I chose anonymity because of Prof. Bailey and Blanchards power within North America to prevent funding of research projects and the publication of any scientific papers that discredit their views is well known. Fortunately, much of the high quality long-term research in this area has been performed outside North America by researchers in Australia, Germany, Holland and the UK, who are well beyond the power and influence of these people. As a successful and published researcher in this field, it is incredibly obvious that Prof. Bailey simply does not have a clue. Notably, the overwhelming majority of genuine researchers in this field and the majority of peer-reviewed publications do not support the work of Dr Blanchard and the studies he conducted at the Clark Institute of Psychiatry. It is these studies that Dr Bailey recapitulates in this book. Furthermore, it is notable that Dr Blanchards work now has little support even within the Clark Institute. Aside from gross scientific methodological flaws, a demonstrated lack of understanding of basic definitions of terms relevant to this field of study and clear bias, Prof. Bailey shows a complete lack of knowledge of the basic sociology of the transsexual population. This is obviously demonstrated by his recapitulation of the popular and damaging myth that "most transsexuals earn their living by prostitution" which has been long discredited by the by the large, well-conducted and long term (10-20 years) studies of male to female transsexual populations by Dr Frank Lewins, the Monash Gender Unit, and the publications of the well known German, English and Dutch research groups. It is notable that Prof. Bailey did not bother to examine the female to male transsexual population. Prof. Baileys assertion that there are only two groups of transsexuals is incredibly over-simplistic. It is equivalent to saying that there are only 2 types of men or two types of women. There is substantial peer-reviewed literature that supports the concept that the transsexual population is an extremely diverse one: it is diverse as humanity itself. Attempting to reduce this population into two oversimplistic categories is just a denial of the complexity of these issues and this population and an example of misleading scientific reductionism at its worst. Although the phenomenon of "autogynephilia" may well exist, it is not the norm, nor is it even particularly common amongst transsexual women. This is well-born out by several long-term studies that have been published in relevant peer-reviewed journals. In fact, performing gender reassignment proceedures if the presence of this type of behaviour would directly contradict the Benjamin Standards of Care (the internationally accepted guidelines for gender reassignment) and would thus be ethically questionable. Furthermore, autogynephilic behaviour, according to the criteria listed in DSM IV, would not be consistent with a diagnosis of gender identity disorder of adolescence/adulthood manifesting as transsexualism. These are facts of which Prof. Blanchard seems to be completely unaware. It would seem that Prof. Blanchard inadvertently confuses gender identity disorder of childhood with gender identity of adolescence/adulthood in several passages within his book. It is notable that these are quite distinct and different conditions. Perhaps the greatest travesty of this book is that the existence of much larger, peer-reviewed and better conducted studies get no mention and no publicity, but Prof. Baileys and Dr Blanchards studies do. This is hardly a balanced approach. I would strongly urge Prof. Bailey to go back and read ALL of the last 30 years of scientific literature on this subject and reconsider his position. The real tragedy is that Prof. Baileys actions have significantly damaged the ability of transsexuals to overcome their problems, overcome the myths and stereotypes that pervade their lives, participate in society and live long productive and happy lives. This, after all, is the whole point of treating transsexuals. Perhaps one might venture to suggest that Prof. Bailey has lost sight of this aspect in his rush to publish and publicise his book. Despite Prof. Baileys claims that he is trying to help transsexual people, I fear that all that has been accomplished by this text is to reinforce many of the popular myths associated with this condition and to increase its overall morbidity and mortality. Perhaps next time, Prof. Bailey might just consider that transsexuals are human and that they are deserving of care, compassion, and support. I would very strongly urge Prof. Bailey to actually spend some time with the medical professionals who treat significant numbers transsexuals on a day to day basis rather than just cruising around the gay bars of Boystown in search of research subjects. He might learn a lot. There are several such medical professionals located within the Chicago area. Apparently, given his method of locating "research subjects," Prof. Bailey seems completely oblivious to this fact. |