Way back in the spring of 2003, a Northwestern professor named J. Michael Bailey wrote a boring little book about transgendered people. It is called "The Man Who Would Be Queen," which is a little saucy for science, no? Specifically, he addressed why men decide to switch sexes. And what did he say? He said they were acting on an "erotic fascination with themselves as women."
Which was like, Whoa! for the transgender community. Transgenders generally believe that they are trapped in the wrong body, or gender misidentified at birth, or something along those lines. Check out the Wikipedia page on this, if you feel like a good laugh. It includes the word "genderqueer." Ha!
Anyways. This Whoa! reaction gradually turned into more of a Fuck You!, in a pretty big way. Some transgender advocate in L.A. took photos of Bailey's children from his website and put them on her own, with lots of nasty nasty captions. She said this was fair, because he had exploited vulnerable people. Nasty nasty nasty, indeed.
On top of all this online name-calling, people were complaining to Northwestern. They were all like, This guy fabricated his book! He deceived people! Much of the book was based on anecdotes, which is kinda shady because Baily extracted the information in psychological sessions, something he is not licensed to do in Illinois.
So Northwestern decided to investigate in late 2003. It will shock you to your core that it's not easy to tell what became of this investigation. No one really knows! Here's what the New York Times figured out:
The inquiry, which lasted almost a year, brought research to a near standstill in Dr. Bailey’s laboratory, and clouded his name among some other researchers, according to people who worked with the psychologist.
“That was the worst blow of all, that we didn’t get much support” from Northwestern, said Gerulf Rieger, a graduate student of Dr. Bailey’s at the time, and now a lecturer at Northwestern. “They were quite scared and not very professional, I thought.”
Scared? Not very professional? Well, you gotta love their uniformity on those traits.
In October 2004, Bailey stepped down as chair of the psychology department, though both he and the school say this had nothing to do with the book or the investigation. What do you think? I think they are both LYING.
But the story doesn't end there. Later on, in a time period closer to now, Alice Dreger, a Northwestern ethics scholar, decided to see what all the fuss was about. (That's her on the right, sitting on her porch. And I could have had such fun with pronouns. Resist, resist.)
She thought, Hey, are his methods ethical? She decided Bailey's book wasn't scientific, but it wasn't total bullshit, either. She thinks it's important that people be able to voice unpopular opinions in research, even, I gather, if it is not quite research.
Well, whatever. She is now under attack too, as biased for being associated with Northwestern, which is kind of silly. I mean, we make fun of Northwestern people all day, and we're not biased!
Anyways. So, you read this far, and you're like, what's the point? I often wonder the same thing.
Dr. Alice Dreger's findings [bioethics.northwestern.edu]
Criticism of Gender Theory, and a Scientist Under Siege [The New York Times]
Can Professors Say the Truth [HuffPo]
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