Ina Rimpau (born 1958) is an American librarian, a staff member at the Newark Public Library system in New Jersey. Rimpau wrote a review of J. Michael Bailey‘s anti-transgender book The Man Who Would Be Queen for Library Journal, a trade publication that makes acquisition recommendations.
Marketing blurb (2003)
Publisher Joseph Henry Press used this excerpt in online promotions:
“[Bailey uses] chatty, lay readers’ terms and anecdotes from his own personal life and research… Recommended for comprehensive collections in sexuality, psychology, and social science.”
— Library Journal, May 15, 2003
Full review (2003)
[Excerpts used by Joseph Henry Press in italics. Notable omitted part in bold.]
The Man Who Would Be Queen; The Psychology of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism. Bailey, J. Michael. Joseph Henry: National Academy. 2003. c.256p. index. ISBN 0-309-08418-0. $24.95.
Bailey (psychology, Northwestern Univ.) presents himself as a psychologist firmly in the center of discussions surrounding transsexualism in males. He begins by contrasting a therapist who advocates striking a four-year-old boy for “engaging in feminine behavior” [1] (putting clothes on his stuffed animals) with the “anti – Gender Identity Disorder folks” (Bailey’s term) [2] who say that society is sick for being intolerant of unmasculine boys. Using chatty, lay readers’ terms and anecdotes from his own personal life and research, Bailey dispassionately presents the two extremes but fails to ask the deeper questions, e.g., if “masculine” and “feminine” traits and identities are so natural, why must masculinity in particular be intensely policed and enforced? He takes as a given that homosexuality has a biological root and describes transsexualism as a “developmental disorder.” [3, 4] Subsequent chapters present discussions and case studies of male-to-female transsexuals, making this book an adequate starting point for discussions on gender; for more radical views, readers are encouraged to read works by Pat Califia and Kate Bornstein. Recommended for comprehensive collections in sexuality, psychology, and social science. – Ina Rimpau, Newark P.L.
Footnotes
- Bailey, page 25: “At least once prior to therapy his father spanked Kraig for putting female clothes on his stuffed animals.”
- Bailey, page 28: “The anti-GID folks have a logically consistent treatment recommendation: no diagnosis, no treatment.”
- Bailey page 167: “This is speculative, and what causes the developmental error is anyone’s guess.”
- Bailey page 207: “I suspect that both autogynephilic and homosexual gender dysphoria result from early and irreversible developmental processes in the brain. If so, learning more about the origins of transsexualism will not get us much closer to curing it.”
References
Rimpau, Ina (May 15, 2003). The Man Who Would Be Queen; The Psychology of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism [Review]. Library Journal, p. 110.