Talk:The Man Who Would Be Queen/Archive 1

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Controversy Edit (Dec 2007)

I got more specific about the alleged ethical breaches. I've spent years reading articles on both sides of the controversy, and the major issue that both sides seem to have is that Bailey seems to have cherry picked his research subjects. Almost all of the research subjects are Latina, the amount of which is not reflected by the general population of transgendered people. The races of transgendered people seem to be distributed in the same percentage as the general population. In addition, they all seem to have frequented the same bars. Frankly, going to drag bars and picking women out of the crowd doesn't exactly strike me as ethical research behavior.

That, coupled with the fact that some of his research subjects didn't know they were participating in research leads me personally to suspect that a portion of his findings stem from nightclub conversations. I prefer to stick to the facts and leave POV out of it, so I only edited the content minimally.

There's a statement (which was already there) about how on the date of a purported sexual encounter with a research subject, the "only objective evidence" places Bailey at home with his family. I'm unable to find any evidence of this anywhere, but I have left it in hoping that someone else may have some insight. I have been unable to find anything that puts a specific date on this alleged encounter, nor any evidence supporting or refuting it (other than Bailey's own statements). I don't feel that it's a particularly good passage, but I left it in until I can find sufficient amounts of reference on this. Glamrockboy (talk) 14:24, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I think we disagree here about the meaning of research. Would you expect a different approach from a newspaper reporter? That is, if (name your favorite journalist) met a handful of people, said "I'm writing a book about transsexuals, and I'd like to get your views," and they answered question after question after question on the subject, would you claim that then publishing a book which (in part) presents the information from these interviews was horribly unethical?

What if it was a blogger instead of a printed newspaper? Or just an author who writes nonfiction books instead of someone with an official press pass?

The issue is that Bailey's critics have decided to simultaneously assert two things:

1. It's not scientific research (so it should be ignored), and
2. It's definitely scientific research -- and it's utterly unethical for university professors, who have a very l-o-n-g tradition of publishing books, to use the same information-gathering techniques that we'd accept from any other author.

Bailey himself has said that this book is not itself scientific research, and the federal regulator that is charged with protecting US research subjects says that interviewing people -- like every journalist does -- isn't research. He may have hoped to illustrate some of the concepts that Blanchard's research indicated, at a level that the average person could grasp, but basic journalism is not research.

BTW, if memory serves, the source for the 'only objective evidence' is the New York Times article. The NYT was provided with copies of the evidence (mostly e-mail messages) and confirmed it with his ex-wife. If you haven't read that article, I recommend it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:39, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we disagree about the meaning of research per se, but I feel that when someone is referencing people as "research subjects" they shouldn't be offended that people treat the material as if it were intended to be research. It's also worth noting that he did treat his work as research before the bulk of this backlash started. I've seen his now-infamous lecture at Stanford where he makes fun of transgendered people as well as gays and lesbians (this was right after the book was published). He even makes fun of children in the process, which I find to be incredibly mean-spirited and uncalled for. As a psychology student, his work disturbs me greatly and on so many levels.

I would not rate his work on the level of most journalists. Based on his cavalier attitude and unprofessional lectures, I'm surprised that he even managed to secure a professorship at all.

In a nutshell:

1. I don't think his work meets the standards of the research community as a whole (and as such it's not really research)
2. I think that because it was intended to be taken as research, it's ethics should automatically be inspected
3. I don't think it should be ignored
4. I would expect any book that accuses a large group of people of being paraphilics would have a bit more "research" and a bit less "anecdote."

Sadly, most newspaper reporters would have gone with the same angle as the book -- transsexuality as a "freak thing" sell more papers than transsexuality as a "brain thing" or "psychological thing." Bailey treats sex as a macguffin for transsexuals, as if they are all motivated by sex and that their transitions are related to their sexuality. In practice, this theory doesn't hold up. Anyone who has worked with transsexuals for a decent amount of time can see that they aren't motivated by sex, but by some sort of psychological and/or biological mechanism.

I think it's interesting that you mentioned blogs. A major psychiatrist from kaiser permanente recently stated that in his experience, all black women are promiscuous and have lots of children. This was stated on someone's blog. Just because he didn't say "this is based on years of research" doesn't make it less inflammatory or less incorrect. The big difference between his statement and Bailey's is that J. Michael Bailey did originally treat his work not only as research, but as the ultimate research piece on transsexualism.

Thanks for letting me know where that NYT statement came from, it's uncited so I was concerned that it was more opinion than fact. If I find a link to the story, I'll reference it.Glamrockboy (talk) 15:24, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

You'll probably find the article cited in one of the other related articles, like autogynephilia or the Blanchard, Bailey, Lawrence theory. Some anon editor is making a billion edits to the one (that I know of) this week. I figure there's no point in cleaning up the mess until the dust settles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:44, 22 December 2007 (UTC)