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On the Science of Bonerism and the Identity Politics of "Single Heterosexual Men"
-- Consider the following excerpt:
The above paragraph is an example of what is commonly referred to as “racism.” Substitute transsexuals for African-Americans, however, and you have what some purport to be “science.” Ms. Arune’s article on this subject was such a titanic eruption of distortion, personal attacks, and outright rambling blather, that in a sense one feels actually thankful that it is getting circulation. One is tempted to simply add the coda “And this is why everyone thinks Bailey, Blanchard, and Lawrence and their supporters are nuts.” Mindful of the truism that a lie repeated often enough and unchallenged may become accepted as the truth, however, I thought to answer Ms. Arune in turn. The Language There is no inherent reason why the terms “transsexual woman” or
“female transsexual” could not be applied to male-to-female transsexuals
in the scientific literature, and vice versa for female-to-males. That male-to-female
transsexuals start out with male bodies is certainly true, but also irrelevant.
Identifying transsexuals by birth sex instead of target sex contributes nothing
of objective value as a scientific designation. True, there would no doubt be
confusion at first if the literature began referring to transsexuals in an inoffensive
manner, but science changes all the time. This would not only show respect for
one’s study population, it would have the added advantage of not contravening
APA publishing guidelines:
If it really were as simple as male body=male designation, then there would
be no transsexuals and we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Transsexual
people have already put up with enough in life without the clinicians adding
more for no reason other than what is basically a social agreement. No other
study population is required to put up with this type of thing. The scientific
literature does not refer to gay people who used to be married before coming
out as “heterosexual homosexuals.” One may of course argue that Blanchard did not begin this practice and was
really only doing what everyone else was. Fine, but it should stop. Bailey,
meanwhile, takes this one step further, going so far as to explicitly impose
his own created identity on an arbitrarily chosen portion of us: “homosexual
transsexuals are a type of gay man.” (3) He bases this on nothing more
than the fact that it is currently difficult to tell children who are transsexual
from children who are homosexual, and that young transsexuals often frequent
some of the same social venues as homosexuals, where they often pick up some
of the same sexual attitudes. But then, Bailey also calls himself a “single,
heterosexual male” (4) even though he believes that “a type of gay
man” (5) is “more attractive than the average genetic female”
(6). This may be an example of what Ms. Arune referred to as post-modernist
thinking. The Science Blanchard’s model purports that all male-to-female transsexuals can be
divided into two distinct groups: homosexual and autogynephilic. In the approximately
fifteen years since Blanchard proposed this concept, how many valid, reliable
studies are there supporting it? None. That doubtless seems an extraordinary
statement given how much noise has been made about Blanchard’s typology
in the last couple of years, so let’s break it down. Am I claiming there
is no evidence for the existence of arousal to feminization? No. There are anecdotes
compiled on Anne Lawrence’s website and the testimonies of some few others
who have come forward in the last year to claim that the concept applies to
them (although when pressed for specifics, what they talk about usually bears
very little resemblance to Blanchard’s actual concept). But Blanchard did
lots of studies! Bailey listed the abstracts of 20 studies Blanchard did, all
proving his typology! Well, no. Six of the 20 studies Bailey lists were not
about transsexualism, three preselected people Blanchard considered to be “autogynephiles,”
four compared transsexuals of different sexual orientations on family structure
and physical size, one studied autogynephilia but not typology, four studied
typology but not autogynephilia, and one summarized other studies. The remaining
one referred to, The concept of autogynephilia and the typology of male gender
dysphoria (7), is, as Wyndzen notes, “the first and only empirical
test of the key component of his theory: transsexuals with different sexual
orientations have fantasies of being their target sex to different extents.”
(8) The problem is, there’s no way of knowing how many of the people Blanchard
studied were actually transsexual and his measurement instrument did not in
fact measure autogynephilia. For the purposes of this study (and his other transsexual
typology studies), Blanchard defined transsexuals as “patients complaining
of gender dysphoria or transvestism, who reveal cross-dressing or cross-gender
wishes in the course of clinical assessment, or who exhibit an erotic preference
for males of any age regardless of presenting complaint” who claimed that
“at all times for at least one year” they had “felt like a woman.”
(9) There are two rather large problems with this definition. First, many male-to-female
transsexuals do not claim that they feel like a woman. To make such a claim,
one must first establish that there is in fact a clearly delineated way that
“a woman” feels, and then that one feels this way. If asked whether
or not I felt like a woman, I would likely respond, “I don’t know,
what does a woman feel like?” and base my answer on what further information
was provided. I might also like to know which “woman” we’re talking
about. Janet Reno? Britney Spears? Leah Delaria? How do I know what any of them
feel like? I feel like me. Second, and far more problematic, is that crossdressers
claim to feel like women all the time, especially the particularly intense kind
of crossdressers one would expect to encounter at, say, a gender clinic. We
know that none of the people studied had undergone SRS, because they were still
at the clinic. We do not know how many even desired to transition or considered
themselves to be transsexual. Furthermore, if it is true that fetishistic transvestites
are almost never homosexual, then crossdressers in the sample would have distorted
the response set for the “nonhomosexual” groups far more than for
the “homosexual” group. (I should note that I am not here attempting
to defend Blanchard’s views on crossdressers. A basic rule of social science
research, which Blanchard seems to have felt free to ignore, is that you can’t
draw conclusions to an entire population from a small, self-selected sample.
Crossdressers who do not have fetish problems would have no reason to seek services
from someone like Blanchard.) It is true that there is no professional consensus
on the precise way to define who is and isn’t transsexual. Ms. Arune claims,
“It may be said that a transsexual is one who demands SRS and is happy
after SRS, for in truth, no other definitive diagnosis exists.” (10) The
desire for and/or satisfaction with SRS was not a feature of Blanchard’s
selection methods. In essence, Blanchard created his own arbitrary definition
for his study. As his definition was arbitrary, his data would then be arbitrary
as well. Blanchard’s subjects were then measured on his “Core Autogynephilia
Scale.” The full text of the scale is available online. (11) Autogynephilia
as defined by Blanchard is "a man’s paraphilic tendency to be sexually
aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman." (12) Of the eight
questions listed on Blanchard’s Core Autogynephilia Scale, seven do not
actually ask what one is aroused by, but only if one has ever been aroused while
doing a particular thing. That one is aroused while doing something does not
necessarily mean that one is aroused by doing that thing. Most of the human
race has been aroused while in bed, but that does not mean that most of humanity
has a bed fetish, just that people tend to have sex in bed. I am not claiming
that transsexual women do not have sexual fantasies involving their own bodies,
such a claim would be ridiculous, just that this does not necessarily make such
fantasies “autogynephilic.”
The excerpts from this particular sexual fantasy, for example, hit at least
5 indicators on Blanchard’s Core Autogynephilia Scale (aroused while picturing
body, vagina, breast, leg, buttocks), putting it right in the average of autogynephile
territory. So, did this come off some “transgender erotica” website?
Or perhaps it’s an excerpt from the dream diary of Anne Lawrence? No, it’s
actually from Women on Top, a collection of the sexual fantasies of genetic
females compiled by sexologist Nancy Friday. Women on Top is the perfect
antidote to all this ridiculous “male sex drive” business. Some of
the stuff in that book even puts The Man Who Would Be Queen’s infamous
“robot man” to shame:
It is rather telling that Blanchard has never compared transsexual women with
genetic female controls, and Bailey “admits he's ‘increasingly aware’
that he doesn't comprehend female sexuality.” (15) If they don’t understand
it, if they never compare the two groups (or if the transsexual sample is all
drawn from drag bars while the control group is not; this is what we call “sample
bias”), how can they be so sure that transsexual women cannot possess a
sexuality that approximates that of genetic females? Ms. Arune appears to claim
in her piece that this really is what they’re saying, it’s just that,
“What is natural in one is unnatural in the other.” (16) Ms. Arune
appears to have misunderstood Blanchard completely. Blanchard specifically terms
“autogynephilia” to be a paraphilia. Unless Ms. Arune believes that
female sexuality is inherently fetishistic (and I don’t think even Blanchard
or Bailey have gotten that far… yet…), those two assertions are irreconcilable.
Just to make sure, however, let’s see what Blanchard has to say:
Apparently, Blanchard’s never met “mechanical hands green lit my
vagina” girl. Of course, you do not need to find the simple thought of
having a vagina arousing in and of itself to be declared an autogynephile according
to Blanchard’s Scale. If what Blanchard defines as autogynephilia is common
among genetic women, that would directly contradict Blanchard’s claims
about transsexual typology. How one’s body responds to one’s lover
is a critical component of female sexuality. If transsexual women happen to
respond in the same way, doesn’t that sort of, like, contradict every single
claim, assumption, and conclusion Blanchard and Co. have ever made about transsexualism?
Okay, that one did actually come from a transwoman. No it didn’t, it’s
another genetic female. Funny, it’s the sort of thing you’d think
a “sexologist” would know about. Blanchard’s studies also claim that transwomen not exclusively attracted
to men show less female-stereotypical gender role performance in childhood,
as a group, than those exclusively attracted to men. I have no doubt that, taken
as groups, this is accurate. However, the same claim is true for genetic females.
Since this is a difference one would expect to find whether or not a woman is
transsexual, and hence whether or not transsexualism is caused by two distinct
types of misdirected male sex drives, it cannot be considered evidence of Blanchard’s
typology. This indicates typology only if you assume a priori that transsexualism
is exclusively a product of sexual orientation, and you can’t assume your
theory to prove your theory, that’s cheating. A further claim given as supporting Blanchard’s typology is that transwomen
exclusively attracted to men transition, as a group, earlier in life than those
not exclusively attracted to men. This too is a phenomenon one would expect
regardless of whether or not Blanchard’s typology is accurate. There is
a longstanding societal bias towards the idea that transwomen are only attracted
to men, which those not exclusively attracted to men must get past before they
can label themselves transsexual and seek transition services. Additionally,
those living in the gay subculture have social outlets more open to feminine
expression in those perceived as male, thus allowing them safe spaces to express
and come to terms with their feelings earlier than those who do not have such
outlets. Again, positing that different experiences of people with different
sexual orientations is evidence of differing “types” of transsexualism
works only if one assumes a priori that transsexualism is exclusively a product
of sexual orientation, which is still cheating. But of course, transsexuals who deny autogynephilia will still show evidence
of it in the lab. Blanchard proved that too! Well, no he didn’t. The study
cited as proof of this, Blanchard’s Phallometric Detection of Fetishistic
Arousal in Heterosexual Male Cross-Dressers, (19) which again lumped crossdressers
with transsexuals (the same person can be a transsexual or a crossdresser in
Blanchard’s studies, as it suits his need), showed that the less Blanchard’s
study subjects claimed to be aroused by crossdressing, the less arousal they
showed to crossdressing narratives when tested with penile plethysmography.
However, every group, including the one that denied all arousal to crossdressing,
showed at least some arousal to narratives involving dressing in female clothing.
Let’s assume that at least some in the group that denied all arousal to
the idea of dressing in female clothing were transsexual. (I should note that
I am fairly agnostic on the relationship between transsexualism and transvestism,
I simply point out that Blanchard’s claim that they are two variants of
the same underlying condition is based on studies which themselves conflated
the two groups) Does that prove Blanchard’s claims?
These are not excerpts of fantasies reported by transwomen. These are all from
sexual fantasies of, yes, genuinely XX chromosomed, natally female, honest-to-god
biological women. Lots of women like dressing sexy. Deal with it. The fact that
some transsexual women also feel this way would again seem to prove Blanchard’s
critics’ point. An oddity in Ms. Arune’s article is that while she raises the issue of
lying to conform to gatekeepers’ models, she seems to completely miss the
implications in regards to Blanchard’s claims. Which clinic has absolutely
the most notorious reputation for making it necessary to lie in order to access
transition services? Come on, you all know, say it with me: the Clarke, of course.
It’s very strange that a clinician who, according to Ms. Arune, made it
possible for transsexual women to be honest with him would acquire such a reputation.
Blanchard and his supporters would claim transsexual women lie in order to avoid
his typology, which makes absolutely no sense. One goes to a gender clinic in
order to access transition services. One accesses transition services by convincing
the gatekeeper one fits the gatekeeper’s ideas about what a transsexual
person is. The only reason to lie to Blanchard would be the same reason every
transwomen has ever lied to a gatekeeper: to fit the model. When faced with
one arbitrary definition of what a transsexual woman is, one conforms one’s
story to the definition. Blanchard’s great advance is simply to have two
arbitrary definitions instead of one. Thus, his clients figure out which definition
they are expected to conform to, based on the arbitrary choice of the clinician,
and conform themselves to it. Many, of course, may initially arrive at Blanchard’s
clinic not realizing the role they are expected to play and consequently attempt
to tell the truth. Since this often doesn’t conform to whatever “type”
the clinician has in mind, they are assumed to be lying, which the model says
to expect. If you say what they want to hear, you prove their ideas to be true.
If you don’t say what they want to hear, you prove their ideas to be true.
In movies, this is known as “comedy.” Its purpose is to evoke laughter
at the inherent absurdity of the situation. At the offices of the CAMH gender
clinic and Northwestern’s psychology department, it is apparently known
as “science.” Why aren’t there lots of teenaged hot MtF transitioners
attracted to women and older not-so-hot MtF transitioners attracted to men?
Well, in the real world, there are. At CAMH and likeminded clinics, they know
it’s better to conform to the clinicians’ expectations. This has been
talked about for years, it’s not like it’s some huge secret. Two arbitrary definitions instead of one may have seemed like an advance twenty
years ago, but this is not twenty years ago. Ms. Arune’s claim that Blanchard’s
model is the only alternative to an even more restrictive one is simply untrue.
Ms. Arune claims to side with experts, and for the moment, so will I. I, however,
will side with the majority of experts who reject Blanchard’s model. I
will, on this particular issue, side with HBIGDA, which has on more than one
occasion spoken out against this nonsense. In the US, we have moved beyond the
era of restrictive clinics demanding compliance to an arbitrary set of symptoms.
The university clinics still exist, but hardly anyone who’s actually serious
about transition goes anywhere near one. You can get doctor monitored hormone
therapy with far less bother and time than jumping through CAMH’s hoops,
and in increasing cases without even strict adherence to the minimum standards
of the SOC. This has not resulted in a sudden increase in the number of those
transitioning who later regret it. Paradoxically, this is in large degree because
transition services are not covered the way they are in Canada, Australia, and
Britain. There, you can get treatment covered, but only if you submit to one
particular clinic. You have clinics operating monopoly control over government-subsidized
treatment on a socially despised client population, which the mental health
establishment has decreed have no inherent right to treatment. That is a near-perfect
recipe for abuse. I would of course never dream of conjecturing that the inherent
conflict of interest created by Blanchard simultaneously holding the position
of researcher and of gatekeeper to treatment could have had the slightest biasing
effect on his “science.” Similarly, I see nothing at all tautological
in requiring MtF transsexual clients to wear only skirts or dresses to clinic
sessions and then writing “scientific” papers on the ways in which
MtF transsexual people show stereotypical gender role performance. I am certain
Blanchard had entirely valid reasons for demanding control over what his clients
could change their names to, after all, calling yourself Terri or Chris would
be… just bad, very very bad. The fact that Blanchard’s clinic’s
main business is working with sex offenders and that they use theoretical and
treatment models for transsexualism that look remarkably like those used with
sex offenders can only be the strangest of coincidences. And of course everyone
knows Blanchard and his clinicians are right to assert that there’s essentially
no such thing as gay FtMs. (26) After all, if it doesn’t fit their models,
it can’t exist. Der transfagen est verboten!!! NEIN!!! The Four Greatest Helpers No, Ms. Arune wasn’t referring to Benjamin, Biber, Gooren, and Ousterhout.
Yes, she really did say Blanchard, Petersen, Bailey, and Lawrence have done
more to help transwomen than any other four people in the world. I know. Apparently,
Ms. Arune inhabits a parallel universe where “help” is synonymous
with, respectively, inhibiting proper access to medical care, testifying against
including transsexuals in human rights legislation, misleading and sexually
objectifying your research subjects (Look, on this page we get Bailey horny!
And on this page, we get him horny again! Ooh, look, here we are getting one
of his students horny!), and obsessively projecting one’s own behavior
onto others. I somehow doubt it’s an accident that the four people mentioned
are all either known (Blanchard and Petersen) or alleged (Bailey and Lawrence)
to have sexually abused transsexual women (Andrea’s was not the first allegation
of its type, nor the only one similar to the well documented incident that ended
Lawrence’s career as an anesthesiologist). Arguments over the fact that
the “penile plethysmograph” is not generally accepted as a valid measurement
instrument tend to obscure what I consider to be the real issue. Blanchard and
Petersen took people who often have serious body image issues, often involving
their genitalia, strapped a machine to their genitals, and forced them to watch
and listen to weird fetish porn. They strapped… a machine… to their
genitals… and forced them… to watch fetish porn. They may consider
it science; I consider it a form of sexual abuse. Blanchard and Petersen never
should have been allowed to resign from HBIGDA. They and the rest of the Clarke
crew should have been kicked out a long time ago for grossly unethical “treatment”
methods. I must admit Ms. Arune has a point here. True, she undermines her argument
by insisting that BBL never refer to us as men when they’ve done so like
1000 times (yes, even post-op, try reading them once in a while) but if they
were wrong to do it, then what was everyone else’s excuse? We can split
hairs about whether or not people who consider themselves a particularly effeminate
type of gay man or a man literally in love with their own feminine image could
ever “really” be female, but if nothing else, it’s just frigging
rude and immature. The speed with which “autogynephile” has become
the trans equivalent of n----r is something the entire “community”
should be absolutely ashamed of. If we use the tools of the oppressor to attack
each other all we end up doing is adding currency to them, and then we have
only ourselves to blame when they come back to bite us all right in the ass.
Besides, some things you just don’t screw with, and someone else’s
identity is one of them. That Bailey did it first doesn’t make it right
to do to others. USENET is a pretty f----d up place. In theory, it was supposed to be the ultimate
democratic information exchange. Anyone could come talk to anyone else about
anything. In practice, it’s where idiots go to yell at each other. One
particularly exemplary instance of this phenomenon is a particular newsgroup
known as “alt.support.srs.” This was, I am informed, at one time a
place where useful information could actually be obtained about SRS and transition
procedures. For the last several years, however, it has been taken over by a
group of approximately half a dozen or so people, give or take from year to
year, whose main preoccupation in life appears to be hurling the same insults
at each other over and over and over again. I mention this because this particular
forum appears to be the source of the bulk of Ms. Arune’s claims about
the behavior of “we transsexuals.” Anyone with the stomach to dredge
through enough of this sewer will recognize more than one of the behaviors “we”
supposedly engage in as coming from one particular fool with whom Ms. Arune,
herself a prominent contributor to this newsgroup’s never-ending flame
wars, has carefully cultivated a longstanding and rather absurd rivalry. Alt.support.srs
is not screwed up because it’s a transsexual forum, however, it’s
screwed up because it’s a USENET forum. If you go to the places where absurd
and nasty behavior is likely to be found, you will find absurd and nasty behavior.
This will particularly be the case if you go to these sorts of places looking
to intentionally provoke nasty behavior:
So yes, there is truth in Ms. Arune’s claim that a transsexual may talk
in “a pseudo-typical female refinement, prefacing any insult with Honey
or Dear.” (28) (The original version of Ms. Arune’s essay included
the sentence “At times this can be rather funny to an observer of meetings.”
(29)) One can indeed find examples of such behavior:
There are literally hundreds of other examples on this particular forum; the
curious thing is that the poster almost always seems to identify themselves
as “Willow Arune” (or as “Silence Dogood,” who happens to
list the same email address). If Ms. Arune finds such behavior as ridiculous
as I do, I would suggest a ready-made solution would be for her to simply stop
engaging in it. Regardless, the fact that she is transsexual and she engages
in this behavior does not therefore mean that all transsexuals do. Space does not allow me the opportunity to refute every single false or misleading
allegation Ms. Arune makes to specific people in the transsexual community,
but for the sake of accuracy I will attempt to correct a few of the more egregious: Andrea James did indeed ask Ms. Arune if there was any truth to the allegation
that she is a registered sex offender. Whether she likes it or not, Ms. Arune
and other “autogynephilia supporters” have made themselves an issue
by claiming to be typical of transsexual women, but simply more honest. If there
is an unusually high level of predatory sexual behavior among “autogynephilia
supporters,” that would be relevant to the debate as to how typical they
in fact are. As said allegation has been neither confirmed nor refuted with
documentation, Andrea has not published it. Lynn Conway did not speak out in The Washington Times against further
research on transsexualism, she spoke out against the specific research Bailey
did as unethical. Read the article. (34) Dr. McCloskey’s warning to sue Bailey if he defames her again as an autogynephile
while not suing Ms. Arune for doing the same may relate to the fact that a university
professor using his professional credentials to make a bogus mental illness
diagnosis on someone he’s never met is a far cry from some random nut who
just likes to insult people. It is apparently true that Dr. McCloskey did send
a similar letter once to Ms. Arune after receiving repeated taunts from her.
While I feel it is unfortunate that Dr. McCloskey allowed herself to be lowered
to Ms. Arune’s level, my personal opinion would be that this particular
situation reflects more poorly on the taunter than the tauntee. The children- she attacked the children!!! Well, yes, she did, but as is par
for the claims of BBL supporters, the truth of the matter is a little more complicated.
Early on in the controversy, Andrea James posted pictures of Bailey’s son
and daughter, with captions under each that, respectively, quoted from Bailey’s
book that such children were likely to “work as waitresses, hairdressers,
receptionists, strippers, and prostitutes, as well as in many other occupations”
(35) and that summarized the typology Bailey promotes as well as his claim that
one can make the diagnosis with a 12 question test. Bailey then commented that
what Andrea put up constituted “dirty captions.” (36) Andrea was criticized
by many both within and without the transsexual community for bringing Bailey’s
children into it, and subsequently took the page down and apologized. I happen
to agree with Bailey that the captions were “dirty.” That is why I
happen to feel that Bailey never should have written them in the first place.
It is the height of hypocrisy for Bailey to claim that his language is “sympathetic”
(37) to transsexual women but suddenly becomes “dirty” when applied
to non-transsexual people. The fact that what Andrea did crossed the line itself
proves the point she was attempting to make in her admittedly misguided way:
that’s just a disgusting way to talk about people. Unlike Andrea, as of
this writing Bailey has yet to apologize for his “dirty” words. Ms. Arune appears to contradict herself by first claiming that some crossdressers become transsexual but later claiming that those who do were “merely incorrectly diagnosed.” (38) I am unable to correct this one because I don’t know which claim she actually believes to be true. I would merely point out that how different people happen to cope with being transsexual is a separate issue from whether or not they have different “types” of transsexualism. This also explains the high dropout rate of “autogynephilic transsexuals” Ms. Arune notes. Among mainstream clinicians, it is understood that crossdressers experiencing difficult periods in their lives will not uncommonly misdiagnose themselves as transsexual and seek to transition. Not surprisingly, almost all will drop out at some point along the way as they begin to realize that the reality of transition is very different from their expectations. The mainstream view would be that such people were never transsexual to begin with, but under Blanchard’s model they are all lumped in as “autogynephilic transsexuals.” Me, Therefore You Too
Well, yes, that’s sort of the point. And I don’t think it’s
just me. Out of the 150+ members of Willow’s “autogynephilia support”
group, most are lurkers, the majority of posters are BBL critics, and many of
the “supporters,” such as Bailey and Blanchard themselves, do not
identify with the concept. We’re talking perhaps 15-20 people, as opposed
to the over 1400 who signed the petition demanding Lambda retract Bailey’s
book as an award finalist, of whom perhaps around 100 were not themselves transgender.
By my math, the debate is running somewhere between 98-99% against BBL in the
trans community. Linking individual people into groups is all well and good,
but the reasons for linking them must be valid. If the “expert” proposing
to make these linkages makes claims about my life, experiences, feelings, and
thoughts which are wildly inaccurate, and proposes that I trust his or her assertions
rather than my own memories simply on the grounds that they are an expert and
they say so, then I am inclined to doubt said “expert.” I find myself
more open to people who want to know who I am rather than tell me who I am.
We deny all interest in sex, we rarely even talk about sex, we cultivate images
of delicate flowers- who are you talking about??!! Seriously, what are you on
and where can I get some? That may be the way it’s done on asses.r.us,
but there’s a whole world out there. It may be the case that someone who
is sexually obsessed with a narcissistic fetish, as Ms. Arune claims to be,
is simply unable to comprehend a healthy sexuality, but let me try to lay it
out here: to deny having “autogynephilia” or an extreme case of queer
hard-on for the straight guy does not somehow equate to denying having a sex
drive. I have no problem with the statement that I had SRS partly in order to
have sex, but SRS is only one part of transition, as sex is only one part of
life.
We are a highly fragmented community. We break down along lines of age, age
at transition, social class, etc., thus making us… absolutely no different
than anyone else. Of course those labeled by BBL as “homosexual transsexuals”
are more well connected socially than BBL’s “everyone else” group-
they’re all drawn from the same socio-economic class and age group. Is
it really an accident that everyone Bailey labels as an “autogynephile”
just happens to be middle class while everyone he labels as a “homosexual”
just happens to be lower class? (Hence the real reason “Victoria”
(41) didn’t get mentioned in Bailey’s book- she’s too hot to
be caricatured as an “autogynephile” but she’s middle class so
she couldn’t be caricatured as part of the dregs of the gay ghetto.) I
find I have the most in common with other middle to upper-middle class transwomen
who transitioned in their 20s, regardless of sexual orientation, and are socially
integrated as women- should we start our own “type?” If I find I have
little in common with someone who’s a completely different generation than
me, who lived an apparently successful “male” life including fathering
children, whose main preoccupation in life is insulting people over the internet,
who effects a “pseudo-typical female refinement,” isn’t that
completely to be expected? Dear me, my goodness, merciful heavens, oh I have
the vapors- who the hell talks like that besides you, Willow? But of course, all points of view are valid. No, they aren’t. Ravings
about idiotic “transgender hierarchies” aside,
Substitute self-professed autogynephiles for crossdressers, and you have the
problem I suspect most transwomen have with people like Ms. Arune and Anne Lawrence
in a nutshell, especially the part about lust being satisfied “by your
presence.” I’ll support the right of anyone to make any body modification
they choose, but I wonder if the reason Ms. Arune seems to alienate so many
transsexual women is less due to her high profile than her apparent need to
so vigorously project her own behavior and desires onto others. *We* do not
all try to talk like Victorian ladies-in-waiting, *we* do not run around USENET
bragging about every teenaged transitioner we talk to, *we* do not hold misogynistic
views of women as delicate flowers with no sex drive, *we* do not sign onto
young-adult oriented internet forums, obsessively search out every mention of
our name, and send creepy emails to all the posters. (I should note that I am
not here attempting to defend Bloom’s views on crossdressers; while I have
very little experience of crossdressers, it seems to me reasonable that one
crossdresser who’s acting like a creepy weirdo towards you is unfortunately
likely to leave more of an impression than 10 or even 100 crossdressers who
are perfectly nice and normal. There are oddballs in every identifiable grouping
of people. Any time a nice and normal crossdresser wants to trade tequila shots,
hey, set em up.) The Implications Ms. Arune claims that the events of the last year have had the effect of driving
researchers out of this field. To the extent she is referring to researchers
in the mold of Blanchard, Bailey, and Lawrence, I hope that’s true. If
fantasies about a vast transsexual mafia hell bent on destroying all who question
them will convince such people to leave research on transsexualism to those
whose heads are not inserted entirely into their own rectums, then fine: beware
the hordes of uppity trannies. We have an army of robot monkeys and we know
kung fu; fear us for our day has come. Legitimate researchers will unfortunately
be likely to find an increased atmosphere of mistrust, thanks to the actions
of BBL. I believe that, given time, such an atmosphere can be overcome through
the application of a relatively few simple principles on the part of researchers:
I have enough faith in the broader scientific community to believe that most will be able to overcome potential biases such as those which have overwhelmed BBL and Co. Potentially more troubling is what this little episode has revealed about the place of the “T” in GLBT. Lambda Literary essentially asserted the right to deny any and all accountability to a population they granted themselves the right to speak for. Whether or not the experience has really been “humbling” for them is a question only time will answer. If they cannot truly bring themselves to admit what they did wrong, then they need to suspend the “transgender” award category for the time being. Our place in any GLBT coalition must be that of equals, or none at all. If they can truly accept this, if researchers can become more interested in who we are than in who they want us to be, then this mess will actually have produced something worthwhile. That will not be a black age. It will be the dawn. Endnotes 1. Before anyone feels compelled to write in denouncing me for writing racist
drivel, try to remember, that’s the point. Compare to Bailey’s book
p. 142. Get the picture? 2. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th ed.
(2001). American Psychological Association. p. 63. 3. Bailey, J. Michael (2003). The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of
Gender-Bending and Transsexualism. Joseph Henry Press. p. 178. 4. Ibid, p. 141. 5. Ibid, p. 178. 6. Ibid, p. 141. 7. Blanchard, Ray (1989). The Concept of Autogynephilia and the Typology of
Male Gender Dysphoria The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 177(10),
616-623. Full text available at http://www.genderpsychology.org/ 8. Wyndzen, M (2004). Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Autogynephilia
* but Were Afraid You had to Ask.: via genderpsychology.org 9. Blanchard, Ray (1989). The Concept of Autogynephilia and the Typology of
Male Gender Dysphoria. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 177(10),
616-623. Retrieved 9/2/04, from http://www.genderpsychology.org/autogynephilia/male_gender_dysphoria/ 10. Arune, Willow (2004). I Am Arune. Transgender Tapestry, Summer 2004
(106): p. 47. 11. At http://www.genderpsychology.org/autogynephilia/male_gender_dysphoria/autogynephilic_fetishism.html. 12. In J. M. Bailey (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. 13. Friday, Nancy (1991). Women on Top. Pocket Books, pp. 420-421. 14. Ibid, p. 369. 15. Anderson, Kevin, and Dreier, Sarah (2003, 21 April). Prof's book challenges
opinions of human sexuality. The Daily Northwestern. 16. Arune, Willow (2004). I Am Arune. Transgender Tapestry, Summer 2004
(106): p. 47. 17. Blanchard, Ray. Personal communication to Anne Lawrence (1999). Quoted
in Autogynephilia: Frequently-Asked Questions: via annelawrence.com: http://www.annelawrence.com/agfaqs.html 18. Friday, Nancy (1991). Women on Top. Pocket Books, p. 345. 19. Ray Blanchard, I. G. Racansky, & Betty W. Steiner (1986) Phallometric
Detection of Fetishistic Arousal in Heterosexual Male Cross-Dressers. Journal
of Sex Research, Vol. 22, 1986, No 4, pp.452-462. 20. Friday, Nancy (1991). Women on Top. Pocket Books, p. 552. 21. Ibid, p. 457. 22. Ibid, p. 420. 23. Ibid, p. 388. 24. Ibid, p. 345. 25. Monty Python’s The Life Of Brian (1979). Anchor Bay Entertainment.
26. Krista and Pandora. Clinician, Heal Thyself. Transhealth.com 2003
Summer 3(1) via transhealth.com: http://www.trans-health.com/Vol3Iss1/clinician.html 27. Arune, Willow (2004). Re: Certified True Transsexual Certificates. Via
alt.support.srs: http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl101135305d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&safe=off&selm=Kxoec.84223%24Ig.10853%40pd7tw2no 28. Arune, Willow (2004). I Am Arune. Transgender Tapestry, Summer 2004
(106): p. 49. 29. Arune, Willow (2004). I Am Arune. Retrieved 9/2/04 via autogynephilia.org:
http://www.autogynephilia.org/I%20AM%20ARUNE.htm 30. Arune, Willow (2004). Our Jenny- History in the Making. Via alt.support.srs:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=willow+arune+dear+group:alt.support.srs.*&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=alt.support.srs.*&c2coff=1&selm=oxFEc.951909%24oR5.93134%40pd7tw3no&rnum=13 31. Arune, Willow (2004). Re: Immigration and Unnaturalization [sic]. Via alt.support.srs:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=willow+arune+dear+group:alt.support.srs.*&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=alt.support.srs.*&c2coff=1&selm=HCWUc.146781%24gE.109391%40pd7tw3no&rnum=35 32. Arune, Willow (2004). Re: Autogynephilia. Via alt.support.srs: http://groups.google.com/groups?q=willow+arune+honey+group:alt.support.srs.*&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=alt.support.srs.*&c2coff=1&selm=dPq1b.809904%243C2.18375467%40news3.calgary.shaw.ca&rnum=7 33. Arune, Willow (2004). Re: Jennifer Usher and Willow Arune. Via alt.support.srs:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=willow+arune+honey+group:alt.support.srs.*&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=alt.support.srs.*&c2coff=1&selm=hBrEc.946760%24oR5.92647%40pd7tw3no&rnum=1 34. McCain, R.S. (2004, 30 January). NIH director defends funds for criticized
sex research. The Washington Times. 35. Bailey, J. Michael (2003). The Man Who Would Be Queen. Joseph Henry
Press. p. 142. 36. Bailey, J. Michael (2003). Email communication to Gerulf Rieger. Retrieved
9/2/04 via tsroadmap.com: http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/bailey-responses.html 37. Anderson, Kevin, and Dreier, Sarah (2003, 21 April). Prof's book challenges
opinions of human sexuality. The Daily Northwestern. 38. Arune, Willow (2004). I Am Arune. Transgender Tapestry, Summer 2004
(106): p. 47. 39. Arune, Willow (2004). I Am Arune. Transgender Tapestry, Summer 2004
(106): p. 50. 40. James, Andrea (2003). The Anne Who Would Be Queen, Appendix 2: Observations
from my encounter with Dr. Lawrence. Retrieved 9/2/04 via tsroadmap.com: http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/lawrence/anne-lawrence-encounter.html 41. Conway, Lynn (2003). A second woman files research misconduct complaints
against Bailey: July 14, 2003. Retrieved 9/2/04 via lynnconway.com: http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Bailey/SecondComplaint.html 42. Bloom, Amy (2002). Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops, and Hermaphrodites with Attitude. Random House. pp. 94-95. |
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