No matter how you slice it: parsing Alice Dreger’s self-defense |
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Sloppy historian Alice Dreger is always unintentionally hilarious, and I’m not just talking about her haircuts. She recently posted “A note on Kiira Triea’s place in the history of intersex activism,” about notorious hoaxer Denise Tree, aka Kiira Triea.
Dreger published Tree’s bogus medical history as fact a few years ago.
Let’s cut through Dreger’s typically bad writing and translate what she really wants to accomplish here. Dreger writes:
A couple of times now I’ve been asked about certain online misrepresentations of my activist colleague Kiira Triea by academic colleagues
Translation: I carefully read Andrea James’ documentation of Denise Tree’s lies and exaggerations.
who, in their classes, use Kiira’s excellent essay, “Power, Orgasm, and the Psychohormonal Research Unit,” an essay which I had the privilege to reprint in the anthology Intersex in the Age of Ethics.
Translation: Don’t blame me for reprinting Denise Tree’s lies as the truth. I am not responsible for confirming historical facts when I publish history books.
My academic colleagues and their students can tell right away that the loony things said about Kiira on certain sites are indeed loony.
Translation: I don’t really care about Denise Tree (hadn’t talked to her in years), but my own reputation is now at stake for republishing Tree’s bogus life history. Let me try to discredit someone who, using meticulous citations of Denise Tree’s own words, gathered all of her lies in one place for examination.
So they’ve asked me to provide them with some of Kiira’s real history so their students can know more about the background of the author whose work they are reading. I am happy to do that here.
Translation: There’s no way that Denise’s real age can match with the many stated ages and treatment dates she has given, so I better gloss over all that.
[redacted blah-blah outlining easily confirmed facts about Tree, her ex-gf Heike Spreitzer aka Heike Boedeker, etc., and ISNA’s Cheryl Chase.]
As it turned out, long before John Colapinto exposed what happened to David Reimer (known as “John/Joan") at the Hopkins clinic of John Money, Kiira publicly exposed in powerful prose what had happened there to her (and others like her), through her autobiographical essay, “Power, Orgasm, and the Psychohormonal Research Unit.” This piece was published originally in 1997 in a special issue of the journal Chrysalis, a volume made possible through the kind support of Chrysalis editor Dallas Denny and the editing efforts of Martha Coventry and Cheryl Chase.
Translation: These are the people responsible for publishing Denise Tree’s bogus information about her own history, not me. Never mind that I was the editor of my anthology. Besides, author John Colapinto got sucked in by her bullshit, too, and he’s a way bigger and better medical historian than I’ll ever be!
In that volume, Kiira also used her comedic talents to contribute a satirical send-up of the Hopkins approach to intersex. (The satire was so well written that at least one academic article cited it as a real primary source!)
Translation: Dr. Arika Aeirt was just one of Denise Tree’s many convincing aliases and sockpuppets.
[redacted blah-blah about phall-o-meter]
As I understand it,
Translation: From my careful reading of Andrea’s documentation…
some of the online misrepresentations about Kiira claim she does not have the intersex and intersex activist history she has said she does. (I say “as I understand it” because I don’t bother to read sites that consist of fiction representing as fact.)
Translation: Andrea simply gathered direct quotations from Denise Tree for comparison and found dozens of discrepancies, contradictions, exaggerations, and outright lies. But I am a sloppy scholar who doesn’t bother to look at primary sources and confirm information, remember? I just go on hearsay.
[redacted blah-blah with more easily confirmed facts about Tree]
a few years ago a clinician associated with John Money and the Hopkins gender clinic confirmed for me Kiira’s medical history as an intersex patient at the PRU. (He didn’t do it on purpose, since it violated patient confidentiality, but he confirmed her diagnosis and status as a patient there anyway, during a discussion on another topic.)
Translation: I haven’t seen her medical records (I don’t bother with primary sources, remember?), but an anonymous source illegally told me they were kept by a FOAF, so they must be true. You gotta believe me!
To state the obvious, one shouldn’t believe everything one reads on the Web. Look at the evidence, and consider the trustworthiness of the source.
Comment: Oh, the irony, the irony…
Bottom line: there is no way Denise Tree was operated on at age 14 in 1974. Johns Hopkins surgeon Howard W. Jones, Jr.’s records can verify that. In fact, I sent him a detailed note in April 2007 requesting verification. Anyone who wishes to do the same can write to him at his home address in Portsmouth, Virginia (he is very advanced in years) or via the Jones Institute.
For more unintentionally hilarious Dreger defenses, I recommend reading Alice Dreger defends J. Michael Bailey on KQED.
