Author of new bisexuality study has always been controversial  | News | Advocate.com

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July 07, 2005
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 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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