The TERF Ur-Text
A review of J.Michael Bailey’s 2003 book ‘The Man Who be Queen’ and it’s impact on modern rhetoric
If there was one word to describe J. Michael Bailey’s 2003 book, The Man Who Would be Queen, it would be incurious. The book has a veneer of scientific rigor, which Bailey reminds the reader about constantly, but fundamentally does not interrogate anything about trans, gay, or gender nonconforming people. It makes many assertions and never truly substantiates any of them. Still, this book is Ur-text of the Gender Critical movement. Practically every argument on twitter by namebunchofnumbers against Trans people can be found in this book. Reading it gives a crucial insight into the unsaid beliefs and prejudices of anti-Trans activists. That is the only thing of value this book provides. I would not recommend reading it if you are a Trans person (or any person for that matter) as it is full of hateful rhetoric that is only going to harm your mental health. Hence, I am writing this review to spare you the time and torment.
The book is split into 3 parts: one about youth gender nonconformity, one about adult gay men, and one about Transgender women. The third section, which introduces Ray Blanchard’s taxonomy of Trans people, is the most infamous. However, the rest of the book is equally as repugnant. The author, J. Michael Bailey, is a psychologist and tenured professor at Northwestern University. This book is perhaps his best known work, but he collaborates with other Gender Critical researchers like Lisa Littman, Ken Zucker, and Ray Blanchard. He also penetrated a woman with a ‘fucksaw’ for his class one time.
The Prologue begins with an anecdote that is indicative of the book as a whole. Bailey describes going to a store and seeing a man selling makeup. Immediately, just by looking at this man, Bailey asserts he knows everything about his life. He says, “I know what he was like as a boy. I know what kind of person he is sexually attracted to. I know what kinds of activities interest him and what kinds do not.”(p. ix) I’m reminded of a joke in the comic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal about an exchange between an engineer and a philosopher:
This appears to be the school of thought Bailey ascribes to. He never confirms his suspicions with this man, never challenges his preconceived notions. He barely even talks to him. Bailey knows this because he’s a scientist and he knows these things. This is a common theme throughout the book: baseless assumptions dressed as science.
The first major part of the book revolves around a gender non-conforming child named Danny (a pseudonym). Danny likes to wear dresses, play princess, and otherwise act effeminate. Bailey, apropos of nothing, thinks this means he will grow up to be gay or Trans and tells his mother as such. “Most likely, Danny will become a gay man. It is also possible, although less likely, that he will grow up to be heterosexual. The final possible outcome is that Danny will decide to become a woman, and in this case, he will also be attracted to men.” (p.17) He then points to several studies of 100 gender nonconforming kids as proof. Why he believes Danny would like men if he was transgender will be revealed later, but an important note is that Bailey never meets Danny before the end of the book. All of Bailey’s assumptions about Danny come from talking to his mother. Bailey sees no problem with this. It is bizarre that he focuses so much of this book on Danny without the author ever talking to him until the epilogue. We have no clue if she is telling the truth because Danny is silent. It’s like the rhetoric around kids today: so much time is spent talking to parents of trans kids and their perceptions about their children that the children themselves have little to no voice in the Gender Critical space.
The most important takeaway from section 1 is Bailey’s belief in Ken Zucker’s model of care. “Failure to intervene increases the chances of transsexualism in adulthood, which Zucker considers a bad outcome…Why put boys at risk for this when they can become gay men happy to be men?” (p.31) To Bailey, Zucker is a happy medium between the hard right torturing kids with electro-therapy and the left’s application of gender-affirming care. Bailey’s fatal flaw is centrism. He believes there is a compromise between child abuse and child care. This is the crux behind all of the ‘moderate’ GCs: their policies and beliefs only serve to bridge the gap between moderate liberals and trans eliminationists. Arch-transphobes like Stella O’Malley or Helen Joyce will never openly endorse religious fundamentalists who wish to rain hellfire on all queers, but will certainly help them achieve their goals by legitimizing conversion therapy as ‘Gender Exoloratory Therapy’. This book serves to launder the reputations of Zucker and Blanchard as a ‘compromise’ between the ‘radical left and right’.
Danny is brought up several times between chapters, but he is not treated as a person but as some kind of test subject. Bailey laments he cannot perform unethical experiments to sate his curiosity. “So to the perfect experiment: First we would take normal new- born boys from their mothers.We would castrate the boys and surgi- cally give the babies vaginas. Next, we would give them away to un- suspecting parents, whom we would lead to believe were adopting girls. We would watch the children to see how they develop.” (p.45) This is a truly disturbing look into Bailey’s lack of concern for humanity. He seems almost melancholic when he admits his proposed experiments are considered ‘unethical’. He even uses John Money’s famously abhorrent experiment as proof of his beliefs. His treatment of everyone in this book as mere lab rats is dehumanizing. Nowhere is there any sort of compassion or empathy for these people, aside from the occasional tacked-on phrase to cover Bailey from accusations of misconduct. Ironically, Michael Bailey uses the Motte and Bailey tactic throughout this book, presenting an idea that is objectionable and then quickly walking it back.
The second section talks about gay men. Bailey takes a scientific positivist view on homosexuality. He believes there is a genetic (or at least biological) component to homosexuality, and that male homosexuality should be pathologized in such a way. He all but dismisses lesbians as being fundamentally ‘different’ than gay men in some unspecified way. He points to Danny’s uncle, a gay man, as well as some genetic and hormonal studies as proof. He even goes so far as to doubt bisexuality when it does not comport to his conclusions. He does a survey of gay twins. He believes that given his hypothesis of in-utero effects on the fetus make individuals gay, both twins should be gay. When one twin is gay and the other bisexual, he dismisses bisexuality. He cowardly hides behind gay men’s prejudices to do so claiming, “If gay men are correct in their skepticism that male bisexuality exists, this second [bisexual] twin is probably gay.”(p.107) This is bad science. Instead of being responsible when his hypothesis doesn’t add up with conclusion, he ignores evidence that goes against his beliefs. Bailey goes to the gay bar scene in Chicago to conduct surveys, never taking into account the selection bias only going to gay bars brings in. It would be as if you were to conduct a survey on adultery, but you only asked men at strip clubs on a Tuesday afternoon about their fidelity. It’s strange that Bailey is able to concoct a perfectly controlled experiment for studying children from birth, but is unable to control for his selection bias in dealing with gay adults.
The third part of this book is the most infamous. It deals with trans women. This is where Ray Blanchard’s trans taxonomy is introduced. Bailey believes trans women fall into two categories: those he finds hot and those he doesn’t Autogynophiles and Homosexual-Transsexuals. “Most homosexual transsexuals are much better looking than most autogynephilic transsexuals.”(p. 180) According to Bailey, trans women are either gay men looking to expand their dating pool by “tricking” straight men into sleeping with them, or perverts who get off to thinking themselves as women. He goes on to discuss his dealings with trans women, going into weird tangents about how the HSTS girl is prettier than the AGP one. The self proclaimed scientific ‘rigor’ of this book falls completely flat when one of Bailey’s rules for identifying trans women is “If you didn’t already know that this person was a transsexual, would you still have suspected that she was not a natural-born woman?”(p.193) His integrity is called even more into question as he failed to disclose that for the trans women he interviewed, he did so in exchange for him to sign their paperwork for gender affirming surgery. They would later file complaints with Northwestern University, claiming Bailey misrepresented them. It’s most likely he did, but he still refuses to acknowledge this.
The epilogue is equally disgusting, and reveals exactly what Bailey’s intentions are. A few moments later, Danny said: “Looking at Danny, it was difficult to imagine him wearing high heels and a dress. He looked good as a boy…This was not a girl in boy’s clothing…His word choice was obviously unusual, for an eight-year-old boy, and his speech style was precise and somewhat prissy. This was not a typical boy, either…Danny said: ‘Mummy, I need to go to the men’s room.’ I am certain that as he said that, he emphasized ‘men’s’ and looked my way... At that moment, I became as certain as I can be of Danny’s future.” (p.214) From one interaction, Bailey knows exactly what he’s going to be like. I can’t imagine being this child and reading this passage as an adult. It is beyond creepy. Bailey seems pleased with himself in this epilogue, almost self-congratulatory. In his mind he has achieved the best outcome possible: he has made sure Danny doesn’t turn out trans. It is the root of the Gender Critical belief system: nobody should be trans.
It’s hard to believe this book was written in 2003. It is a playbook for Gender Critical activism and rhetoric in the modern era. Everything from mentions of “mutilated genitals” to “most of these kids will just be gay men” is in here. Even the response to the backlash, with Bailey claiming that he is ‘censored’ and ‘political correctness has run amuck!’ is 20 years before it’s time. The only new addition to the GC arsenal is the pathologization of transmasc youth under the term Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD). Unsurprisingly, Bailey had a hand in creating this model. Bailey is not a good scientist. Good scientists don’t throw out data when it doesn’t meet their hypothesis. Good scientists disclose potential conflicts of interest. Good scientists treat their subjects with respect and dignity. But Bailey isn’t interested in that. He is interested in his preconceived notions being correct. Bailey and his ilk have an important place in the anti-trans network: they launder bigotry through science. By making dubious papers and using scientific sounding language, they add a petunia of logic onto a machine of hatred. Looking below the surface, though, they are just as flawed and as unscientific as the preachers at the lecturn.