The Bailey Controversy, Trans Activism, and Sexuality

I'm sure many of you are more or less aware of the controversy over Northwestern University Psychology Chair J. Michael Bailey's new book The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism; I've probably mentioned it here once or twice. I panned the book in my thesis on trans sexuality and trans activists are making a big noise about it, as we should, to try to ensure that no one accepts Bailey's potentially dangerous assertions as legitimate science without hearing other perspectives on transsexualism.

All that said, the wave of response apparent on the 'net shows quite clearly the biases of many of us taking Bailey, Blanchard, and the National Academies Press to task -- particularly class biases, desire for acceptance into maintstream middle-class society, and, well, perhaps a bit of prudery. (This is not intended as a criticism specifically of Lynn Conway or Andrea James, who have been perhaps the loudest critical voices on this issue, and whose work and words I admire. It is rather an undercurrent I have noted in various letters and articles on the subect, including a few featured on James's website.)

Bailey congratulates himself for boldly addressing the rarely-discussed topic of transsexual sexuality. Of course, what he has to say on the subject is bullshit. But as I wrote in a recent letter to UMich Professor Emerita and trans activist Lynn Conway, "I fear that in reacting to the ridiculous assertion that our transitions are motivated by simplistic sexual objectives (partner-seeking or fulfillment of a fetish) rather than by as full and complex and deeply felt a sense of gender identity as any woman has, we will (or at least some of us will) fall back into a kind of sexual conservatism that resists talking abour our sexuality and its relation our identities and transitions." And as I put it in my thesis, the real problem with the "autogynephilia" concept is not so much the assertion that transwomen get sexually turned on by imagining themselves in sexual situations as women -- but that these experiences are arguably no different from genetic women getting turned on imagining themselves in sexual situations as women; for the most part, surprise surprise, women are women in their sexual fantasies (and it would hardly be surprising if transwomen tended to engage in less of the occasional gender-switching fantasies women often have, if only because we suffered in the past through the expectation that we would be sexually active as men in real life!).

Trans people are rightly sick and tired of the media and the public's prurient interest in our sexuality, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't admit to being sexual beings; indeed, if we don't talk about our sexuality, people like Bailey will be the only ones talking about it. While folks like Christopher Lee and Patrick Califia have done much of late for open discussion of FTM sexuality, a few wrongheaded sexologists and exploitive non-trans pornographers have a near monopoly on discourses of MTF sexuality. (Cheers once again to Canadian filmmaker Mirha-Soleil Ross for her ground-breaking, but still mostly unknown work in this area.)

What's more, I detect more than a hint of classist anti-prostitute bias in the backlash to Bailey's book. While it is a very valid complaint that Bailey's research was grossly unrepresentative (among other flaws), the tenor of many complaints against it suggests that transwomen in general are somehow demeaned by being represented as sex workers -- critics are quick to point out that plenty of transwomen are "respectable," "successful," "professionals." While of course it is necessary to counter any suggestion that trans people cannot have successful careers of any kind they choose -- for some a major fear about transitioning -- these statements seem to betray animosity not just for the author of an insulting book but also towards transsexual prostitutes for making the rest of us look bad -- and that I find unacceptable. Prostitutes and other sex workers are people like anyone else, they are part of our community, and we ought not to act embarrassed by them. Rather, we ought to defend the rights of trans sex workers and work to improve the social and economic positions of all trans people so that transwomen will only do sex work if they choose to -- which is their right -- rather than because they feel they have to, as is not uncommon.

On a similar note, responses to the claim that many or most transwomen are motivated to transition by a sexual fetish have not settled on the quite sufficient fact that we are not so motivated, but have displayed a bias against fetishists per se. This is perhaps understandable because the operative fear is that the even greater social stigma attatched to sexual fetishes could harm trans people even more than the stigma of simlply being transsexual. But the fact remains that although sexual fetishism has stayed in the DSM longer than homosexuality, there is arguably nothing unhealthy or wrong about them -- they simply aren't the reason that we transition. I am reminded of the "lavender menace" fiasco of the 1970s, when heterosexual feminists responded to reactionary insinuations that all feminists were lesbians by persecuting lesbians. Bleah.