News
2005-07-07
Author of new
bisexuality study has always been controversial
J. Michael Bailey
is a professor of psychology at Northwestern
University. His study on sexual arousal of men who identify
J. Michael Bailey
is a professor of psychology at Northwestern
University. His study on sexual arousal of men who identify
as bisexual was reported in the science section of
Tuesday's New York Times and picked up by other media
outlets. The study, scheduled to be published in the journal
Psychological Science, found that bisexual men were not aroused by
erotic movies in a way that was different from
primarily gay or primarily straight men.
The article led some bloggers to wonder why the
Times had not reported that Bailey is highly
controversial among transgender people. In 2003 he published
a book called The Man Who Would Be Queen: The
Science and Psychology of Gender Bending and
Transexualism. In his book, based on interviews
with transgender women, Bailey presented the idea that some
men become women because they are sexually aroused by
the idea.
Several transgender women denounced the book as
libelous and "junk science." Some of the book's
subjects filed five complaints with Northwestern,
alleging that Bailey had written about them without their
consent and in one case had sex with one of them. The
Chronicle of Higher Education reported in
December that Northwestern had concluded its investigation
of the complaints, but the university would not say
what action, if any, it took against Bailey. Bailey
resigned as chairman of the department in October, but
a Northwestern spokesman told the Chronicle his
resignation had nothing to do with the investigation.
He remains a professor at the university.
Joan Roughgarden, a professor of biology at
Stanford University and a transgender woman, has
denounced the book. But others, including Harvard
psychology professor Steven Pinker and openly gay researcher
Simon LeVay, have praised it. Researchers whom the
Times talked to said Bailey's bisexuality study
would have to be repeated with larger numbers of men
before anyone could draw clear conclusions. (Neil Savage,
OutQ News)
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