanchard’s most enduring legacy: the broad expansion of “paraphilia” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) to further oppress sex and gender minorities as mentally disordered. Blanchard plans to expand it to include attraction to anyone who is not “phenotypically normal” (ASTAR 2009). Blanchard now wants to expand this disorder to include attraction to people who are too fat, too skinny, too old, too young, too tall, too short, too disabled, or any other characteristic that makes people not “normal.”
His taxonomy of trans women has already reduced all our relationships to paraphilia. People who love trans women have a paraphilia he calls “gynandromorphophilia” (Blanchard 1993), and trans women who get in relationships are merely using their partner as a paraphilic prop in a narcissistic fantasy (Sullivan 2008). This echoes outdated assertions that gay people can’t have a “normal” relationship.
It’s amazing to me that someone whose sexuality was depathologized by psychiatry the very year he got his Ph.D. would be so hell-bent on imposing that very oppression on others. Yet here we are. The biggest step backwards in the history of sexology is about to happen, thanks to Ray Blanchard. He probably won’t live to see what a problematic figure he will become within his own field, becoming like John Money: someone where it’s hard to separate the good from the bad. The DSM-V will be Blanchard’s “John/Joan” case (Diamond 1997): the cringe-inducing career misstep that will define his life and career to the lay public.
What’s most interesting is how these “experts” feel entitled to define and label others, then get their panties in a bunch when labels and motivations are ascribed to their own actions. It’s as if they use “science” and self-mythologizing to assert a “truth” about themselves and their unassailable objectivity. I’m sure Ray thinks that being openly gay would bring his own objectivity into question. Good science stands up to that scrutiny, though. With good science, someone’s professional or personal information is irrelevant. The only place the identity of the scientist comes into play is with subjective stuff like plethysmography or proposed taxonomies and terminology. When a subjective claim about an object of study is made, it is scientifically imperative to examine the subjectivity of the person making the claim. Hence this analysis.
Perhaps Ray Blanchard’s peers will see what a remarkable psychological case study he is. Better yet, perhaps some day Ray Blanchard will be a little more open and honest about himself. All this might help explain why he believes other people can’t be trusted to be open and honest about their sexualities.
Good scientists make full disclosures so peers are aware of potential bias and conflicts of interest in their work. Perhaps Ray Blanchard will finally start making full disclosures. It would be far better if he let everyone know that his entire career has been undertaken for the most personal reasons imaginable. But as we’ve seen in his case, Ray Blanchard is more interested in applying labels to others than acknowledging labels that apply to him. It is his blind spot and his hubris; the flaw that sends him stumbling away from sound science and down the unlit paths of pathology and oppression.
Toronto: epicenter of pathologization of sex and gender minorities
Previous: Ray Blanchard motivations for oppressing sex and gender minorities
Ray Blanchard’s mentor Kurt Freund (1914-1996) was also an expert in psychiatric screening of military recruits based on sexual orientation (Freund 1963). Freund ended up significantly shaping public policy and public perception of sex and gender minorities in the second half of the 20th century. Freund is the developer of the penile plethysmograph (Freund 1958). He was commissioned by the government to use it in the psychiatric screening of military draftees in his home country (now called the Czech Republic). People there were attempting to avoid conscription by claiming to be gay. Freund’s device was developed to see if gay erotica turned them on, simplistically assuming that erection = gay, non-erection = nongay.
Kurt Freund sidebar: Freund continued this work after he fled to Toronto in 1968, while Blanchard was in graduate school. Blanchard met him in Canada while working with sex offenders, and he would later become Freund’s protégé at what is now the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). Freund, who was almost exactly the same age as Blanchard’s father, obviously became a father figure for Blanchard, right up until Freund’s suicide (AP 1996).
Though the plethysmograph is considered as scientifically questionable as the polygraph (lie detector) and is not admissible in most trials as evidence, that didn’t stop Freund and his protégés from promoting its use for a range of applications, usually centering around catching people “lying” about their sexual interests. The device is attached to the genitals and a change in blood flow is measured while subjects are exposed to visual and/or audio stimuli (James 2007).Like Freund, Blanchard has done direct work with sex offenders, a population that most people consider the absolute worst of the “unfit.” Blanchard has certainly seen and heard things first-hand that would give anyone nightmares. Sexual assaults on children by stepfathers and other family members. Catholic priest sex crimes, committed by the types of authority figures Ray probably looked to as father figures in his own early life, men who disproportionately targeted gay boys.
Blanchard is the only smart guy currently working on sex and gender at CAMH. The rest of them range from utterly mediocre to downright inept. It’s got to upset Blanchard that someone less intelligent but more political like Ken Zucker makes a better base salary despite being younger. Zucker has been a politician since his days as a Vietnam War protestor, so Blanchard will always take the back seat in the leadership department. Blanchard does share two things with his less talented colleagues: rigidity and unmitigated arrogance. As with most pathological science, they have insulated and isolated themselves from mainstream science through academic logrolling and nepotism, creating little organizations and journals where they can make sure their worldview prevails unchallenged.Blanchard’s bid for immortality
It’s the end of the genetic line for Ray, a bitter pill to swallow for a sociobiologist. They often have this quaint heterosexist notion that “evolutionary fitness” is based on one’s number of offspring. So what’s Ray’s bid for immortality? Barring sperm donation, it’s going to be discovering and coining things, an unfortunate obsession found in a certain kind of academic. This goes beyond the “significant contribution” scholars are supposed to make as they move through the lock-step management chain of academia. Blanchard’s ideas are his children.
I imagine a number of questions turn over in Ray’s mind a lot:
Why am I gay?
Was my birth father gay?
How can I connect myself to a man I never met?
Why do attention-craving eccentrics rally around me and my work?
Why are cross-dressing psychologists so enamored of my work?
What do Maxine Petersen, Steven Pinker, J. Michael Bailey, Anne Lawrence, and Seth Roberts all have in common (besides psychology)?
Ray’s bid for immortality has led to an enduring legacy. His work on male birth order and sexuality will probably stand up to further scientific scrutiny (Blanchard 1996). His work on handedness and sexuality seems to have promise as well (Lalumière 2000). This work makes even more sense when considered in context of his family dynamic.Blanchard and company will also be known for using CAMH to set up the world’s largest publicly-funded forced feminization sex dungeon and transgender reparative therapy clinic (Hill 2006). Applicants (supplicants, really) are carefully screened to include only the most indigent, low-functioning members of society, unable or unwilling to obtain services elsewhere. The regressive requirements at CAMH attract people who get off on humiliation, creating a convenience sample of the bottom 10%: the most eccentric and least successful segment of the transgender community (Newbery 1984).
Cross-dressing sidebar: Transgenderists like Anne Lawrence and Maxine Petersen serve as mini-Blanchards, reproducing the same desire for respect and control by seeking power over a community rather than for it. They are two key promoters of Blanchard and his work. Petersen is a rather dim person who seems genuinely baffled as to what the problem is; Lawrence, by far the smarter of the two, knows exactly what the problem is. Lawrence claims to be a community pariah because of the proselytizing for Blanchard. Both are in fact heroes in their own tiny community of what used to be called “pseudotranssexuals” (Wise 1981). They are, however, pariahs in the larger community. The conflict arises from their assertions that they are transsexual, citing Blanchard’s paraphilic model of gender variance as “proof” of their identities. The transsexual community has rejected both of them as respected authorities. In an apparently unintentional case of self-projection, Lawrence chalks up negative reaction to Blanchard’s ideology as “narcissistic rage” (Lawrence 2008). Petersen and Lawrence will continue to be Blanchard stooges because it’s the only place they get the attention and validation they seek. Lawrence has even written about being a “priestess” (Lawrence 1996), as if restrictive gatekeeping of trans health services is some sort of religious ritual controlled by nuns and priests.
Is there more to the story of how Ray’s life experiences shaped his ideology? You betcha. Can I tell you what else? Not just now.
While these issues have all made news over the years, they are about to take a back seat to the issue that will define Blanchard’s career: his planned expansion of paraphilia as a disease, as discussed in the next section.
Next: Ray Blanchard’s problematic place in history
Ray Blanchard motivations for oppressing sex and gender minorities
“Male gender dysphorics, paedophiles, and fetishists:” How Ray Blanchard sees us
The quotation in the title above is from a 1993 paper by sexologist Ray Blanchard. [1] Blanchard is affiliated with Toronto’s Clarke Institute, long known as “Jurassic Clarke” among transsexual women for its outdated and draconian rules imposed upon women in our community seeking health services. In Blanchard’s worldview, transsexual women are males whose condition is on a continuum with the other groups he studies.
Background: The Clarke Institute
The Clarke Institute is named after Charles Kirk Clarke (1857-1924). Clarke oversaw the two largest Canadian mental hospitals before accepting a government mental-health post. In addition to his desire “to keep this young country sane,” he sought to advance the psychiatric profession’s influence in making medical and political decisions.
Typical of “professionals” who are unable to see (or worse) unconcerned about larger systems which influence their realm of expertise or narrow interests, Clarke was an early proponent of eugenics, emphasizing the importance of restrictive laws that would limit the immigration and marriage of the“ defective.” [2] During his tenure, foreign-born patients made up more than 50 percent of the institutionalized population in Canada. [3]
As Katherine Wilson notes:
Psychiatric diagnosis on the basis of social, cultural or political affiliation evokes the darkest memories of medical abuse in American history. For example, women suffragettes who demanded the right to vote in the early 1900s were diagnosed and institutionalized with a label of “hysteria” (Mayor, 1974). Immigrants, Bolsheviks and labor organizers of the same era were labeled as socially deviant and mentally defective by prominent psychiatric eugenicists, such as Dr. Charles Kirk Clarke. [4]
Christened with his name, the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry opened for business in 1966. A young staff member recalls those early days:
My first impression of psychiatry in Toronto was that it was rather parochial in outlook and had a distinct British socio-biological emphasis and little interest and much scepticism about psychoanalysis. […] The Clarke, instead of being an ivory tower, seemed more like a cold cement fortress. [5]
Enter Ray Blanchard
Ray Blanchard came to “The Clarke” after studying sexual behavior in criminal men, pedophilia in particular. He began his work with Kurt Freund, who brought Blanchard into Clarke, and who himself is an expert in the area of “phallometric testing,” a “psychophysiological method for assessment of erotic preferences in males” — strap a “strain gauge” around a guy’s penis, show him pictures of whatever, and draw your own conclusions. Indeed, the Clarke Institute’s own literature states,
The Clarke Division Phallometric Laboratory was established by Kurt Freund, M.D., D.Sc., the first clinical sexologist to use penile plethysmography to assess erotic preferences in men. It is the oldest laboratory in North America for the phallometric assessment of sex offenders and paraphilics, and its instrumentation for the collection and processing of phallometric data is still the most sophisticated in North America, or indeed, in the world. [6]
The problem with penile plethysmographs (PPGs) is that they are like lie detectors (polygraphs): they measure a body response, but the data is open to interpretation. For this reason, they are often challenged as evidence in court, as with lie detectors. As the Skeptic’s Dictionary notes:
A man or woman may be aroused by the sight of animals copulating or be aroused by a film of a woman eating a banana and a man eating a fig in particularly provocative ways. Still, they may have no desire to engage in bestiality or have sex with a bowl of fruit. A heterosexual man or woman may be aroused by the sight of lesbians engaging in oral sex, but have no desire to have sex with lesbians or in the presence of lesbians.
Strong arousal need not imply strong desire for what causes the arousal; and weak arousal need not imply weak desire. Furthermore, no test can determine whether a person will act on his feelings and desires. [7]
This is the major controversy in Blanchard’s work: interpretation of data, and issues of his subjectivity, based on his assumption that transition is about erotic preference. While this may describe someone like Anne Lawrence, who considers her sex drive “that which moves us most,” many of us feel this is not an accurate or even correct description of our motivation for transition. Cause and effect may be difficult to distinguish.
Blanchard has headed both the department for sex offenders and the department for gender identity. In fact, patients have told me that in the past The Clarke was set up so sex offenders and transsexual women shared a hallway, offices, waiting room, and even staff, who would essentially just “change hats” whether they were seeing a transsexual woman or a sexual predator. Imagine the dynamic that created. It was under these conditions that Blanchard made many of his observations regarding people presenting with gender issues.
A reader writes:
Blanchard, like many researchers of his day (and sadly today as well) take their base assumptions from their formal training and experience. Homosexuality may be out of the DSM, but it was not that long ago that it was considered itself a psychopathology. The psychological community’s exposure to “things trans” was for many, many decades the paraphilia and festishism that spring from transvestism. Erotic preference is, I think, an important key to understanding all the “taxonomy” of Blanchard.
In his research approach (and many, many others’), their tacit assumption is the problem lies solely in the mind, be you a pedophile or paraphiliac or gender dysphoric (the “constructionist” approach versus “essentialist”). This naturally leads in the matter at hand to focusing on erotic preference as the “natural” dividing line.
Put yourself in Blanchard’s shoes (or Bailey’s for that matter). They genuinely and honestly do not believe the claims of people like ourselves that we are who we are. To them, we’re men, and it’s just that simple. They take that stance not even as a conscious effort — it’s just where they came from as psychologists. The fact they might use the pronouns we prefer is just a way of humoring the patient, but in no way implies or lends credulity in their minds to the legitimacy of their use.
Not only do they see us as men, but they also consider transsexual women to be liars, guilty of “systematic distortion.” Below is an abstract from a Blanchard paper (when Blanchard says “heterosexual” and uses male pronouns, he means transsexual women attracted to women):
The tendency for a heterosexual subject to describe himself in terms of moral excellence or admirable personal qualities was significantly correlated with scores in the ‘transsexual’ direction on all eight sexological measures; for the homosexual subjects, only one correlation was significant. [… It] is possible that the differences in the histories produced by transvestites and heterosexual transsexuals are exaggerated to an unknown degree by the motivation of the latter to obtain approval for this operation. The findings do not diminish the important distinction between these groups, but they do suggest caution in interpreting the self-report data that have been used in comparing them. [8]
We find ourselves in a no-win situation in changing their viewpoint. We are males to them, and when we try to explain why we feel this is not accurate, we are unreliable reporters who can’t be trusted.
Karen Gurney writes:
The problems I see, with the Blanchard position is that:
(a) it falls into the fundamental trap of trying to put overarching labels (either/or) on a group which is the epitome of diversity itself;
(b) it fails to recognise the physical intersexual nature of transsexualism – the incongruence between the phenotypical and neurological sexes;
(c) it seeks to attribute the psychological manifestations of neurological sex solely to “sexual desire” and does not reflect the John/Joan evidence which was so revealing of the shortcomings of psychological thought in regard to then accepted notions that gender is constructed;
(d) it is inherently disrespectful of the experiences of the majority of us who live with transsexualism, and especially those who pioneered the way by undergoing essentially primitive surgeries (as the transsexual men forgotten by Blanchard and Bailey still do) which did not produce wholly functional genitals, sacrificed all sexual sensation for the sake of harmonising “mind” and body, and were carried out in often ill-equipped clinics in faraway places (I have a friend who had her surgery in Casablanca in the early 1960’s);
(e) it is predicated on the notion that sex assignment at birth is immutable and hence is opposite the medical rationale applied to many thousands of intersex individuals each year that, where sex is atypical or ambiguous, a medical construction is a valid response, and the legal position that such a constructed sex is valid (I do not seek to justify the ethics of such assignments where they are carried out shortly after birth but point to the many XY females who are happy in their opposite gender role and are accepted as females for all purposes); and
(f) it fails to account for the experiences of a significant number of intersex individuals who do not fit into a theory which is based on the dichotomy of both sex and gender and whose gender, like their sex, is ambiguous.
In 1998, the Clarke merged with three other mental health and addiction facilities: the Queen Street Mental Health Centre, the Addiction Research Foundation, and the Donwood Institute. Collectively, they are now known as the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) [9]
Perhaps we should think of The Clarke the way they think of transsexual women. They can change their name and act like a mental health facility, but deep down they are still the same fossilized institution that pathologized homosexuality and continues to pathologize those who do not fit society’s standards for male and female.
From Blanchard to Bailey
From Blanchard’s work comes Bailey’ popularization of Blanchard’s observations and theories, where we become exotic or pathetic males driven by sexual urges to drastic ends. As Katherine Wilson notes:
Much psychiatric literature about transgender people is shockingly similar to that published about homosexuality before it was depathologized. It is based on a presumption that cross-gender identity/expression is by definition pathological, is focused on unsubstantiated theories of psychodynamic (mother-blame) cause and anecdotal case studies of institutionalized subjects, denies the existence of healthy productive TG people in society, and ignores anthropological evidence of accepted cross-cultural TG roles. These tired old myths were debunked for sexual orientation 25 years ago and have been recycled to target transgender individuals. [4] (emphasis mine)
As we continue to see more work into the field of biologic and genetic investigations of sex and sexuality, it is very important to do what we can to help those undertaking this work to understand the larger systems in place, outside their realms of expertise. To ignore the historical context and the important ethical and political issues involved in this type of research has shown to be disastrous throughout history.
These people may consider themselves above criticism, especially critical comments by those from whom they make their livings, but they do so at their own peril, and at the peril of society.
It’s impossible to separate ideological commitment from the highly specific historical contingencies bearing upon psychology and medicine in this time and place. This can certainly be demonstrated in Clarke’s work on eugenics, which diffused through society and later accreted around fascism and Nazism. Those of us outside psychiatry, and those of us directly affected by the profession, must raise these important issues and maintain a rigorous critical viewpoint. In that way, we can hope to avoid having what appear to be “facts” misinterpreted, by both researchers and the public.
Bailey’s interest in biological and genetic causes of sexuality and transsexualism does not occur in a vacuum, and he is not as “objective” as he’d like to think. As occasional Bailey co-author Richard Pillard notes:
No scientific knowledge is risk-free, and this must surely include genetic investigations of sexual orientation. One might take a sort of perverse comfort in knowing that homophobia, like racism (and all the xenophobias), exists regardless of whatever might be considered “the facts” of the moment. Research on human sexuality will, by its nature, evoke resistance and fear, to some extent legitimately. [10]
Draft version. Many thanks to those who contributed materials. Please contact me with comments.
References
1. Erotic target location errors in male gender dysphorics, paedophiles, and fetishists. Freund K, Blanchard R, Br J Psychiatry 1993 Apr;162:558-63
2. Keeping America Sane: Psychiatry and Eugenics in the United States and Canada, 1880-1940. Ian Robert Dowbiggin. Cornell University Press, 1997.
7. Social desirability response set and systematic distortion in the self-report of adult male gender patients. Blanchard R, Clemmensen LH, Steiner BW, Arch Sex Behav 1985 Dec;14(6):505-16
8. www.gicofcolo.org/gd/writings/faqpsy.html
9. http://www.camh.net/
10. “The Genetic Theory of Sexual Orientation” in the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review, Winter 1997, pp. 61-67.
My Experiences at the Clarke Institute
Editor’s note: Leslie has graciously honored my request for submissions from women who had dealings with the Clarke Institute in Toronto. Leslie’s story tells the sad tale of the Clarke’s faded glory. Now that they do not hold any purse strings, they have no power to speak of over local transgender populations. Leslie found them to be “a bunch of dirty old men, masquerading as clowns… stuck in the ‘ivory tower’ mentality of an old, fossilized institution which has grown arrogant and believes it is above questioning.”
“The Clarke” may have changed their name to Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), but they remain as out of touch as ever with the patients they purport to help.
Thanks to Leslie for sharing her important story with such thoughtfulness and detail!
My Experiences with the Clarke Institute’s Gender Identity Clinic
First let me say that I did not have a bad time during my 4 visits to “the Clarke”. On the first occasion they were helpful; the second, polite and mildly complimentary; the third depressing because it was the support group full of depressed people and the last, just plain irrelevant.
I have always been a woman, but was in denial until September 2000. Once I admitted that my condition was gender dysphoria I had to do something about it. Three friends had been to the Clarke Clinic and I knew of no other place where the condition was dealt with. After almost a year of trying out herbals, which did nothing, I had a check-up with my family doctor and broached the subject. He readily agreed to refer me to the Clarke. That was in August 2001 and the appointment came up in April 2002.
During the intervening months four things happened. A friend offered me a bottle of Premarin and I eagerly began taking it on October 9, 2001. From a Yahoo group I found out about a doctor in Toronto who would prescribe hormones. He in turn found me a caring psychiatrist. I was forced out of my home by my family. So when I went to the Clarke it had already passed the time when I needed them for anything.
The biggest crisis in my life came on Valentine’s Day 2002. I was forced out of my home by my adult son, with my spouse’s agreement. They were extremely unhappy that I was “crossdressing” – never in front of them and never to the extent of interfering with my family’s welfare. They refused to consider any information I gave them and wouldn’t talk about it. Being ejected without warning was a total shock to me, and I looked around for help and support. The Clarke’s information package said they could help in a crisis, so I e-mailed and got an appointment with their only TS employee one week after my ouster.
First Contact
I had female clothes, but since the issue with my family seemed to be the clothing I wore, albeit always outside of the house, I stayed in self imposed male clothing for the first month of my separation from my family. I went to the appointment, February 21, 2002, dressed as a man, but still on hormones and still knowing I was a woman. I was received courteously by Ms Maxine Petersen and given ample time to tell my story. Her reaction, and that of everyone else, was that it was plainly wrong for this to have been done to me. I explained that the combination of my spouse and adult son against me made continuing to live there impossible. I was not about to get into a fist fight, something I had never been good at.
I remember asking if it was possible to be a transsexual and live as a man all or most of the time for the rest of my life. She said she didn’t know… which was a wise answer. We discussed an appointment for my spouse, but she said it would be better for her to see the social workers. Maxine felt unable to deal with irate wives herself. She told me my spouse would be able to come to my April evaluation days as long as I signed a release. While I passed this information on, I found that she had no wish to be involved in either way.
I felt affirmed and relieved that my personal understanding of my enforced leaving home was a sound interpretation. Of course, nothing further could be done to help me get back home without at least minimal cooperation from my spouse. Sadly, that was not forthcoming.
Second Contact
By the time my official evaluation came up I had seen my psychiatrist a couple of times and found him professional, caring and very helpful. He had counseled about 65 Trans patients during his long career. By this time I had given up hope of ever being re-united with my family and had transitioned to full time living as a woman, on March 13, 2002.
April 15 and 16, 2002, were my days at the Clarke. I didn’t know what to expect, and was prepared to walk away if I didn’t like what I found. I was pleasantly surprised. They no longer put sensors on the genital organs and show dirty pictures to test for gender dysphoria. That would have been sufficient for me to walk out…
First, I saw Maxine and was greeted warmly. I felt a lot more confident than at my last visit, as I was reconciled to probably losing my marriage, though not by my choice. I gave her my two photos as requested, “crossdressed” (actually neither was that as they both showed me as a woman), my questionnaire and my biography. We chatted for almost an hour and she rather apologetically asked me what turned out to be the key question at the gender clinic: “What do you think about when you are masturbating?” I told her. I was rather amused that they considered masturbation habits to be relevant to the diagnosis of gender identity.
My next interview was with Dr. Choy. He was also friendly and apart from saying with a smile that I had jumped 2 or 3 steps ahead of where I should be it was a pleasant experience. He also asked about my masturbation fantasies and I told him the same story.
Finally I was seen my Dr. Dickey, chief psychiatrist of the gender clinic. He was accompanied by his nurse, an older woman. He was very relaxed and gave me his opinion that gender dysphoria was a condition from birth. He also asked about my masturbation fantasies and I gave him the same answer. That was the most significant question I was ever asked, but clearly shows confusion between gender and sex. Or, perhaps an attempt to prove the validity of the autogynephilia theory of Dr. Ray Blanchard.
He asked me what I did about facial hair removal and I said I shaved. He advised me to start my electrolysis now. It wasn’t bad advice, but I didn’t have the money and they of course pay for nothing. It amused me that he felt he had to tell me that women don’t have facial hair! I was offered a piece of paper that he proposed was a “pretend ticket” for sexual re-assignment surgery and asked if I would take it. Of course the answer was yes – a no-risk, no-brainer decision since they didn’t fund it any more anyway. I guess I passed the test.
He asked me for any comments on their service to me and I had to mention that it had taken 7 months to get an appointment. He pulled a sad face and I sympathized that they had budget and staff cutbacks. He seemed glad to have the understanding and support from me… say, who was the therapist here?
In response to his inquiry as to any final questions I might have I asked this: “I don’t mean to be impolite, but can you tell me why I might ever want to come here again?” He took it well, thought a minute and came up with three possible reasons. First, if my psychiatrist didn’t work out they could provide that for me. Second, if I needed a letter for surgery, after a full two years of full time experience of course, they could do that for me, or provide the supporting letter. Third, I could attend their support group.
I had not heard the last item mentioned yet that day, but now it had become the “Jewell in the Crown”. I knew about it, so I said, “But, I can’t go there yet.” He seemed taken aback and said, “Of course you can go. You can go as a man; you can go as a woman; you can go dressed as a bunny rabbit!” While I was amused, and I think it was just his wacky but well meaning way of telling me that there was no dress code, it did make me wonder about this man. I later characterized them all as a bunch of dirty old men, masquerading as clowns!
After the hour the nurse walked me out to the locked door – this is a high security facility. She asked me if it was my own hair (no, I’m bald) and complimented me on my good taste in clothes (white blouse and tan knee-length skirt). She spoke rather distastefully of the “crossdressers” they sometime saw who dressed too flamboyantly.
The next day I was scheduled to see Dr. Betty Chan, Endocrinologist and Internist, at her office away from the Clarke. I say scheduled because even though the printed copy I had with me said 10, they had me down for 11 am. So I went and had a coffee first.
I had brought a photocopy of my latest blood test results, which she seemed glad to have. I was interviewed briefly about general health, and my HRT regimen. Then I was asked to strip down, in private, put on a paper dress and lie down for a physical examination. She was very discreet and gave me the same courtesy she gave all her female patients. She checked my blood pressure and said it was too high so I should ask my doctor to double my spironolactone and halve my Premarin. (The first my doctor agreed with and did, but he laughed and dismissed the second as typical of the Clarke’s extreme conservatism.) When I was about to leave I asked for my blood test results back and she seemed a bit taken aback that I wanted them, but photocopied them and returned my copy. She told me I didn’t need to come back, which was good as I had no need or intent to return anyway! To be fair to her, I should mention that she had a cold and was probably not feeling well.
The months went by and I was busy moving and re-establishing myself as a woman, in my new community. I knew the support group didn’t meet in July and August, and I had nothing back from the evaluation days. I e-mailed Maxine on May 14, 2002, asking about both and received no answer until late July. She told me then that she had been very ill and off work, which I sympathized with in my return mail. The recommendations following from the evaluation had not been sent out during her time off to recuperate, but she said they were the standard ones: continue transition; be under medical supervision for HRT; wait full 2 years before surgery. She gave me the date of the first support group meeting, and I resolved to attend it.
Third Contact
Wednesday September 18th, 2002, at 6 pm I went up to the 4th floor of the CAMH building and found over a dozen people waiting to be let in behind the locked door for the first meeting of the season. All were male to female types. One of them I knew already and said hello to her. I wore women’s cargo pants and a top and most were similarly dressed. A couple wore skirts and blouses, conservative and tasteful. Many made no attempt to look like women. Some looked scared.
We were taken to a crowded room which had about 18 chairs, for 16 of us. There was no coffee or other refreshments. We were asked to sign a confidentiality agreement. Nothing that took place in that room was ever to be revealed outside or we would be banned! Was I joining a secret society? I could understand that since this group was open to every variety of crossdresser, transgender and transsexual, privacy was important for some. Maxine was in attendance, but said little. She introduced a student who was really to be in charge, a nice young woman who was pleasant, but detached. I had the feeling that the prevailing atmosphere was, “We know you aren’t really women, and you know it too, but we will all pretend so you can feel good about yourselves.” I didn’t feel good. I knew I was a woman and found them condescending and oppressive.
We went around the circle introducing ourselves. There were 2 or 3 post-ops but most had not transitioned yet. Some were depressed, some hostile, some paranoid. I felt uncomfortable as I had none of these problems. My intro was brief and to the point: hormones begun October 9, 2001, transitioned March 13, 2002, surgery scheduled November 21, 2002. Most of the people told stories of doom and gloom. Problems in women’s washrooms, hair removal that hadn’t worked, rejection by families, severe depression not fully responding to treatment…
I told my little story about the two Pentecostal evangelist ladies who had visited me a few weeks before and didn’t understand what I meant when I said I wouldn’t be acceptable in their church because of my “gender dysphoria”. I’d had to say something to enlighten them, so I made the explanation that “I used to think I was a man, but I haven’t had any surgery yet.” They immediately told me that I should remain the way God made me and not do anything to alter my body. They took my hands and prayed for me very movingly, always using “her” and “she”. I had initially marveled that these were so untypical of many Christians who criticize and ridicule transsexuals. It struck me several hours later that they were convinced I was a genetic female who had at one time been tempted to masculinize myself!
I made the point that while I have a very femme body and pass easily, I believed that the most important ingredient was confidence. It could have happened to any one of them if they just believed in themselves. A few people were impressed favourably. Most just sat there… they preferred to tell their sad takes of woe and receive sympathy. The leaders did very little to guide the discussion or give helpful advice to anyone. They looked bored. They told one woman that she transitioned backwards because she did it at work before she transitioned at home. I felt sad for her. It wasn’t a confidence builder. I felt very much out of place. I’d gone into every possible situation before and since my transition and felt completely at home, but I wanted to get out of this artificial and stultifying place. When it was announced that our time was up at 7:30 pm I was glad to get out of there, and never went back. They had nothing to offer me. If I went weekly I would have been depressed!
A long time Clarke girl told me later that the Clarke’s method was to deliberately intimidate, so you would be able to stand up to the scorn and ridicule of the outside world. I found that strange as the outside world was a very comfortable place for me to live and be at ease in. Only the contrived Clarke atmosphere was hard to take. There is such a thing as anticipating trouble, so that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy… I think they do their clients no favours by this “programme”.
Fourth Contact
I was expecting a 6-month recall interview and sure enough, a week before I went to Thailand for my surgery the envelope arrived. It had been sent to my old address in Bowmanville. I checked, and I had advised the Clarke of my current address in August. More surprises ahead! Inside, the letter said, “Dear Andrew”, which was never a name I owned or used. Furthermore, the date of my appointment was to be November 20, the day before my surgery, when I would already be in Thailand. I had mentioned that at the support group, but obviously it hadn’t made it into the system.
I phoned and left a message explaining why I wasn’t going to make it on that date on their voice-mail, then e-mailed and cc’d to Maxine. Within 20 minutes I had a reply, apologizing profusely and thanking me for my “generous offer” to keep in touch after my surgery. Since it was worded so winningly I decided that I would contact them on my return, once I felt up to it.
In early February I e-mailed Maxine and said that I was ready have the interview. She asked me to come in on February 28, 2003. I told her I was the biggest success story she would ever have sitting in her office. I showed her my psychiatrist’s letter to my surgeon, and my surgery photos. I offered to e-mail them to her, and did so at her request. She was interested in my psychiatrist and said she would invite him to join their new advisory committee. I told her I knew about it, but I wasn’t interested in applying to join the committee.
I discussed “what the Clarke could do for people” and asked why they doubled the Harry Benjamin standards. She told me about a few F to M TS’s who had dropped out of the programme and come back years later to thank her for not giving them hormones and thereby causing permanent sterility within months. That was the basis of their “higher” standards. I mentioned that a few handouts would really help clients: steps in transitioning; friendly electrologists; legal name change etc. She agreed it was a good idea. But after over 25 years in the business of “helping” Trans people they had nothing to give them.
Maxine was surprised to hear that the SRS surgeons in Thailand don’t follow the Harry Benjamin Standards. I was surprised that she was so unaware of that fact, and that many hundreds of people from all around the world prefer to go half way around the world rather than submit to the humiliation of the treatment gender clinics like the Clarke mete out.
I told her I try to steer as many people as possible away from the Clarke and to my own doctors, who give excellent service. She just shrugged. In light of their meager resources and diminishing budget I asked if I could volunteer and help them in some way. She said no, the only possibility was the advisory committee. I suggested that since they were not my support group I thought they should at least pay for parking, since I was aiding in their research. I was frostily told that they never did that.
So we didn’t part on the friendliest of terms, which was not my intention. She is a nice woman and as helpful as she can be within the restrictions the institution places on its staff. It seems the idea of being responsible to their clients is offensive to them. They are stuck in the “ivory tower” mentality of an old, fossilized institution which has grown arrogant and believes it is above questioning.
In Conclusion…
When they were the gatekeepers for government funded SRS they had great power. Now they are irrelevant, but still keep on in the same authoritarian way. Perhaps it is a good thing to have them to care (?) for those with serious co-morbid conditions beside gender dysphoria. It seems that many in the “support group” have fallen through the cracks of the health care system and they at least have something there. I know several people personally who went away from the Clarke weeping, yet found help elsewhere. There is no way of knowing for sure, but I believe the number may be quite high. They are success stories in the Clarke’s book, because they left the programme voluntarily and didn’t make the “mistake” of transitioning and SRS. At least the Clarke interprets it this way as they have lost touch with them. I’m told some former clients have committed suicide in despair of ever getting help, but I can’t verify that.
Would I go back if invited? Probably, but they won’t like the questions I ask and I doubt if I will hear from them again. I am not going to be put onto their committee and thereby neutralized as a critic of their practices and policies. It’s too bad they are so insular as they are the only “official” gender clinic in the province of Ontario. This means that every doctor has them in his reference book, and will send patients with gender issues only to them, unless they have specifically asked for another doctor.
I got what I wanted and needed without any help from the Clarke. It felt pretty good that I had gone through the evaluation and was treated with courtesy and compliments. It’s easy for me to “blend in” with feminine features and only 5’8” tall, but I wonder, do the big, angular girls have such a good experience from the Clarke?
Maxine did admit grudgingly that “maybe” I was one of the ones who didn’t need a full 2 year “real life test”. I’m told she took more like 5 years to make up her own mind. I knew after a week that this was the only life for me. I resent the fact that these people deliberately hold back very promising candidates for hormones and surgery just because they won’t treat them as individuals. It’s a “one size fits all approach” but we are not all the same! They don’t trust us to tell the truth about our transition dates. You have to change your name to an unmistakably female name (mine wouldn’t do) and show education receipts or pay stubs to prove you have lived it. Apparently “Big Brother” knows best… in their book.
I was 3 months on hormones before I found my hormone doctor and only 5 months full time before my psychiatrist recommended me for surgery. That would be considered irresponsible by the Clarke, but for me it was appropriate and worked. I like the way my psychiatrist put it better: “Any nurse, or secretary, can go down a check list and tell you when you have qualified for hormones or surgery. I assess you on the basis of my 23 years of working with trans clients and you are a classical transsexual.” I would never have heard that kind of statement at the Clarke.
I’m now 3 years post-op and living a happy and anonymous life in the community with my partner. I accompanied her just a year ago to the same SRS surgeon I used and her results have been equally good. I’ve had little contact with the CAMH Gender Clinic but sometimes talk to their clients.
One girl who went on their advisory board confided in me that they were still rigidly standing by their old principles and she doubted they would ever change. I had anticipated that. Another contacted me because she was due for an appointment and couldn’t get a reply back from them. She eventually did, and I had lunch with her in the CAMH Cafeteria. It’s a huge 12 story building with all sorts of addiction and mental health clinics. It might have been my imagination but I thought we got a lot more rude stares from passers by than I had in other restaurants.
My opinions of this venerable old institution have changed very little in the intervening years. I still think they do more harm than good, but in a time of penny pinching by the government perhaps that problem will solve itself. What we need is more private physicians and psychiatrists who will give proper care to those who wish to transition and the means of finding them easily. Too many doctors would rather not touch anything as controversial as feminizing transsexuals. Even the Clinics who do give care to transsexuals are notoriously conservative. One of them has a used needle disposal system in their patients’ washroom, with a notice that they operate a needle exchange. However, they still insist on a minimum 3 month wait after first contact before prescribing hormones and have turned some down. One candidate who was turned down for health reasons came to me for information. She has been happily on “offshore” hormones for 6 months with no ill effects and is planning on SRS next year. Why are hormones considered more dangerous than illegal injectable heroin?
Our provincial government is considering re-listing SRS as a surgery that is funded by our health care system, but moving painfully slowly in that direction. If they do I want 3 new standards built into the plan: 1) free choice of the preferred surgeon (with a reasonable maximum limit on the price of course), 2) approvals by nothing more restrictive than the Harry Benjamin Standards – http://www.hbigda.org/soc.htm , and 3) allocation of sufficient funds to clear the 7 year backlog and provide enough surgeries to meet the real needs, not the 10 a year that it averaged before. Not to be too much of a pessimist, but I have my doubts that they will ever actually pay for it again.
My experiences
by Sharon
In the mid 1970’s, when I was in my early twenties, I sought the assistance of the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry’s gender identity program. The conflict between my gender identity and my sex arose at about age 9. By age 12, I had come to understand that I was in fact a girl, and that I needed to change my body to conform to the way I felt inside.
At about this time, the newspapers reported the first experimental organ transplants, and the enhancement of topless dancers’ breasts using silicone injections, which led me to speculate whether or not the same methods could be used to make my body female.
Unfortunately, I was very tall for my age – already over 6 feet, and still growing rapidly. I knew that this would be great obstacle to passing as a woman, and it was a tremendous source of anxiety.
I needed to start shaving at a younger age than most boys I knew. Had I been a boy, this might have been a source of pride and self-confidence, but I was a girl, so it was hell.
At about age 13, I read a newspaper article about transsexualism, and the existence of endocrinological and surgical treatment. It was a great relief to know that I was not alone, and that medical treatment existed. Through my adolescence, I never wavered in my desire to be female in all respects.
The Clarke made clear from the outset that research was the major focus of their program. I was supportive of their conducting research, but I soon realized that they offered precious little in the way of treatment, and then only to the small fraction of applicants they accepted into their program. They scheduled numerous appointments for all manner of tests and interviews. I was interviewed by at least two of their staff psychiatrists, including Dr. Freund, who tried to console me by pointing out that this problem was not my fault. I already knew that. The other psychiatrist focused a lot on my height, and pointed out that I would have a lot of problems, which of course, I already knew.
Several of my appointments were at nearby hospitals for various medical tests. I recall that one of them involved some sort of an imaging scan. I handed the test form to the technicians, one of whom giggled when she read on it “transsexual”, Fortunately, all other medical professionals I encountered at the hospitals treated me with respect.
My assessment by an endocrinologist led to the one bright spot in my Clarke experience. He was new to their program, and I recall that they talked him up as being a leader in his field, and something of a coup to have on their team.
I found him understanding, and willing to help. As part of his assessment, he asked to see me completely in the nude, so that he could get a sense of what hormones might do for me. While acknowledging that my height was an obstacle, he expressed the opinion that my body could be successfully feminized using hormones. This was music to my ears!
Even better, he offered to start me on estrogen right away, and I was thrilled to accept. At my first opportunity the next day, I presented my prescription to a local pharmacist, but there was a set-back. I was told that they could not provide the prescribed dose. At first they refused to explain the problem, but eventually told me that the unit of measure was out by a factor of 1000, e.g. micrograms vs milligrams. Fortunately, they were able to reach the endocrinologist by phone and quickly resolved the problem, but it was a nervous moment.
It felt wonderful to start on hormones. Soon, I had a follow-up meeting with the endocrinologist, at which he asked me a favour – would I be willing to meet some of his medical students, to provide them an opportunity to meet someone like me. He wanted to include that experience in their training, in the hope of promoting better understanding. Recalling the giggles from the imaging technician, I could see the potential benefit, so I readily agreed. We had the meeting, and it went very well. Needless to say, I was feeling much better about the Clarke’s program.
With the completion of the medical tests, my appointments reverted to the Clarke. As I recall, one of the staff asked how I liked their new endocrinologist. I responded very positively, and expressed my joy at finally having been prescribed estrogen. Upon hearing this, the staff member freaked, and next thing I knew, I was confronted by more senior staff, who told me that the endocrinologist had not been authorized to prescribe the hormones to me. They demanded that I turn over the unused portion of the drug, else they would drop me from their evaluation.
I felt I had no real choice in the matter, so I reluctantly complied. It was a huge let down, and from that point, the Clarke experience was just something to be endured.
One of their evaluations required that I present myself dressed as woman for an interview with one of their staff, which was to be videotaped. Since I had not transitioned, and would not have passed in public, they agreed that I could change into my feminine attire on the premises. They left me alone to change in the studio where the interview was to be taped, but soon I noticed the cameras slewing to aim at me. The bastards were taping me dressing! I complained, afterward, but they just sloughed it off. It was now becoming clear that I was much more of a test subject to them, than a human being. One of the final tests involved the plethysmograph. A contraption designed to measure penile response while the subject is shown various pictures. I was told not to speak, and to focus my attention on the pictures. I was surprised to find that some of them were from the session for which I had dressed as a woman. I remember little else about the test itself.
Afterward, I chatted briefly with the test conductor, as we walked down the hall. Trying to make the best of the awkward situation, I commented that I guessed it was valuable to have the opportunity to obtain scientific data on transsexuals. To which he responded that few true transsexuals were available for study, in contrast with homosexuals, who were available “by the wheelbarrow”. Clearly, I was just a data point to him.
Finally, I met with Dr. Steiner and several other of the staff, who told me, “You are not a transsexual, and you do not need a sex-change, at least not now.” Dr. Steiner warned against rushing to feminize myself on hormones, because in her opinion that accounted for most of the sex-change. I was told that I required years of intensive psychotherapy, and they offered to recommend some doctors. I told them, “thank you for nothing”, and walked out. I was little more than a research subject to them – research that spawned such nonsense as Dr. Blanchard’s theory of autogynephilia.
Within a year, I found a gynecologist who readily agreed to my request to begin hormone treatment. My body responded wonderfully to estrogen, and within two years, I had a pleasing bosom, and my hips had filled out – finally skirts fit properly! Having greater access to my female emotions was great, as was losing my male sex drive.
In the end, I found the prospect of transition too daunting. I was not at all confident that I could overcome the problems of my great height. I did not have the emotional strength to deal with the rejection of family, and the abuse of strangers. Living as a man is hell for a woman, but living as a woman seen by everyone as a man, likely would be even worse.
Nevertheless, I completed facial electrolysis, and I love the softness of my skin. My hair is shoulder length, femininely cut, and I love it! I have never for a moment regretted feminizing my body. After twenty five years, I could not imagine not having breasts. For me, some feminization has proven much better than none. It made my life bearable, though far from happy. Successful transition is the only way to have a chance at true happiness.
I am fortunate to have meaningful and intellectually stimulating hobbies, into which I can escape for brief periods. I am also fortunate to have a few good friends.
Sharon
—
Toronto Star, Tuesday, November 27, 1984 Trans-sexuals happier after operation, MD says By Lillian Newbery Toronto Star Page H2
The vast majority of men and women who had surgical sex changes in Toronto say they prefer their new gender. Most support themselves in society without welfare or unemployment insurance.
Dr. Mary Steiner, head of the Gender Disorder Clinic and the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, said recently the favorable results probably reflect the strict evaluation given those who seek such surgery. Only 1 in 10 men who request it are approved.
The Gender Identity Clinic assesses individuals who dress as the opposite sex, long to be the opposite sex or believe that inside they really are the opposite sex, research co-ordinator Leonard Clemmensen said during a recent research open house at the institute on College St.
In the most extreme cases, called trans-sexuals, the sense of belonging to the opposite sex is “longstanding and unalterable” and leaves them feeling constantly unhappy.
“If the patient has been definitely diagnosed as trans-sexual, has no other major psychiatric disorder and has proven ability to function in society as a member of the opposite sex, then the clinic may recommend sex reassignment.”
The Gender Identity Clinic contacted 38 women who became men and 41 men who became women, representing 77.5 per cent of all sex reassignments coordinated through the provincial institute in the past 15 years.
The study included only people who had the surgery a year or more before and the average time between the date of surgery and follow-up was 47.4 months.
Only one of the group said she was “unsure” if she still wanted to live as a female and none said they wish they hadn’t had the sex change. All but five said they prefer their current gender and would undergo such surgery again. One homosexual male changed to a female, three heterosexual males changed to females and one female changed to a man said they would “probably” choose the change if they had the decision to make over again.
One of the aims of the program has always been to end up with people who are self-supporting in society, Steiner said. Usually they hold jobs on a lower level than before the sex change, although some have returned to their old jobs.
Of 79 studied, 69 sustain themselves in society without welfare or unemployment insurance benefits.
All the 38 women who underwent the sex change had been attracted to females before the surgery. Of the 41 men: 32 known as homosexual trans-sexuals had been attracted to other males before surgery; nine known as heterosexual trans-sexuals has been attracted to females. Thirty-nine of the 79 live with a member of their own biological sex in a stable relationship.
If you had dealings with the Clarke Institute and the Gender Identity Program, particularly with Ray Blanchard, we hope you’ll contact me to share your story.
References
2. Keeping America Sane: Psychiatry and Eugenics in the United States and Canada, 1880-1940. Ian Robert Dowbiggin. Cornell University Press, 1997.
Blanchard, Ray, Collins, Peter (1993). Men with sexual interest in transvestites, transsexuals, and she-males. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Volume 181 – Issue 9.
Blanchard, R., & Bogaert, A. F. (1996). Homosexuality in men and number of older brothers. American Journal of Psychiatry, 153, 27–31.
Thank you for calling my attention to the misleading information posted on the Internet by Andrea James.
My 2008 salary included a one-time buyout for unused vacation time (I had about six months’ worth of it) and does not reflect my annual base income.
At the time of the Vietnam war, I had an unusual exemption. According to my draft card (which I still have) it was a 4-A. This exempted me from the draft, in peacetime, as the sole surviving male heir of a serviceman killed in a foreign war. The US Congress never declared war on Vietnam, so it was technically peace time for the purposes of this draft law (or policy, whatever it was). My father, Ray Milton Blanchard Jr, a sailor in the US Navy, was lost at sea on 19 March 1945, in the bombing of the aircraft carrier, the USS Franklin. My mother was a few months pregnant with me at the time. I was the first, only, and posthumous child of Ray Jr.
In brief, I did not come to Canada to escape the draft. I had no incentive to do so.
Regards, Ray
[editor’s note: this base salary is only one of Blanchard’s revenue streams.]
Carlson, Tucker (8 March 1999), “The Hall of Lame“, Forbes Magazine. http://www.forbes.com/forbes-life-magazine/1999/0308/063.html
As most of those listed in the book know, entries in Who’s Who are mostly self-reported and largely unchecked, making it the ideal place to tidy up an uneven educational or work history… Indeed, the first clue that Who’s Who is a vanity publication is the “Thoughts on My Life” feature that appears beneath some entries.
Diamond, Milton and H. Keith Sigmundson (1997). Sex reassignment at birth: Long-term review and clinical implications. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 1997;151(3):298-304.
The psychiatrists had several choices of phraseology if they considered homosexuality a personality disorder or the expression of another kind of personality disorder. They could term a person a “psychopath,” “schizophrenic,” “normally imbalanced,” “weak psychological origins,” “arrested aggressive,” “purposefully immoral,” “containing a neurosis” or maybe “another natural human trait” which psychiatrists knew would not be acceptable to military standards. All categories were considered by the military to classify the person as “4 F”, undesirable for military service. Habitual criminals were also considered “4 F”.
In WWII, there were 2400 Army doctors and 700 Navy doctors who served as psychiatrists, many inadequately trained with poorly trained back-up personnel. Their policy was to discharge, court-martial, or reassign suspected homosexuals.
Military intelligence officers interrogated suspected military men for the names of other gay military and places the homosexuals met. Many innocents were arrested and imprisoned. Congress passed the May Act in 1941 giving the military the power to arrest and close businesses, and it was used against gays and their meeting places. Imprisonment gave way to military discharges for “4 F”, unfit for military service.
Freund, K., J. Diamant, and V. Pinkava. 1958. “On the validity and reliability of the phalloplethysmographic (Php) diagnosis of some sexual deviations.” Rev Czech Med 4:145-51.
Freund, Kurt (1963). “A Laboratory Method For Diagnosing Predominance Of Homo- Or Hetero-Erotic Interest In Male.” Behav Res Ther 21:85-93.
Green, Richard (2004). In Memoriam: Judd Marmor, MD. Archives of Sexual Behavior, Volume 33, Number 4 / August, 2004, pp. 327-328.
“I left Los Angeles in 1964 to avoid the Vietnam War by going to NIMH.”
Inquirer staff report (December 29, 1992). South Jersey Deaths: Anthony Ruggero. Philadelphia Inquirer
ANTHONY RUGGERO, 75, of Hammonton, died Sunday at home.
Mr. Ruggero was a former lieutenant with Hammonton Volunteer Fire Co. 1 and a lifelong resident of Hammonton. He was a World War II Navy veteran and a member of American Legion Post 186, Hammonton.
Survivors: his wife, Angelina; three sons, Ray Blanchard of Toronto, Jim of Haddonfield and Bill of Monmouth Junction; two grandchildren, and a sister, Marie Stretch of Ocean City.
Services: friends may call, 11 to 11:45 a.m. today, Marinella Funeral Home, 102 N. Third St., Hammonton; Mass, noon today, St. Martin de Porres Church, South Egg Harbor Road, Hammonton; entombment, Greenmount Cemetery, Hammonton.
James, Andrea (2007). Plethysmograph: A disputed device. Transsexual Road Map.
http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/plethysmograph.html
James, Andrea (2009). $325,000+ in salaries for Zucker & Blanchard to pathologize trans people. Transsexual Road Map
Lagow, Larry Dwane (1977). A history of the Center for Vietnamese Studies at Southern Illinois University. Ph.D. dissertation; typescript in Hoover Institution Archives.
Ken Zucker, a member of the SIPC*, was reported in the student newspaper the Daily Egyptian as conducting mock trials. At least one person was found “guilty” of “all the war crimes he committed against the Vietnamese,” according to Zucker. Student body Vice President Rich Wallace later introduced Zucker at a Board meeting, where Zucker read a list of demands which called for immediate withdrawal from Vietnam first and foremost. On Wednesday, January 21, 1970, the Student Senate passed what was reported by the Dally Egyptian as a “hastily drawn” resolution supporting the SIPC.
*Southern Illinois Peace Committee, founded by Bill Moffett in 1967 as an anti-war splinter group of Students for a Democratic Society.
Lalumière, M.L.; Blanchard, R.; Zucker, K.L. (2000): “Sexual orientation and handedness in Men and Women: a meta-analysis.” Psychological Bulletin 126, 575-592.
Lawrence, Anne (1996). Taking Portlandia’s hand.
http://www.annelawrence. com/twr/portlandia.html [deleted by Lawrence]
Lawrence, Anne (2008). Shame and Narcissistic Rage in autogynephilic transsexualism. Archives of Sexual Behavior, Volume 37, Number 3 / June, 2008.
“Bancroft’s remark was followed by utter silence in the room, as though no one could believe that anyone would say something so tactless. It was as though Bancroft had stood up and loudly farted — people looked at each other in embarrassment for him. “
Lawrence, Anne (August 23, 2004). Bancroft’s “not science” comment.
According to another attention-craving eccentric who defends Blanchard, Lawrence is the source of false rumors that the author of this profile declared bankruptcy. I’ll have additional examples of Lawrence’s rage in an upcoming profile.
BLANCHARD, RAY MILTON, psychiatry institute research psychologist; b. Hammonton, N.J., Oct. 9, 1945; s. Ray Milton and Angelina (Celi) Ruggero. A.B., U. Pa., 1967; M.A., h4U. Ill.-Urbana, 1970; Ph.D., 1973. Cert. psychologist Ont. Bd. Examiners. Psychologist Ont. Correctional Inst., Brampton, Can., 1976-80; research psychologist Gender Identity Clinic, Clarke Inst. Psychiatry, Toronto, Ont., 1980–. Killam fellow Dalhousie U., Halifax, N.S., Can., 1973. Mem. Internat. Acad. Sex Research, A, Psychol. Assn., Can. Psychol. Assn. Subspecialty: Gender identity disorders. Current work: Taxonomy of gender identity disorders; psychosocial adjustment of transsexuals; phallometric assessment of sexual anomalies. Home: 32 Shaftesbury Ave Toronto ON Canada M4T 1A1 Office: Gender Identity Clinic Clarke Inst Psychiatry 250 College St Toronto ON Canada M5T 1R8
Newbery, Lillian (November 27, 1984). Trans-sexuals happier after operation, MD says. Toronto Star.
Sullivan, Nikki (2008). Dis-orienting Paraphilias? Disability, Desire, and the Question of (Bio)Ethics. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry Volume 5, Numbers 2-3 / June, 2008, 183-192. See also Moser, Charles (2008). A Different Perspective. Archives of Sexual Behavior, Volume 37, Number 3 / June, 2008, 472-475.
Wake, Naoko (2007). The Military, Psychiatry, and “Unfit” Soldiers, 1939–1942 Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 2007 62(4):461-494; doi:10.1093/jhmas/jrm002
Harry Stack Sullivan’s failure to protect homosexual men from medical and social stigmatization by screening them out of the armed forces.
Wise TN, Lucas J. (1981). Pseudotranssexualism: iatrogenic gender dysphoria. J Homosex. 1981 Spring;6(3):61-6. See also Prince, Virginia (1978). Transsexuals and pseudotranssexuals. Archives of Sexual Behavior, Volume 7, Number 4 / July, 1978, 263-272.
These links are provided for those interested in this site’s historical coverage of Blanchard
Ray Blanchard on transsexualism
http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/ray-blanchard.html
Ray Blanchard motivations for oppressing sex and gender minorities
ray-blanchard-motivations.html
Toronto: epicenter of pathologization of sex and gender minorities
ray-blanchard-hypotheses.html
Ray Blanchard’s place in history
ray-blanchard-history.html
Notes, updates, further reading
ray-blanchard-notes.html
Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.
San Francisco Public Radio station KQED featured a discussion of Alice Dreger‘s defense of controversial psychologist J. Michael Bailey, author of the 2003 book The Man Who Would Be Queen. “Transgender Theories” aired 22 August 2007 on Forum with host Michael Krasny.
Alice Dreger Associate Professor of Clinical and Medical Humanities and Bioethics, Northwestern University
Joan Roughgarden Professor of Biological Science, Stanford University
Mara Keisling Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality
Transcript
Krasny: From KQED public radio in San Francisco, I’m Michael Krasny. Coming up next on Forum, outrage and allegations have been hurled back and forth over the controversial work of a Northwestern psychologist explaining what he views as the motivations behind why some men become women. It’s a very messy imbroglio which brings with it questions of research ethics, sexual and gender identity, and charges on both sides of immorality. We’ll attempt to sort it all out and hear from both sides, next after this.
(music break)
Krasny: From KQED public radio in San Francisco, I’m Michael Krasny. Good morning and welcome to this morning’s Forum program. In 2003 Northwestern Psychology Professor J. Michael Bailey published a work on gender-bending and transsexualism called The Man Who Would Be Queen, a study of feminine roles. The work has outraged transsexuals because of its thesis that some of the men who become women are motivated by largely erotic attachments and sexuality, rather than the long-held view that men who become women largely do so because they feel like women trapped in the bodies of men. Or to put it more plainly, that male-to-female transsexuality can be rooted in sexual attraction rather than in possessing or coveting an inner female self or soul. This part of the work of Professor Bailey caused a firestorm, and there followed allegations against him, as well as allegations against those who strongly disagreed with his methods and conclusions about trans men. An investigation took place at Northwestern, and web postings appeared charging Professor Bailey with illegal and unethical conduct, and targeting both him and his loved ones. Many of the feelings on both sides remain raw and damaged, and in fact Benedict Carey reported on this in a discussion that went on controversially at the International Academy of Sex Research in Vancouver. This was reported in yesterday’s New York Times, and he said it was “one of the most contentious and personal social science controversies in recent memory.” We want to try to sort all this out and what is at stake in the argument, and why it has created such a firestorm that really continues right up to the present. Let me tell you who is joining us for this hour. We have with us by phone Dr. J. Michael Bailey. He’s Professor of Psychology at Northwestern and joins us from Evanston. Good morning to you.
Bailey: Good morning.
Krasny: I also have with us Dr. Alice Dreger, who is Associate Professor of Clinical and Medical Humanities and Bioethics at Northwestern, and she joins us from East Lansing this morning. Welcome to you.
Dreger: Thank you.
Krasny: And we are also joined this morning by Mara Keisling, who is Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. She’s with us from St. Augustine, Florida. Welcome, Mara Keisling.
Keisling: Thank you, Michael.
Krasny: Here in studio, we want to welcome Joan Roughgarden, Professor of Biological Science at Stanford University, author of Evolution’s Rainbow, and welcome Joan Roughgarden.
Roughgarden: Thank you.
Krasny: And I want to do this sort of in seriatim, we’re going to hear from what I call the Bailey-Dreger side first, and then we’ll hear from Joan Roughgarden and Mara Keisling, who take strong exception to the study and what it puts out there. Professor Bailey, let me begin with you, and let’s get you on the record here in terms of what you see is the minefield you stepped into here. It has to do, as I said, with the nature of transsexual sexuality, I suppose, more than anything else, doesn’t it?
Bailey: Well, it does, but before I address that specifically, I want to point out some inaccuracies in the way you kind of began, one of which is the implication that my book offended all transsexual women. That is certainly not the case. It offended a subset of transsexual women. And the percentage of the transsexuals who it offended is impossible to tell, because the transsexuals who approve of the theories that I wrote about are so intimidated by the people like Lynn Conway, who have attempted to suppress this work. It’s really impossible to know. So I’ll say a bit about the science behind this.
Krasny: Let me stop you there for a second, and thank you for making that—I didn’t want to give the impression that it was anything other than a subset, because I would agree with that characterization. But Ms. Conway did write to us, and I think one of the big arguments seems to be calling this science. You said it was a book in which you interviewed people for a book, as opposed to being taken seriously as perhaps science or research… or nothing other than a social or soft science, so let’s maybe distinguish that if we could.
Bailey: Well, sure thing. This would be a pretty simple matter to tell you what the book was if there hadn’t been an intentional attempt to defame me and my book. I wrote what is commonly understood to be a popular science book, in which I reviewed serious academic work by myself and other scholars. And the serious scholar who did the traditional academic work, peer reviewed and published in respectable journals, who wrote about transsexuals, is a guy named Ray Blanchard from Toronto, who I think is the world’s expert in transsexualism. And I, kind of coincidentally, because they came to me and wanted to talk to me and tell me about themselves, I came to know a group of transsexual women in Chicago. I was struck when I got to know them that there seemed to be these two completely, utterly distinct types of transsexuals, and I had not known about that. I subsequently became familiar with Ray Blanchard’s work, which was published in the 80s and early 90s, and it completely explained what I was seeing. It made me understand. And so I consulted gender experts, allegedly, such as Randi Ettner, and I read autobiographies of transsexuals, and I was struck by how they don’t write about what I could plainly see with my eyes and was there in Ray Blanchard’s work. And so I decided to write my book in part because of this.
Krasny: What was there is what I described earlier as erotic attachment.
Bailey: Well, you simplified a bit. That was the key thing that was missing, which is an erotic motivation in some males to become women. And this is expressed most commonly and most early in these individuals as erotic crossdressing. So when they first go into puberty, they discover that it really turns them on to wear, say, panties, women’s panties, and look at themselves in the mirror, and to masturbate and so on. And there are various manifestations of this trait, which is called autogynephilia: auto (self), gyne (woman) philia (love for). In a subset of autogynephilic individuals—who remember, begin life as men—this drive manifests as the desire to have female anatomy. And these are the males most likely that go on and get sex reassignment surgery and become women.
Krasny: And we should mention that this was actually nominated for a Lambda Literary Award, but there’s been a lot of opposition aside from the subset of transsexuals. Dr. John Bancroft, for example, Director of the Kinsey Institute, said this is not science, it’s anecdotes. And you’ve been singled out for a lot of criticism, particularly with some things gay men—let me just get you on record on this—gay men supposedly, you said, are suited… you said, some gay men are suited to be florists or beauticians, Latinos have genes that suit them for transsexualism, and they are more likely to be prostitutes, so you’ve been charged with—
Bailey: You sound like you’ve been reading straight off of Lynn Conway’s website.
Krasny: I have. I want to give you every opportunity to answer her charges here.
Bailey: I didn’t say any of those things that way. All I did was notice some things. Is this controversial that gay men are more likely than straight men to be florists? [66] That’s what I said. I didn’t say they were suited, although—you know, I don’t know what that means. And I also said that in my observations, that Latina women are more likely than —or I’m sorry, Latina transgender people—are more likely than white transgender people to be a certain type of transsexual, that is the other type that we haven’t talked about yet. [183] I just talked about what I noticed with my eyes. I didn’t talk about them having genes. [183] If you’re going to be summarizing things that are really negative about me from Lynn Conway’s website, we will be here all week, and we will make no progress.
Krasny: Lest we do that, let me go to Professor Dreger, who has written a very strong and passionate defense of your work and of you. And she’s again Associate Professor of Clinical and Medical Humanities and Bioethics at Northwestern. And she has actually said in her paper, which is going to appear in the Archives of Sexual Behavior next year, that she sees this as a problem with science and free expression, and of accusations that are groundless. I want to find out Professor Dreger from you if it indeed is not the case, as I understand it, that you had your own concerns and skepticism about these theories when you started out… before you became a rather passionate defender of Professor Bailey.
Dreger: Yeah, I guess I should correct the misperception that I’m a defender of Professor Bailey. What I did was to look very carefully at the history of what happened with regard to this book controversy. And what I did was do an in-depth one year long study, which essentially ended up in a book-length article that you can read online now. What I did was try to figure out what happened in terms of this controversy. So I was much less interested in the question of, and am much less interested in the question of the theory itself… than in fact what happened when he put forth this theory that turned out to be unpopular among this particular subset of transwomen. And so I wouldn’t say that I’m a strong and passionate defender of Bailey and his work. What I would say is that I am strong and passionate defender of the right to free speech, and also to scientific progress, and of people being able to study things that may be unpopular though scientific. A good example of that is John Bancroft of Indiana University, as being portrayed as having been somebody who denounced Bailey as not being a scientist. But I have talked to Bancroft myself, I interviewed him for this, and in fact what he was saying is actually what Dr, Bailey just said, which is that the book is not science in the traditional sense of the book was not original research—what the book was is a scientific popularization. Bancroft told me and I think would tell you that it was based on scientific theories, in particular Blanchard’s work. And Blanchard’s work is science. So that’s clinical studies and laboratory studies and things like that. So I think there’s a real difference there, and I wouldn’t say that I’m somehow a defender of Blanchard’s theory or a defender of Bailey’s work. What I would say is that I looked at what happened to Bailey and was stunned and shocked to discover what three transwomen in particular did to try to basically ruin him because he was putting forth a theory they didn’t like.
Krasny: Well, one of those women who’s been mentioned already, Lynn Conway, said your history was one sided, was paid for by the sex research consortium at Northwestern.
Dreger: Yeah, Lynn Conway is actually making that up entirely. There is no sex research consortium at Northwestern. Northwestern could confirm that for you and would be happy to do so. I am paid out of an entirely different system than Bailey is. We are in different colleges. I am paid out of the medical school system. My research budget is mine to do with what I please, and this is exactly what I do in all sorts of different projects.
Krasny: We should mention you are an intersex researcher and activist and longtime veteran advocate of intersex—
Dreger: Indeed, I helped lead the Intersex Society of North America for ten years, which is part of how I got into this. Because I had heard through the gender activist grapevine, which I was part of, that Bailey was this horrible person. And I simply believed it all. Conway was in fact a donor to the Intersex Society, so she and I knew each other that way. In fact, I had invited her over to my home one day, because we both live in Michigan, to help out a colleague of mine who was considering sex reassignment surgery. And she was very kind, and came over and spent a couple of hours with this friend of mine. And I left them alone so they could do one-on-one peer support. I had heard all of these terrible things about Bailey, so when a mutual friend finally introduced us last year in February of 2006, he stuck me as somebody who didn’t seem at all like what I was hearing. And so I became interested. And then one of the three transwomen who went after him actually went after me for complicated reasons, so then I became even more interested and decided to do this study. I really expected when I started doing this history that I would end up with a “he said she said” kind of story, that there would be a misunderstanding. And I was absolutely shaken to my core to discover what I did find, which was that they had absolutely charged him with things that were baseless—and that they must have known were in fact baseless—and made his life absolute hell and nearly got him basically thrown out of the scientific profession in some ways… because people became so afraid of associating with him because of all these charges that in fact had been—as far as I could find from my intense investigation—were not true. Now, Professor Conway says that she hasn’t had a chance to respond to this, but in fact I tried every which way but Sunday to get her to talk to me, and she refused. And this claim that the New York Times piece was published without her consultation, I also think is false. Mr. Carey at my request gave her a copy of my article so she could respond to it three weeks ago. So I simply don’t take her—you know… “I haven’t had a chance to respond” kind of claim as being false, frankly. I think she’s had plenty of chances to respond. In fact, most of what I do in the article is actually taken from Conway’s own site. She has been so obsessed with Professor Bailey—and with ruining Professor Bailey and anybody associated with him—that I was able to take largely things off of her site, and simply connect the dots in terms of what she did. All these things that she organized in terms of charges at Northwestern, she puts on her site. She calls them “confidential,” but they’re all right there.
Krasny: There’s stuff on the site even about his children as I understand it.
Dreger: Well, that stuff actually she didn’t put up, although she links to it. That’s put up by a woman named Andrea James who’s a trans woman out of Los Angeles, and Andrea James basically does whatever she can to harass people who cross her. Bailey crossed her in this way by talking about a theory she didn’t like, so he [sic] went after his children by putting up photos of them when they were in grade school and middle school blocking out their eyes and putting basically obscene captions underneath. She says it was a satire, meant to be of his book, but his children didn’t take it as a satire as you might imagine, they took it as a personal threat, basically. And I’ve talked to them about that, and it’s actually in my article.
Krasny: Alice Dreger again is with us from East Lansing—she’s Associate Professor of Clinical and Medical Humanities and Bioethics at Northwestern—and will have a piece appear in the Archives of Sexual Behavior next year on the whole history of this. Joan Roughgarden is here with us in studio, she’s Professor of Biological Science at Stanford University, author of Evolution’s Rainbow, well-known transsexual and academic. Professor Roughgarden, I know this has you pretty exercised. Let’s find out why. You’ve used the word “fraud” to me repeatedly.
Roughgarden: Yes I have, and thank you for inviting me. It’s interesting listening to the dialogue we’ve just heard. From my standpoint the situation is fairly clear, and it’s been clear for several years. The book by Bailey was initially advertised as science, and there’s no doubt about this. For example, The National Academy of Sciences letterhead had an advertisement that read “Gay, Straight, or Lying? Science has the answer,” and conclusions were promised that “may not always be politically correct, but are scientifically accurate, thoroughly researched, and occasionally startling. And the bottom headline to the cover of Bailey’s book says “The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism.” But in point of fact, there is no science in the book, as they’re apparently now agreeing. And on the whole, the book as a work of science is fraudulent. It presents only interviews of six subjects that Bailey himself admits—states in the book—that he met while “cruising” (page 141) [141] in “The Baton, Chicago’s premier female impersonator club.” [186] And so based on a sample size of six, he’s tried to draw the conclusions that he’s just mentioned. And furthermore, he didn’t correctly and rigorously transcribe the narratives from those people. He relied on his memories of what they told him. And he manipulated those narratives, because when they said things he disagreed with, he in turn argued with them. So the data are corrupted and tampered with throughout. And then there are these additional charges of the absence of consent by the women. Some of the women claim to have had sex with him as well. And there’s a narrative in his book called “the Danny narrative” which is apparently completely fabricated. So as an act of science, this is fraudulent.
Krasny: I read that Danny narrative. How do we know it’s completely fabricated? I found it a pretty fascinating narrative actually.
Roughgarden: Yeah, well it would be if it were true.
Krasny: How do we know it’s not?
Roughgarden: Well, we don’t, but it’s been reported not to be true. And so this is what surrounds the supposed data in the book. And so issue number one with Bailey is the fact that the… the claim that the science is fraudulent, and number two, that there is manifest bigotry throughout the book. And let me read, if I might, three quotations there that illustrate the manifest bigotry. One of them refers—one example quotation involves this “Juanita,” in which he says—
Krasny: The one with which he’s alleged to have sex with, we should say for the record, yes.
Roughgarden: And he goes on to say, quote in the book, “Her ability to enjoy emotionally meaningless sex appears male typical. In this sense, homosexual transsexuals might be especially suited to prostitution.” [185] Homosexual transsexuals “lust after men.” [191] And then he goes on, he actually says this in the book on page 183: “About 60% of the homosexual transsexuals and drag queens we studied were Latina or Black.” [183] Latina people “might have more transsexual genes than other ethnic groups do.” [183] Very clearly racist. And then number three, the third one, is a particularly interesting one and gets at both women and gays at the same time: “The brains of homosexual people may be mosaics of male and female parts.” [60] Gay men’s pattern of susceptibility to mental problems reflects their femininity: “The problems that gay men are most susceptible to—eating disorders, depression, and anxiety disorders—are the same problem that women also suffer from disproportionately.” [82] “Learning why gay men are more easily depressed than straight men may tell us why women are also.” [83] So basically, if Bailey hasn’t insulted you, you’re no one.
Krasny: Joan Roughgarden, again with us here in studio, is Professor of Biological Science at Stanford and author of Evolution’s Rainbow. I wanted also to get Mara Keisling in this. Mara is Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. Mara Keisling, there’s something that has emerged out of this, those who are sympathetic with Professor Bailey—the power of a subset of transsexuals to ruin a man’s life—and it does seem to be us versus them.
Keisling: Well, let me just echo Dr. Dreger for a second. We’re talking about two different issues here. One is the alleged ruining of a man’s life. And the other was what was this, and I hate to use the word “study” as it’s been used here, but going back to Professor Bailey’s book, what is that? This would have been just some obscure thing that just happened and dissipated and nobody ever heard of it again had it not been for four things: One: The way it was presented as a scientific study. And everybody’s talked quite a bit about that. Had this been called Stuff I Suppose after Meeting Some People in a Gay Bar, that probably would have lessened the attention it got from trans people. Second: In the book, he then—based on these seven people—he then says there are only two types of transsexuals, and I think Professor Roughgarden just did a good job of explaining that. But it’s equivalent to me saying, “Well, I talked to three professors on the phone today, and I can tell you that all professors live in California, Michigan, or Illinois.” It’s kind of that stark. Third: There were the questions of impropriety and inappropriate following up of human subject rules. And then fourth: Just the way the book was sensationalized, even in its visuals. It’s called The MAN Who Would Be Queen. And I think it’s unclear if “the man” refers to gay people or trans people, although it’s pretty clear that they’re interchangeable in this context to a large extent. But then there’s a picture, which is clearly meant to be a muscularized calf in high heels. And it’s trying to sensationalize it to… obviously to sell the book. But really to follow in the theme that Professor Bailey follows throughout the book, of trans people being well-suited for prostitution, and really being just men.
Krasny: Mara Keisling, I’m going to have to come in here, because I think you can hear our theme is coming up. We’re coming to our break, and I want to give out the phone number for those of you who would like to join us, you are cordially invited to do so. Our toll-free number for your calls is 866-733-6786. Again, toll-free from wherever you’re listening to us or however—radio, internet, Sirius satellite, join us: 866-733-6786. Or you can send an email [email protected]. I’m Michael Krasny.
(break)
Krasny: This is Forum. I’m Michael Krasny. We’re talking about a debate that began a number of years ago with the appearance of a book by Professor Michael Bailey of Northwestern called The Man Who Would Be Queen. And it continues to cause a good deal of stir as it was reported in the New York Times yesterday in a discussion of this controversy that took place at the International Academy of Sex Research in Vancouver. We have on the line with us Dr. Bailey, who is the author of the book and the subject of a great deal of this controversy, as well as Dr. Alice Dreger who is Associate Professor of Clinical Medical Humanities and Bioethics at Northwestern, who did a history of this affair, we’ll call it. And we also have with us Mara Keisling on the line, Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. And with us in studio, Professor Joan Roughgarden, Professor of Biological Science at Stanford and author of Evolution’s Rainbow. You are indeed welcome to join us. Our toll-free number again for your calls is 866-733-6786 or you can email us: [email protected]. Before I go to your calls and emails, I wanted to go back to Professor Dailey [sic]. I know he wants to respond to many of the things he’s heard here—I want to afford him the opportunity to do that—but what I am really interested in, because I said I read the section on “Danny” and I found it fascinating. A boy who was what Professor Bailey calls a feminine man and an outcast going back to really before kindergarten and cross-dressing at an early age, wanting all kinds of girly things and playing with dolls and so forth. And we’ve heard Professor Roughgarden say that you made this out of whole cloth, so I’d like to know what you have to say to that.
Bailey: I think her accusation reflects the degree of accuracy to which we’ve become familiar with Dr. Roughgarden. 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. And that is, both of them, are saying that the only evidence I present for the theory of transsexualism that I espouse in the book is my interviews, or whatever… my associations with several transsexual women. That is utterly false as I said earlier in the show, and it’s clear to anybody who reads the book, there is a very systematic and large set of studies by Ray Blanchard, and that’s where the science comes from. I don’t know why it’s so hard for them to understand, so I assume that this is what they prefer your listeners to believe. And it’s—
Krasny: Let me—
Bailey: It’s false.
Krasny: Let me ask Professor Roughgarden about that, because there’s been a good deal of criticism about the… Mr. Blanchard’s research as well from you and others, this what’s been called this “subset” of transsexuals.
Roughgarden: Right, um—we have to be clear that the issue here is not whether or not there exist some people who satisfy the narrative of… that they’re motivated to become transsexuals because of a sexual motivation. The issue is whether or not you can take all transsexuals and subdivide them exclusively into two subsets, with characteristics associated with each subset. And everyone who knows transsexuals knows that there are a lot of individual narratives. And all the work prior to Blanchard was involved with an elaborate taxonomy with different kinds of gender- and sexuality-variant people. And there are of course different sexuality- and gender-variant expressions in other cultures around the world. So it’s ludicrous on its face to think that you can subdivide all of transsexuals into these two categories that Bailey and Blanchard before him were pushing. Now, the book wasn’t advertised as being about Blanchard’s work, and Blanchard’s data are not actually presented in the book. The book is all about Bailey’s work. But if you go back to Blanchard’s work, you again do find that the existence of these two clean-cut categories is a figment of imagination… because Blanchard sent out a bunch of questionnaires, and he has three different studies in which the results of the questionnaires are tabulated, and you see a scattering of all sorts of answers to the questionnaires. And trying to find that they coalesce into two distinct clusters is really an exercise in pure imagination.
Krasny: Seems to be the heart of one of the arguments that has been so contentious—and we have Joe, a caller from Idaho who says “What’s the argument?” I guess… Does that make it a little more clear, Joe, what you just heard?
Joe: Well, yes, yes, I appreciate your taking my call and I must say I am impressed by everyone’s level of education. But from somebody who’s just switching around the Sirius satellite radio, and I tune in, it sounds to me like an educated Jerry Springer Show, and real civilized. I hear the one doctor or professor say that you can’t categorize these two people, or these people into two groups, or two subsets… well, they do it to all males, you’re either normal or gay, right? You just kind of divide them into two groups, so… this argument to me is… so, this guy wrote a book, it seems like it’s a halfway decent book. I’ve never read it, it sounds like the guy’s opinion, and people are up in arms about it. Again, it’s a civilized Jerry Springer Show. I just don’t get it.
Krasny: Well, that’s the first time we’ve been called a civilized Jerry Springer Show (laughs). Thank you for the call.
Keisling: Can I jump in there, Michael, for a second?
Krasny: Yes, please do, it’s Mara Keisling.
Keisling: I was just about to say when we went to the break, when this book came out, my organization, the National Center for Transgender Equality, was relatively silent on the topic. And there was a good reason for that, and it really ties in with this Jerry Springer idea here. What happened—somehow this has now been framed as a bunch of crazy transsexuals got all crazy, and they’re crazy… when in fact what’s happened here is an academic wrote a book, and other academics, and some other people, but mostly other academics with really incredible academic credentials, just as Professor Bailey seems to have, they said, “Wait a minute, here’s how we react to that academically.” And then other people join in, and that’s how academic things are supposed to happen. And so we steered clear of it initially, just because academics were reviewing it, responding to it, didn’t like it, thought it was junk science, and stated that. You know, I was asked by an interviewer the other day, “Was it fair that they tried to get Dr. Bailey in trouble with Northwestern University?” And that was such an absurd question to me, because what from my view as a non-academic—although I taught college a long time ago, I don’t now—but from my view as a non-academic, an academic wrote something and other academics responded to it, and that’s how academia is supposed to work.
Dreger: (unintelligible)
Krasny: Alice Dreger, I know you want in here, yeah…
Dreger: Yeah, sorry I lost you a little after the break. Yeah, you know I think Ms. Keisling does wonderful work, and it’s really important work politically. But I think that’s a little bit of a misrepresentation of what happened. And as somebody who delved into the history, what I see is that it started with an academic discussion, but it very quickly morphed into something else entirely, which was a personal attack on Michael Bailey, and everything he stood for, and all of his friends, and all of his colleagues who chose to stand by him. The kinds of things you see on Lynn Conway’s site, the kinds of things, of stuff you see on Andrea James’ site is not academic. I would challenge anybody to Google “Bailey Conway timeline” and take a look at what Lynn Conway has done… and to see it as like anything what academics do, which is to meet each other on the point of concepts, and to look at the evidence, and to do careful reasoning, and to have discussions in that way. This looks nothing like that. What concerns me is that Professor Roughgarden is repeating charges, and is in fact even misrepresenting those charges. For example, before the break she said some of the women claim to have had sex with him. One woman claims to have had sex with Professor Bailey, and as I show in my article, the evidence for that is very poor, and even if he did, in fact, it wouldn’t have represented any violation of ethics in any kind of reading of normal ethics reading. So I think it’s easy to say that, “Well, this is an academic dispute,” but it’s really not. What we see here is an academic who chose to write a popularization, said some stuff that was unpopular, and then was the subject of a most extraordinary system of attack. And really, I would call it a system of attack, and I think if you look at Conway’s site, you would agree with me.
Krasny: And let me say also that we do run a very civil discourse type program here, but I think there are serious questions—we don’t try to create heat for the sake of creating heat, or have people slugging each other—but there are questions of scientific research, there are questions of free expression, there are questions of how the internet is used. Accusations and denials and attacks, and all of that… and I want to go to more of your calls. Jen, join us, thanks for waiting, you’re on the air.
Jen: Hi, yes, thank you very much for taking my call. I’m actually surprised I got through because I’ve tried to call before. This is airing in San Francisco, where I’m sure lots of people are interested in this topic. Anyway, I guess I’m calling because I’m up in arms—and I apologize because I haven’t read the book—but I’m very interested in what’s going on. I actually had a couple of comments. One comment, first of all, I have a lot of trans friends, although most of my trans friends are female to male, and actually one of my best friends is female to male. And I wondered, I’m actually looking at Ray Blanchard’s site here online… I wondered if this reasoning also applied to female to male transsexuals in his work, and it sounds like it does.
Krasny: No, actually I think, Professor Bailey, you stated pretty clearly from the beginning, that this is a research project for someone else, right?
Bailey: That is correct, and I happen to know that Ray Blanchard thinks it’s very unlikely that any analogue of autogynephilia exists in genetic females.
Krasny: Jen, you had some more comments, please.
Jen: OK, well online it says a female to male attracted to women is driven by his attraction to women to become a man. Which is saying that basically a female to male wants to change their sex to become a man because they’re attracted to women, which again, would—
Bailey: What website, what URL are you looking at?
Jen: Genderpsychology.org
Bailey: (laughs) That’s not Ray Blanchard’s website. Alice Dreger, you want to take that?
Dreger: (laughs) That’s not at all Ray Blanchard’s website. This is one of the things that’s happened–
Jen: Well, what’s his website?
Dreger: This is actually a website of an enemy of Blanchard’s who doesn’t like his theory.
Jen: Well, what’s his website?
Dreger: His website would be at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Canada, he’s got a very dull website, in fact, that just basically presents his research papers in a very scholarly fashion.
Jen: Well, I’m a molecular biologist, I can understand this stuff.
Dreger: One of the things that’s happened is that the folks who don’t like this stuff have put up websites that represent themselves as being the websites of these people saying outrageous things. And then people say to us, “Gosh, you say the most outrageous things,” but in fact that’s not actually what’s going on.
Krasny: There has been in fact on some websites charges that Mr. Blanchard has—I should say Professor Blanchard as well as Professor Bailey—are actually saying that transsexuals are perverts, that they’re against sex reassignment surgery, things of that sort, so lots of stuff has gone on here that rhetorically just doesn’t have much basis for it. Let me thank the caller. However, what about the issues, and let me go to you on this, Mara Keisling, what about the issues that we keep hearing about with Professor Bailey failing to get institutional board permission on human rights subject research, lacking informed consent from research subjects, that these are in play as issues, and these are certainly what brought the Northwestern investigation into play.
Keisling: Well, yeah, and absolutely in the context in which I mentioned them was again, this would have been much less of a big deal had those issues not arisen. And those were reviewed and investigated—or whatever the right terms are—at Northwestern where they should have, and they probably do on a regular basis with lots of different kinds of research. And had there not been those claims, and had there not been other conditions not being met, my comment is that this would not have been a big deal.
Krasny: I think, excuse, me, I think one of the things that made it a big deal was the imprint of the National Academy of Sciences, don’t you think?
Keisling: Absolutely. And I think if you read—I think Professor Roughgarden read from their… I think that’s where she was reading from, their initial announcement of the book… that caused a real problem. Again, framing this as science. What’s—the thing that’s really hard to do here is to separate these two issues. The one is the initial book, and the second is the story behind what happened after the book. So when I mentioned earlier about academics responding as academics do, I still stand by that. Were there non-academics responding? Sure. Were there academics responding in non-academic ways? That’s not my expertise. But I don’t pass judgment on those charges, you know. They were investigated as they should have been investigated.
Krasny: Professor Bailey, can you let us know why you left the chairmanship? You were Chair of the Psychology Department, as I understand it, at Northwestern.
Bailey: You know, I don’t see how this campaign of defamation requires me to open up my entire personal life to everybody, so—
Krasny: Let me just ask you—
Bailey: Everything that I—
Krasny: Let me—
Bailey: Everything that I’m willing to say about my personal life I’ve already said, and you should probably be asking Alice Dreger…
Krasny: All right, I’m not asking you a personal question, I’m asking you what I hope will be a professional question, and Alice Dreger maybe because it’s—because he has been defamed, and I want to give him every opportunity to clear his name here. If he resigned because of the investigation as has been alleged, then that probably ought to be made clear. If he resigned for other reasons, we don’t have to know what they were.
Dreger: Yeah, there’s no evidence in fact that he resigned because of the investigation. He says otherwise, Northwestern says otherwise… the dates don’t make any sense. Why would he have resigned in October of 2004 if the investigation finished in December of 2004?
Krasny: That’s what I wanted on the record, thank you for that.
Bailey: I don’t know why you were asking my critic about the issue of consent and so on. I don’t think she has any expertise or knowledge about that. Alice Dreger just did a big investigation of that, and I think you should be asking her.
Krasny: Well, or—
Keisling: Professor Bailey, that was the point I was making. That’s not for me to pass judgment on.
Krasny: Yeah, but Professor Roughgarden—
Bailey: That’s why I don’t know why he asked you.
Krasny: Um, I asked for an opinion, just like you have given forth opinions here. We’ll hear other opinions, in fact. Let’s go to another caller. Mike, you’re on the air, good morning. Mike, are you there?
Mike: Hello?
Krasny: Go ahead, you’re on the air.
Mike: Yes. Dr. Bailey, these are really hot issues that have political implications that are current right now, and there’s a lot of heterosexism rampant in our culture, as the first caller indicated. Are you aware of any of your own personal biases around these matters? And what have you done to take care of those, and amp up your personal cultural competence around those issues? I’ll take your answer off the air.
Krasny: Thank you for your call.
Bailey: I believe my book, if you will read it—and most people who are talking about it and yelling about it haven’t—you will find it to be an enormously sympathetic portrayal of both gay men and transgender males, and that’s in part why it was nominated for a Lambda Award until Conway et al. managed to get it off the nomination list. So I assume—I certainly have worked to eliminate any bias. I don’t know if I’ve been successful, but I actually think that my book is very sympathetic. It really calls for tolerance for feminine males and for transsexuals, and I think that reasonable people would agree with me.
Krasny: And I know that Professor Dreger does, but I want to ask Professor Dreger about something else, which is that—some of those seeking grant money were actually told to dissociate themselves from Professor Bailey? That’s a charge from Professor Bailey’s bailiwick, so to speak.
Dreger: That’s actually something that Ben Carey at the New York Times was able to uncover. I was not able to get anybody on the record to say that sort of thing, because I didn’t ask them specifically about that. Ben Carey at the Times interviewed a number of scientists who told him they had been told by various granting agencies that if they had any association with Bailey they should downplay it, because in fact it wasn’t going to make them look good in the granting system.
Krasny: Have you compared this or have others compared this to the Helmuth Nyborg episode, the Danish researcher who was fired back in 2006 after he reported a slight IQ difference between the sexes?
Dreger: Others have done that. I haven’t done that specifically, and that’s another example though, of where researchers go into controversial areas and say things that are unpopular. And rather than responding basically to the work in terms of the evidence and the reasoning, they go after the individuals. And that is something that has been frankly problematic since the time of Galileo.
Krasny: Joan Roughgarden.
Roughgarden: I’d like to add to this, though, that from my perspective, the implications of this science—that I consider to be fraudulent and unfounded—are that it gets incorporated into textbooks and used for instruction in medical schools. And we find for example in Simon LeVay’s large over $100 textbook, this science which is at best controversial, and as I say, in my view, completely fraudulent. And what this does is it means that a transgender patient of a doctor has to look at the doctor and wonder whether or not they’ve—whether the doctor’s been indoctrinated in some science which is both pejorative and unfounded. And that’s why it’s very important to make sure this isn’t seen solely in terms of personalities. And as Mara says, as the events that took place after the publication of the book. It’s the book itself and the research that it claims to present and popularize which is where the real problem lies in my view. And all this personality stuff that’s coming up is quite a distraction from where the serious issues lie.
Krasny: We go to more of your calls and we’re joined by Ben. Morning, Ben.
Ben: Yes, hi—this is Ben Barres, I’m a professor at Stanford. So, I think an important point that really hasn’t come out on the show yet is that transgender people as a group are amongst the most oppressed and disparaged groups in this country, perhaps in the world. Dr. Bailey’s book is using questionable science, I think both his and Blanchard’s, to further oppress these people. And so I’d like to ask Dr. Bailey—he feels he’s been defamed. The transgender people feel rather defamed as well, and I would be very grateful if he could directly address whether he still feels many transgender people are best suited for work in the sex trades.
Bailey: You want me to—so just let me address the general point first. Again, I reject the assertion that it’s all transgender people who are offended by my book. Many transgender people are actually very happy that people are finally talking about this phenomenon called autogynephilia, which they feel captures their motivation. Now of course when certain transgender people such as Anne Lawrence have publicly come out and said that, they’ve been the object of attack and defamation by Andrea James and Lynn Conway, who almost invariably erect a web page devoted to very negative publicity about them. So I think that’s what I will say.
Krasny: Well, what about what the caller says about making the connection between this transgender and the sex trade?
Bailey: OK, the idea is that the other kind of transsexual, which Blanchard calls a homosexual male to female transsexual, meaning they’re homosexual with respect to their birth sex—that is, they like men—is a type of, if you will, very feminine gay man… who decides for various reasons that he would be more happy living his life—“his,” meaning before transition—as a woman. I think that men in general, including heterosexual men, including homosexual men, even including very feminine homosexual men, have a greater propensity to enjoy casual sex than women do. If this is a news flash, you all need to get out more. And homosexual male to female transsexuals for whatever reason tend to be male typical in that respect.
Krasny: And you find that offensive, Ben?
Ben: I don’t think he’s answered my question. Does he think that some transgender people are best suited for work as prostitutes in the sex trades? Yes or no?
Bailey: That’s typical of Professor Barres’—
Ben: I’m quoting your book.
Bailey: I say “they’re best suited”? Is that a quote?
Ben: Your book is very clear on that.
Bailey: Does it say the words “best suited”? Does it say the words “best suited”? If not, I think that you are—
Ben: Just answer my question, whatever your book says. Do you feel that transgender people, some of them, are best suited for work as prostitutes?
Bailey: I never said “best suited.” And I—
Ben: Just answer the question, do you feel so or not?
Bailey: I don’t say “best suited” and I don’t think they are best suited.
Krasny: I think you answered the question.
Bailey: They’re better suited than genetic women are.
Roughgarden: He says “especially suited.”
Krasny: You say “especially suited,” you have that there, the quote?
Roughgarden: I have the quote, yes. [reading from page [185]] “…transsexuals might be especially suited to prostitution.”
Krasny: Professor Bailey?
Bailey: Well, I think that reflects what I just said, especially compared with genetic women. That’s not like “best suited,” like that’s the best thing they could ever do.
Krasny: All right, let me go to some more of your calls. We’re going to Richard next. Richard, you’re on.
Richard: Hello, yeah, I was just kind of—I heard some of the stuff that Michael Krasny was saying about your study, and I have some objections to it. I mean, I’m a black male, and I’m not that well off, but you know, I have a bit of an organic problem. I have gynomastia, so does that mean I now have to… I’ve experienced a lot of this recently where I’ve got people sniffing around me, trying to determine, I guess, what it is that they think that I am. And I’m just sort of minding my own business and now… I kind of think one thing you might be ignoring.. I think there’s a lot of things you might be ignoring in your study. One is economic factors. I mean, if people, poor people, can’t find jobs, then what else are they going to do? I mean, some of them probably are turning to the sex trade simply because they can’t find jobs. And then you also have health factors. If you’ve got people, possibly like me, that have got male breasts, where do we go to get help? Do we just get cataloged as possibly some sort of drag queen, while some of your men want to sniff around and determine our sex?
Krasny: Professor Bailey, I think there’s a question in there. Do you want to respond?
Bailey: You know what, I think because of her background, Alice Dreger is a better person to address that question.
Dreger: Yeah, I actually would love to. First, the caller is talking about gynecomastia, which is what’s considered female-typical breast growth in men, although it happens in so many men I think there’s a problem with thinking of it as female-typical. But it’s got a bigger question in how that Bailey talked about this. And one of the things I’ve uncovered in the work that I’ve was doing was this videotape of this woman identified as “Juanita” in the book, And one of the things that happened was that “Juanita” participated very willingly in a sex textbook video. And in that, she talks very openly about being a sex worker with no shame, and frankly, I don’t think she should have any shame. I don’t think there’s a problem with people who are able to choose sex work, truly choose it, doing it. But she talks very openly about doing it, making $100,000 a year, and about really, really enjoying sex with men. She said, “I did it because I enjoy sex with men. I like men and I enjoy doing it, and I make a lot of money out of it.” And so I think one of the things that’s happening with this representation of Bailey as if he’s the only person who’s ever said this stuff. But in fact “Juanita” herself—who ends up charging him with all sorts of things after she meets Conway—in fact said in this 2002 video that she was a sex worker, she enjoyed making the money, and she really enjoyed casual sex with men.
Krasny: All right, we’re coming to the end of the program, and I want to give Joan Roughgarden a final word here. What do you object most to in this study? The science, or the lack of science, should we put it?
Roughgarden: Well, yeah, from my position, it’s the fraud and the bigotry. And the implication of the fraud is of course that it gets incorporated uncritically into textbooks, and which then feed an institutionalization of prejudice. And the problem with the bigotry—I mean, someone is entitled to be bigoted if they want—but this creates a culture of siege at Northwestern. And it interferes with the possibility of developing research questions in an uncoerced and free way. And I think that the culture of siege that’s now grown up around Northwestern—and that Alice unfortunately has become involved with—is hurting that institution. And I think that the administrators there have to be more courageous about looking into this situation.
Krasny: It was hurt a lot more by a man named Arthur Butz, who I’ll just, for the sake of memory bring up here, but I want to thank Professor Bailey who is Professor of Psychology at Northwestern… for his book again, The Man Who Would Be Queen. And Professor Alice Dreger, Associate Professor at Northwestern Clinical and Medical Humanities and Bioethics. Thanks also to Mara Keisling, Executive Director of National Center for Transgender Equality, and to Joan Roughgarden, Professor of Biological Science at Stanford and author of Evolution’s Rainbow. And thanks to you, our listeners. We are appreciative of you being with us. Our producers are Robin Gianattassio-Malle, Keven Guillory, and Dan Zold, and I’m Michael Krasny.
Please contact me with any corrections.
References
All quotations below were read or discussed during the program and are from Bailey’s book The Man Who Would Be Queen. Numbers refer to the page containing the quotation. Notes are in italics and indented.
Page #:
[60] “Psychologist Sandra Witelson has hypothesized that the brains of homosexual people may be mosaics of male and female parts, and I think she is right. This mixture explains much of what is unique in gay men’s culture and lives.”
[66] “Here in Chicago just past the turn of the century, I think I observe a preponderance of gay men in the following occupations: florists, waiters, hair stylists, actors (or at least acting students), classical musicians (but not rock musicians), psychologists (or at least psychology students) and psychiatrists, antique sellers, fashion and interior designers, yoga and aerobics instructors, masseurs, librarians, flight attendants, nurses, clothing retail salesmen (e.g., at the Gap and Banana Republic), web designers (but not software or hardware designers), and Catholic priests.”
[82] “Another possibility is that gay men’s pattern of susceptibility to certain (but not all) mental problems reflects their femininity. The problems that gay men are most susceptible to—eating disorders, depression, and anxiety disorders—are the same problems that women also suffer from disproportionately.”
[83] “Learning why gay men are more easily depressed than straight men might tell us why women are also.”
[141] “I have had only limited success tonight recruiting research subjects for our study of drag queens and transsexuals and am cruising the huge club one more time before leaving.”
Note: Here, Bailey is talking about the gay night at Crobar, and not the Baton. Bailey does discuss the Baton starting at page 186(see below).
[183] “About 60 percent of the homosexual transsexuals and drag queens we studied were Latina or black. The proportion of nonwhite subjects in our studies of ordinary gay men is typically only about 20 percent. Alma says she thinks that Hispanic people might have more transsexual genes than other ethnic groups do.”
Note: Bailey frequently attributes controversial statements to other people. By deferring to spokespeople like Dreger or his graduate students, he can later say, “I never said that.”
[185] “Although Juanita is so feminine in some respects, even some behavioral respects, her ability to enjoy emotionally meaningless sex appears male-typical. In this sense, homosexual transsexuals might be especially well suited to prostitution.”
[186] “The Baton is Chicago’s premier female impersonator club, featuring several past Miss Continentals, including the gorgeous Mimi Marks.”
[191] “Furthermore, I do not believe that Cher’s attraction to men is as intense or as unambiguous as that of homosexual transsexuals. She is autogynephilic, and men’s place in her sexual world is complicated. So the loss of a potential sex partner is less of a loss, overall, to Cher than it is to the homosexual transsexuals, who simply lust after men.”
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Kenneth Zucker is an American-Canadian psychologist and anti-transgender extremist.
Zucker’s ideology has caused profound harm to sex and gender minorities over a long career. Zucker has created several disease models to describe these minorities and has promoted many more sex and gender “disorders” as editor of The Archives of Sexual Behavior.
Zucker developed a non-affirming model of care for gender diverse youth that has been described as “child abuse.” Zucker was fired by employer CAMH in 2015. Zucker’s clinic was shut down, and non-affirming models of care have been outlawed in many jurisdictions.
After I was defamed in Archives of Sexual Behavior in 2007, I personally began working in earnest to get Zucker fired. Below is the last major exposé I wrote prior to that firing:
Kenneth J. “Ken” Zucker was born on December 29, 1950 to Eugene M. Zucker (1922–1997) and Sara Miller Zucker (1924–2020). Zucker has one sibling, Barbara Ann Zucker-Romanoff aka Barbra Zucker (born 1957). The family lived in Skokie, Illinois. Zucker married Rochelle Fine, also from Niles Township. Their child Simone Zucker is a Toronto-based filmmaker, and their child Josh aka “Concentration Camp” is guitarist in Toronto band Fucked Up.
Zucker attended Southern Illinois University during the Vietnam War and was one of the key campus leaders in the anti-war protest movement there, staging mock trials and declaring people war criminals in absentia (Lagow 1977). Zucker earned a bachelor’s degree there, then a master’s degree at Roosevelt University in 1975.
Zucker headed to Canada eventually just to be safe. Zucker earned a doctorate from University of Toronto in 1982.
Zucker’s frequent collaborator Richard Green had the same impulse for self-preservation: “I left Los Angeles in 1964 to avoid the Vietnam War by going to NIMH [National Institutes of Mental Health]” (Green 2004). In 2001 Green handed over editorial control of Archives of Sexual Behavior to Zucker, to continue pushing their toxic ideology about sex and gender minorities.
Physical attractiveness of children “research” (1993–1996)
Zucker was a psychologist at the Clarke Institute (aka “Jurassic Clarke”) in Toronto. Zucker is infamous for forcing gender-diverse children into reparative therapy to conform to expectations for gendered behavior in children. Zucker considers a gender transition a “bad outcome.”
Zucker had access to hundreds of children through the Clarke and took topless photos of all children brought to the clinic. In one particularly troubling “study,” Zucker wanted to see how “physically attractive” these children’s faces and upper torsos were. Adults were shown images of children in Zucker’s care and asked to rate their attractiveness.
Zucker’s conclusion: “Boys with gender identity disorder were judged to be more attractive than were the clinical control boys.”
Zucker repeated the “research” with the remaining children a few years later, concluding the “Girls with gender identity disorder had significantly less attractive ratings than the normal control girls for the traits attractive, beautiful, and pretty.”
Zucker is a darling of the ex-gay movement because of decades of attempts in “curing” gender-diverse children. Zucker was frequently cited by ex-gay groups like NARTH (National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuals) and Leadership U.
As the rest of the world begins to understand and accept gender diversity as a trait and not a disease, Zucker has been increasingly cast as the old-school holdout in press coverage. As noted in the New York Times:
Dr. Kenneth Zucker, a psychologist and head of the gender-identity service at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, disagrees with the “free to be” approach with young children and cross-dressing in public. Over the past 30 years, Dr. Zucker has treated about 500 preadolescent gender-variant children. In his studies, 80 percent grow out of the behavior, but 15 percent to 20 percent continue to be distressed about their gender and may ultimately change their sex.
Dr. Zucker tries to “help these kids be more content in their biological gender” until they are older and can determine their sexual identity — accomplished, he said, by encouraging same-sex friendships and activities like board games that move beyond strict gender roles.
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. Zucker emphasizes a three-pronged treatment approach for boys with GID. First, he thinks that family dynamics play a large role in childhood GID—not necessarily in the origins of cross-gendered behavior, but in their persistence. It is the disordered and chaotic family, according to Zucker, that can’t get its act together to present a consistent and sensible reaction to the child, which would be something like the following: “We love you, but you are a boy, not a girl. Wishing to be a girl will only make you unhappy in the long run, and pretending to be a girl will only make your life around others harder.” So the first prong of Zucker’s approach is family therapy. Whatever conflicts or issues that parents have that prevent them from uniting to help their child must be addressed.
The second prong is therapy for the boy, to help him adjust to the idea that he cannot become a girl, and to help teach him how to minimize social ostracism. Zucker does not teach boys how to walk in a manly fashion, but he does give them feedback about the likely consequences of taking a doll to school.
The third prong is key. Zucker says simply: “The Barbies have to go.” He has nothing against Barbie dolls, of course. He means something more general. Feminine toys and accoutrements—including Barbie dolls, girls’ shoes, dresses, purses, and princess gowns—are no longer to be tolerated at home, much less bought for the child. Zucker believes that toleration and encouragement of feminine play and dress prevents the child from accepting his maleness. Common sense says that a boy who wants to play with dolls so much that he is willing to risk his father’s wrath and his peers’ scorn is unlikely to change his behavior due to inconsistent feedback, sometimes forbidding, sometimes tolerating, and sometimes even encouraging it. Inconsistent parenting like this is ineffective in stamping out any kind of unwanted behavior.
Failure to intervene increases the chances of transsexualism in adulthood, which Zucker considers a bad outcome. … Why put boys at risk for this when they can become gay men happy to be men?
Zucker blames poor family dynamics and maternal psychopathology for gender-nonconforming behavior. Zucker claims this phenomenon is more likely in non-white children with lower IQs. As J. Michael Bailey noted:
Ken Zucker, whom we met in Chapter 2, has tried to predict which boys with gender identity disorder (GID) would still have the disorder when they become adolescents. Adolescents with GID are much rarer and presumably much closer to being transsexual. Zucker found several predictors of adolescent GID: lower IQ, lower social class, immigrant status, non-intact family, and childhood behavior problems unrelated to gender identity disorder.
Zucker’s alleged “desistance” rate hides the fact that many children brought to Zucker’s clinic are hardly success stories in terms of quality of life outcomes:
Yet Zucker’s approach has its own disturbing elements. It’s easy to imagine that his methods—steering parents toward removing pink crayons from the box, extolling a patriarchy no one believes in—could instill in some children a sense of shame and a double life. A 2008 study of 25 girls who had been seen in Zucker’s clinic showed positive results; 22 were no longer gender-dysphoric, meaning they were comfortable living as girls. But that doesn’t mean they were happy. I spoke to the mother of one Zucker patient in her late 20s, who said her daughter was repulsed by the thought of a sex change but was still suffering—she’d become an alcoholic, and was cutting herself. “I’d be surprised if she outlived me,” her mother said.
Lagow, Larry Dwane (1977). A history of the Center for Vietnamese Studies at Southern Illinois University, 1969-1976. Ph.D. dissertation; typescript in Hoover Institution Archives https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt0d5nd9g7/entire_text/
Staff report (December 29, 1997). Obituary: Eugene Zucker. Chicago Tribune
Eugene Zucker. 75. beloved husband of Sara, nee Miller; loving father of Dr. Ken (Rochelle) Zucker and Barbra (Steven) Romanoff; devoted grandfather of Joshua and Simone Zucker and step-grandfather of Samantha Sprigel: fond brother of Howard (Shirley) Zucker; dearest uncle of Deborah, Adina, David, and Ellen. Mr. Zucker was a life-long intellectual.
Sandeen, Autumn (May 20, 2009). GID Reform Now Protest At Annual APA Meeting. Pam’s House Blend http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/11064/gid-reform-now-protest-at-annual-apa-meeting-speaker-madeline-deutch-md [archive]
Conway, Lynn (April 5, 2007). “Drop the Barbie”: Ken Zucker’s reparatist treatment of gender-variant children. http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/News/Drop%20the%20Barbie.htm
Conway, Lynn (April 30, 2009). “The War Within: CAMH scathing internal report Zucker’s and Blanchard’s gender clinics http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/News/US/Zucker/The_War_Within_CAMH.html
Conway, Lynn (February 18, 2009). Kenneth Zucker’s legal threats: Part of a pattern of silencing transgender critics. http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/News/US/Zucker/Kenneth_Zucker%27s_pattern_of_silencing_transgender_critics.html
Winters, Kelley (2009). Gender Madness in American Psychiatry: Essays from the Struggle for Dignity BookSurge, ISBN 978-1439223888 – see also (gendermadness.com) [harchive]
Staff report (July 1997). Childhood Gender-Identity Disorder Diagnosis Under Attack. Leadership U http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/narth/childhood.html [archive] – now merged with Cru: Campus Crusade for Christ International (cru.org)
Singh D, Bradley SJ, Zucker KJ (2021). A Follow-Up Study of Boys With Gender Identity Disorder. Front. Psychiatry, Volume 12 – 28 March 2021 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.632784
Brown, Patricia Leigh (December 2, 2006). Supporting Boys or Girls When the Line Isn’t Clear. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/02/us/supporting-boys-or-girls-when-the-line-isnt-clear.html
Rosin, Hannah (November 2008). A Boy’s Life. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/a-boys-life/307059/
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Paul L. Vasey is a Canadian psychologist who promotes harmful ideas about sex and gender minorities, especially transgender and gender diverse people and those who love us:
Vasey is one of the last of the old-school Canadian evolutionary psychologists allied with fired sexologist Kenneth Zucker. Vasey’s coauthors and associates are part of an activist minority in sexology, most of whom are cisgender and born before 1970. Vasey holds some supportive views, but they are all colored by an embrace of unscientific and pseudoscientific terminology created by Vasey’s friends. Science and its operational definitions must be value-neutral in order to produce bias-free scientific results.
Background
Paul L. Vasey (born January 30, 1966 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada) earned a bachelor’s degree from University of Alberta in Edmonton in 1989, then earned a master’s degree from Simon Fraser University in 1991. Vasey earned a doctorate from Université de Montréal in 1997. Vasey’s dissertation was on Japanese macaques under advisor Bernard Chapais. Vasey then did postdoctoral work at Université de Montréal, Concordia University (Montréal) and York University.
Vasey was hired as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Lethbridge in 2000. While preparing to teach a course on sex and gender, Vasey became interested in Samoan fa’afafine culture. Vasey describes them as “feminine, same-sex attracted males that are recognized as a non-binary gender.” Vasey’s partner is Vaitulia Alatina Ioelu, a self-identified Samoan fa’afafine.
Vasey co-authored a paper with two Concordia University psychologists on childhood gender diversity.
Bartlett NH, Vasey PL, Bukowski WM (2000) Is gender identity disorder in children a mental disorder? Sex Roles, 43 11/12, 753-785. Article ID: 299688
Empirical studies were evaluated to determine whether Gender Identity Disorder (GID) in children meets the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-4th Edition ( DSM-IV, American Psychiatric Association, 1994) definitional criteria of mental disorder. Specifically, we examined whether GID in children is associated with (a) present distress; (b) present disability; (c) a significantly increased risk of suffering death, pain, disability, or an important loss of freedom; and if (d) GID represents dysfunction in the individual or is simply deviant behavior or a conflict between the individual and society. The evaluation indicates that children who experience a sense of inappropriateness in the culturally prescribed gender role of their sex but do not experience discomfort with their biological sex should not be considered to have GID. Because of flaws in the DSM-IV definition of mental disorder, and limitations of the current research base, there is insufficient evidence to make any conclusive statement regarding children who experience discomfort with their biological sex. The concluding recommendation is that, given current knowledge, the diagnostic category of GID in children in its current form should not appear in future editions of the DSM .
Below is a course description for Vasey’s Sex & Gender Diversity (Psychology 3850) Spring 2003
In this course, we will explore issues related to sex and gender diversity. To this end, we will critically examine the binary construction of sex and gender through such topics as intersexuality, gender identity disorder, and “third” sexes and genders in non-Western societies. A central part of this theoretical examination involves discussing the real-world consequences individuals face for deliberately or inadvertently transgress dichotomous sex and gender boundaries.
Required Readings:
(1) Kessler, S. (1997). Lessons From the Intersexed. Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick, New Jersey.
(2) Course-pack containing Chapter #1, “Behavior,” from: Burke, P. (1996). Gender Shock: Exploding the Myths of Male and Female.Anchor Books, Doubleday: New York.
(3) Additional short readings drawn mainly from popular magazine will be distributed in class.
Below is a course description for Vasey’s Science & Sexuality (Psychology 4000NA) Spring 2004
In this seminar, we will explore the controversy surrounding the publication of J. Michael Bailey’s book, “ The Man Who Would be Queen .” Bailey’s book deals with the subject of male femininity through such topics as gender identity disorder in childhood, homosexuality, transvestitism, and male-to-female (MtF) transsexualism. Although reaction from the gay community has been largely unremarkable, the book has ignited a storm of protest in the MtF transexual community. In particular, some transsexual women dispute Bailey’s claim (based on the work by Toronto sexologist, Ray Blanchard) that there are two distinct sub-categories of MtF transsexuals: homosexual versus autogynephilic.
We will familiarize ourselves with the controversy by reading The Man Who Would be Queen and the contents of two websites managed by transsexual women, [] & Lynn Conway, who are spearheading the response to Bailey. We will then critically investigate the evidence for each point of view. We will begin by examining the claim that two specific types of MtF transsexuals exist primarily by reading scientific articles written by Ray Blanchard and Anne Lawrence. Anne Lawrence, a Seattle-based doctor who specializes in sexual medicine, is a self-identified autogynephilic transsexual woman and a supporter of Blanchard’s work. We will then read “ True Selves: Understanding Transsexualism ” by Mildred L. Brown & Chloe Ann Rounsley and “ Mom, I Need to Be a Girl ,” by Just Evelyn, which [], Lynn Conway and several transsexual advocacy groups highly recommend as a more accurate depiction of the MtF transsexual experience and an alternative to the Bailey/Blanchard model. Through the semester we will weigh the evidence for, and against, Blanchard’s dichotomous conceptualization of transsexuality. In addition to the readings, documentary films on homosexuality, cross-dressing and transsexualism will be screened during the last hour of some seminar classes.
Required Readings :
(1) Bailey, J.M. (2003). The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science and Psychology of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism . NY: Joseph Henry Press.
(2) Additional required readings will be placed on reserve in the library.
Anne Lawrence’s writings on autogynephila can be found at:
http://www.annelawrence. com/sexualityindex.html
see: (1) “Men Trapped in Men’s Bodies:” An Introduction to the Concept of Autogynephilia” (2) Sexuality and Transsexuality: A New Introduction to Autogynephilia (3) Autogynephilia: Frequently-Asked Questions (4) 28 Narratives About Autogynephila (5) 31 New Narratives About Autogynephilia
Michael Bailey’s responses to his critics can be found at:
The reading “Transgendering, Migrating and Love of Oneself as a Woman: A Contribution to a Sociology of Autogynephilia,” by Richard Ekins and Dave King can be found at:
www.symposion.com/ijt/ijtvo05no03_01.htm .
A reading by Carl Elliot on apotemnophilia can be found at:
Bailey JM, Vasey PL, Diamond LM, Breedlove SM, Vilain E, Epprecht (2016). Sexual orientation, controversy, and science (vol 17, pg 45, 2016) Psychological Science in the Public Interesthttps://doi.org/10.1177/1529100616637616
LJ Petterson, BJ Dixson, AC Little, PL Vasey (2018) Viewing time and self-report measures of sexual attraction in Samoan cisgender and transgender androphilic males. Archives of Sexual Behavior 47 (8), 2427-2434 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-018-1267-7
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Psychologist J. Michael Bailey of Northwestern University related several stories in The Man Who Would Be Queen which he obtained from transgender women while presenting himself as a clinical psychologist. Bailey was not licensed to practice by the State of Illinois and has never been licensed there.
My initial inquiry
1 March 2004
Illinois Department of Professional Regulation 320 West Washington Street, 3rd Floor Springfield, IL 62786
To whom it may concern:
I am conducting an investigation of a psychologist named John Michael Bailey, Ph.D. Please provide any documentation from your department regarding four matters:
Evidence regarding any application for licensure in clinical psychology by John Michael Bailey, Ph.D. between 1993 and present.
Evidence regarding any granting of licensure in clinical psychology for John Michael Bailey, Ph.D. between 1993 and present.
Clarification of Illinois law as it pertains to Dr. Bailey; namely, whether he was required to be licensed in order to enter into therapeutic relationships and diagnose clients between 1993 and present.
Determination whether Dr. Bailey is in violation of 225 ILCS 15/16.5 and 225 ILCS 15/26, practicing without a license, which may carry civil and criminal penalties.
The first two requests regarding application and certification are routine. Your online lookup provided four licensees with the last name Bailey, none of whom were the subject of this investigation. I have enclosed a check for $20 to cover the certification fee.
The other two requests are more complex and require some background information.
Prior to 1993 and continuing to the date of this letter, Dr. Bailey has been an employee of Northwestern University in Evanston, in their Department of Psychology. Dr. Bailey is currently under investigation by Northwestern regarding his professional and procedural conduct when interacting with human subjects. I am trying to determine if he has violated your department’s regulations.
At issue are several therapeutic relationships Dr. Bailey undertook with gender-variant clients since 1993. According to Standards of Care established by HBIGDA, an organization of professionals specializing in the needs of gender-variant people, clients must obtain approval from a licensed and credentialed mental health professional to receive medical services. [1]
I am in possession of three letters from Dr. Bailey on Northwestern letterhead, sent on behalf of three separate clients to three different surgeons who follow the HBIGDA Standards of Care. In each of these letters, Dr. Bailey holds himself out as “an expert” and implies that he has the required documented credentials.
I am unable to ascertain if Dr. Bailey was licensed to enter into such clinical relationships, or if licensure was required for him. A reading of 225 ILCS 15 seems open to interpretation whether Dr. Bailey is required to be licensed to perform clinical psychology.
It is clear that Dr. Bailey held himself out to these clients and practitioners as rendering clinical psychological services, and that this may not have been for money, but for “other consideration,” namely gathering data for a book published in 2003, or for sex, as alleged by one woman who states she received an “approval letter” and later performed a sexual favor for Dr. Bailey.
Any assistance your office can provide in this matter would be deeply appreciated. I am happy to pay any reasonable fees associated with processing and duplication.
References:
1. Standards of Care Version 6: “The mental health professional should have documented credentials from a proper training facility and a licensing board.”
I, Daniel E. Bluthardt, to hereby certify that I have been designated by the Director as keeper of the records and seal of the Department of Professional Regulation, a department of the government of the State of Illinois, and that a standard search of the available records of this office indicates the following:
THIS IS TO CERTIFY THAT JOHN MICHAEL BAILEY DOES NOT NOW HOLD NOR HAS EVER HELD LICENSURE UNDER THE CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST LICENSING ACT.
Department records were searched based upon the exact name and profession, as provided. Any variation in the name or profession may produce different results.
The information above is the only certification information provided by this Department. If other information is needed, it must be obtained from the above-named individual or the agency or institution which initially generated the information. To expedite the certification process, the above format is the standard format prepared for all professions regulated by this Department.
[SEAL] [SIGNED] Daniel E. Bluthardt [initialed] Deputy Director Licensing & Testing Division Respond to:
320 West Washington 3rd Floor Springfield, Illinois 62786 217/785-0800 TDD 217/524-6735 www.dpr.state.il.us James R. Thompson Center 100 West Randolph Suite 9-300 Chicago, Illinois 60601 312/814-4500
James, Andrea; Conway, Lynn; McCloskey, Deirdre (April 6, 2004). Re: Professor J. Michael Bailey of the Department of Psychology at Northwestern University performed unlicensed clinical therapy. https://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Bailey/Clinical/NU.Clinical.Complaint-open.pdf
Dreger AD (2008). The Controversy Surrounding The Man Who Would Be Queen: A Case History of the Politics of Science, Identity, and Sex in the Internet Age. Archives of Sexual Behavior. https://10.1007/s10508-007-9301-1 Full text: http://www.bioethics.northwestern.edu/faculty/work/dreger/controversy_tmwwbq.pdf [archive]
Resources
Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (/idfpr.illinois.gov)
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Ray Blanchard is an American-Canadian psychologist and anti-transgender activist. Blanchard is a key historical figure in academic exploitation and oppression of sex and gender minorities.
Blanchard’s Toronto gender clinic rejected 90% of trans people seeking healthcare. Blanchard also created several obscure diseases to categorize trans people and those who love us, including the mental disorders “autogynephilia” and “gynandromorphophilia.”
Following a long career of gatekeeping trans healthcare and creating transphobic diseases, Blanchard has become a key figure in anti-transgender extremism.
Overview
See this biography for Blanchard’s background and motivations.
Blanchard’s “contributions” to the field of gender identity and expression to date have been:
Regressive requirements for access to medical service
Forced submission to sexualized testing in order to get access to medical services
An obscure and largely-forgotten disease model of gender identity cribbed from Magnus Hirschfeld
A disease model of attraction to transgender people, which Blanchard called “gynandromorphophilia.”
Blanchard created a system in which only two subgroups of people could get through the Clarke Institute/CAMH program:
“Homosexual transsexuals,” or “gay males” who fetishize straight men
“Autogynephilic transsexuals,” or “nonhomosexual males” who fetishize feminizing themselves
“A man without a penis… is in reality what you are creating.”
From a June 2004 article :
Toronto psychologist Ray Blanchard, one of Canada’s leading — and most controversial — gender experts, argues the transgender 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.” [1]
A 1984 article in the Toronto Star indicated that between 1969 and 1984, 90% of all people seeking trans health services were turned away at The Clarke. The Clarke averaged about 5 acceptances a year, totaling about 100 people. In other words, they denied access to over 900 applicants during that time. [2]
Blanchard’s program was more like a parole office than a therapeutic setting. It was a system based on mutual distrust, and treats gender diverse clients like sex offenders. In fact, Blanchard’s program used the same halls, offices, and staff for treating sex offenders. Imagine the dynamic that creates. Following in the footsteps of mentor Kurt Freund, B;anchard even subjects clients to the same sort of testing used on sex offenders (see plethysmograph: a disputed device).
By selecting for these patients and rejecting the rest, Blanchard has been able to advance the claim that being trans is all about sex, rather than gender identity. Blanchard published several articles regarding this theory, which went unnoticed until disgraced anesthesiologist Anne Lawrence latched on to them as a form of validation.
1998 was the year the Clarke Institute lost its federal funding for vaginoplasties, and the year Anne Lawrence wrote the pro-“autogynephilia” essay “Men Trapped in Men’s Bodies.” Blanchard’s sudden irrelevance in the field of gender identity and to indigent patients in Toronto seeking funding for surgery made Anne Lawrence’s interest a natural opportunity for teamwork to advance their mutually beneficial agendas.
Following the publication of The Man Who Would Be Queen by J. Michael Bailey, trans people and concerned professionals from around the world decided enough was enough with these people and started a public awareness campaign about Blanchard’s ties to a conservative-run eugenics think tank and behind-the-scenes bullying of dissenting peers. Once peers at HBIGDA expressed their concerns about Bailey to Northwestern University, Blanchard resigned in protest in November 2003.
Blanchard is going to go down in history as the George Rekers of gender diversity. Rekers was one of the most vocal critics of the American Psychiatric Association’s depathologization of homosexuality in 1973.
“Autogynephilia”
“Autogynephilia” is a sex-fueled mental illness made up by Blanchard, who defines it as “a man’s paraphilic tendency to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman.” [2]
This diagnosis appeals to some transgender people, who see the scientific-sounding term as a way to “elevate” themselves in social acceptability rather than compulsive masturbators, sex addicts, or people with a fetish for possessing a piece of female clothing or anatomy.
Look at the definition of “paraphilia” put forth in the textbook used by Bailey in his cancelled Sexuality course (LeVay and Valente, Human Sexuality, p. 454). LeVay’s description of paraphilias as “problematic sexual behavior” and “illnesses that need treatment” is a major insight into their entire project. These academic imply that “autogynephilia” involves non-consenting adults, that being trans is a form of exhibitionism that requires responses from others. The suggest that coming out to friends and family and asking for public acceptance is a form of sexualized humiliation brought on by the very expression of gender.
Blanchard ideas appeal to a small group of other “autogynephilia” activists and conservative supporters. Most trans people and most mainstream scientists criticize “authogynephilia” as being similar to “nymphomania” and other fake sex diseases created to oppress others.
The Man Who Would Be Queen (2003)
Below is a shill review by Blanchard, posted on Amazon.com defending J. Michael Bailey.
[five stars] Man Who Would Be Queen, April 17, 2003 Reviewer: Ray Blanchard from Toronto
The explosion of rage detonated by the publication of J. Michael Bailey’s book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, has largely obscured an important message of that book: There are two fundamentally different types of male-to-female transsexualism, and they are equally valid. The homosexual type are erotically aroused by other (biological) males, and the autogynephilic type are erotically aroused by the thought or image of themselves as women.
When I joined the Clarke Gender Identity Clinic in 1980, the literalist interpretation of transsexualism as the condition of men-trapped-in-women’s-bodies reigned supreme. Many clinicians dismissed all transsexuals with a history of sexual arousal in association with cross-dressing as “mere transvestites” and summarily excluded them from consideration for sex reassignment surgery. This situation was extremely confusing to many male-to-female transsexuals who desperately wanted to undergo sex reassignment and live their lives as women, but who thought that their past history of masturbation in women’s attire meant that they were “merely” transvestites.
Fortunately for these patients, the policy of “one erection and you’re out” was never followed at the Toronto clinic. Several of the earliest patients approved for sex reassignment had been husbands and fathers in the male role, and they freely reported clear-cut histories of sexual arousal in association with cross-dressing or cross-gender fantasy. It gradually became clear to me that for such patients the erotic value of becoming a woman was the essential motive behind the desire for sex reassignment, and that erection and ejaculation in women’s attire were not simply accidental by-products. I never saw this as an invalid reason for desiring sex reassignment, I never saw these patients as some lesser breed of transsexuals, and I never designated their form of gender dysphoria as “secondary.”
During the years when I was publishing the autogynephilia papers, several autogynephiles wrote me to express their relief at learning that there were many others like themselves, and that their feelings of being transsexual were not a delusion. Those articles were published in specialty journals with limited circulations, and it is remarkable that any autogynephiles encountered them at all. Prof. Bailey’s book, which is written for a general audience in a clear and accessible style, has the potential to bring the same reassurance to a much larger group of people. The audiences for which this book was intended, which include students, clinical professionals, and laypersons, should not mistake the campaign of disinformation (verging at times on hate-mail) currently being waged by an ideologically-driven group of self-appointed “activists” as the universal view of all transsexual and transgender persons.
APA DIV 44
From an August 2003 CAMH newsletter: http://www.camh.net/careers/bt_pdfs/bt_august292003.pdf
Holding the framed citation is Ray Blanchard. Right is James S. Fitzgerald, Ph.D., President of Division 44 of the American Psychological Association.
The CAMH Gender Identity Clinic is delighted to announce that our clinic received a Presidential Citation from Division 44 of the American Psychological Association (the Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Issues) at a ceremony on August 9, 2003.
The text of the Citation reads as follows:
“The Gender Identity Clinic has established itself as the premier research center on gender dysphoria research and clinical care since 1968, and is celebrating its 35th year.”
Resignation from HBIGDA
On 4 November 2003, Blanchard resigned from HBIGDA in protest of a letter they sent to Northwestern University regarding charges of ethical misconduct leveled at J. Michael Bailey.
November 4, 2003 Walter J. Meyer III, MD President, HBIGDA Bean Robinson, PhD Executive Director, HBIGDA
Dear Drs. Meyer and Robinson:
It is with deep regret that I tender my resignation in the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA). I have long supported the goals of the HBIGDA. I have been involved in the clinical care of transsexual persons for 24 years. During the years 1983 to 1991, I conducted eight research studies on the therapeutic impact of hormonal and surgical treatment of transsexuals, studies that were reported in six refereed journal articles and two book chapters. I published an additional article on the desirability of insurance coverage for sex reassignment surgery as recently as 2000. It is therefore a matter of some sadness that the recent actions of the HBIGDA Executive have made it necessary for me to disassociate myself from this organization.
I am referring to the appalling decision of the HBIGDA Officers and Board of Directors to attempt to intervene in Northwestern University’s investigation into the allegations made by certain members of the transsexual community against Prof. J. Michael Bailey. This decision is documented in the attached letter, which is prominently displayed on a popular transsexual Web site. Such an intervention, undertaken without any effort by the HBIGDA to conduct their own systematic inquiry or to learn all the relevant facts of the matter, could only be prejudicial to Northwestern’s investigation. In fact it has the appearance, whether this is accurate or not, of being a deliberate and improper attempt to bias that investigation. The HBIGDA would have been better advised to allow the Northwestern authorities, who are actually taking the trouble to investigate the allegations, to reach an impartial decision based on all relevant testimony and factual evidence.
I do not know the motives behind the Officers’ and Board of Directors’ actions, but those motives are irrelevant. It is their actions that are unacceptable and that make it impossible for me to continue to belong to the HBIGDA.
Very truly yours, Ray Blanchard
Blanchard and DSM
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association lists three “mental disorders” that can be diagnosed in gender variant people: gender identity disorder, transvestic fetishism, and childhood gender nonconformity.
Blanchard, who happens to be an American citizen, says a DSM listing has different implications in Canada than in the U.S. “This question of whether autogynephilia should be listed as a disorder is strictly an American preoccupation,” he says. “In the U.S. there is no universal health insurance plan, so people will pay for their SRS out of their own pocket. But in most of the Western world, where there is government-run health insurance, in order for their sex reassignment to be paid for, it has to be a disorder, it has to be in the DSM. Health plans don’t pay for surgery that is elective. They pay for surgery that is medically necessary.”
He points out that from 1970 to ’99 the Ontario Health Insurance Plan covered sex-reassignment surgery for patients who’d been approved for it by the Clarke Institute. But the conservative government that came to power in 1999 stopped paying for it. “Now a group of transsexuals have brought a human rights complaint against removal of sex-reassignment surgery as a benefit,” he says. “Their argument is that this is a recognized treatment for a psychiatric disorder. It’s got to remain in the DSM. The DSM has no formal jurisdiction in Canada, but in fact it’s taken as the standard.” [4]
Many are beginning to question whether these diagnoses are really necessary in order to receive health services. Many are even questioning whether these are diseases at all. Because Blanchard and several cronies are heavily involved in the DSM’s language about these “disorders,” it is likely that we will see a pitched battle about this matter when the next DSM revision is made.
In the meantime, Blanchard’s star continues to fade, reduced to eugenicists, old-school sexologists and psychologists, and those self-hating gender variant people who seek a “cure” for their gender variance. The Clarke has been surpassed by several other Toronto facilities offering more flexible and inclusive access to health services. As numbers at those clinics continue to surge, numbers at The Clarke continue to decline, a harbinger of Blanchard’s place in history as an interesting curiosity from the waning years when our community was considered disordered and diseased.
Blanchard on fifth estate
In October 2004, Ray Blanchard and team were featured in a news magazine program on transsexualism, reported by Hana Gartner. Below is a transcript of selected sections:
Gartner voiceover: One of the most established gender clinics in the world is at Toronto’s Center for Addiction and Mental Health. It’s run by psychologist Ray Blanchard, who has been studying transsexuals for the past 25 years. He says they have a serious illness.
Blanchard: Transsexualism is considered a psychiatric disorder by the World Health Organization and by the American Psychiatric Association. We probably know more about how to treat them or manage them than we do know about what causes them.
Gartner voiceover: Those who come here looking for help must first be diagnosed and assessed by this panel of experts.
Blanchard to experts: They told the GP that they had some gender problem. It’s a biological female. It looks to me that the patient hasn’t been started on a testosterone medication yet.
Gartner voiceover: The only effective treatment for this psychiatric disorder is a combination of hormones and surgery.
Gartner to Blanchard: Can cosmetic surgery cure this disorder?
Blanchard: You are giving someone surgeries that enable them to be accepted as the opposite sex. Cosmetic surgery can help people lead much happier and more productive lives.
Blanchard: Her vocal cords will thicken and her voice will drop into the male range, and that is a permanent change.
Gartner voiceover: Ray Blanchard, who is in charge of Canada’s top gender clinic, believes very few people should go on hormones or change their sex. His clinic sees only about 50 patients a year, and he rejects most of them.
Blanchard: We are not trying to encourage people to have sex reassignment surgery; on the contrary, we encourage people to try and make an adjustment to their biological gender.
Gartner: A 17 year old female, if she came to see you, what advice would you give her?
Blanchard: At our clinic, the minimum age we would consider a patent for hormonal treatment would be 20 years, and the minimum age for considering them for surgical treatment would be 21 years.
References
1. Armstrong J. The Body within, the body without. Globe and Mail, 12 June 2004, p. F1. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040612/COVER12/TPComment/TopStories
2. Newbery L. Trans-sexuals happier after operation, MD says. Toronto Star, 27 November 1984, p. H2.
3. Bailey JM. (Chair), Phenomenology and classification of male-to-female transsexualism. Symposium conducted at the meeting of the International Academy of Sex Research, Paris. June, 2000. Slide 38. http://www.psych.nwu.edu/psych/people/faculty/bailey/Blanchard’s%20Paris%20Talk.ppt
“The foregoing studies indicate that there are only two fundamentally different types of transsexualism in males: homosexual and nonhomosexual. This finding points to the next question: What do the three nonhomosexual types have in common? I have suggested that the common characteristic is an erotic orientation that I have labeled autogynephilia. Autogynephilia may be defined as a man’s paraphilic tendency to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman.”
4. Rodkin D. Sex and Transsexuals. Chicago Reader December 12, 2003
‘The Man Who Would Be Queen’ Controversy Continues: Professor Blanchard Quits HBIGDA NTAC press release 10 November 2003 http://www.ntac.org/pr/release.asp?did=81
Magnus Hirschfeld and Max Tilke, Die Tranvestiten. Eine Untersuchung über den erotischen Verkleidungstrieb mit umfangreichen casuistichem und historischem Material
Chivers runs the Sex and Gender Lab at Queens University, also styled SAGe Lab and Sagelab. Before he was banned from Wikipedia, anti-transgender troll James Cantor wrote her biography. Chivers is married to sexologist Michael Seto.
Research on trans people
In 2000, Chivers and Bailey published an anti-transgender article in Archives of Sexual Behavior titled “Sexual orientation of female-to-male transsexuals: a comparison of homosexual and nonhomosexual types.”
Homosexual and nonhomosexual (relative to genetic sex) female-to-male transsexuals (FTMs) were compared on a number of theoretically or empirically derived variables. Compared to nonhomosexual FTMs, homosexual FTMs reported greater childhood gender nonconformity, preferred more feminine partners, experienced greater sexual rather than emotional jealousy, were more sexually assertive, had more sexual partners, had a greater desire for phalloplasty, and had more interest in visual sexual stimuli. Homosexual and nonhomosexual FTMs did not differ in their overall desire for masculinizing body modifications, adult gender identity, or importance of partner social status, attractiveness, or youth. These findings indicate that FTMs are not a homogeneous group and vary in ways that may be useful in understanding the relation between sexual orientation and gender identity.
In 2004, Chivers, Bailey, Gerulf Rieger, and Elizabeth Latty published “A Sex Difference in the Specificity of Sexual Arousal” as evidence that trans women have “male” sexual arousal patterns.
We assessed genital and subjective sexual arousal to male and female sexual stimuli in women, men, and postoperative male-to-female transsexuals. […] Transsexuals showed a category-specific pattern, demonstrating that category specificity can be detected in the neovagina using a photoplethysmographic measure of female genital sexual arousal.
In 2005, Chivers, Bailey, and Anne Lawrence published “Measurement of sexual arousal in postoperative male-to-female transsexuals using vaginal photoplethysmography.” The cloncluded that trans women have “male-typical” sexual responses.
We used vaginal photoplethysmography to examine patterns of sexual arousal in 11 male-to-female (MtF) transsexuals following sex reassignment surgery (SRS) and in 72 natal women. […] All transsexual participants displayed category-specific sexual arousal. Five homosexual transsexual participants (attracted exclusively to males before sex reassignment) showed greater genital and subjective responses to male than to female stimuli, while six nonhomosexual transsexual participants showed the opposite pattern. […] We conclude that male-to-female transsexuals display male-typical category-specific sexual arousal following SRS.
Chivers was named President of IASR in 2023. She opened an investigation into the publication of J. Michael Bailey’s questionable 2023 paper on “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” (ROGD).
1/Dear IASR members,
In the interest of transparency, we want to communicate to the Membership about recent concerns regarding a publication in our official journal, the Archives of Sexual Behavior. On March 29th, the journal published an article authored by …
— International Academy of Sex Research (@TheIASR) April 19, 2023
1/Dear IASR members, In the interest of transparency, we want to communicate to the Membership about recent concerns regarding a publication in our official journal, the Archives of Sexual Behavior. On March 29th, the journal published an article authored by …
2/…Suzanna Diaz & J. Michael Bailey entitled, “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria: Parent Reports on 1655 Possible Cases.” Since its publication, significant concerns about the ethical conduct and integrity of the editorial process have been raised about this study, by both…
3/…members and nonmembers of the Academy, including Editorial Board members. The IASR recognizes the sensitivity and controversy of the study topic, and we deeply value ethical and scientific integrity. (…)
4/ While the Archives of Sexual Behavior has editorial independence and IASR is not involved in determining what is published in the journal, Archives is our flagship journal. The IASR Executive is currently learning more about this matter, consulting with both …
5/…the Archives of Sexual Behavior’s Editor and our publisher Springer Nature, and will update the membership appropriately. Kind regards, The IASR Executive Committee
Chivers ML, Bailey JM (2000). Sexual orientation of female-to-male transsexuals: A comparison of homosexual and non-homosexual types Archives of Sexual Behavior 29 (3): 259–278. doi:10.1023/A:1001915530479
Chivers ML, Rieger G, Latty E, Bailey JM (2004). A sex difference in the specificity of sexual arousal. Psychol Sci. 2004 Nov;15(11):736-44. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00750.x
Lawrence AA, Latty, EM, Chivers, ML, Bailey JM (2005). Measurement of Sexual Arousal in Postoperative Male-to-Female Transsexuals Using Vaginal Photoplethysmography. Archives of Sexual Behavior 34, 135–145 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-005-1792-z
Smith YLS, Van Goozen S, Kupier AJ, Cohen-Kettenis PT (2005). Transsexual subtypes: Clinical and theoretical significance. Psychiatry Research 137 (3): 151–160. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2005.01.008
Note: In 2025, this site phased out AI illustrations after artist feedback. The previous illustration is here.
Psychologist James Cantor is an anti-transgender extremist based in Canada. Cantor has decades of history attacking transgender people while claiming to be a supporter.
The archival information below dates to the turn of the century. See the main James Cantor profile for more.
Archival information
“The stronger one is invested in the outcome of a scientific endeavor, the more vulnerable is one’s ability to see straight.”
— James M. Cantor
http://www.apa.org/divisions/div44/vol18nu3.htm
James Cantor is a frequent supporter of J. Michael Bailey, Ray Blanchard, and Anne Lawrence who is part of the clique of sexologists at Toronto’s notorious Clarke Institute.
James M. Cantor, PhD Clinical Sexology Services Centre for Addiction and Mental Health—Clarke Site 250 College Street Toronto, Ontario M5T 1R8 CANADA (416) 535-8501 ext. 4078 email: [email protected]
Cantor praises Bailey
Bailey and Cantor seem to be cut from the same cloth: smug, unprofessional, and downright nasty when they perceive their “authority” is challenged.
Cantor leapt to Bailey’s defense regarding Bailey’s lectures exploiting gender-variant children. Bailey writes:
A gay psychologist and sex researcher, James Cantor, wrote in response to Roughgarden’s screed:
“I have seen Bailey give this lecture before (at least, an earlier version of it). Again, this was the one with several openly lesbian women and gay men in the audience, including me. None of us felt at all offended. What Roughgarden describes as laughter was actually an affectionate recognition of the truth. Effeminate speech is much more common among gay men than straight men, and telling the two extremes apart is like night and day.”
The following review appeared on page 6 of the Summer 2003 American Psychology Association Division 44 Newsletter (PDF: http://www.apa.org/divisions/div44/vol19nu2.pdf) and is being used by Joseph Henry Press in PR for The Man Who Would Be Queen by J. Michael Bailey.
Parts in blue are being used in Joseph Henry Press promotional material
BOOK REVIEW The Man Who Would Be Queen by J. Michael Bailey The National Academies Press, 2003 Review by James M. Cantor
Division 44 Newsletter Summer, 2003 page 6
J. Michael Bailey’s The Man Who Would be Queen represents the first scientifically grounded book about male femininities written for a general audience. In three sections—devoted respectively to gender atypical boys, adult gay men and those MtF transsexuals who are attracted to men, and then fetishistic cross-dressers and those MtF transsexuals who are not attracted to men (autogynephilic transsexuals)—Bailey sympathetically portrays these peoples’ experiences and explores the roots of their development.
Readers seeing these topics for the first time will come to understand these mixes of traditionally masculine and feminine characteristics, free from the sensationalism they receive in the popular media. Readers more familiar with these areas will come to appreciate that none of these human conditions—hetero-/homosexuality, cross-dressing, gender non-conformity, and transsexuality—can be fully understood on its own. Human sexual behavior must be understood in its entirety, if it is to be understood at all.
In introducing us to vivid and engaging people, Bailey takes us on a tour that would leave few readers unchanged. Just as interesting, however, were the hints about how Bailey’s own ideas became changed by his experiences in working with these issues. He notes he “became less skeptical, if not yet convinced” of the idea that the correct intervention for gender atypical children is to change society (rather than the children), a philosophy he learned from thinkers including “Clinton Anderson, scientist Simon LeVay, and journalist Phyllis Burke” (p. 26). Likewise, he notes having become more openminded about the veracity of transsexuals’ memories of desiring to change sexes even in childhood, after discussing it with Ken Zucker (the head of the Child and Adolescent Gender Identity Clinic at C.A.M.H. in Toronto). Watching the evolution of a scientist’s thinking is particularly welcome in a field where so many other authors on these topics polarize and entrench.
Bailey’s engaging style and clear fondness for the people he describes invite all readers to appreciate these peoples’ experiences better, on both scientific and human levels. Although respectful, Bailey describes his subject matter warts and all. He unapologetically includes potentially controversial topics including the strong preference in the gay male community for masculine sexual partners and against effeminate men, the well-established finding that highly gender atypical boys nearly always become gay men in adulthood (and the shame many adult gay men experience in recalling their own childhood femininity), the frequency of sex trade work among androphilic transsexuals, the difficulties many MtF transsexuals experience in passing as women, and the challenges to the politically correct idea of MtF transsexuals literally being “women trapped in men’s bodies.” Yet, Bailey notes specifically that there is nothing objectively shameful in, for example, childhood femininity or sex trade work. It is the combination of Bailey’s willingness to challenge ideas based only on prejudice as well as ideas based only on political correctness that establishes the book as an even-handed introduction, rather than as a mouthpiece for either the socially conservative right or academic left. Writing as an openly heterosexual and non-transsexual man, Bailey’s respect for the people he describes serves as a role model for others who still struggle to accept and appreciate homosexuality and transsexuality in society. In the following passage, Bailey writes about Cher, an MtF transsexual:
Cher has been having a rough time lately. She has fallen out with Amy, a homosexual transsexual who used to be her closest friend. Cher thinks that once Amy got her surgery, she no longer needed her, and she feels used. When she goes out with Juanita, who has become her best friend, men are constantly approaching Juanita (who is 15 years younger and very sexy), but they approach Cher cautiously, if at all….She is also broke, and is being sued by her relatives for her father’s inheritance. Despite her troubles, she continues to visit her circle of (primarily transsexual) friends, helping them plan their transition, listening to their boyfriend problems….She is a good friend to them, although her advice is not always appreciated or heeded. I think about what an unusual life she has led, and what an unusual person she is. How difficult it must have been for her to figure out her sexuality and what she wanted to do with it. I think about all the barriers she broke, and all the meanness that she must still contend with. Despite this, she is still out there giving her friends advice and comfort, and trying to find love. And I think that in her own way, Cher is a star.” I think she is too, and I am grateful to Bailey for having introduced her.
POSTSCRIPT: As I write this postscript, it is has been four weeks since The Man Who Would Be Queen has been released. Of all the ideas Bailey presents, only the meaning of autogynephilia appears to have drawn any controversy. Although his book is unapologetic in its accuracy, Bailey notes quite distinctly which ideas are well-established scientifically and which are hunches and suspicions to help readers tie the data together. It is unfortunate that a vocal few (vocal over the Internet, anyway) do not actually address Bailey’s points, referring only to rumors about the content of the book and to assumptions regarding Bailey’s motives. I can recommend only that readers refer to the content of the book itself (available to read on-line, free of charge at http://books.nap.edu/books/0309084180/html/ ), explore Bailey’s own webpage (http://www.psych.nwu.edu/psych/people/faculty/bailey/controversy.htm#campaign ), and decide for themselves.
Cantor harasses trans speaker
Kyle Scanlon is Trans Programmes Coordinator at 519 Church Street Community Centre in Toronto. The 519 is where all trans youth are encouraged to go in order to avoid The Clarke Institute. Cantor was compelled to send a letter of apology to Scanlon following the event, and the letter was to remain in his file for 7 years.
Below is Scanlon’s original complaint letter about what happened at CAMH.
To Whom it Concerns:
Let me begin by saying that I was grateful and excited to be invited to present a workshop at the LGBT Staff Caucus event at CAMH. Not only was I thrilled that trans issues were considered important enough to be part of the agenda, I was extremely gratified that the Staff Caucus wanted them addressed not by a GIC expert, but by someone with lived experience as a transsexual who has also had invaluable community service experience with members of the lower income, street-involved trans community. I accepted the offer immediately.
But my elation quickly turned to frustration as I attempted to facilitate my workshop. I would like to register a complaint about what happened.
I was running a workshop that was clearly listed in the program as being “the perspective of a transsexual activist”. I did not set myself up as someone who was an expert in gender theory. I was attempting to address the “lived experience” of trans people that might lead them towards needing support from the Addictions Program, or that might affect their chances of receiving treatment.
Almost immediately -while I was still running through definitions of sex, gender, and intersexuality, one gentleman in the audience began aggressively interrupting to offer his “expertise”. He spent at least five minutes detailing “specific types of intersexuality” which was not germane to my workshop at all. This gentleman seemed to be trying to demonstrate his authority on this topic. I ultimately had to cut him off in a gentle yet firm manner in order to continue. He did continue to interrupt on a few more occasions, generally “defensively”, all in that same manner that he was more of an “authority” on the subject than I was, despite the fact that it’s my lived experience. It was extremely rude and honestly unnerving.
Next in the workshop I began addressing my concerns as an activist about “the real life test” and how the GIC is still using the year long life test rather than the Harry Benjamin Standards of Care approved 3 month life test, as well as to address HOW this real life test impacts on the lived experience of transsexuals. I discussed a variety of concrete issues faced by many trans people as they undergo the Real Life Test – high rates of suicide, low self-esteem, police harassment, street-involvement, inability to access shelters and hostels, being fired from jobs, the inability to find new work, losing key relationships, being kicked out of the family home, and losing access to their children. The audience was extremely empathetic, vocally so. At that point, this man interrupted again, very loudly and aggressively “Before you all JUDGE the GIC….”
At this point – thankfully – he was interrupted by a wonderful member of the audience calling him on his rude behaviour and asking him to identify himself. He replied “I’m Doctor James Cantor with the GIC.” A minor skirmish ensued, and I managed to utilize my facilitation skills to bring everyone back to the topic at hand. Again, his behaviour took valuable time away from my workshop. All in all, I think I lost about 15-20 minutes to James Cantor’s views, and having to “deal” with him. That’s close to one quarter of my total time to present. This was completely unacceptable. Keep in mind my workshop was only 90 minutes long, and since people strolled in late, I was already pressed for time.
I should mention that during the entire workshop, Peter Coleridge was sitting in the room. He was supposedly there to act as “moderator” of the workshop. He did nothing to control Cantor, nor to make any apologies to me. I felt hung out to dry, except for the great support of the members of the audience. It was all extremely confrontational, it took time away from my workshop, it distracted me as a presenter and it disrespected me as a community member who was INVITED to offer my particular experience and opinion. If Cantor was there to defend the GIC practices, then he shouldn’t have been there. The purpose of the forum was to air views that are not conventionally heard. He certainly didn’t seem to be there to learn or to listen.
His behaviour hindered my workshop, it put me on edge, and it made for an uncomfortable atmosphere for all those who were there to hear my presentation. I believe an invited guest deserves better treatment from CAMH staff. My workshop deserved ALL the time it was allotted and the men and women who attended the workshop deserved to hear the presentation that they specifically chose to attend.
CAMH says it’s opening itself up to community input and constructive feedback, but here’s an example of what happens to a workshop presenter who tries to offer it.
I was offended, angered, and frustrated by these events. This experience underscored my conviction that CAMH has only been paying lip-service to wanting to address the trans community’s concerns about the GIC if this is how they treat an INVITED GUEST.
The one “good” thing that came from all of this… almost everyone in the audience approached me personally later to say “thanks to today, we now have a better understanding of the kind of shit that trans people face trying to access service at the CAMH GIC.” So, for that, I do have to thank James Cantor and Peter Coleridge. They provided a look at what really happens inside the GIC doors in a way that my workshop on its own could never have done justice.
Scanlon described the response from CAMH:
I do think there is some gray area here of semantics. I was told that after my claims were investigated it was found that I had experienced harassment, but NOT that Cantor had harassed me. The woman seemed to be saying – in fact I think she did once say – that anytime a person feels it, it’s real. But I don’t know that anyone ever said “Cantor harassed you.” Cantor was made to apologize to me in a letter, but there he was also clever to apologize for my feeling harassed and did not in any way acknowledge he harassed me. Like I said, semantics. I definitely was told this would stay on his file for 7 years. I have no idea where else I would have gotten an idea like that unless it was specifically stated to me.
Cantor subsequently has tried to downplay the incident.
Other Cantor data
Cantor clearly has political aspirations in psychology, taking up several positions of influence, especially with people just starting their careers.
See also A Report to Lynn Conway by Kristin of a recent lecture at “The Clarke”
Science Committee The Science Committee encourages research on sexual orientation issues. The Committee has recently published a directory entitled: Directory of Researchers and Scholars of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and transgender Issues in Psychology. To obtain a copy of the Directory or to be listed in the Directory contact: Division 44 Science Committee Sean Massey [email protected] 4410 Burnet Road Austin, TX 78756 The Chairs of the Science committee is: James M. Cantor.
Cantor on a program in Toronto with the rest of Blanchard’s crew. Cantor’s topic at a Toronto program was:
July 9, 2003 – Is Transsexualism Really Independent of Sexual Orientation? Presenter: James M. Cantor, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow, Clinical Sexology Services, Law & Mental Health Program
Monitor on Psychology
http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug02/thematic.html
* “Cultural evolution of gender identity–changing the construction of identity,” with Ronald F. Levant, EdD, James M. Cantor, PhD, Joanne E. Callan, PhD, and Pamela Trotman Reid, PhD.
Malyon-Smith Scholarship Award
http://www.apa.org/divisions/div44/malyon.html
The Division sponsors a scholarship fund to grant cash awards for graduate student research. The chair is James M. Cantor PhD. If you would like more information about this award, please click here. If you would like to apply for the application, please visit the Malyon-Smith Scholarship Award 2003 website. Here you will find information, guidelines, and procedures involved in the application of the scholarship.
Malyon-Smith Scholarship The Division sponsors a scholarship fund to grant cash awards for graduate student research. The Malyon-Smith Scholarship Fund is a living memorial to two former Presidents of the Division. The fund is our way of encouraging graduate research into sexual orientation issues. If you are a graduate student and conducting your graduate research on gay, lesbian, or bisexual issues, why not apply for an award? To apply for this award, or to see more detailed information, please click here – Malyon-Smith Scholarship Award. Donations in all amounts are encouraged and appreciated. They can be sent to James M. Cantor, PhD at the address below.
4213 Symposium: Training in Psychology – Students’ Needs, Current Opportunities, and Academic Alternatives
Chair: James M. Cantor, PhD, Law and Mental Health Program, Toronto, ON, Canada
Click here: McGill Reporter <http://ww2.mcgill.ca/uro/Rep/r2911/rats.html> – as a grad student – resetach on impotence associated with prozac – lists self as, of course – a sex therapy student Click here: Toronto shemales strut their stuff, part of national quest for rights <http://www.shemale-transexual.com/news/toronto-shemales.html> some Cantor quotes on “shemales” – doesn’t think they exist- everyone really wants srs evenually -lists % of people who come into the Clarke and go on to SRS Click here: http://www.cwru.edu/affil/div29/Bulletin/V1997324/WASH.htm <http://www.cwru.edu/affil/div29/Bulletin/V1997324/WASH.htm> THE PRESCRIPTION AGENDA – CONSTANTLY EVOLVING From the very beginning, those of us involved in shaping the prescription agenda have been clear that the key to the profession’s ultimate success would be the active support of our future generations of clinicians and academicians. James Cantor, the APAGS liaison to CAPP, recently authored a formal “resolution of support” for prescription privileges which has now been formally adopted by APAGS. Click here: Outside Online – News <http://web.outsideonline.com/news/headlines/20020815_1.html> Dr. James Cantor, a psychologist at the University of Toronto’s Gender Identity Clinic, told the Ottawa Citizen this week that if gender is based on hormonal status, then Dumaresq is, indeed, a woman. “If you took a blood sample to measure the levels of sex hormones in a post-operative transsexual, that person would resemble a woman, not a man,” Cantor explained. The doctor declined to give the Citizenan opinion, however, on whether an athlete who is genetically male but hormonally female should be allowed to compete in women’s sporting events. “Hormone therapy does reduce, if not practically eliminate, the amount of testosterone in the blood, but it’s unknown how this affects athletic performance,” he said. “It just hasn’t been studied. Until we really have the science to say one way or the other, it’s anybody’s guess. One can reasonably argue either position.”
Cantor as “expert”
The post below gives a good sense of where Cantor is coming from: discouraging and turning away clients who seek medical services, discounting the first-hand reports of trans women in favor of those who share Cantor’s ideology, and the typical supposition of gay male superiority, suggesting he’s OK, but this subset of gays is disordered. One can see the same kind of thinking in the writings of Jim Fouratt and Tammy Bruce: assimilated queers who got their rights and feel entitled to deny us ours.
From: James Cantor Date: Sun Oct 5, 2003 6:01 pm Subject: RE: [NewPsychList] tx for gender identity d/o
This is not the approach I would take or recommend. I have worked for several years in the Gender Identity Clinic here at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (formerly, the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry), and have now seen several hundred transsexuals in various stages of transition, including many who made the decision not to transition.
First, regarding diagnostic criteria, patient distress is not a criterion. If the person chooses to transition, s/he will require a lifetime of hormone therapy, a series of pretty major surgical interventions, and (depending on the assessment methods used) ongoing psychotherapy before, during, and after transition. For the psychologist (or other mental health professional) to make the appropriate referrals, the person will require a bone fide diagnosis. For people who live in areas with public health care systems (such as here in Canada), the diagnosis is required before the system will pay for the surgeries.
The desire not to diagnose GID comes from the understandable desire on the part of mental health professionals to avoid the stigma associated with having the diagnosis. I argue, however, that the problem is the stigma associated with “mental disorder.” If we cease to diagnose relevant conditions to avoid stigma, we are implicitly reinforcing the idea that such diagnoses are negative and to be avoided. The transsexual community is divided over this idea, and there appears to be a U.S. vs. rest-of-the-world split on this. I suspect that the split results from the U.S. not having insurance coverage for transition (and therefore having nothing to lose) while the rest of the world uses the diagnosis to argue that their health care systems should be covering surgery.
Second, no one has thus mentioned any of the relevant research with GID. I would caution anyone against treating someone without having the relevant training. Male-to-female transsexuals divide into two major types, usually called androphilic transsexuals and autogynephilic transsexuals. (The term autogynephilia has now been added to the DSM.) Androphilic MtF’s (also called homosexual transsexuals) transition very early in life, are remarkably feminine throughout childhood, are attracted to males, and have very high success rates after transition. Autogynephilic transsexuals tend to transition later in life (typically in their 30s or 40s), are externally unremarkable in childhood, are attracted to females, and having a more mixed adjustment after transition. Autogynephilia is extremely controversial within the transsexual community, because of the unfortunate myth that only androphilic transsexuals are “true” transsexuals, while the autogynephilic ones are just wannabes.
Because the person under discussion here is so young, s/he is mostly likely the androphilic type.
Next, what the patient here mostly likely needs the most is information. There are a great deal of mis-informative websites on transsexualism, and if the clinician does not provide the correct information, the patient will likely start running into the myths about transition on the web. Such information the patient will need is outcome data, diagnostic/surgical/hormonal outcomes, a >realistic< assessment of how well he would pass as a female, and a >realistic< assessment of the surgical and social risks. Only then will s/he ever be able to make an informed decision about how, whether, and when to transition (if at all).
As for the etiological aspects, the relationship between homosexuality and transsexuality is a little more complex. Androphilic transsexuality does appear to be related to male homosexuality. Some argue that androphilic transsexuality is an extreme form form of male homosexuality (or, depending on your point of view, that male homosexuality is an incomplete form of androphilic transsexuality). It is because of this relationship that some people call this type ‘homosexual transsexuality’. Autogynephilic transsexuality does not appear to be related to male homosexuality. Rather, it appears to be related to transvestic fetishism. That is, these people are erotically attracted to the idea of being female…like a cross-dresser who wants to appear female all the way down to the bone, rather than just by the clothes.
To wrap this up, is sounds like outside consultation might be best. An excellent compilation of experienced clinicians throughout the U.S. has been compiled by Anne Lawrence, MD, PhD, who is herself an openly transsexual MtF. Her website is annelawrence. com.
Best of luck. – James
From: James Cantor <James_Cantor@c…> Date: Wed Sep 10, 2003 7:17 pm Subject: Neuropsychological characteristics of transsexual persons
> If we assume that gender differences in cognitive and attentional > abilities and processing speed arise out of biological differences, the > relevant gender norms to use would seem to be those of the person’s > original physical gender, not the one they subjectively experiences > themselves to be, or the one they may have transformed their body into.
Not so simple.
1. There is more than one type of transsexuality (e.g., Blanchard, 1993), each of which has different correlates (e.g., Blanchard & Sheridan, 1992; Blanchard, Dickey, & Jones, 1995). One could reasonably expect these types to differ neuropsychologically with regard to which characteristics look male versus female.
2. People in sex transition are typically taking sex hormones, which has been shown to affect neurophysiological and neuropsychological measures (e.g., Kruijver et al., 2001). Although this has been tested in transsexuals directly (Van Goozen et al., 1995), relevant literatures also include neuropsychological differences associated with menopause, hormone replacement, anti-androgens (used to treat prostate cancer in men), and oral birth control.
3. It is unclear exactly what ‘transgender’ means. People with intersex conditions are a very different mix of characteristics than are transsexuals, and there are many different types of intersex conditions. Discussions (and research) are far more useful only after knowing exactly which condition is being considered.
4. Many transsexuals are also homosexual (Blanchard, Dickey, & Jones, 1995), and homosexual men and women neuropsychologically differ from heterosexual men and women (e.g., Gladue & Bailey, 1995; Wegesin, 1998). Much research on transsexuality unfortunately collapsed different types of transsexuals into a single group, obscuring any differences that could actually be sexual orientation differences. – James
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