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- Anjelica Kieltyka Responds to Bailey's Book
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- As told to and reported by Lynn Conway
- Copyright ©
2003-2004, by Lynn Conway and Anjelica Kieltyka
- All rights reserved
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- Anjelica and her honor society
classmates at her high school class's 25th reunion
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- FOREWARD
- by Lynn Conway
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- I first met Anjelica Kieltyka by e-mail, on May 4, 2003.
Whilst in the midst of the
Bailey
book controversy, she wrote to me and introduced herself
as the woman named "Cher" in Bailey's book. In her
remarkable e-mail, she revealed her angst at being used as the
"poster-child for autogynephilia" which she insists
is an incorrect representation of her own true identity as a
lesbian transsexual woman.
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- Anjelica and I began a series of e-mails and then telephone
interviews, and she has agreed to help make her story, her views
and her writings available openly to the community through this
webpage. I will be helping her via interviews, interview reports,
her photos and her own writings to present "her side to
the story" via this page and my "Bailey
Investigation Page". Since then we've followed up by
my visiting her in Chicago, and I also met there with several
of the other young trans women whom she has been mentoring and
whom Bailey used as research subjects.
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- We'll open this page by simply displaying two of Angelica's
early e-mails to me, along with some photos of her. (Note that
the "...."'s in these e-mails are Anjelica's own style
of streaming thoughts together, and do not represent selective
quoting). These items in themselves should give the community
deep pause for thought about Bailey's theories and about how
they were generated.
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- For more about Anjelica's response to Bailey's book, see the links below and stay
tuned for more information in the "breaking
news" as time goes by. Also see "Anjelica
Kieltyka's art and writings" on Andrea James website,
where Andrea explains among other things that:
"Anjelica contacted Bailey in the mid-1990s after seeing him on television
talking about transsexualism. She hoped to explain how she viewed her own life
trajectory and to share her theories about gender variance with someone she saw
as a respected authority. This led to a long-standing relationship where
Anjelica would get further validation and attention by performing in front of
Bailey's classes on sexuality. Anjelica would in turn provide Bailey with access
to young transwomen she was mentoring, as well as older transgenderists she knew
through a local support group. Bailey would then see these women in a clinical
or lab setting, and he would socialize with the young, attractive ones at
nightclubs.
Anjelica has since filed a
formal complaint with
Northwestern University for the inaccurate and lurid misuse of her
biographical information in that book. She has also reported that Bailey
admitted to
fabricating a key final scene in his book."
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Date: Sun, 04 May 2003 11:06:15 -0500
From: Charlotte Anjelica Kieltyka <c-kieltyka@northwestern.edu>
Subject: Bailey, Cher and me
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- Dear Lynn, I am the Anjelica Kieltyka that Mike Bailey acknowledges
in his book's preface as "[teaching] me a great deal by
being honest and open"......I am also "Cher Mondovi"
of whom he writes : " Finally, I would never have thought
of this book without Leslie Ryan and Cher Mondovi, both courageous
women, in their own, different ways." .....It is unfortunate
that I could not teach him better or that he failed to see and
understand what I showed him. I had introduced myself to him
almost 10 years ago and have since then, continued to work with
him, argue with him, learn from him, teach him, fail to teach
him, respect him (still do-in spite of our disagreements) and
lecture in his class room ( often in rebuttal to him, Blanchard
and Lawrence and their misinterpretation of fetish behavior that
they coined "autogynephilia"). It is most unfortunate
that he used me and my case history as the "poster child
for autogynephilia"...using all of my case study (under
the pseudonym of "Cher") to support his chapters on
"autogynephiliacs"... Unfortunate because here was
an opportunity to break away from, rather then give further support
to a dead "Freudian" mixture of onanism, narcissism
and paraphilic transvestite fetishism. I refused to join this
bandwagon of Bailey, Blanchard and Lawrence, to which I would
also add Zucker and Bradley of the Clarke Institute.
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- Upon seeing an early draft on the chapters about transsexuals,
(about 2 years ago !! ) I tried even then to show him that he
was misinterpreting my sexual behavior/experiences/case history
and as a last resort requested that if he was going to use it
in this autogynephilic context, to change my name....What is
unfortunate in one respect, is quite fortunate in another.....
Just as John Money's "pet" case study grew up to bite
him in the ass , my case study as "Cher" , as the linch-pin
("lynch"-pin..."give him enough rope and he'll
hang himself") or cornerstone in this "autogynephilic"
house of cards will have a similar result when it is pulled out
from this flimsy construct of theirs....It would take the likes
of Dr. Milton Diamond (ironically, the same psychologist who
revealed the truth behind the classic Money case.) or someone
of equal credentials to work with me .....I would be as open
with them as I had been with Dr. Bailey.....I would be more then
happy to be part of any panel discussion, lecture , etc. that
would lead to a better understanding of transsexuals, especially
those that are " Lesbians who were trapped in men's bodies"
....Please call me or e-mail me your phone number and I'll call
you...I talk better then I type....I have included a few of my
photograghs/self portraits....
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- Sincerely yours, Charlotte Anjelica Kieltyka, aka. Cher...........P.S.
" I'm just a fool whose intentions are good ....O Lord,
Please don't let me be misunderstood "......Eric Burden
of " The Animals"
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- Charlotte Anjelica Kieltyka
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. USA
c-kieltyka@northwestern.edu
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Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 23:35:38 -0500
From: Charlotte Anjelica Kieltyka <c-kieltyka@northwestern.edu>
Subject: more Cher Stuff
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- Dear Lynn,.......Over the years, I have met and befriended
(even fell in love with) a number of women, including transsexual
women and a number of men, including some transsexual men....Many
of the transsexuals have had leadership qualities and all of
them, even the "Drag Queens" and "showgirls"
who played dumb were ( to quote Yogi the Bear) far "smarter
than the average bear , Boo Boo". That's another reason
I'm more then suspicious of Zucker's clinical work as mentioned
by Bailey on pages, 178-179 : " Zucker found several predictors
of adolescent GID : lower IQ, (emphasis mine),
lower social class, immigrant status, non-intact family, and
childhood behavior problems unrelated to gender identity disorder.
My experiences have led me to just the opposite conclusion...Most
transsexual women and men are in fact far superior in intellect,
so much so that they can go off on many an intellectual tangent
and get lost there...Many transsexuals are downright brilliant...so
this so-called lower IQ "predictor" of GID is perplexing
and a misreading of the data....
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- If anything , it seems to me this resembles the early childhood
struggles of highly creative individuals and geniuses, who were
also considered slow or of lower IQ...Einstein and Edison come
to mind...I took a course, recently, called "The Creative
Mind" as part of a series of courses on neurology...even
going off on a tangent to explore the new and interesting field
of psycho-neuro endocrinology - the study of the interrelatedness
of hormones, brain function and behavior, (which helps explain
behavioral changes that we experience as transsexuals)...anyway,
I got off on one of those tangents... "The Creative Mind"
taught me that, contrary to what Maslow and other psychologists
had thought, creativity does not develop very well in a stable,
nurturing environment, but rather, in just the opposite type
of environment....unstable, conflicting, often, non-intact families,
filled with adversity and ambiguity...the perfect incubator for
artists, creative scientists and transsexuals...(some of which
turn out to be all three !!! )....I have always prided myself
as being a tinkerer...taking things apart to see what makes them
tick...a "trouble-shooter" rather then a "trouble-maker",
but sometimes both....there's a risk-taking element in taking
something apart and trying to put it back together...but if the
thing is broken to begin with, a "don't give a shit/nothing
to lose" attitude, accompanied by a strong dose of curiosity
enables me to "rush in where angels do not tread"....
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- ...When you know that the craziest thing you could ever
do was also the most brilliantly correct, instinctive, intuitive
and natural...you learn to appreciate craziness, paradoxes, ironies
and complex puzzles, especially those that impact individuals
like ourselves who have been led for years, sometimes as willing
co-conspirators, to have our true selves move further and further
away from what was intuitive, instinctive, and natural.......Transsexuals
have more in common with each other then differences, a multi-faceted
complexity similar to a "Rubric's Cube", where it isn't
right until you get all the sides right.... and autogynephilia
doesn't get that side or aspect of the transsexual experience
right, nor does calling Heterosexual Transsexual Women (who have
always been feminine and have always been attracted to men ),
Homosexual Transsexuals because they once wrongly identified
as gay males.....The two terms, "autogynephilia" and
"homosexual" transsexual is an insult to the transsexuals
represented by these terms and an insult to the men and women
who love them.............bye, Cher
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- photo by Anjelica Kieltyka
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For more information about
the Bailey investigation, see
:
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/LynnsReviewOfBaileysBook.html
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Reset on 5-11-03