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Revising Controversy-related Material Concerning Bailey/Conway/James/Queen

I will be proposing substantial revisions to pages related to the above-mentioned controversy. This concerns at least the following pages:

The Man Who Would Be Queen J. Michael Bailey Lynn Conway Andrea James Deirdre McCloskey BBL controversy Autogynephilia Homosexual transsexual Ray Blanchard

There are several reasons for this proposal. First, some of the material on these pages was added during a heated controversy with poor quality control. Without naming names at this point, some of it was added by people with clear POVs and was not balanced by others. I intend to balance the pages, one way or another. Most importantly, any fair account of this controversy will give Alice Dreger's excellent history of the controversy at least equal coverage. For example, charges against Bailey cannot be mentioned without consideration of the merit of those charges (including both the outcome of the charges and any evidence that the accusations were manufactured by Conway et al.) Other changes, mostly unflattering to Conway et al., are also warranted, if we decide to go the route of a comprehensive history.

That is not the route I am going to propose here, however. Rather, I propose that much of the controversy discussion be removed from Wikipedia. I do so for several reasons. First, although the controversy generated a lot of heat, I believe its current representation on Wikipedia is disproportionate to its importance. It was not, after all, the Battle of the Bulge. Second, there are extremely passionate people on both sides of this issue who will make editing and maintaining these pages difficult. (Count me as one of those if you want.) Third, the facts are quite complicated, and they have been very well treated in Dreger's article (or if you prefer, Conway's and James' websites), and in my opinion, the relevant pages should provide only a very general treatment and refer to those sources.

More specifically, I propose that:

1. The main discussion of the controversy should be on The Man Who Would Be Queen. That was, after all, the impetus for the controversy. There are two related controversies, actually, and both belong here. The first controversy is about the Blanchard theory of transsexualism, and this should be discussed on The Man Who Would Be Queen, Autogynephilia, Homosexual Transsexual, and perhaps Ray Blanchard. The second controversy concerns the complaints about J. Michael Bailey in particular. These also clearly belong on The Man Who Would Be Queen, and perhaps also a shorter version at J. Michael Bailey. Discussing the accusations and complaints on Bailey's page is only fair if they are also discussed (including Dreger's conclusion that they were bogus and intended to punish Bailey for writing about autogynephilia) on Conway's, James', and McCloskey's pages. Otherwise, I do not see mentioning any specifics on Bailey's page.

2. Nothing about the accusations and complaints should be on Homosexual Transsexual or Autogynephilia. I take it as obvious this material doesn't belong there.

3. The BBL controversy page should go. First of all, there is no BBL controversy. That "phrase" exists only because Andrea James called a section of her page the "BBL Clearinghouse." But to the extent that Bailey, Blanchard, and Lawrence have anything to do with each other in this controversy, it is about their ideas and not about their persons. Their ideas are best treated on the Autogynephilia and Homosexual transsexual pages. I can give many examples why the BBL controversy page is currently inadequate, beyond the name of the page, if necessary. I hope it won't be.

I will be providing drafts of relevant sections for each of the pages named above, and we can discuss them. I guess I will only post this here but will put notices on the other discussion pages, with links to here. I will put the proposed sections on the relevant discussion pages.ProudAGP (talk) 19:00, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with all of these proposals, though any discussion of Dreger should note that only a partisan like Bailey/ProudAGP considers her paper "excellent." Jokestress (talk) 19:15, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

There are really two main places where the controversy needs to be discussed to some extent: both the book and Blanchard, Bailey, and Lawrence theory. I agree that just deleting BBL controversy would be a good start. Other places can link to a section discussing the controversy; it should get only a brief mention on all those other pages, but omitting mention altogether from pages like Autogynephilia would not be appropriate. Dicklyon (talk) 19:43, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

I do not think there is a "BBL Theory." (And I do not see such a WP page.) There is Blanchard's theory of MTF transsexualism. One possibility that I don't know how to accomplish is to have a page that steers searches for things like "BBL Theory" and "BBL Controversy" to the appropriate pages.ProudAGP (talk) 19:50, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with ProudAGP that "BBL Theory" is a misnomer for many reasons, and that material on Blanchard, Bailey, and Lawrence theory and the execrable Blanchard, Bailey, and Lawrence theory controversy should all be merged to transsexual sexuality (where it was until removed by User:Hfarmer this month). I agree with DickLyon that the controversy should be mentioned on relevant articles. Jokestress (talk) 20:00, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like a good place for a section on the theory; I don't much care what it's called, but when it's discussed there has to be some mention of the controversy and criticism around it, and good references; doesn't need to rehash all the details. Dicklyon (talk) 20:50, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Chicago Free Press

Just for the record: I support the removal of the Chicago Free Press statement from this article. I can't think of any reason why this merits inclusion in a Wikipedia article about a book. If it's restored, then it needs to include some direct reference to this book (not merely to some persons connected to the book). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:53, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

True, it would be a better paragraph if it mentioned that the cited article talks about the book as the reason for their refusal to run ads for Bailey's studies: Bailey is a controversial figure, to say the least. His 2003 book, "The Man Who Would Be Queen," has been heavily criticized by transgender activists, who say it falsely characterizes transgenders as “especially motivated” to shoplift and asserts that “the single most common occupation” of transgenders is prostitution.

By the way, ProudAGP's edit summary in removing it seems arbitrary and capricious; it says I restored it without a reason. In fact, I restored with a clear edit summary, as it was part of an edit in which hse made a clear violation of WP:BLP. A better question would be, on what basis is it being removed, given that it's sourced and relevant (and, yes, it could be improved as you suggest)? Dicklyon (talk) 03:08, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

It's relevance to the book, as opposed to the general uproar about Blanchard's idea, was not apparent from the text. Furthermore, your edit summary -- on an edit that you incorrectly marked "minor" -- reads "m (Reverted 1 edit by ProudAGP; Obvious BLP violation; the word "prostitute" does not appear in the cited source. (TW))". I see no mention in this "clear edit summary" that you intended to make any changes at all except for a single word. I therefore agree with the editor who said that your addition of this material was unexplained. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:49, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Academic freedom

I continue to object to the removal of information related to Freedom of expression, which is the only reason why the backlash against this book matters to anyone except the author and parts of the transsexual community.

Today, this was deleted by DarlieB with the following edit summary: "Alice Dregers disguised opinions again used to mislead readers into thinking there was any investigation by the paper. Which there wasn't. POV"

This edit summary mystifies me. Somehow, directly naming and quoting Dreger becomes "Dregers [sic] disguised opinions", and a statement that makes absolutely no claim at all beyond 'Dreger said something quotable to a journalist' is going to "mislead readers" into thinking that it was a significant piece of investigative journalism. I don't know where the POV part comes in: perhaps in presenting Dreger's opinion as being Dreger's actual opinion?

DarlieB also deleted the ref to the twenty-three commentaries on Dreger's paper, for no apparent reason. Perhaps it was just an accident. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:10, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Possibly but I never deleted any links to footnotes. Is this page to be used to air views from the Bailey/anti-Bailey forces on academic freedom ? Or is it about the book. I thought it was about the book and not entirely about Dregers opus . John Philippe Rushton could have used her desperately but then , not all blacks are TS. DarlieB (talk) 18:43, 19 August 2008 (UTC) DarlieB

I'm talking about this text: Alternatives to Dreger's view are also presented in 23 commentaries in the same issue of the ''Archives of Sexual Behavior''.<ref>''Archives of Sexual Behavior'', volume 37, special section: commentaries on "controversial paper", pp. 422–510.</ref>

You have deleted it repeatedly. What's your problem with this sentence? Why do you say that you have never deleted any links to footnotes, when the record clearly shows that you have?

Please, don't make any more changes to the article until we've discussed them. Your changes, particularly your deletions, appear to promote a strong POV. The article needs to present both sides reasonably. But if you're not able to identify and temper your POV, then let me defend this particular sentence by pointing out that most of these commentaries attacked Dreger, Bailey, and/or this idea of transsexuality. So if you're determined to push an anti-Dreger bias into the article, you should particularly want to keep this particular sentence. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:18, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Again what I deleted was in the body, not the footnotes so they remain. This has nothing to do with POV at all. Is tghis an article about Alice Dreger or the book ? You intention top hide references alleged to belong to multiple sources is FRAUDULENT ! Had you READ the articles you were referencing they were no more than Dreger being quoted YET AGAIN ! Five references to her wewre removed . I will edit what I feel goes beyond neutrality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DarlieB (talk • contribs) 23:15, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Controvery, August 2008

DarlieB also deleted a properly referenced statement about the sex-with-a-prostitute scandal. The deleted text said, "According to findings by Dr. Dreger, reported in The New York Times, the sexual misconduct allegation came 5 years after the fact and was unsupported by evidence. Dated e-mail exchanges between Bailey and his ex-wife demonstrate that Bailey was at the home of his ex-wife looking after their children at the time specified by the accusation.<ref name=carrey />".

The edit summary says, "This is unsourced and and based on no investigation beyond Dreger. He said she said. It shouldn't even be here."

DarlieB, would you like to tell us what the <ref name=carrey /> bit is, if it's not a ref to a reliable source? Does the text not clearly indicate that it represents "findings by Dr. Dreger, reported in The New York Times? Did information presented in a highly respected newspaper become incorrect just because you disagree with it?

This accusation is a case of "he said, she said." However, in those cases, especially where living people are involved, the Wikipedia approach is to present both sides, not just J/M/S's side. You should not delete Bailey's side of the story, even if you personally think his side is garbage.

Overall, I think that your changes to this group of articles clearly reflect your strong anti-Bailey feelings. I really think you need to spend more time discussing your goals and finding consensus, and much less time pushing your personal biases in the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:18, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Why are you lying ? I deleted the text because it FALSELY said that the NYT had investigated the issue when it was nothing but another Alice Dreger quote hidden to look like the NYT had investigated it. It had not . How many times must we see Alice Dredgers name appear on the books discussion page ? Was this another "sin" ? My personal bias ? Lol! At this point I am assuming you are Bailey Dreger or Lawrence. Having the same Dreger defense of Bailey quotes in ten papers does not constitute "an investigation". I'm satisfied that Dreger and her slanderous accusations appear numerous times throughout but lets not commit frauds by suggesting any journalist wasted a moment investigating. DarlieB (talk) 18:32, 19 August 2008 (UTC) DarlieB

I haven't looked at what has happened here lately, but that reminds of something I think I mentioned recently, which is that as worded the passage doesn't make it clear that the bit about the email and children is from Dreger, not a statement of fact from the NYT as it appears in the passage that DarlieB deleted. It might be better as, "According to Alice Dreger, the sexual misconduct allegation came 5 years after the fact and was unsupported by evidence, and dated e-mail exchanges between Bailey and his ex-wife demonstrate that Bailey was at the home of his ex-wife looking after their children at the time specified by the accusation.<ref name=carrey />". There's really no need to mention "as reported in the New York Times, since you reference it right there. And it is conventional in wikipedia to use names, not honorifics, so Alice Dreger is better than Dr. Dreger. Of course, having this in there is going to as usual open up the need to also balance Dreger with sources on the other side of the issue. Maybe it's better to just leave it all out. Dicklyon (talk) 05:28, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Um, Dick, are you aware that the text already begins with "According to Dr Dreger"? What makes you think that it's unclear about the information coming through Dreger? Your proposed "clarification" adds no information.

I agree that the honorific should have been dumped long ago (and her first name should only appear at the first mention in the article), and that the NYT ref is redundant. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:18, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

What you neglected is that I was the one who originally reverted it to "According to Dreger". I did so because of my explanation above. Dregers comments are hidden throughout using names like the NYTs as a front to make it look as if there was an investigation when there was not. DarlieB (talk) 18:37, 19 August 2008 (UTC) DarlieB

In particular, in the pair of sentences being discussed, only the first is attributed to Dreger. The second appears as an NYT conclusion, which it is not. Dicklyon (talk) 05:41, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

So you think that the average reader will forget Dreger between sentences? I don't. No other source is named (remember that NYT is no longer mentioned), and the information reads very much like details explaining the previous sentence. I'm not actually sure how to reintroduce Dreger's name in the second sentence without sounding awkward; it would start to sound like a game of "Simon says". (N.B., an accurate sentence would read, According to Dreger, Bailey, and Bailey's ex-wife, since all three of them seem to have made independent statements to journalists about Bailey's activities on that date.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:43, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with forgetting, nor about average readers. It's about expressing the content with sufficient precision that it will be correctly understood by an intelligent reader of English without following the footnotes and studying the sources. Dicklyon (talk) 04:38, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

It's not that hard to attribute it correctly. Something like this:

• According to Alice Dreger, the sexual misconduct allegation came 5 years after the fact and was unsupported by evidence; she states that dated e-mail exchanges between Bailey and his ex-wife demonstrate that Bailey was at the home of his ex-wife looking after their children at the time specified by the accusation.

Even better, shorten that last bit which provides way more detail than an encyclopedic article ought to carry. Dicklyon (talk) 04:43, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

That phrasing works for me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:22, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Not for me . The best you can do is Alice Dreger "alleges"........ .If this is an attempt to put this to public trial without a trial then be prepared to have other voices to balance. Why this is even included is beyond me but if you insist then be ready . How does Dreger even know the times or dates discussed given that the NorthWestern Investigation was closed  ? Her being constantly quoted is incredibly irritating since this one source "he said she said " is unverified POV , completely without balance ( how about we include quotes from the person accusing Bailey in detail ) . Alice Dreger is not an investigator nor is she unbias. I would rather we state that the accusations were made, he denied them and that's the end of it. None of this faux unofficial investigation.DarlieB (talk) 19:27, 30 August 2008 (UTC)Darlie

Leaving aside the fact that Bailey cooperated with her and might have told her, are you aware that Conway has published a copy of the original complaint on December 11, 2003? It's the first "key document" here. Do you think that Conway's publication of the original document might explain how someone outside the investigation could have read the document and thus learned the date of the alleged tryst? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:47, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

What, are you asking me to speculate on something completely unproven ? Is that the point of this article ? To guess , make assumptions ? Stop wasting my time with this. You nor I have the actual facts . To make them up serves no purpose. DarlieB (talk) 23:25, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Revised Controversy Section, Proposal 1

As per my comments at Talk:The Man Who Would Be Queen#Revising Controversy-related Material Concerning Bailey/Conway/James/Queen, I provide Proposal #1 as follows. I have tried very hard to be balanced, and I remind editors that expanding negative information/charges on one side will probably require balancing by adding the same on the other side.

Also, I've never done this before, for a whole section, so there will likely be formatting errors.ProudAGP (talk) 18:53, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Controversy

Largely because of its favorable presentation of Ray Blanchard's hypothesis of male-to-female transsexualism, the book and its author have been surrounded by controversy. This theory categorizes male-to-female transsexuals into one of two types: homosexual and autogynephilic.

Blanchard and Bailey argue that prior to becoming women, homosexual transsexuals are extremely feminine homosexual males, and their preferred sex partners are always men. Bailey writes that it is unclear what distinguishes feminine homosexual males who remain men from those who become women. He speculates that one primary factor in the decision to change sex is their relative sexual prospects as women or as men. He suggests that among very feminine homosexual males, those who look attractive and realistic as women are most likely to decide to transition.

Autogynephilic transsexuals are motivated by autogynephilia. According to Blanchard and Bailey, autogynephilia is a paraphilia, and autogynephiles' motivation to become women is driven by sexual motivation. Just as heterosexual men are romantically and sexually attracted to women, and homosexual men to men, autogynephilic individuals are romantically and sexually attracted to the image of themselves as women. A common early manifestation of autogynephilia is transvestic fetishism. Blanchard and Bailey argue that all nonhomosexual male-to-female transsexuals (i.e., those not exclusively attracted to men) are motivated by autogynephilia.

Especially controversial was Bailey's contention that all male-to-female transsexuals are either autogynephilic or homosexual, even those who insist that they fit into neither category. He dismissed these claims, asserting that they were the product of conscious fabrication or unintentional distortion (pp. 172-176). For example, he noted that many transsexuals lie about their feelings and behavior because they believe gatekeeper clinicians will not approve their transitions otherwise. This observation was previously made by others, including Deirdre McCloskey, one of Bailey's harshest critics. Regarding less conscious distortion, Bailey suggested that autogynephiles' sexual shame and strong desire to believe that they are innately women is a major reason why many transsexuals incorrectly deny autogynephilia.

Although sympathetic to the plight of transsexual people, Bailey sometimes used language suggesting he found transsexualism problematic. For example, after considering one possible approach to the treatment of children with gender identity problems (namely, supporting them rather than trying to change them), he wrote: "As much as I would like to arrange such a world, I think that it might well come with the cost of more transsexual adults." (p. 33) Bailey's apparent attitude was hardly unique, however; transsexualism is considered a disorder by many clinicians and scientists, and is listed as such (as Gender Identity Disorder) in the official Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Bailey's prominent critics and defenders both include peers in sexology. Eli Coleman, head of the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association described the book as "bad science" and an "unfortunate setback." Clinician Walter Bockting wrote that "the book fails to offer a balanced and well-cited review of the scientific literature," (Bockting, 2005), although the book was clearly intended for a non-technical audience. On the book's jacket, in contrast, transsexual physician and researcher Anne Lawrence praised the book as "wonderful," and neuroscientist Simon LeVay called it "absolutely splendid."

The attack on The Man Who Wold Be Queen was led by three prominent transwomen: computer scientist Lynn Conway, writer and consumer activist Andrea James, and university professor Deirdre McCloskey. They objected to the book's general portrayal of transsexual women and its sympathetic attitude toward Ray Blanchard's hypothesis that all male-to-female transsexuals are motivated either by extremely effeminate homosexuality or autogynephilia. Conway began an investigation that resulted in a wide variety of accusations against Bailey, from the scientific (that he conducted pseudo-scientific studies using poor methodology) to the ethical (that he conducted scientific research without proper ethical oversight, had sex with a research subject, wrote the book without the knowledge of his research subjects, and practiced psychology without a license).. Bailey has denied that he did anything wrong. Northwestern University conducted an investigation regarding the charge that Bailey conducted scientific research without required IRB approval. Although Northwestern did not release the results of that investigation, Northwestern’s Vice President for Research, C. Bradley Moore, said, "The allegations of scientific misconduct made against Professor J. Michael Bailey do not fall under the federal definition of scientific misconduct."

Originally, the Lambda Literary Foundation nominated the book as a finalist in the transgender award category for 2003. Transpeople protested the nomination with an internet petition. Under pressure from the petition, LLF's judges examined the book more closely, decided that it was transphobic, and removed it from their list of finalists.

In 2008 Northwestern University professor and intersex activist Alice Dreger published a historical investigation of the controversy, in the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Dreger concluded that Bailey was "essentially blameless." Moreover, Dreger concluded: "the historical evidence indicates that Conway, James, and [Deirdre] McCloskey tried to destroy Bailey’s book and his reputation through these truly extraordinary measures because they didn’t like what he had to say." Conway has responded that Dreger's piece was a "bizarrely one-sided history of the Bailey book investigation" and a "hit piece", and that its publication in Archives of Sexual Behavior and coverage by The New York Times reflected pro-Bailey bias by the journal's editor and by a science journalist at the newspaper, respectively. Dreger's article was published alongside 23 commentaries, including some critical of Dreger.

This controversy was also notable because of its implications for current understandings of Academic Freedom, especially the potential abuse of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) to attack unpopular research. One scholar critical of IRBs has argued that "outside of biomedical research, IRBs are essentially censorship agencies." Some of Bailey's critics insist that he was not a victim of censorship via IRB, but that his conduct violated ethical mandates that IRBs are meant to protect.ProudAGP (talk) 18:53, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Responses to this draft

Wow, where to start? Perhaps the best way to proceed is to come to consensus sentence by sentence.

The first sentence is improperly sourced. That claim appears nowhere in the source. Further, it is not accurate. Bailey has made this claim, but the key points of controversy were enumerated previously. That part of his book had been published many years earlier and had not generated formal response prior to 2003. The key controversies about the book were:

• Publication by the National Academy of Sciences
• The title and cover
• The framing device (a cure narrative about a child)
• Transsexual taxonomy based on psychosexual pathology
• Marketed as science but later claimed to be journalism
• Exploitation of clients and research subjects
• Using "controversy" as a marketing tool

Trans people may have been most aggrieved, but the book was marketed as "The science of gender-bending and transsexualism," not the science of sexual orientation. There's plenty in the book that gay men would find troubling, but many of them like some of Bailey's published work because it counters the "lifestyle choice" argument. The book also appeals to an ad hoc alliance of monosexuals - those who identify as exclusively gay or exclusively straight, because it is an essentialist argument that erases bi and trans identities (who are "really" just gay and/or "really just men).

Proposed first sentence: The book's content led to immediate protests about its publication by the National Academy of Sciences. Jokestress (talk) 20:38, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

The prospect of a sentence-by-sentence vetting with Jokestress is quite unappealing, especially given her first objections to what I have written.

For example, she objects to the first sentence, attributing the controversy to objections of the third section of the book, especially Blanchard's ideas.

I refer interested parties to Lynn Conway's earliest public attacks on the book, and I defy anyone to arrive at a different conclusion than that expressed in the first paragraph of my proposal:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030426215042/http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/LynnsReviewOfBaileysBook.html#anchor26595

I also offer the following long passages from Dreger's peer-reviewed historical investigation of the controversy published in the distinguished Archives of Sexual Behavior.

BEGINLONGQUOTE

It is clear from the historical record that many people reacted negatively to TMWWBQ before (or whether) they had even read it and, in her initial email about the book to Andrea James, Lynn Conway revealed that to have been the case with her, too. Conway—who would essentially become the architect- in-chief of the backlash—first sounded the alarm about TMWWBQ to James on April 10, 2003:

"I just got an alert about J. Michael Bailey’s new book. It’s just been published and of all places it’s co-pub- lished by the National Academies Press, which gives it the apparent stamp of authority as ‘‘science’’ [….] As you may know, Bailey is the psychologist who promotes the ‘‘two-type’’ theory of transsexualism [….] Any- ways—not that there is much we can do about this—but we should probably read his book sometime and be prepared to shoot down as best we can his weird char- acterizations of us all." (Conway, 2004a)

.....

So how did the backlash start? Within a couple of days of her first alert to James on April 10, 2003 (quoted above), Conway read the book, and found herself as appalled as she had expected (Conway, 2004a). She immediately understood the text as especially dangerous because it was fully cloaked in the social power of science and academia. Thus, within just a few more days, Conway called to arms as many allies as she could, insisting:

"this book is the equivalent for the entire transgender community of a Ku Klux Clan [sic] smearing of the entire black community by painting their entire lives and identities as nothing more than the obsessive pursuit of bizarre sex. Imagine what would have happened if the Academy had published a book such as this about African Americans. Their gates would be stormed and the institution would fall. So how can they get away with doing this to us? They can’t, unless we let them get away with it!" (April 18, 2003, p.e.c. of Lynn Conway to Chris- tine Burns, Joan Roughgarden, Sarah Weston, Emily Hobbie, Gwendolyn Ann Smith, Donna Rose, Susan Stryker, Jenny Boylan, Jamison Green, Stephen Whit- tle, and Shannon Minter; available at Conway, 2004a)

Conway officially opened an ‘‘investigation’’ into Bailey and his book and, along with Andrea James, started devoting a substantial amount of energy and Web presence to doing what they could to undermine Bailey and TMWWBQ. (I put ‘‘inves- tigation’’ in quotation marks throughout this essay because, as I show, it quickly moved from an inquiry to something much more proactive.) A number of prominent trans scholars and activists immediately agreed with Conway that Bailey’s book was serious trouble, and Conway rapidly posted many of their negative reactions (or links to them) on her University of Michigan site. Becky Allison, M.D., Joan Roughgarden, Ph.D., Ben Barres, M.D., Ph.D., Christine Beatty, and Christine Burns all provided expressions of disgust and dismay (see Conway, 2003a). Through fortunate timing, Roughgarden was able to attend a lecture by Bailey at her own university, Stanford, on April 23, 2003, and write a scathing review of it for the school newspaper (Roughgarden, 2003). The backlash against the book had thus begun in force.

Notably, not everyone in the LBGT world found TMW- WBQ to be the moral and political equivalent of the pro-Ku Klux Klan film-fantasy ‘‘Birth of a Nation.’’ After all, one of the blurbs on the book jacket came from Simon LeVay, a prominent gay scientist, and another from Anne Lawrence, a transwoman and physician (who subscribes to Blanchard’s taxonomy and identifies herself as an autogynephilic woman). A reviewer for Lavender Magazine called the book ‘‘a highly readable and well-researched book. […] Detailed, but never dry. A fascinating book’’ (Boatner, 2003) and a writer for Out Magazine declared the book ‘‘recommended reading for anyone interested in the study of gender identity and sexual orientation’’ (Osborne, 2003). In a review published by the Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Issues—a division of the American Psychological Association—James Cantor, an openly gay sex researcher who works with Blanchard, opined that ‘‘Bailey sympatheti- cally portrays these peoples’ experiences[….] Bailey’s respect for the people he describes serves as a role model for others who still struggle to accept and appreciate homosexu- ality and transsexuality in society’’ (Cantor, 2003; see also Velasquez, 2004).

Certainly not all LBGT reviewers praised the book; per- haps revealing the continued fractured politics between the ‘‘G’’ and the ‘‘T’’ communities, trans reviewers were much more likely than gay reviewers to criticize the book. Jamison Green (a transman) and Deirdre McCloskey (a transwoman) both panned it (Green, 2003; McCloskey, 2003a). Neverthe- less, while the condemnation from Conway and those who joined her would come to suggest a unilateral denouncement of the book by all parties on the LBGT front, the reviews suggest otherwise. Positive reviews by queer people seem only to have made Conway and James angrier. Indeed, James was annoyed enough that she sought out writers of positive reviews and asked them to explain themselves, publishing their responses on her Website (see, e.g., James, 2003b).

ENDLONGQUOTE

Those would both be good sources for the first paragraph.

Another example of an unproductive jokestress distortion is her allusion to a "cure narrative." This is a clearly inaccurate characterization of the book. Bailey examines different approaches to dealing with Danny, the boy with gender identity problems. These include therapy, but Bailey does not endorse this approach and is clearly ambivalent about the best treatmment. At the end of the book, Danny no longer has gender identity disorder, but it is unclear why. Jokestress, it would make the process less painful and more rewarding (and would signal that you would like to work with me) if you would take greater pains to be accurate and balanced.ProudAGP (talk) 23:48, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Too much noise. Go back to the first issue: Jokestress notes that your opening sentence is not properly sourced; the only source is the chapter itself, not anything that supports the first sentence. You haven't done anything to answer that objection. If you can cite a source that supports it, just say so, and maybe it will be possible to get beyond that first issue. Personally, I think that as phrased it's unlikely to be supportable by a reliable source; as you said yourself, the objection was made before reading the book, so it's hard to say that objection was based on a chapter. Furthermore there's no need for such long quotes here; a link to the paper and a short quote of the bit that supports that statement, if there is one, would be more effective. Maybe you can edit it and tell what in there you see as verifying the opening sentence. Dicklyon (talk) 01:22, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, long quotations from works already cited in the article don't really move things forward. We'll get to the "cure narrative" issue later, but Bailey says the alleged child had gender identity disorder in the first chapter that was gone in the last chapter. Sounds like a cure narrative to me. Let's go point by point, which is common on controversial topics like this. I'll start a new section for the first sentence. Jokestress (talk) 01:37, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Controversy section: first sentence

ProudAGP proposes:

• Largely because of a single chapter in its third section, the book and its author have been surrounded by controversy.

That chapter by Bailey was published about four years before the book came out, so it is inaccurate to claim that was the cause of the controversy. I propose:

• The book's content led to immediate protests to the National Academy of Sciences for publishing it.

We can source that to the title of Conway's investigation. We can also point to the response by the National Academies published in June 2003. This sentence is general enough to cover all of the controversial aspects, including the cover and title, marketing, etc. After that we can outline the numerous controversies. Thoughts? Jokestress (talk) 01:37, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Can you add the cites or links here so we can check what you're saying? Dicklyon (talk) 02:24, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Selected references added per request. Many more. Jokestress (talk) 03:33, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks; I agree that some of those are reliable secondary sources that support your sentence. Don't confuse the issue by also including self-published or primary sources like Conway's pages. And include only those that specifically support the sentence as written; if they don't mention the NAS, they don't qualify. You really don't need more than one or two, or you just invite quibbles. If you want to cite the Science or Times Higher Ed articles, can you please briefly quote relevant passages here, so we don't have to buy them or track them down in a library? Dicklyon (talk) 03:42, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

If we want to get into specifics after the opening statement, we could use any of the following:

• Marcus wrote: "Lynn Conway, a University of Michigan professor, who is a transsexual, criticised Dr Bailey's research. Three other transsexual professors have protested to National Academies Press, which published Dr Bailey's book, The Man Who Would Be Queen."
• Roughgarden wrote: "Perhaps the remedy for squabbling among academics and local politicos may be found by appealing to national institutions charged with providing official scientific advice to the government and the public. In the US, the National Academies is such an institution. On its letterhead, it declares itself to be "Adviser to the Nation on Science, Engineering, and Medicine". Yet, the National Academies recently published a disgraceful book by psychologist Michael Bailey titled The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism , (reviewed last week in The Times Higher ) that in my opinion manages in 230 pages to be racist, misogynist, homophobic and transphobic - a grand-slam home run of prejudice. The National Academies advertises the book on its letterhead and website as "scientifically accurate", "a well-crafted and responsible work on a difficult topic". Yet the book is not scientifically accurate, being based on a tiny and unrepresentative sample of six people who were misquoted badly enough to file formal charges against Bailey. And the book is not responsible because it defames transgender people, claiming they are biologically predisposed to prostitution and sadism, without evidence, and in clear contradiction of the facts. For more than a year, scientists and members of the public have complained about the book to the leadership of the National Academies, but they have been met with rude rebuffs. Bailey's book is not tenable scientifically - it would fail as a lab report in freshman biology. Yet the National Academies continues to stonewall. It denies any error in its mistaken sweetheart peer review, it refuses to place any distance between itself and the book and it declines to acknowledge with any kind of olive branch whatever the outrage and hurt it has caused to gay and transgender people."
• Wilson wrote: "Joan Roughgarden, a professor of biology at Stanford University who had a sex-change operation in 1998, was so angry about Mr. Bailey's book that she wrote a letter to the National Academies Press. 'In academia, we've lived on this Noah's ark of inclusion, and we're sailing along on calm waters when all of the sudden we hit this big rock, and that rock is a psychologist,' she said in an interview. Mr. Bailey's research method was simple, says Ms. Roughgarden. He calls all transsexuals he finds attractive 'homosexual transsexuals,' and all the rest 'autogynephilic.'"
• Holden wrote: "Joan Roughgarden, a transsexual biologist also at Stanford, has called on the publisher, the Joseph Henry Press--an imprint of the National Academy of Sciences--to disown the book. The editors last month issued a statement saying that reviewers found the book 'a well-crafted and responsible work on a difficult topic' but acknowledging that the controversy took them by surprise."

I chose these to back up the statements about the National Academies and their (non)response to criticism. There was certainly a much larger protest beyond efforts directed at the publisher. Jokestress (talk) 05:33, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Suggested changes

I think the first two sentences could be combined. Instead of

Largely because of a single chapter[1] in its third section, the book and its author have been surrounded by controversy. The major point of contention is Ray Blanchard's theory of male-to-female transsexualism, which is presented favorably.

we could say, Largely because of its favorable presentation of Ray Blanchard's hypothesis of male-to-female transsexualism, the book and its author have been surrounded by controversy.

Other minor nits:

• Conway began an investigation that eventuated in a number of accusations -- I'd choose "resulted in" and perhaps specify "a wide variety of accusations". "A number of" can include the number one.

• Conway has responded that Dreger's piece is propaganda -- Propaganda is an inflammatory word. If that's Conway's word choice, it needs to be marked as a direct quote. If it's not, then it needs to be re-written.

Hope this helps, WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:35, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I do think this helps. (And I have no direct quote for "propaganda.") Can you suggest how we proceed with edits like you propose, which aren't really controversial (I think not anyway)? It seems to me it might be beneficial in the long run if we modify Proposal 1 a bit as we go, rather than having a string of proposals. If no one objects to this or to your edits as proposed, I think you should make them.ProudAGP (talk) 16:34, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

As noted above, this is an inaccurate claim about the controversy promulgated by the Bailey/ProudAGP view. The controversy arose from where it was republished and from the additional materials in the book (title, cover, marketing, child cure narrative). The Blanchard hypothesis materials were published in 1999. Four years later is when the controversy arose. Jokestress (talk) 20:47, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

So you think that if the book firmly rejected the Blanchard hypothesis, that everyone would be exactly as upset about it? Conway's original writings definitely complain, at great length and in very specific detail, about the book's promotion of the Blanchard hypothesis. By comparison, I find not one word in her early writings (linked somewhere above) about the cover art. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:08, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

What an odd question. "Exactly as upset"?

The title alone is the second most deliberately offensive book title in the literature, after Raymond's. The cover image is THE most offensive ever. The fact that the National Acaemies published it makes it exponentially worse. Torturing our children with reparative therapy is a pretty hot-button topic these days, so his sympathetic portrayal of its chief proponent would have elicited protests as well. When we get to the cover, I can go over the criticism, which began before the book was published. Conway was one of the key organizers of the protest, but her commentary is only one facet in a wide range of protest. As I mentioned above, the taxonomy was certainly a major issue, but the title of Lynn's work was not "An investigation into Blanchard's taxonomy." It was (and is) "An investigation into the publication of J. Michael Bailey's book on transsexualism by the National Academies." See Conway's letter to HBIGDA (cc'd to the National Academies) for an example of a complaint about the cover. Jokestress (talk) 23:29, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Your first response in this section excludes the book's promotion of the Blanchard hypothesis entirely. By contrast, nearly every critic that I've read focuses primarily, and often exclusively, on the book's (direct and indirect) promotion of the Blanchard hypothesis. The cachet of the publisher, the title, the cover -- all of these seem quite secondary in their opinions to the real content of the book. Based on a wide variety of responses, I seriously doubt that changing the publisher, giving it a dull title, and eliminating the cover art entirely would have blunted the criticism to any meaningful degree. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:00, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

My first response clearly includes Blanchard's pathologizing taxonomy as one of the key controversies. As I also said, that material had been published long before the book came out, so it's clear that the controversy was triggered by something else; namely, the cachet of the publisher, the title, the cover, and the cure narrative. Jokestress (talk) 16:47, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Nope. Your first response in this section is here and doesn't mention one word about the Blanchard hypothesis. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:40, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

You are absolutely right wrong. Now, shall we discuss article content? Let me know what you think of the proposal below. Jokestress (talk) 20:50, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I refer editors again to Lynn Conway's initial pages attacking the book. It really cannot be controversial that Conway was the leader of the attacks. (If it is, then we're going to have trouble.):

http://web.archive.org/web/20030426215042/http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/LynnsReviewOfBaileysBook.html#anchor26595

Her first sentence characterizing the book is: "Here, in the name of "science", J. Michael Bailey paints a sensationalist, prurient picture of transsexual woman as sex-obsessed objects, dehumanizing and pathologizing them as having caused their own urges to change sex by engaging in exotic sexual practices." The rest of the pages are about transsexuals as well. Conway's focus on the transsexual section of the book is clear, and that she especially hates the "sex-obsessed" aspects, which she explicitly attributes to Bailey's endorsement of Blanchard's theory.ProudAGP (talk) 16:08, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Wrong. Conway's first sentence characterizing the book, on April 10, 2003, says: "I just got an alert about J. Michael Bailey's new book. It's just been published and of all places it's co-published by the National Academies Press, which gives it the apparant stamp of authority as 'science.'"

I don't think it's controversial that Conway was a key figure in the protest, but it's clear that the primary issue was that it was published by the National Academies of Science. Jokestress (talk) 16:47, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Jokestress, if you are going to insist that every grievance you have about the book be covered, please make that clear. As I said in my initial comments at Talk:The Man Who Would Be Queen#Revising Controversy-related Material Concerning Bailey/Conway/James/Queen, I intend to decrease, not increase, the detail here. In my opinion, you are pushing an idiosyncratic and inaccurate agenda, wanting to deemphasize the importance of the third section of the book and to emphasize other aspects that have been criticized tirelessly by you. As a reminder, if this page gets more detailed, it will get more detail about both sides (e.g., past identity as autogynephilic, attacks on children, etc.).ProudAGP (talk) 16:34, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I merely insist that that article be factual, neutral, and verifiable. These attempts to rewrite history by those associated with Northwestern and/or Bailey are what I will tirelessly criticize, because it does a disservice to Wikipedia and its readers. Now, are we in agreement that the impetus for the protest was the publication by the National Academies Press? Jokestress (talk) 16:52, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

No, but I have no objection to putting that as a factor, along with the most important factor, which was the favorable presentation of Blanchard's theory. Perhaps you can propose a sentence/paragraph that includes both ideas.ProudAGP (talk) 16:56, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

What I propose as a first sentence is a general statement:

"The book's content led to immediate protests to the National Academy of Sciences for publishing it."

That's where the protest started. From there, we can elaborate on the content, including the taxonomy. Jokestress (talk) 17:10, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Such a sentence is grossly misleading. To say that the "content led" to is to say that the controversy was a result of the book and not of Andrea James' and Lynn Conway's well-dcoumented efforts. This is (to my mind) yet another attempt by Jokestress to use wikipedia as another outlet for the same misinformation she has long expressed on her personal website and in the media. Because the controversy is largely about Jokestress' own long-standing efforts, and because there is a great deal of disagreement over very many of her edits on the page, I believe she violates WP:COI by editing the page.
— James Cantor (talk) (formerly, MarionTheLibrarian) 21:07, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you have already expressed this opinion more times than we can count. I am not editing the page but discussing possible edits. As someone very familiar with the topic, I feel my input (as well as input by ProudAGP and others directly involved) can make the article more accurate.

I am looking for an accurate way to say that the third section of the book had been published years earlier without incident, so something else must have triggered the protest. That something else was its publication by the National Academies Press. How's this:

"The controversy arose when the book was published by the National Academy of Sciences, because several prominent trans scientists and academics felt the book's content was unscientific. Among the concerns were ___ (list the issues)..."

Thoughts? Jokestress (talk) 21:22, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I think it's more relevant to present the reader with the major complaint, which is the book's support for the Blanchard hypothesis, instead of what amounts to a timeline. Yes, some people complained to NAP. Why did they complain? Because of the book's content. Specifically, for its very thorough support of the Blanchard hypothesis -- a support that is visible in the title, the choice of cover art, and much, much more. (Maybe not the "cure narrative".)

J's proposed first sentence is like beginning Psychiatry#Anti-psychiatry and deinstitutionalization with, "The modern anti-psychiatry movement began with a letter written by..." WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:33, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the first section in the anti-psychiatry article is a historical timeline of the origins, so I'm not sure that argument is accurate. Perhaps a good template is our article on The Bell Curve, by another of the "Human Biodiversity Institute" guys. The Blanchard hypothesis is already discussed in the "Summary" section, so it's redundant to rehash it. We could do as in our TBC article and call the "Controversy" section "Response." That would allow us to summarize James Cantor's glowing review and the glowing reviews in Forbes and The National Review, as well as the responses that weren't as glowing. Jokestress (talk) 21:48, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

• The "something else" that triggered the upset in 2003 was that that was when Jokestress and Lynn Conway started their campaign against the book. This is why it is false to say that the book's content led to anything: It was actually Jokestress/Conway's misleading descriptions of the book that led to the controversy.
• I will point out Jokestress' role in producing the controversy only when it is relevant to editors who are considering their own opinions. Of all the times I have mentioned the connection, not a single person (other than Jokestress) has objected or thought it tangential. All editors who said anything (including Dicklyon) agreed that there was a COI problem, but acknowledged that such situations are rarely acted upon by admin.

— James Cantor (talk) (formerly, MarionTheLibrarian) 22:07, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

My review did not appear in an RS; I'm not sure it's usable as a source.
— James Cantor (talk) (formerly, MarionTheLibrarian) 22:10, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Your review was so glowing it appears in the marketing materials and is cited on the official site for the book, which I believe is a reliable source for this article. And Bailey was predicting the controversy in 2002, before the book came out: "This book is controversial. It is about feminine men, from before birth to adulthood, to the rebirth experienced by those who decide to become women. Its three sections include one on very feminine boys, one on gay men, and one on transsexuals. These meld scientific studies with stories about real people." (Bailey (December 3, 2002), "Controversial Ideas") Jokestress (talk) 22:18, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Music reviews came up at RSN this week; generally, they're acceptable for their critical/cultural value, but not to support facts. So a professional review (an undefined term, but perhaps James' would count) could be used to support an opinion that a book is important, but probably not that it is accurate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:36, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

• I have no personal objection to my review being cited; I point out only that proper application of WP:RS requires consideration in this case. (Moreover, mine was one of several very positive reviews; I am hardly an outlier.)
• Jokestress' above quote of Bailey takes Bailey's comment out of context, yet again. Bailey's prediction of controversy was about how the mainstream public would react to a positive account of male femininities. He did not predict that the transsexual public would find his account negative. No one reacted negatively to the book until Jokestress/Conway effortfully led them to do so.
• Jokestress' misuse of Bailey's quote above is yet another attempt to mislead WP editors by selectively de-contextualizing quotes to make them seem like they say something other than what they do. (Add one to my countless number of times pointing this out.)

— James Cantor (talk) (formerly, MarionTheLibrarian) 22:42, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Your glowing review of Bailey's book was certainly not an outlier among these chosen by the National Academies to sell his book. However, those reviews are basically logrolling among a bunch of cronies. Two of the reviews are from the same crony, though they are presented as two different reviewers. The critical reviews didn't get quoted by the National Academies. As one of the most vocal defenders of Bailey from the earliest days of the controversy, with over five years of supporting Bailey and attacking his critics, you certainly know that your review was a minority view. Jokestress (talk) 04:15, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

My review is not an outlier among the reviews that appeared before the Jokestress/Conway efforts. For example, the book was nominated for a Lambda Book Award (thus indicating the very positive assessment of uninvolved reviewers), and the nomination was recinded only after the Jokestress/Conway efforts to foster protest about it.

To say I am a vocal defender of Bailey is another misunderstanding of Jokestress'. I am a vocal defender of accuracy. In this case, Bailey is accurate and his critics are not. For example, I never said I was not in the minority; I said I was not an outlier. (Moreover, I have no idea what the majority opinion is. There has never been a poll, and there is no way to know how many people are silencing their views for fear of attack from Jokestress.)

Finally, I note that Jokestress has not commented on her (mis-)interpretation of Bailey's prediction. I would assume, therefore, that she has no more evidence to support her (mis-)interpretation than when I have previously (and frequently) asked her for (and never received) evidence to backs up her beliefs.

— James Cantor (talk) (formerly, MarionTheLibrarian) 14:42, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Break

Especially controversial was Bailey's contention that all male-to-female transsexuals are either autogynephilic or homosexual...

Is this really Bailey's contention, or is it originally Blanchard's? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:36, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Blanchard's.

For decades, there was discussion among sexologists over how homosexuality, transsexuality, and erotic cross-dressing related to each other. Authors proposed several theories, but none explained the data until Blanchard figured it out: There is one type of transsexuality that is related to homosexuality, and there is another type that is related to erotic cross-dressing.

— James Cantor (talk) (formerly, MarionTheLibrarian) 22:58, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Both. It is Bailey's contention and originally Blanchard's. And despite James Cantor's assertion that his coworker Blanchard "figured it out," Blanchard's work was basically ignored for two decades by his peers until a couple of middle-aged crossdressers latched onto it as a form of validation/identity. Most clinicians have described people like Blanchard's supporters as nontranssexual, pseudotranssexual, etc. Blanchard's taxonomy is rarely mentioned outside the journal controlled by the CAMH. They've been trying to get traction for this junk for 20 years, but no one is buying it. Jokestress (talk) 04:07, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

According to the scientific convention, that makes it Blanchard's contention. It's Mendel's genetics, Darwin's evolution, Einstein's relativity, Watson and Crick's DNA -- and Blanchard's idea (although certainly not in the same class as the others  ;-). People who merely agree with an idea properly get no credit for it. (I realize that other fields, such as politics, entertainment, and other marketing-driven occupations, take quite a different approach.) This sentence will have to be corrected. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:19, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, if we were talking about scientific theories, but we are talking about contentions. So the most accurate way to present a sentence like that would be to say "Bailey's contention that Blanchard's taxonomy is correct was a significant part of the controversy." Jokestress (talk) 04:25, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Science does not make that distinction. It should always be presented as Blanchard's idea. It only becomes Bailey's idea when/if he has significantly extended it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

To what do you object in the sentence I wrote? Jokestress (talk) 08:57, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Jokestress' comment above contains many errors of omission:

• Jokestress claims that "Blanchard's work was basically ignored for two decades by his peers," but she omits that Blanchard was appointed to the DSM-IV subcommittee on GD very soon after his publications proposing autogynephilia (thus indicating that his academic peers were, in fact, well aware of his work and its import quite early on).
• Jokestress also omits the pubs that did in fact cite Blanchard very early on, such as those in Experimental and Clinical Endocrinology (1988), Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease (1988), as well as Archives. Moreover, Jokestress omits that very few people were conducting research on transsexuality at that time at all. That is, it was not Blanchard receiving little attention, it was transsexuality that was receiving little attention. (To be fair to her, Jokestress is not a scholar; there is little reason to expect her to be aware of the latter information.)
• Jokestress insinuates (but fails to explicate) that Blanchard gets a free ride into Archives because Ken Zucker (of CAMH) is its editor. However, Jokestress fails to mention that Blanchard's pubs on the topic were published years before Zucker was its editor. (For completeness: Blanchard's did have pubs about autogynephilia in Archives after Zucker was its editor; these were non-empirical comments, such as the early history of the idea.)
• Moreover, Jokestress fails to mention Blanchard's pubs on the typology of transsexualism that are outside the Archives. Blanchard's pubs on the topic also appear in two of the highest impact psychology journals in print, the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, and the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, as well as the top psychiatry and top sexology journals: Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, and the Journal of Sex Research. If Jokestress has any evidence of a free ride for Blanchard in any journal, she has yet to present it. (Actually, she has yet to respond to any request from me to provide any evidence for her various claims of this sort.)
• Finally, I can't help but remark at Jokestress' dismissive reference to "middle-aged cross-dressers." Jokestress herself (in her 40s?) is probably more responsible than anyone else for publicizing Blanchard's ideas on transsexuality. Nonetheless, Jokestress omits that the main "middle-aged cross-dresser" (Anne Lawrence) is actually a male-to-female transsexual (many years post-operative) with an MD/PhD and with more clinical experience with transsexuality than any other clinician on Earth, except for Maxine Petersen (another middle-aged, long post-operative MtF transsexual who works with Blanchard and agrees with his ideas). Moreover, both Anne Lawrence and Maxine Petersen have long been legally female. To refer to openly transsexual, postoperative people as "cross-dressers" is not only grossly hypocritical on Jokestress' part, but also ironically transphobic. (They both present/dress as female and would be called "cross-dressers" only when Jokestress treats them as male.) I believe she owes each an apology.

— James Cantor (talk) (formerly, MarionTheLibrarian) 14:24, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Blanchard is a touchy topic for James Cantor -- I'm not an academic, but to my knowledge, James Cantor's never published anything that wasn't with Blanchard as a co-author, except perhaps the glowing review of The Man Who Would Be Queen. If we want to discuss the merits of Blanchard, that should probably happen at the Ray Blanchard article. Lawrence and Petersen are hardly middle aged any more (though they were when they transitioned). One's about to be 58 and the other is even older. We can discuss their specifics when they merit articles. As far as publicizing Blanchard, and the Man Who Would Be Queen, that was of course my goal. I'm sure Lynn Conway and I sent more traffic to the National Academies site than all other referrals combined. Hundreds of thousands of people read the book through my efforts.

Getting back to an introductory sentence for the controversy section, the protest was a result of the book's publication by the National Acedemies, as noted in the many references above. I chose five quotations that I thought were representative, any of which are fine with me to use. I am happy to discuss counter-proposals or combined sentences, but I do feel the National Academies needs to be mentioned at the onset. Jokestress (talk) 16:29, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Jokestress claimed "to my knowledge, James Cantor's never published anything that wasn't with Blanchard as a co-author." Apparently, her knowledge is limited here as well.

• Cantor, J. M., Binik, Y. M., & Pfaus, J. G. (1999). Chronic fluoxetine inhibits sexual behavior in the male rat: Reversal with oxytocin. Psychopharmacology, 144, 355–362.
• Johnson, M. K., O’Connor, M., & Cantor, J. (1997). Confabulation, memory deficits, and frontal dysfunction. Brain and Cognition, 34, 189–206.
• Keane, M. M., Gabrieli, J. D. E., Monti, L. A., Fleischman, D. A., Cantor, J. M., & Nolan, J. S. (1997). Intact and impaired conceptual memory processes in amnesia. Neuropsychology, 11, 59–69.
• Pilkington, N. W., & Cantor, J. M. (1996). Perceptions of heterosexual bias in professional psychology programs: A survey of graduate students. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 27, 604–612.
• Binik, Y. M., Cantor, J., Ochs, E., & Meana, M. (1997). From the couch to the keyboard: Psychotherapy in cyberspace. In S. Kiesler (Ed.), Culture of the internet (pp. 71–100). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Barbaree, H. E., & Cantor, J. M. (2008). Performance indicators for Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 20, 3–4.
• Zucker, K. J., Bradley, S. J., Own-Anderson, A., Kibblewhite, S. J., & Cantor, J. M. (2008). Is gender identity disorder in adolescents coming out of the closet? Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, 34, 287–290.
• Cantor, J. M. (2003, Spring). What are the hot topics in LGBT research in psychology? Newsletter of Division 44 of the American Psychological Association, 19(1), 21–24.
• Zucker, K., & Cantor, J. M. (2003). Editorial: The numbers game: The impact factor and all that jazz. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 32, 3–5.
• Cantor, J. M. (2002, Fall). Male homosexuality, science, and pedophilia. Newsletter of Division 44 of the American Psychological Association, 18(3), 5–8.
• Cantor, J. M. (2000). Review of the book Sexual Addiction: An Integrated Approach. Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, 26, 107–109.

(For the record, I'm not the one who brought Blanchard up. I merely added the information that showed that Jokestress' prior claims about the field's reactions to Blanchard's work were quite incorrect, as she was about her belief of my publication record, as she was about to whom autogynephilia is properly attributed...)
— James Cantor (talk) (formerly, MarionTheLibrarian) 22:59, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, your selected publications all have Blanchard as a co-author, so I assume that's why you attack his critics as ardently as you have attacked critics of The Man Who Would Be Queen since the first days of this controversy. It seems to reflect your desire to have Blanchard prominently featured in the controversy section here, overemphasizing that connection, just as you have on your web page. I believe your website and this article could do with a little balance that doesn't overemphasize Blanchard. Jokestress (talk) 23:19, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

The sentences of yours that have errors are the ones that contain "assume," "seems," and "believe." (Such words are necessary only when there is no actual evidence.) Because of the long string of demonstrable errors you have made, you might consider raising the bar for how willing you are to assume or believe anything, even if it means that the truth does not align with your expectations. The "selected" in "selected pubs" means that I have chosen only some from my whole cv; the webmaster asked that faculty limit the number of pubs listed, so I chose only those that were relevant to the students at that institution. In fact, a great many things you describe as faults (not only of mine) are merely because you do not have the full story and are acting upon what you "assume" and "believe" to be true merely because of how it "seems" to you. You'd have avoided this current error had you asked rather than assumed anything about my record.
— James Cantor (talk) (formerly, MarionTheLibrarian) 23:38, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

It is important that we not get drawn into unproductive discussions by Jokestress' charming personality. (BTW jokestress, you are now middle-aged, and just because you no longer "readily admit" your autogynephilia doesn't mean that it's gone.)

I agree with Jokestress about the obvious point that the official publication of the book by a prestigious outlet was the impetus for the protest. (Conway and others were worried that this would lead to Blanchard's ideas being well known and taken seriously by the general public.) It is okay with me if this is mentioned up front, so long as it is made clear that the primary content issue was the third section of the book, and especially, Blanchard's theory. Jokestress' suggestion that the protests were made because Conway, James, Roughgarden, and McCloskey "felt" that the book was unscientific is laughable. (We can't talk about feelings here, for one, because we can't know what people felt. I believe that these individuals felt terror at the prospect that people would believe them to be autogynephilic, perhaps accurately so.) They did assert that the book was unscientific, with either no support or with misleading characterizations of the book. For a long time, for example, they said that Bailey's conclusions derived from unsystematic "study" of drag queens at bars, even though the book discusses Blanchard's work as the basis for Bailey's beliefs on transsexualism. Conway's page that started it all emphasizes her dislike of the ideas and not the lack of a scientific approach (although it does make some false assertions about that as well). The first paragraph can lead with the NAS, but it also must emphasize Blanchard's theory.

Jokestress recommends: "The book's content led to immediate protests to the National Academy of Sciences for publishing it." But Lynn Conway's first webpages on this, from April 2003, don't contain such protests, or at least I didn't find them. So "immediate protests" seems inaccurate. The order seems to be (a) outrage at the book's content and concern that it was being published by the NAS, followed by (b) protests at the NAS, Northwestern University, and other places that the book was published.

I think that sentence-by-sentence isn't going to work as well as paragraph-by-paragraph, so I will propose a paragraph soon.ProudAGP (talk) 18:18, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

For the record, Lawrence, Petersen, and ProudAGP are all viewed the same way by the trans community. That's why they seek validation elsewhere.

Much has been made of Conway's immediate protests to the National Academies by Bailey himself. She directly petitioned them to get the book removed from their website and catalog, as did other scientists later. We can source that to Bailey. And you're right-- we didn't just feel the book was unscientific, we stated it was not science, as did John Bancroft and a bunch of others. Roughgarden called it fraud, I called it pseudoscience, etc. Jokestress (talk)