The Redlight District of Scholarship

An interesting story emerged this week about a figure of some notoriety within the trans world. It involves a certain J. Michael Bailey of Northwestern University. This time the dust-up doesn’t have to do with anything trans related but… well let’s just examine the story.

Evanston, Ill. – More than 100 Northwestern students watched as a naked woman was penetrated by a sex toy wielded by her boyfriend during an after-class session of the school’s popular “Human Sexuality” class.

The demo, which was optional, was part of the popular class taught by Prof. John Michael Bailey, the Sun-Times is reporting. More than 600 students take the class, which the course description says “will treat human sexuality as a subject for scientific inquiry.”

For some reason the general community is a bit upset with the good professor for staging something that sounds indistinguishable from pornography as part of a class demonstration.

But, as has been the case with Bailey in the past, this is not simply a matter of town and gown disagreement. Other academics also seem to question the scholarship involved here.

Bill Yarber, a researcher at Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute and author of the widely used textbook “Human Sexuality: Diversity in Contemporary America,” said he’s never heard of a naked woman being brought to orgasm in front of a class of students.

“They way you present it there is very unconventional,” he said. “There’s certain boundaries of things, I think, that are acceptable and that would certainly be pushing that.”

There’s more at the link, but you get the general picture. For nebulous reasons Bailey insists are properly scholarly, but other scholars can’t seem to grasp, he staged a live demonstration of something one usually  finds on internet pornography for his students. And then, when asked to explain the academic merit of this exercise…

Bailey could not be reached for comment.

Of course he couldn’t. The demands of science have surely called upon him urgently to explore the role of  Cinemax in nighttime erections, or to return to his research upon alternative modalities of picking up hookers in bars (“Hey baby, how about you come back to my place and we make some sweet, sweet science?”).

Those of us in the trans world who have had reason to sample Bailey’s “scholarship” in the past can only chuckle about this. You mean it’s possible this guy is a wee bit more sex-obsessed than scholarly? Who could have known? Oh… right.

I’d just like to submit this latest incident into the popular record. The man who attempted to popularize the notion that all transsexualism could all be explained by two flavors of erotic compulsion may have been projecting just a bit.

UPDATE:

Lynn Conway, who was instrumental in leading the charge against Bailey’s anti-trans “research” has tracked down several  more articles on this matter. Here’s a sample:

F***saw: Northwestern University Professor John Michael Bailey Demonstrates Sex Toy to Class

Chicago Tribune exclusive interview: “J. Michael Bailey talks with Tribune columnist Mary Schmich”

Daily Northwestern: “Updated: Northwestern copes with fallout, attention from sex toy demo – Schapiro announces investigations; ethics claim to be filed by fellow scholar”

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Aussie Court Slams Trans Men

I’m not sure why I haven’t seen more commentary about this news item tonight. I’ve been a little preoccupied, but it jumped out at me in my quick search for what’s happening.

A Western Australia court, in a landmark decision, has ruled that transsexual “men” are, in fact, women. …

The appeal prohibits two female-to-male transsexuals from being recognized as men, the West Australian reported Thursday.

The case hinged on the lack of male “genital and reproductive physical characteristics,” the court ruled. In addition the court noted that the two women, who have not been named in court documents, have female reproductive organs.

I’m not as familiar with the impact of court decisions on Australian law, but in U.S. terms this would be a bombshell dropped on the trans community.

I’d like to know more about what was really decided here. Are they saying “top surgery” is irrelevant for FTM’s or that any surgery isn’t enough? If it’s just about the nature of surgical status it’s something I strongly disagree with, but not that unusual compared to the laws elsewhere. But if it’s tossing out the possibility of changing legal gender designation even after surgery, this is a BIG step backward.

Can anyone help clarify this for me. I truly won’t have the time to do my own research here for a while.

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Transition and Death for Mike and Christine

Mike Penner was a male sports writer for the LA Times who publicly transitioned to become Christine Daniels in 2007. With the visibility afforded a columnist for a national newspaper, Daniels became one of the world’s great “celebrity” transitions almost instantly.

But, we know now, Daniels struggled with life as a celebrity trans person. She struggled with her appearance. And most of all she struggled with the loss of her spouse, someone who utterly rejected her transition and filed for divorce her first day at work as Christine.

After some initial success Christine eventually de-transitioned, going back to being known as Mike in the summer of 2008, telling close friends it was a last ditch attempt to reconcile with his ex-wife. A little more than a year later, he took his own life (a very well written article about this story appeared in the LA Weekly last weekend).

There is a lot to ponder about Mike’s / Christine’s story [editorial note: Normally I would use the post-transition name only, but in this case the primary person asked to go by each name at different times. I'm trying to respect that. - D]. Certainly this is not someone who handled transition perfectly (does anyone?). Because of the tragic ending there will always be nits to pick about how things transpired, with plenty of finger pointing opportunities. But it’s a little disturbing to see people far removed from the situation trying to draw broad lessons about transitioning from this case.

As an example, some are implying that Mike’s / Christine’s death is attributable to the transition decision. Had Mike remained Mike, so the implication goes, none of the intense transition stresses and relationship struggles would have ensued. “It is not transition or die,” one prominent commentator insisted. “Sometimes it’s transition and die!

Of course sometimes it IS “transition or die.” And sometimes it’s just “die,” because you’re already too emotionally damaged to make it either way. Living a long life repressing your inner gender identity is like that sometimes.

Those of us who came out on the “transition” side of a “transition or die” decision find our advice on the topic often ignored. It’s treated almost flippantly, like the “die” part of the equation is a rhetorical flourish rather than a serious option. But it’s not empty rhetoric. People can and do choose death over transition because they would rather face down a gun barrel than face down the ostracism, shame, and isolation they associate with transition (and witnessing Mike’s / Christine’s treatment by her spouse post-transition, these fears are not irrational)  … but they simply can’t go on being someone they are not either. Those quick to trumpet cases like Mike’s / Christine’s  as some kind of proof that transition is dangerous seriously under estimate the opposite danger. For many people transition is quite literally their last grasp at life.

It is sometimes asserted that with enough support we should be able to live without transitioning indefinitely. And you know, some people can. Not all transsexuals feel the need to transition equally. It’s incredibly urgent to some, while comparatively mild in others. In those milder cases, they may never feel trapped between transition and ending their life.

But then at one point in my life I would have told you that I was such a case. That… didn’t turn out exactly as planned. The urgency increased the longer I put it off. By that point I was stubbornly – almost desperately – clinging to denial.  Even when I got past the denial stage, I was pondering how to make my suicide look like an accident on the one side, and trying to work up the courage to see a therapist on the other. And it was a close call. A very close call. I would never advise another person to let things get so desperate before dealing seriously with their inner gender conflict.

A lot of the things that made the decision so hard were the impacts I knew the decision would have on others. Like Mike Penner I was married; had a good job; had a less than ideal physique; and on top of that I had three young children. I didn’t choose to transition because I didn’t seriously think about these things. And I think it’s terribly unfair and disrespectful to presume Mike didn’t think these things through either. The fact that the emotional trauma overwhelmed him/her is not evidence that he/she hadn’t considered the possibility that it might.  It’s also not evidence that things would have turned out better if Mike had remained Mike.

Sorting out one’s gender conflict is difficult, painful, and fraught with peril – and that’s true whether you transition or not. Doing so in the glare of the public eye, as Mike / Christine did, increases the difficulty ten-fold.

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