Northwestern prof J. Michael Bailey drew fire this week for treating students to a live demonstration of a “fucksaw.” But that little how-to wasn’t Bailey’s first brush with infamy.
As The Daily Beast pointed out, his 2003 book The Man Who Would Be Queen drew criticism for its assertion that being transgender was often a sexual fetish rather than a true gender identification. His notoriety faded somewhat in the interim, but a 2003 profile in the Chronicle of Higher Education yields up some pretty bizarre tidbits. Here’s Chronicle writer Robin Wilson’s precis of Bailey’s theory on trans women:
In fact, writes Mr. Bailey, some gay men are so feminine that they want to become women. He calls men who have sex changes for that reason “homosexual transsexuals.” These people are typically very sexy and convincing as women, as well as extremely likely to work as escorts, or as waitresses, receptionists, and manicurists, he writes. They have trouble settling down with a mate because, like gay men, he says, they enjoy casual sex with several partners.
The other type of transsexual is completely different, asserts Mr. Bailey. These men who want to become women were not particularly feminine as little boys and aren’t particularly female-looking after a sex change. […] Using categories defined in work by other sex researchers, Mr. Bailey labels this type of transsexual “autogynephilic,” which means they are sexually stimulated by the act of making their male bodies female.
So basically, trans women don’t actually have female gender identity — in Wilson’s words, they “are either extremely gay or are sexual fetishists.” Bailey knew this might piss people off, but he didn’t care:
Mr. Bailey realizes that most transsexuals won’t like his characterization. In fact, he says, some are so unwilling to face their motivations that they “lie,” falling back instead on the more accepted “I’m a woman in a man’s body” narrative. But, he says, their protests don’t negate his theory.
Also, he totally had trans friends: