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"Lost in the Male": review by John Derbyshire
Below is an excerpt from a glowing review of J. Michael Bailey’s The
Man Who Would Be Queen, penned by John Derbyshire for the conservative magazine
National Review on June 30, 2003 (pp. 51-52).
See my comments following the excerpt.
Part Three is the book’s most difficult section, because it deals with
the rarest and most puzzling aspect of male effeminacy: According to Bailey,
less than one man in 12,000 is transsexual, a condition defined simply by
“the desire to become a member of the opposite sex,” whether or
not that desire has led to actual surgery. The striking finding here is that
there are two quite distinct types of men who wish they were women, distinguished
by the choice of erotic object. On the one hand there are “homosexual
transsexuals,” who desire masculine men—heterosexual men, for preference—and
who dress and behave like women to attract them. And then there is the “autogynephilic
transsexual,” a man whose erotic attention is fixed on the idea of himself
as a woman.
The strangeness of this latter type is captured nicely in the title of Bailey’s
chapter on them: “Men Trapped in Men’s Bodies.” An autogynephile
is essentially a heterosexual man whose object of desire is an imaginary feminine
creature which happens to be himself… or herself, depending on how you
look at it. Such a person was usually not effeminate as a child, has likely
been married, and does not show typically homosexual preferences in career
or entertainment choices. The historian and travel writer Jan (formerly James)
Morris, to judge from her autobiographical book Conundrum, belongs to this
category. The consummation of sexual desire presents obvious difficulties
for the autogynephile. Indeed, it is occasionally fatal: Around 100 American
men die every year from “autoerotic asphyxia,” which seems to arise
from a conjunction of masochism and autogynephilia—the two conditions
are related in some way not well understood.
All of these types—girlish boys, male homosexuals, transsexuals of both
types—are of course human beings, who, like the rest of us, must play
the best game they can with the cards Nature has dealt them. No decent person
would wish to inflict on them any more unhappiness than their mismatched bodies
and psyches have already burdened them with. At the same time, there is circumstantial
evidence that complete acceptance and equality for all sexual orientations
may have antisocial consequences, so that the obloquy aimed at sexual variance
by every society prior to our own may have had some stronger foundation than
mere blind prejudice. Male homosexuality, in particular, seems to possess
some quality of being intrinsically subversive when let loose in long-established
institutions, especially male dominated ones. The courts of at least two English
kings offer support to this thesis, as does the postwar British Secret Service,
and more recently the Roman Catholic priesthood. I should like to see some
adventurous sociologist research these outward aspects with as much diligence
and humanity as Michael Bailey has applied to his study of the inward ones.
Derbyshire, J. "Lost in the Male." National Review, June
30, 2003. pp. 51-52.
Comments
Mr. Derbyshire’s positive review shows why this book will be embraced
by conservatives as part of the new “calculated compassion” movement
in the face of significant and unstoppable GLBT political advances in the last
30 years. Seems they hope to slow things down at least.
As expected, uber-conservative Mr. Derbyshire loves Bailey. In discussing the
first two sections, he brings up Bailey’s cloacal extrophy story, his woefully
uninformed “homosexual voice” thinking and clueless conjectures on
why certain jobs in the gender ghettoes go to gay men.
Then he gets to the part on transsexuals, which he sums up perfectly. Mr. Derbyshire
cuts through Bailey’s attempts to obfuscate his bigotry and exposes the
book for what it is.
Bailey has been claiming he never called us men, but that’s not how
anyone else sees it, whether they're Mr. Derbyshire, yours
truly, or
other psychologists.
He also picks up on how Bailey claims there’s a connection between transsexual
women and 25 men a year who die from self-strangulation while whacking off
in panties.
The 1 in 12,000 number cited is way off, as Bailey is about to find out.
I would estimate several thousand assimilated transsexual women in the Chicago
area alone, and probably five times that many who would fit in Bailey’s
overbroad definition of anyone seriously thinking about transition.
Bailey should be very pleased to see that conservatives like Tammy
Bruce and John Derbyshire are taking up Anne Lawrence’s offensive
“Men Trapped in Men’s Bodies”cliche, which dovetails perfectly
with his Man Who Would Be Queen title.
Mr. Derbyshire sees homosexuals as “intrinsically subversive”when
allowed in positions of power (see the
Califia-Rice quotation on my "illegal immigrants" page for how
those of us who pass get painted as moles and traitors).
NaSHILLnal Review?
One thing I like about the National Review crowd is that they are smart
and have senses of humor. I got several chuckles among their eyeroll-inducing
cluelessness as I read their site to find how this review came about. It came
about the same way as Bailey's Amazon
shill reviews, it turns out. A little logrolling.
Both boys are recently published by National
Academies Press:
Prime Obsession:Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics
John Derbyshire
5.5 x.8.5, 448 pages, 2003.
The Man Who Would Be Queen:The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism
J. Michael Bailey
6 x 8.5, 256 pages, 2003.
The Derb is well-known for anti-gay commentary, and he's taking us to task
for being those "'transgender' extremists," miserable ingrates who
just aren't satisfied with the crumbs from the table.
http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/03_06_15_corner-archive.asp
The homosexual-rights activists are in a period of overshoot. They have banished
the old regime of illegality, persecution and blackmail, and a good thing
too. Now, however, they are trying to effect radical changes in society, changes
which huge numbers of people will not stomach. As I have said before: "Homosexuals
would, I believe, be wise to lower the volume, cherish their private lives,
withdraw the more contentious litigation, and stop 'pushing the envelope.'
Envelopes can break."
There's also this gem (interesting in light of my business partner Calpernia's
boyfriend Barry, who was gay-bashed on base for months before he was literally
beaten to death with a baseball bat):
The extremist-homosexualist lobbies are extremely skilled at this. Just look
at the word "gay-bashing." It ought to mean whacking someone over
the head with a baseball bat. What it actually means--is taken to mean by
ordinary Americans--is the utterance of anything opposed to the extremist-homosexualist
cause. (It was used against me just five minutes ago in an e-mail, because
I wondered aloud about diseases specific to male homosexuals.)
And last, before we get to the review, an anecdote about his wacky adventures
with Bailey (emphasis mine):
http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/03_06_08_corner-archive.asp#009695
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE LATE [John Derbyshire]
Yes, it's true: NRODT really did assign me to review Michael Bailey's book
about effeminate men. I urge you to do one, or better yet both, of the following:
(a) get a subscription to NRODT so you can read my review, or (b) buy Michael's
book. As well as the obvious reasons to buy it (it's a good book, full of
fascinating observations and, so far as I could discern, agenda-free),
there is also the fact that Michael, the nicest guy you could ever wish to
meet, and a very conscientious researcher, is being vilified by militant
trans-gender extremists. Here is an anecdote about the book. It happens
that Michael and I share the same publisher. We had adjoining tables at Book
Expo America in Los Angeles the other day. The drill is, you get half an hour
at a table in a huge hall, where people line up in front of the tables to
get a free book (this is a trade show) signed by the author. It's all timed
very precisely by the organizers, as they have a LOT of authors to get through.
Well, I was waiting in the green room with my publisher's publicity lady,
to do my signing at 12:30. Michael was scheduled to sign at the same time,
but he was late. It got to be 12:15, 12:20, and the publicity lady was getting
worried. Derb: "I sure hope he gets here on time. A long line of angry
transsexuals doesn't bear thinking about..." Fortunately Michael
showed up with a minute to spare.
I promised I'd stop being so catty, but I gotta say it... rounding a corner
at a book expo and seeing these two side by side doesn't bear thinking about.
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