The J. Michael Bailey Investigation: How it all began with a series of e-mails

This page documents the onset of the trans community's investigation into the publication of J. Michael Bailey's book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, by the National Academy Press.

It all began when Lynn received a message alerting her to the publication of Bailey's book, on 4-10-03. Immediately realizing the seriousness of the situation, Lynn alerted her friend Andrea James (webmistress of the widely-read TS RoadMap) about the book, and they began digging into what had happened.

Within a few days (on 4-12-03), Lynn began posting information about the book on a new page in her website (that page became the "Bailey Investigation website) and alerted Andrea and their mutual friend Becky Allison. The next day (4-13-03) Andrea posted a review and other information about the book (that new page later scaled up to become the BBL Clearinghouse website). Meantime, Becky Allison began posting information about the book into her Blog.

Now realizing the true gravity of the situation, Lynn began spreading the alert more widely in messages to trans advocacy groups (such as in this message to GLAAD) on 4-21-03. Responding to those alerts, Christine Burns at Press for Change (PFC) in the UK then spread the alert worldwide by posting it in the widely read "PFC News", on 4-22-03 (more)

Almost immediately a widespread collaborative internet-based movement formed to investigate and figure out what had happened to cause this book to be published, and to investigate in depth the "science" and "scientists" behind the book.

The very following day (on 4-23-03), we learned from Prof. Joan Roughgarden that Bailey had promoted his book while mocking gay men and transsexual women in a psychology department lecture at Stanford University.

Not long after that (on 5-04-03), Bailey's research subject Anjelica Kieltyka e-mailed Lynn and began telling her story of how Mr. Bailey exploited her and the young trans women she was mentoring in Chicago - using them as unwitting research subjects without their knowledge - and then publishing intimate details about their sex lives in his book without their permission.

Lynn receives a message alerting her to the publication of Bailey's book, 4-10-03:

From: "Patricia F Anderson"
To: lila
Cc: "Patricia F Anderson"
Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2003 6:29 PM
Subject: FYI: Free Online Book on GenderBending

In case you haven't seen this yet -- new from John Henry Press and
National Academies Press.

The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and
Transsexualism / J. Michael Bailey
<http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10530.html>

Free fulltext online, and I expect the library will probably at some point
order the print, although it isn't in the catalog yet.

Patricia Anderson

Lynn alerts her friend Andrea James (webmistress of the widely-read TS RoadMap) about the book, 4-10-03:

----- Original Message -----

From: "Lynn Conway"

To: "Andrea"

Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2003

Subject: New book by Bailey - a potential major problem

Hi Andrea,

I just got an alert about J. Michael Bailey's new book. It's just been published

and of all places it's co-published by the National Academies Press, which gives

it the apparant stamp of authority as "science":

http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10530.html

As you may know, Bailey is the psychologist who promotes the
"two-type" theory of transsexualism as being caused by sexual conditioning
to either (i) homosexuality or (ii) autogynephilic fantasies, and uses a "12
guestions test" to differentiate the "two types". . . .

Anyways - not that there is much we can do about this - but we should probably
read his book sometime and be prepared to shoot down as best we can his weird
characterizations of us all.

Sadly, his book will probably become popular with people who "want to understand
us", and will seem sort of "empathetic" towards us, but if it is at all like his past
writings, it will treat us all as rather pathetic objects of study - and of course he
calls us all "transsexual men" - - - .

The fact that this nonsense got published by NAP is particularly galling - they
probably did it out of a feeling that they were being "modern" and "enlightened"
in what they published - and didn't have a clue that it contains no science whatsoever.

I don't know how I'll be able to deal with this within the Academy. But it is causing
me considerable stomach grumbles right now, which means that I'm eventually
going to have to eventually figure out something to do about it.

Anyways - that's the news for today - and it's not good.

Hope things are going well out there!

Cheers!

Lynn

Lynn opens what becomes the "Bailey investigation webpage", and alerts Andrea James and Becky Allison, 4-12-03:

Hi folks,

Here's the URL for my review of Bailey's new book. I've just updated it with
some more cool stuff, and posted it in my website at:

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/LynnsReviewOfBaileysBook.html

As you can see, I'm really venting right now. Somehow Bailey strikes me as

a prime example of our worst nightmare out there - the ignorant, dangerous,
hateful, mean-spirited bigot wandering around in the sheep's clothing of
a "scientist" while spewing his nonsense about us.

I'm particularly galled because of the incredibly shoddy and unprofessional
nature of his so-called "science", which is stuff that would have gotten him
laughed out of town even as a beginning grad student in the hard sciences

at any major university.

Fortunately, it's a free country and we get to speak our minds too.
So, let's be sure to do that! You folks may not feel as bent out of shape as
I am about Bailey, and may not want to be so openly harsh in your reviews,
but do feel free to point folks to my review, so that my words can speak
for your feelings too.

Also, if you could write me a paragraph or even a "one-liner" summarizing
your thoughts about the book sometime, I'd love to add a few "quotes from
others" at the end of the review. Let me know if you'd like to do that sometime.

Cheers!

Lynn

-----Original Message-----
From: Lynn Conway
Sent: Friday, April 18, 2003 4:14 PM
To: Christine Burns; Joan Roughgarden; Sarah Weston; Emily Hobbie; Gwendolyn
Ann Smith; Donna Rose; Susan Stryker; Jenny Boylan; Jamison Green; Stephen
Whittle; Shannon Minter
Cc: Andrea; Becky Allison
Subject: The publication of an outrageously defamatory book about
"transsexuals"

Dear friends,

I hope that you are all well and are having fun these days.

Sorry to bring a little rain with this message: I want to alert you that a
book has just been published, aa book that is incredibly stigmatizing of
"transsexuals":

The Man Who Would Be Queen:The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism,
by J. Michael Bailey, http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10530.html

The book doesn't present the gender-gifted people we know, but instead
presents transsexualism as being one of two types of exotic male sexual
behavior. No other types are possible. Bailey does not believe that their
is such a thing as a man who "feels like a woman inside". He is quoted as
saying that this is not possible, because he cannot comprehend such a
thing. He calls TS women "transsexual men". Transmen are off his radar
screen. Get the idea?

This book should have been just another curiosity on the shelf of unread
books. However, by some amazing failure of oversight, it was published
under the imprimatur of the National Academy Press.

This nutcase Bailey, who has been driving TS women crazy for years with his
bogus theories and his failure to ever listen to any counter-evidence, is
now published by the prestigious National Academy Academies: National
Academy of Science, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of
Medicine.

This is a horrific situation to those in the know about these things. The
imprimatur of the Academy gives this book the apparant blessing as being
authoritative science on transsexualism.

However, this book is the equivalent for the entire transgender community
of a Ku Klux Clan smearing of the entire black community by painting their
entire lives and identities as nothing more than the obsessive pursuit of
bizarre sex. Imagine what would have happened if the Academy had published
a book such as this about African Americans. Their gates would be stormed
and the institution would fall.

So how can they get away with doing this to us? They can't, unless we let
them get away with it!

Andrea James, Becky Allison and I have begun an effort to build a wave of
reaction against this book from people like us - "people who do not
exist". We have already written reviews and commentary about it at:

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/LynnsReviewOfBaileysBook.html
http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/j-michael-bailey.html
http://www.drbecky.com/blog05.html#apr13

If you get a chance, please browse our comments, and browse Bailey's book
(the book is on the web at the URL above). Then, if you have any reactions
you'd like to share publicly, we most strongly encourage you to do so.

If you have a website and post a review there, please let us know. We will
link to it from ours and please link vice-versa. Or if you could just make
a link to our reviews and alert folks to this problem, that would be cool
too.

If you have time to write a review that I could to post within my website -
please do . E-mail it to me, and I'll post it there for you. There are some
outstanding word-crafters among you, and I am sure that each of you will
find your own unique way to characterize this situation.

Your thoughts and words can help us greatly right now. There's no great
hurry in terms of days - it would be best to take a little time, and write
when you feel really inspired. Write a satire, a comedy, a serious science
challenge, a new analogy - whatever the muse speaks to you . . .

All the best,

Lynn

Ms. Lynn Conway
Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Emerita
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2110
http://www.lynnconway.com

Becky Allison reviews Bailey's book, triggering many other reviews by prominent trans women and men, 4-18-03:

----- Original Message -----

From: "Becky Allison"

To: "Lynn Conway"

Cc: "Andrea" ; "Donna Rose" ; Gwen Smith; Joan Roughgarden; Shannon Minter

Sent: Friday, April 18, 2003 8:03 PM

Subject: Re: The publication of an outrageously defamatory book about "transsexuals"

Hi Lynn,

I've completed my review to send in to Amazon and wanted to share it
with you:

------------------------------------------------

Title: The National Academy of Science Meets The National Enquirer

"My grandpa wore red suspenders. My grandpa was a Communist.
Therefore, everyone who wears red suspenders is a Communist, even
though they may deny it."

That reasoning would earn a failing grade in logic 101, but it makes as
much sense as the highly biased and inaccurate opinions of J. Michael
Bailey. The book could not be more demeaning to persons who have
suffered through the transition experience to achieve peace and success
as the women they know they are.

Bailey reasons that a male to female transsexual [he doesn't even
acknowledge the existence of female to males] must be transitioning for
purely sexual reasons, because, as he has admitted on more than one
occasion, he can't understand any other reason. He then biases his
interviews to support his position: a couple of young drag performers
in gay bars; a crossdresser who admits she's not transsexual; a person
who rarely crossdresses but frequently fantasizes himself as having a
vagina; and someone who designed a robotic penis to have sex with a
fake plastic vagina she strapped on her bottom. From that group he
draws his conclusions.

The most offensive quote in the book is this: "...many of us have had
the experience of wondering if a particular woman we have seen is
actually a man, and most of us who have been to even a few gay bars
have seen one. There are also transsexuals who work as waitresses,
hairdressers, receptionists, strippers, and prostitutes, as well as in
many other occupations..."

I'm wondering where I fit in. I happen to be an interventional
cardiologist. Other transsexual women I know are in many other medical
specialties; attorneys; clergy; pilots; CEOs; computer programmers; and
university professors who are embarrassed by this lunacy. But none of
us made Bailey's list. I suppose he ran out of room after "prostitutes."

It is not about having sex, Mr. Bailey. Can you grasp that idea? Many
of us do not give a damn about having sex. It is about life. It is
about what works versus what wasn't working. It is about going on
living versus ending it all.

This book is subjective, tabloid, "junk science" at its worst. Shame
on the National Academy of Science for giving it a legitimate
publication.

---------------------------------

I know you will have a more scientific approach; my writing tends to
the personal. But together we can get people's attention.

Give 'em hell, Sister.

Love,

Becky

Lynn Spreads the alert in messages to trans advocacy groups (as in this message to GLAAD), 4-21-03:

From: "Lynn Conway"
Date: Mon Apr 21, 2003
To: mis@glaad.org
Subject: GLAAD Incident Report

Dear friends,

A major controversy is about to erupt because of the publication of an
incredibly sensationalist, transphobic book by the National Academy
Press.

This publication is a media distortion of the very highest order:
Transphobic propaganda has sneaked into and been published by an elite
national institution under the guise of "science". I want to give you a
heads-up about this, so that you can get out in front of it ASAP.

The imprimatur of the National Academy gives J. Michael Bailey's new
book "The Man Who Would be Queen" the apparent stamp of approval of
science. And as we speak it is being adopted in many university
undergraduate psychology courses.

This book is transsexual women's worst nightmare, and its image of
transsexualism casts a dark shadow over the entire transgender
community.

The book portrays transsexual women (whom Bailey calls transsexual men)
as sex maniacs who "change (genital) sex" for exotic sexual reasons.

This book will in time be viewed as very analogous to the Nazi
propaganda films about Jews in WWII. It paints transsexual women as
deviant, bizarre, pitiful figures and never shows the diverse reality of
our true lives.

Bailey goes so far to say that he cannot comprehend someone in a male
body having a female gender identity. And because he cannot comprehend
it, then it cannot be!

Thus he claims that we do not even exist, as we ourselves perceive our
existence. Instead we are merely "transsexual men" who underwent "sex
changes" (i.e., SRS), as if we were a bunch of drag queens who went
terribly wrong somehow. Yes, that's right: Bailey calls TS women
"transsexual men".

Bailey thus goes against the mainstream of modern western thought about
transgenderism and transsexualism, substituting an older "homosexual"
model instead - along with an equally bizarre theory related to
addictive masturbation. In doing this, he stigmatizes and caricatures
not only transsexual women, but also gay men, tainting us all with the
stain of sexual preoccupation and sexual deviancy.

Over the past decade, many TS women have individually tried to interact
with Bailey, to help him understand that the papers he was writing just
didn't seem to describe any of the TS women we know.

He heard about the existence of these women this way. But one after
another he dissed them all as a "pack of lies". After all, all
transsexuals are liars, at least according to Bailey. He just kept
saying that we "didn't exist". And of course none of his colleagues ever
saw us, because we were all in stealth.

As a result, academic psychology - a field of science that is already on
terribly shaky grounds - has allowed itself to be turned into a
Nazi-like propaganda machine - this time directed not against Jewish
people, but against transsexual women.

Fortunately, times have changed. And this time the targets of this
institutional propaganda are going to fight it, and fight with
everything we've got.

The times have changed ,and we aren't all hiding in stealth anymore.
Saying that we "do not exist" isn't going to work for Bailey this time.
He's no longer will be able to hide us ALL from ALL of his colleagues.

See for yourself how visible we are now, both MtF and FtM transsexual
people (Bailey ignores the existence of FtM's) on the web at sites like
these:

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TSsuccesses/TSsuccesses.html
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TSsuccesses/TransMen.html

We do exist, and we are living counter-examples to everything Bailey is
saying about us in his lurid, sensationalist, transphobic book. And we
aren't going to take this anymore.

As a result of this publication, the field of psychology now faces an
incredibly powerful challenge to its credibility as a science and an
academic institution. The leadership in that community are going to have
to account for how this book came to be put forward to the Academy as
important "science". And all the psychologists who came forward with
rave reviews supporting this work are going to have to account for their
actions too. How many of them bothered to even think twice before buying
into existing stereotypes when signing off on their "reviews".

If there is a culprit here, beyond Bailey and his sexologist
colleagues, it is academic psychology, which sanctioned this work as
science and sent it along to the Academy.

I am already hearing prominent psychologists say that "this book makes
me ashamed to be a psychologist". Well they should all be ashamed. Where
were they the past ten years while Bailey was doing and publishing this
awful stuff?

Just think of the damage this book could do if widely adopted as a
"scientific view of transsexualism"?

It will not only horrifically stain the lives of tens of thousands of
transgender and transsexual people, and ruin the chances of thousands of
kids now struggling to come out and seek help for their transitions. And
at a deep and fundamental level stains the image of science itself,
leaving us with nothing but propaganda all around.

To really grasp what is happening here, think of the long-lasting first
impressions that college undergraduate students will get of transsexual
people from this book.

Compare those impressions to the ones of real-life gender transitioners,
such as Danielle, as told by her mother Evelyn in the book "Mom, I Need
to be a Girl":

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Evelyn/Evelyn.html

Once those first impressions are created, they are lasting ones. Think
of the damage that will be done to yet another generation of trans kids
if Bailey's awful and distorted view of us were to become
institutionalized in academe.

If all those psychology courses wanted to include a small, easily
readable, informative overview of gender change, then they should adopt
Evelyn's book, not Bailey's.

How Bailey's terribly flawed book could have been published by the
National Academy is quite beyond me. And as a duly elected member of the
Academy, you can bet I'm asking some hard questions right now.

To learn more about this controversy, please see the "investigative
report now being constructed and evolved on the web:

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/LynnsReviewOfBaileysBook.html

Thanks for listening. I really do urge you to get out in front of this
one. We are being killed out here, and this awful book - disguised as
science - is adding fuel to that fire.

Please, please help us on this one.

All the best,

Ms. Lynn Conway

Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI
http://www.lynnconway.com

Christine Burns at Press for Change in the UK spreads the alert worldwide via the PFC News, 4-22-03:

----- Original Message -----

From: "Christine Burns"

To: "Lynn Conway"

Cc: "Tracy Dean"; "Becky Allison"; "Andrea"; "Shannon Minter"; "Stephen Whittle"; "Jamison Green"; "Jenny Boylan" ; "Susan Stryker"; "Donna Rose"; "Gwendolyn Ann Smith"; "Emily Hobbie"; "Sarah Weston"; "Joan Roughgarden"

Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2003 2:22 PM

Subject: FW: The publication of an outrageously defamatory book about "transsexuals"

Dear Lynn

Thank you for including me into your circulation about Bailey's book. I
haven't had a chance to look at the text of the book yet (and to be honest
this caught me last night when I'd just got back from a long weekend in
Belgium, and with a stack of things to do first this week). On the basis of
your description however I've arranged for your message to be broadcast
through UKPFC News, to all our activists and supporters around the world
(see attachment below). Hopefully many folks will rise to the challenge in
response.

As you know we have our fair share of psychology nutters in the UK, and a
lot of our own effort has gone into trying to ensure that the UK Government
doesn't inadvertently give them power to misuse in the way that Parliament
approaches the legal recognition of trans people. A book like this has the
power to muddy the waters of debate in the UK too, so we are more than
peripherally interested .. though this is primarily a battle which we know
falls into your own laps over there. If we can help by pointing you to
European authorities, however, or suggesting angles to include in your
challenging of this work then I'll do my very best to help. For instance,
you really should take a look at the huge judgement by the Australian Court
of Appeal in the "Kevin" case .. which approaches trans identity from the
very opposite standpoint and carries a comprehensive review of all the
current medical viewpoints which differ from Bailey's. If his "scientific"
study hasn't acknowledged that work then where is the integrity of his
thesis?

(See http://www.familycourt.gov.au/judge/2003/pdf/attorney.pdf)

In a way perhaps Bailey grants trans people an indirect favour, however ..
by taking a position which invites a really provocative debate .. able to
suck in more people and get them interested in looking at the full picture
we have to offer. The one thing which strikes me above all in the responses
I've read to your message is the confidence and readiness which trans
campaigners now have for that debate .. something which wasn't there to
anything like the same extent when (say) Janice Raymond set out to do her
dirty work. This is a community which, above all, has mastered an
understanding of what it is to be trans .. and of all the arguments on all
the sides. We've all grown up having those arguments with ourselves long
before we had them with anyone else. As a globally united and confident
group of people with a fantastic self esteem and pride in our achievements
we CAN now stand confidently and say that analyses like Bailey's are
intellectually substandard trash. We can do that because we have the backing
of each other and hundreds of trans people prepared to stand up and back us
by their own examples. You only have to look at the pictures on your site
and the profiles on ours. So this is not a time to be afraid or diminished.
It is the opportunity to bring it all together and use Bailey and his ilk to
broadcast a message which is long overdue and which WILL have a lasting
effect on all trans lives for a generation to come.

With Bailey we have an opportunity to rerun the arguments which served to
crush us for generations, but with a different script. Go get 'em folks.

Love and best wishes

Christine Burns
UK Trans Rights Activist

-----Original Message-----
From: Tracy Dean [mailto:RosaNegra@FreeUK.com]
Sent: 22 April 2003 11:59
To: UKPFC-News
Subject: The publication of an outrageously defamatory book about
"transsexuals"

Andrea James, Becky Allison & Lynn Conway, all leading lights in the
American trans community, have been in touch regarding a book has just
been published, a book that is incredibly stigmatizing of
"transsexuals":

The Man Who Would Be Queen:The Science of Gender-Bending and
Transsexualism, by J. Michael Bailey,
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10530.html

Reviews can be seen at:
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/LynnsReviewOfBaileysBook.html
http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/j-michael-bailey.html
http://www.drbecky.com/blog05.html#apr13

Although this is a primerally US-based battle, the implications of such
things often spread around the world and so people should do what they
can to offer help and solidarity to our US colleagues.

___________________________________________________________________________

Lynn's Alert to GLAAD, 4-21-03

Dear friends,

A major controversy is about to erupt because of the publication of an
incredibly sensationalist, transphobic book by the National Academy
Press.

This publication is a media distortion of the very highest order:
Transphobic propaganda has sneaked into and been published by an elite
national institution under the guise of "science". I want to give you a
heads-up about this, so that you can get out in front of it ASAP.

The imprimatur of the National Academy gives J. Michael Bailey's new
book "The Man Who Would be Queen" the apparent stamp of approval of
science. And as we speak it is being adopted in many university
undergraduate psychology courses.

This book is transsexual women's worst nightmare, and its image of
transsexualism casts a dark shadow over the entire transgender
community.

The book portrays transsexual women (whom Bailey calls transsexual men)
as sex maniacs who "change (genital) sex" for exotic sexual reasons.

This book will in time be viewed as very analogous to the Nazi
propaganda films about Jews in WWII. It paints transsexual women as
deviant, bizarre, pitiful figures and never shows the diverse reality of
our true lives.

Bailey goes so far to say that he cannot comprehend someone in a male
body having a female gender identity. And because he cannot comprehend
it, then it cannot be!

Thus he claims that we do not even exist, as we ourselves perceive our
existence. Instead we are merely "transsexual men" who underwent "sex
changes" (i.e., SRS), as if we were a bunch of drag queens who went
terribly wrong somehow. Yes, that's right: Bailey calls TS women
"transsexual men".

Bailey thus goes against the mainstream of modern western thought about
transgenderism and transsexualism, substituting an older "homosexual"
model instead - along with an equally bizarre theory related to
addictive masturbation. In doing this, he stigmatizes and caricatures
not only transsexual women, but also gay men, tainting us all with the
stain of sexual preoccupation and sexual deviancy.

Over the past decade, many TS women have individually tried to interact
with Bailey, to help him understand that the papers he was writing just
didn't seem to describe any of the TS women we know.

He heard about the existence of these women this way. But one after
another he dissed them all as a "pack of lies". After all, all
transsexuals are liars, at least according to Bailey. He just kept
saying that we "didn't exist". And of course none of his colleagues ever
saw us, because we were all in stealth.

As a result, academic psychology - a field of science that is already on
terribly shaky grounds - has allowed itself to be turned into a
Nazi-like propaganda machine - this time directed not against Jewish
people, but against transsexual women.

Fortunately, times have changed. And this time the targets of this
institutional propaganda are going to fight it, and fight with
everything we've got.

The times have changed ,and we aren't all hiding in stealth anymore.
Saying that we "do not exist" isn't going to work for Bailey this time.
He's no longer will be able to hide us ALL from ALL of his colleagues.

See for yourself how visible we are now, both MtF and FtM transsexual
people (Bailey ignores the existence of FtM's) on the web at sites like
these:

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TSsuccesses/TSsuccesses.html
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TSsuccesses/TransMen.html

We do exist, and we are living counter-examples to everything Bailey is
saying about us in his lurid, sensationalist, transphobic book. And we
aren't going to take this anymore.

As a result of this publication, the field of psychology now faces an
incredibly powerful challenge to its credibility as a science and an
academic institution. The leadership in that community are going to have
to account for how this book came to be put forward to the Academy as
important "science". And all the psychologists who came forward with
rave reviews supporting this work are going to have to account for their
actions too. How many of them bothered to even think twice before buying
into existing stereotypes when signing off on their "reviews".

If there is a culprit here, beyond Bailey and his sexologist
colleagues, it is academic psychology, which sanctioned this work as
science and sent it along to the Academy.

I am already hearing prominent psychologists say that "this book makes
me ashamed to be a psychologist". Well they should all be ashamed. Where
were they the past ten years while Bailey was doing and publishing this
awful stuff?

Just think of the damage this book could do if widely adopted as a
"scientific view of transsexualism"?

It will not only horrifically stain the lives of tens of thousands of
transgender and transsexual people, and ruin the chances of thousands of
kids now struggling to come out and seek help for their transitions. And
at a deep and fundamental level stains the image of science itself,
leaving us with nothing but propaganda all around.

To really grasp what is happening here, think of the long-lasting first
impressions that college undergraduate students will get of transsexual
people from this book.

Compare those impressions to the ones of real-life gender transitioners,
such as Danielle, as told by her mother Evelyn in the book "Mom, I Need
to be a Girl":

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Evelyn/Evelyn.html

Once those first impressions are created, they are lasting ones. Think
of the damage that will be done to yet another generation of trans kids
if Bailey's awful and distorted view of us were to become
institutionalized in academe.

If all those psychology courses wanted to include a small, easily
readable, informative overview of gender change, then they should adopt
Evelyn's book, not Bailey's.

How Bailey's terribly flawed book could have been published by the
National Academy is quite beyond me. And as a duly elected member of the
Academy, you can bet I'm asking some hard questions right now.

To learn more about this controversy, please see the "investigative
report now being constructed and evolved on the web:

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/LynnsReviewOfBaileysBook.html

Thanks for listening. I really do urge you to get out in front of this
one. We are being killed out here, and this awful book - disguised as
science - is adding fuel to that fire.

Please, please help us on this one.

All the best,

Ms. Lynn Conway

Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI
http://www.lynnconway.com

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