AliceDreger

The intersex community has been severely duped and manipulated. The reason there was practically NO intersex participation in this DSD scandal that has been ongoing for quite a while now was because they most likely did not want any participation from people who might figure out what was going on and who was involved.

1) J Michael Bailey is a central figure in the Network on Psychosexual Differentiation at Penn State which resurrected the Disorder terminology in a psychosexual context. He spoke on different occasions at their meetings specifically on intersex and helped formulate their mission which includes the following:

“Develop or refine animal paradigms that model and help to explain the genetic, neuroendocrine, and social processes underlying both normal sex-typed behaviors and pathological behaviors observed in individuals with intersex conditions or gender-atypical behavior.”

http://nichdnet.psych.psu.edu/aims.html

http://nichdnet.psych.psu.edu/members.html

2) Dreger and Chase then went about popularizing this terminology of disorders to the medical community outside the "psychology" and "psychiatric" community. We were told that medical doctors preferred the term "disorder". Well, they "prefer" it because that is what Dreger and Chase actually sold to them by publishing articles specifically on the reasons medical doctors should change to the term "disorder" as the preferred terminology long before most of us got wind of what they were doing.

3) Then Network members at Penn State and Northwestern "researchers" where Dreger and Bailey are located get all this funding that conflates the two issues - disorders of sex and disorders of psychosexual development.

4) Bailey is in BOTH groups and a CLOSE associate of Dreger and someone she has been defending. (Please note: I wrote "someone she has been defending", not that she was defending his ideas. However, she does defend a lot of his ideas also, many of which are quite repulsive to some intersex people - like surgical sex fetishes which is what Anne Lawrence appears to some of us to be into.)

Alice Dreger: Disorders of Sex Development

A report from OII, Edited by Curtis E. Hinkle

Alice Dreger recently announced that she is resigning from the Consortium on the Management of Disorders of Sex Development (“The DSD Consortium”), and is trying to distance herself from the pathologizing terminology being used by that Consortium – as if she never had anything to do with it.

In a letter dated September 15, 2006 and addressed to "Dear handbook contributor", Dreger said:

However, Ms. Dreger cannot rewrite history and escape her record as a major champion of the use of "disorders of sex development" (DSD) as the umbrella term for intersex variations.

Dreger is the editor-in-chief of the new ISNA handbooks which heavily promote that terminology, and it was to the contributors to those handbooks that she sent her recent letter:

http://www.dsdguidelines.org/htdocs/clinical/index.html

http://www.dsdguidelines.org/htdocs/parents/index.html

Dreger is even credited by ISNA as being the prime mover who brought those handbooks forward:

Furthermore, Dreger’s job title at Northwestern University includes that very terminology:

Perhaps most significantly, Dreger, as a new hire at Northwestern University, was the principal author of a journal article that began the Consortium’s process of popularizing their terminology as a replacement for intersex, both within and outside the medical community:

“Changing the Nomenclature/Taxonomy for Intersex: A Scientific and Clinical Rationale”, Alice Dreger et al, Journal of Pediatric Endocrinology & Metabolism, 18. (729-733 (2005).

http://www.medhelp.org/ais/PDFs/Dreger-Nomenclature-2005.pdf

Dreger’s disorders paper promotes the use of the old-time medical phrase “disorders of sexual differentiation" (later changed to “development”) – using the straw man of “hermaphroditism” as if it were the word being replaced (instead of intersex being the word they wanted to replace):

That old medical terminology had been adopted in 2003 in the mission statement of "The Network on Psychosexual Differentiation". It was that NICHD group of researchers, funded by NIH, who are behind the Northwestern/Penn State DSD Consortium that had hired Dreger:

http://nichdnet.psych.psu.edu/

http://nichdnet.psych.psu.edu/aims.html

http://www.intersexualite.org/English_OII/IAIA/IAIA_index.html

As lead author of the “disorders paper” and as a spokesperson for the Consortium, Dreger became a staunch defender of that terminology, even as the early backlash developed (although using somewhat obscure logic in her defenses), as seen in a March 2006 ISNA blog entry:

Note: That entry has recently been removed from the ISNA blog page.

To counter the escalating backlash, Dreger and ISNA ramped up their efforts to promote the terminology on behalf of the DSD Consortium during 2006 – including helping with widespread dissemination of a so-called “medical consensus statement” published on May 4, 2006 and again in August 2006. However, contrary to all appearances, that “consensus” involved many medical DSD supporters but had almost no intersex representation.

“Consensus statement on management of intersex disorders”, by I A Hughes, et al; Archives of Disease in Childhood ac98319 Module 2 5/4/06:

http://www.medhelp.org/ais/PDFs/Chicago-Consensus-Statement-06.pdf

“Summary of Consensus Statement on Intersex Disorders and Their Management”, Christopher P. Houk, et al; PEDIATRICS Vol. 118 No. 2 August 2006, pp. 753-757

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/extract/118/2/753

“DSDs and the Chicago Consensus Meeting/Statement”, AISSG-UK

http://www.medhelp.org/ais/15_ANNOUNCE.HTM#16%20Aug%202006

The terminology was then positioned for major national exposure, in a glowing article about Cheryl Chase in the New York Times on September 24, 2006:

"What if It’s (Sort of) a Boy and (Sort of) a Girl?"

However, those efforts have clearly failed, because of the huge backlash that has developed in the intersex community against such terminology – and as prominent researchers such as Prof. Milton Diamond made eloquent pleas for the use of less pathologizing language:

“Variations of Sex Development Instead of Disorders of Sex Development”,

Milton Diamond, ADC-Online, 27 July 2006.

http://adc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/91/7/554#2460

Just one month before she announced her resignation, and now under obvious pressure, Dreger posted an entry in her blog entitled “My Identity/Politics”, in which she said:

By then many intersex people were asking themselves: “With friends like that, who needs enemies?”

And now, in the midst of an unstoppable backlash, Dreger has suddenly announced that she is resigning from the DSD Consortium – and goes on to criticize others for using the very terminology she has so widely promoted.

Here we have yet another interloper (her own word) who intrudes into the lives of intersex people and does great harm against us, without getting to know us in large numbers and consulting us, and without giving us a real voice through her writings. Then, when the going gets rough and the harm she’d been doing is exposed, she is now simply walking away - leaving it to others to clean up the mess she created.

Dreger in Denial

By Curtis Hinkle, OII

September 28, 2006

Today Alice Dreger posted a page in her website that at first reads as a claim that she is NOT resigning from the DSD Consortium:

Dreger goes on to elaborate that she doesn’t really support the term "disorders of sex development" as a replacement for "intersex".

However, we have recently exposed Dreger in her own words on the record as having been one of the principal instigators of and staunch promoters of the use of that terminology. There’s just no getting away from it Alice, you really did push this terminology onto intersex people, and with considerable determination:

In today’s denial page, Dreger goes on to say:

Here we see Dreger claiming special elite status as a "historian" to paternalistically dismiss intersex people as being powerless to speak for themselves and effect social change, and to accuse intersex people of "ripping into each other over language".

However, those are obviously distorted, disingenuous, self-serving claims:

- Intersex people are NOT ripping into each other over language. We are ripping into Dreger over HER use of language. And we appear to be doing it quite effectively, thank you!

- Furthermore, independent of Dreger’s claim, intersex people DO have the power to speak for themselves and press for social change and reform. And we sure don’t need interlopers like Dreger putting us down as being unable to defend ourselves, and then seizing centerstage and speaking for us!

- Later in her denial page, Dreger pleads to be let off the hook, saying "Oh, come on people, who cares?", as if it doesn’t matter what the truth really is.

To intersex people, that statement is an incredible slap in the face by someone who has pathologized us and now seeks an escape from responsibility, hoping that nobody really "cares".

In her conclusion, Dreger finally reverses the impression created at the beginning of the page, and admits that she resigned from the DSD Consortium:

Of course she claims it had nothing to do with the huge backlash that’s developed against the DSD terminology and against her over-promotion of the use of that terminology.

Instead she says:

"I resigned for personal reasons."

Alice Dreger has claimed in many places that "disorders of sex development" is the preferred terminology for intersex people but now claims that she is "uncomfortable" with the DSD terminology. Thus she stands exposed as duplicitous.

We suggest that Dreger is being duplicitous about her resignation too. It seems that she is in denial, unable to take the heat from the backlash against DSD - and THAT has everything to do with "language".

The following is an e-mail that Alice Dreger mailed to some intersex activists. In this letter she does her typical smears against transsexuals and any intersexed person who might disagree. For the record, Curtis E. Hinkle, founder of OII, was not even aware of Andrea James until Alice Dreger started attacking her on her site. Curtis E. Hinkle and OII are not associated with Andrea James or Alice Dreger.

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From: "Alice Dreger, Ph.D."

To: Recipients’ Names removed

Subject: DSD terminology

Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2006 09:58:56 -0400

Folks,

I hope your intersex rights work is going well as I write. As always, I personally appreciate what you're doing to help build a better world for intersex children and adults.

I see that Curtis Hinkle is up to his usual behavior, this time attacking me personally about the DSD terminology. I want you to know one thing, and then to make a suggestion.

The thing I want you to know is that I pissed off trans activist Andrea James (see http://www.alicedreger.com/in_fear), and as a result she decided she would try to attack me via attacking the DSD terminology. She told me this explicitly in an email on June 1, 2006. I quote: "I could care less about your kid and your sense of breeder entitlement. I am, however, going to do what I can to discredit your lame-ass DSD model. At least you got that part right."

I also quote here from her email of May 27, 2006: "DSD is going to be your merm and ferm. You have made a spectacular misstep with this disease model, though still not as inept as Bailey’s. Can’t wait till you and DSD are discredited by intersex activists (e.g., the world outside ISNA) and top-tier ethicists (e.g., not you) looking at the bigger picture. Your one-issue advocacy is selling out a larger movement for the sake of expediency. Bad move, mommy."

So besides sending me threats about my son, James has opted to team up with Curtis to achieve her aims. Hence her links to Curtis's work on her general-attack site.

I want you to know this because I think a lot of intersex people are in danger of having their progressive energies sucked up by an offshoot of James's attempts to irritate and discredit me, which are offshoots of her attempts to ruin other people.

That said, I do think it is definitely worth having productive discussions about the DSD terminology and when it is worth using, and I'm glad people are taking about it.

So my suggestion is this: When you're engaged in discussions about this, PLEASE do not waste time discussing what I think or what I have said or anything else about me. Focus on what matters -- intersex people and their well-being. It doesn't matter what I think or say, except insofar as perhaps some people wish to know how I see the debate. What matters is how well people with intersex are.

So please try to keep the discussion focused on what really matters, and that way James won't be harming the intersex community the way she has so tragically harmed the transgender community. (You won't know about a lot of that harm, but I do, because since I spoke up, many trans people have written to me to tell me what she's done to them. They are much too afraid--for obvious reasons--to speak publicly about what she's done to them.)

As I talked about in my recent blog on the terminology (http://www.alicedreger.com/dsd), I would really like to see people try to direct their writing, speaking, and thinking energies towards engagement with those with real power. That is not Curtis Hinkle, or for that matter most other intersex activists, including me. That is the doctors and the parents who need our help understanding how to make things better and better. That's why I spend the vast majority of my energy doing that kind of engagement and I encourage you to do the same, even as people whack at you (or your friends and allies) and try to distract you from your real work that I know you do so incredibly well--peer-support work, human rights work, educational work, medical reform work.

Please feel free to share this email with whomever you wish. I also welcome those of you who have my DSD resignation letter to go ahead and leak the rest of it; there's nothing in there or any of the rest of my work that I'm not proud of. Indeed, I'll attach the letter here so you all have the whole of it.

It has been my great privilege and honor to be so well advised and supported and led by you and your colleagues.

Best wishes,

Alice

Alice Dreger, Ph.D.

Medical Humanities and Bioethics Program

Feinberg School of Medicine

Northwestern University

Response from Michelle O’Brien, OII-UK

Recently, I have been hearing about how Dr. Dreger is spreading rumours amongst people who are sympathetic to OII and unhappy about the new terminology she has been involved in consolidating, that this all has something to do with a Ms. James. Let it be made quiet clear that I have nothing to do with Ms. James, and have never had any conversations with her; I am not aware that she has anything to do with OII.

Here in the UK, as far as I am aware, beyond her website, Ms. James has little relevance to the trans community – let alone intersex people. I do not approve of some of methods in relation to Prof. Bailey (but I think I understand why) detailed in Dr. Dreger’s Blog.

The taking-issue about the terminology of disorder is something that has emerged from discussions within OII & other intersex groups, and has not been inserted by anyone outside seeking to cause disruption. If the allegations in her latest e-mail to certain intersex activists about recent private correspondence between Dr. Dreger & Ms. James are genuine, then it would appear that Ms. James is quite perceptive in being able to see where that new terminology would lead. Anyone can link to OII’s website; a link from another website in no way means that there is collaboration between two sites – simply that there may be points of intersection in the eyes of the linking site.

Dr. Dreger should be addressing facts, not rumour-mongering. To work behind the scenes seeking to undermine people’s credibility displays a distinct lack of integrity, and only serves to undermine her credibility further. It adds weight to the concerns I and others have expressed about the way the exclusive Prof. Bailey list at NWU she is a member of works. Instead of discussing these matters openly, and consulting with those affected, embracing intellectual discourse, she and others are choosing to operate more like a politburo which disseminates party dogma and carries out character assassination.

Here in the UK, some very unpleasant situations have arisen because of the way Animal Rights extremists have responded to what they regard as the extreme mistreatment of animals. Personally, I have no strong views on this matter, but I can understand why some people would want to protest practice in this area; I have no idea how people can go to the extremes that they do in their actions, but they do – and it is intolerable. However, what we have seen time and again in this country is that every time there is some atrocity carried out by Animal Rights extremists, somebody who is operating within the legal framework is pulled in to the media and asked how they can defend this sort of behaviour. They usually make it clear that they do not support extreme activity, and explain what their role is and what they are seeking to change. Yet, the insinuation is that these peaceful activists are in some way connected with those at the extremes. Guilt is by association, not of persons, but of issues.

People will believe a big lie easier than a little one; if you keep repeating it people will come to believe it. It is a propaganda technique first articulated by Hitler, then by Gobbels about Churchill, then by OSS about Hitler, and by Kevin Kostner in his film ‘JFK’.

I see this recent insinuation by Dr. Dreger as a similar smear tactic. Tell people Curtis & OII are irrelevant enough times, rather than asking why you need to be saying this if they are, rather than asking why a group of intersex people should not be listened to in a debate about these issues (rather than experts like her and her medical superiors), they might come to believe we are irrelevant. Tell people Curtis & OII are puppets of Ms. James enough, and they might start believing it. Insinuate that OII are extremists and political activists who support the sorts of extreme behaviour that Ms. James is supposed to have done (things that any reasonable person would condemn), and they might believe it. Tell people that OII believe in a third gender, no medical treatment for any intersex issues, non-assignment of intersex children, or that Lee Harvey Oswald was part of an intergalactic plot by beings from a planet in the Sirius system to take over the world – make the lie big enough and keep repeating it, and people might believe it.

Well, this is simply not true, Dr. Dreger, and I am calling it out into the open. I for one would like to know the truth about this myself. There are many people who disagree with Prof. Bailey, but they do not carry things to extremes. There may have been actions carried out by Ms. James that are inexcusable, for all I know, particularly when it comes to Prof. Bailey; this may have been directed against Dr. Dreger, I don’t know, because all there is on this are Dr. Dreger’s fears on the matter. If this is true, it would be a great shame, because Ms. James’ website is an excellent resource, as I recall (if it is true, I would urge Ms. James to look for more constructive ways of putting her obvious talents to better use). But, regardless of that, the simple truth is, Ms. James is not involved with me, or anyone in OII I know of – any more than OII or I are involved with Ms. Koyama following a set of e-mail exchanges we had a couple of weeks back. I am sure Emi would be first to accept that!

What concerns me with the insinuation is that it is a red-herring. Instead of discussing the issues, what we will end up with is ‘why do you support Ms. James doing XYZ?’: well, I don’t, and it has nothing to do with OII. It is a tactic to avoid authentic discussion on the part of Dr. Dreger. I may agree that the blanket reduction of all male to female transsexuality to simple homosexuality, sexual practice and paraphilia is wrong, but that is not the same as supporting tactics that I consider to be inappropriate in any discussion. In the same way as my not approving of some of the things sanctioned by the fundamentalist-led US government does not make me an Islamic extremist.

Let us get this clear now. This is my position, and as far as I am aware, it is true for OII:

• I do not support any threats or character assassination against somebody’s person or family – even though there are people within OII who have been on the receiving end of such things.

• I do not agree with Prof. Bailey on his characterisation of all transsexual people on the basis of a small unrepresentative sample.

• I commend the good work done in the guidelines and handbook – I do not agree that the application of disorder to intersex people is to anyone’s benefit.

• I am glad to see some protocols and guidelines have been recommended; however, I am concerned about what is not said, and that there is no practical means of ensuring that these are followed.

• I am concerned about the deliberate exclusion of people who do not conform to outcome expectations for the categories that have been constructed, or who have no clear diagnostic category.

• I am concerned about the language of sexual disorder throughout being peppered by references to psychosexual and gender outcomes, whilst being told that these issues have nothing to do with sexuality or gender identity.

• I am concerned about the healthcare of adults, and that this issue has not been addressed, and I fear it will now fall by the wayside because of the new terminology and the resistance this has generated – and people within the consortium moving on.

• I am keen to see OII focus on the needs of adults, represent adults, create an inclusive vision for intersex that does doesn’t seek to alienate other groups in the lesbian, gay and trans communities. The healthcare of adults is an area that has been somewhat neglected in the focus on early intervention.

• I consider that the flaws of perception that led to the use of ‘sex disorder’ are the same flaws that regard gender variance as disorder. Those flaws are connected to a historically rigidly heteronormative medical paradigm.

• I would like to see Dr. Dreger and others involved in the debate focus on the issues, rather than seeking to undermine credibility and avoid genuine debate.

• I would like to see the NWU list run by Prof. Bailey become less excluding, and more open to academics & researchers who do not necessarily have the same perception as Dr. Dreger and Prof. Bailey. As far as I am aware, few dissenting voices are allowed on that list, which gives a false sense of consensus.

It is perfectly clear that the DSD consortium made a mistake in not consulting all those involved about the terminology – those who could be excluded by the terminology, those outside the USA who would be affected, and those inside the USA not connected to ISNA. I have published the initial results of my survey which found only 10% agreed with the terminology (this was consistent for all who responded, regardless of whether had experienced childhood surgeries or identified as intersex). The survey is soon to close, but the results have remained consistent. I have yet to see any public details about any consultation and how those that took part were selected, what the figures were, etc. In seeking to encourage a community to adopt a change of terminology in such a deeply significant way, some sort of substantive feedback should have been sought and documented – why has it not yet been publicised?

Mistakes can be rectified, discussion engaged in, but not if people continue to be shut out from debate, subjected to secret whispers behind the scenes. Instead of perpetuating the silence, accusing people of this or that irrelevant thing – whether that is that the terminology is irrelevant, or Ms. James is behind it all, or the George Bush fundamentalist administration is funding this as part of some political agenda, or whatever, let us engage in the debate openly. Failure to do so will damage everybody, possibly even causing the loss of all the good work that has been done so far.

The Rhetorical castration of the Intersex community

An analysis of Alice Dreger’s Rhetoric of Power as applied to the DSD controversy

First of all, it is very hurtful and in fact traumatizing to many of us in the intersex community to have an intersex activist who is not intersexed to tell us repeatedly that we are powerless. This is what Alice Dreger has now been telling us for several days. For many of us, this is part of the very damaging and stigmatizing messages we have received since early childhood. Our only hope for any sense of control over who we were and what was to be done with our bodies and our very sense of self was to retreat, to withdraw, hoping that by becoming invisible we could avoid further harm. Our families helped us in most cases by actually reinforcing the conspiracy of lies about who we were and only made the shame and powerlessness we felt as children seem justified. We were often so shameful that we could not speak about it. We could not dare say what we were. We were just beginning to move beyond this paralyzing shame.

Once again, we are in a similar situation. We are being told that intersex is NOT something that any child should have as a label and those in power, those that Dreger convinced by her own articles and activism to stop calling us intersex, are going to deny us this one small crumb of human decency – a name that we were beginning to feel proud of as we slowly worked through our shame and trauma. And it has been very alarming and chilling to witness the open castration of the intersex community in Dreger’s rhetoric of power in which she reminds us of our proper place – powerless victims of those who know how to speak about us, who know how to manage us and who will once again “assist” us as we go back into our shells, brutally scarred once again from the current struggle to have some place in society and some voice, and hide, hoping we can heal from this last major attempt to castrate all remnants of intersex voices.

This is not acceptable. Alice Dreger’s rhetoric is NOT empowering. It is meant to make us feel powerless, to convince us that we are. This is not acceptable. It is in fact cruel to treat a marginalized and very damaged group of people in this way when she knows we are bleeding from this last operation performed by her and ISNA that stabbed into the very heart of our slowly emerging identity and sense of being a small part of humanity. It is as if we have once again been excised from public view, that our very fragile sense of community was crushed into total submission – the eternal eunuchs.

Another technique used by Dreger is to repeat and define the categories of people who do have power in the debate and by doing so, we are excluded from the debate about OUR lives, our identites, our BODIES. We have been told over and over by Alice Dreger that those with real power are:

PARENTS AND DOCTORS

NOT THE INTERSEX COMMUNITY

She has made it clear that she is a mother many times. She knows that many of us can never have children. We do not begrudge her the happiness that she has in being a parent but in addressing us and telling us that we need to speak to those in power which she defines as doctors and parents, it is very cruel to remind us at the same time that she is a mother. It is a dual edged-sword this parental power rhetoric. It disempowers us by placing us in a category that most of us could never be in and then she reminds us that she is in that powerful category.

Reminding us that doctors have power and most of us know that her husband is a doctor is also a two-edged sword. Equating power with doctors is something that is traumatically painful to many of us who remember the power they did exert over us and the very pain this abuse of power inflicted on our bodies and our souls.

We have been castrated publicly. This is cruel. We should reclaim our power and take the scalpels of privilege and stand proud and say NO.

We do have power and we will speak openly and proudly.

Quotes from recent messages from Alice Dreger to the Intersex Community:

DSD Consortium: Homophobia and transphobia exposed

Very oddly, the DSD Consortium handbook website lists no DSD Consortium address, contact information or member information, but simply posts links to the brochures published by ISNA, as you'll see at the following links:

http://www.dsdguidelines.org/

http://www.dsdguidelines.org/about/consortium

In particular, the Consortium website does not mention the actual "research" group behind this front, namely the "The Network on Psychosexual Differentiation", funded by the NICHD and based at Penn State and Northwestern University:

http://www.intersexualite.org/English_OII/IAIA/IAIA_index.html

http://nichdnet.psych.psu.edu/

Nor does it mention the pathologizing language in the "mission statement" of that group:

http://nichdnet.psych.psu.edu/aims.html

The DSD Consortium website also fails to mention that the principle author/editor of consortium information is Ms. Alice Dreger, a failed academic who recently resigned her position from Michigan State University under a cloud of acrimony (she has since written highly negative things about academic life). Dreger has recently been hired by Northwestern University into an administrative position as a spokesperson for NU's sex research, with the title of "Project Coordinator for publications of the Consortium on the Management of Disorders of Sex Development".

Among other things, Dreger is a defender of the notorious J. Michael Bailey, a disgraced faculty member who is a member of NU's sex research group. Mr. Bailey is well-known for advocating homosexual eugenics, and was a key participant in the early meetings that established the pathologizing terminology and mission of the DSD consortium, as you'll see in the attendee lists:

http://nichdnet.psych.psu.edu/meetings.html

Mr. Bailey's work has become notorious in the GBLT community for his defamations of GLBT people, and he has been denounced by almost all key advocacy groups, as in these examples:

http://www.glaad.org/action/write_now_detail.php?id=3827

http://www.thetaskforce.org/downloads/NYTBisexualityFactSheet.pdf

http://advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid29121.asp

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?sid=96

Furthermore, gay media have recently refused to take ads for research subjects from projects that involve Bailey in their work:

Could it be that Ms. Dreger wishes to minimize the exposure of the DSD Consortium's close ties with the pathologizing thinking of such infamous Northwestern University sex researchers?

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UPDATE Sept. 24, 2006: Ms. Dreger is planning to resign from the DSD Consortium. She has apparently cracked under the pressure of the exposure of the "DSD pathologizations" that she and Cheryl Chase and the NICHD crowd recently launched against intersex people. She now appears to be going into denial that she had anything to do with this mess, even though she was one of the principle authors of it all!

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Chicago Free Press

August 9, 2006

Editorial: Bad Science

Recently, CFP ran an ad for a research study seeking gay men with gay brothers. The study is based at Northwestern University and other institutions.

A few CFP readers looked into the study and found that one of the principal researchers is Northwestern psychology professor J. Michael Bailey.

Bailey is a controversial figure, to say the least. His 2003 book, “The Man Who Would Be Queen,” has been heavily criticized by transgender activists, who say it falsely characterizes transgenders as “especially motivated” to shoplift and asserts that “the single most common occupation” of transgenders is prostitution. The book was not footnoted, as serious research commonly is, and some Chicago transgenders said Bailey befriended them in bars and never told them he was using them as subjects for his book, which is clearly wrong.

Northwestern officials investigated the complaints, and while they would not comment on their findings, Bailey subsequently resigned as chairman of the school’s psychology department, although he remains on staff there. Bailey never responded to CFP questions about his book or his research. He has since created a “Book Controversy Question & Answer” section on his website, but it doesn’t address any of the allegations listed above.

The book is not the only controversial aspect to Bailey’s research. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation blasted Bailey and an article about his research in the New York Times in 2005. The subject of that article, a research paper co-written by Bailey and a graduate student, asserted, “It remains to be shown that male bisexuality exists.” Bailey based that claim on experiments involving a widely discredited scientific instrument developed in Stalinist Czechoslovakia in the 1950s to measure soldiers’ responses to sexual stimuli.

Media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting said in a statement about the Times article, “In suggesting that men who claim a bisexual sexual orientation are liars, the Times relies heavily on a single study whose senior researcher has a career marked by ethics controversies and eugenics proposals.”

Bailey has also generalized that gay men tend to be feminine boys, and part of his current study is aimed at pursuing that theory. He has generalized that most gay men are ashamed of being perceived as feminine, an assertion that demonstrates how Bailey lets his own feelings and assumptions about what’s masculine or feminine, even gay or straight, guide his findings.

The current study is also aimed at finding a genetic basis for homosexuality. If that were discovered, and parents were consequently able to ensure that their offspring were not gay (something that many scientists believe isn’t possible), Bailey has said that such a choice “would be morally unproblematic.”

“It is quite hard to see how being heterosexual causes any harm to the child,” Bailey said at a 2004 forum at Northwestern.

Thanks to the heads-up from our readers, we looked into Bailey’s involvement in this study and found it to be substantial. Since we cannot in good conscience steer our readers to a study that Bailey is part of, we’re canceling the ad. And in the future, before accepting any ads for research studies, our ad staff will ask who is involved. If Bailey is, we won’t accept the ads.

There are other researchers involved in this study. They may have good motives, but we question their association with Bailey. We appreciate good science. We don’t appreciate being used to further the dubious agenda of someone who believes he should not be held accountable to our community.

Talking About What Matters?

A response to Alice Dreger

From: Curtis E. Hinkle, Founder OII

Revised by Jim Costich,

OII-USA (New York)

www.intersexualite.org

I am writing this response publicly because I write this in fear of further distortions and retaliation from the self-appointed Mother of the intersex community in the United States, Alice Dreger. She recently wrote a blog in which she once again tells us in the intersex community what is best for us, something which has been typical of her activism for years: “The Mommy Knows Best” syndrome of intersex activism. The title of her blog entry is “Talking about What Matters”

(http://www.alicedreger.com/dsd).

In this blog entry and others she has recently written, the message is clear:

We, the intersexed, do not matter.

I think it is time to tell Ms. Dreger just how offensive her activism is to many intersexed people from all over the world and it has indeed been VERY offensive to many of us for the following reasons:

1) She has a history of silencing people and denying them access to being heard if they do not conform to HER ideas on sex and gender.

2) She works closely with people who have eugenic ideas concerning children who are not born “normal”. She actively defends them as serious scientists and condemns those who oppose their pseudoscience as the ones who are radical. She has been actively defending J. Michael Bailey, well-known for supporting selective abortion for homosexual fetuses and who is now involved in intersex research along with Alice Dreger. [See footnote (a)]

3) She has consistently refused to give any visibility to Intergender issues and has written that Intergender does not in essence exist. In her world only males and females have a "real" gender identity. All others need help from her experts from the Consortium of DSD, (Disorders of Sexual Development) to know what gender they “should” be. In essence, she advocates forcing gender assignments on the intersexed. [See footnote (b)]

4) She is one of the main architects of one of the most universally offensive paradigm shifts in intersex protocols in recent history. It is she who wrote the article that recommended that the term "intersex" be replaced by "Disorders of Sex Development" and she did this without consulting almost anyone in the intersex community. It is almost impossible to find any support for such pejorative terminology among actual intersexed people.

[See footnote (c)]

5) She has consistently been in favor of pathologizing any rejection of one’s original sex assignment and has written many times over the years that transsexuality is a mental illness.

6) She is now recommending that a person with a sexual fetish for feminizing surgeries, Anne Lawrence, be invited as a speaker. People in the intersex movement adamantly oppose Anne Lawrence and others who have surgical fetishes being involved in intersex. Lawrence is now on an influential APA committee for intersex. Not only is this offensive to many intersexed people who suffered genital surgery as infants in order to “normalize” their appearance but Ms. Lawrence is in no way connected to actual intersexed people. [See footnote (d)]

7) She misrepresents the objections of intersexed individuals to the denial and erasure of our experience of ourselves by accusing us of promoting establishment of a third gender. What we have been advocating in OII is allowing the intersexed child self-definition and self-determination of their bodies and identities. Intersexed people and our allies from all over the world have voiced our objection to the physical violence against our bodies and the psychological violence against our lives imposed by a medical paradigm that was not patient centered. She has mistranslated this to mean that we want to be raised as a third gender and that mistranslation furthers a violent image of us as freakish and marginalized.

Ms. Dreger does not in fact talk about things that really matter to the intersexed. The following list illustrates some of the things she has misused her position of power to impose on the intersexed. These were done without knowledge of or input from actual intersexed people themselves. We object!

1) Supporting the eugenics movement and conflating intersex with a birth defect.

2) Perpetuating the binary identity movements of male and female only.

3) Telling doctors to change the terminology from "intersex" to "Disorders of Sex Development".

4) Actively supporting a well-known sex fetish and one of its main apologists, Anne Lawrence and thereby conflating issues involving people who get sexually excited at the idea of feminizing surgeries and children who undergo these same surgeries without consent.

Not only do all the above issues not matter, they actually undermine intersex visibility and progress. Intersex is not about identifying as a male or female which is something that applies to the whole human population. Intersex is not about birth defects to most of us and it is certainly not a disorder to most of us. And please, no sex fetishists for feminizing surgeries need apply to “help” us. Intersexed people, by and large are ardently working toward an end to genital surgeries which have been historically forced upon us without informed consent. I would recommend that Dreger start talking about what matters: actual intersex issues as articulated by intersexed people and that she stop supporting eugenics, sex fetishes, imposing binary male/female identities on all people and calling the whole intersex community disordered.

Footnotes

(a) To read about Dregers’ defense of J Michael Bailey and his support of homosexual eugenics see:

DSD: Homophobia and Transphobia exposed

(b) To read Dregers’ view that Intergender does not exist:

Quote from Dreger: Second, and much more importantly, we are trying to make the world a safe place for intersex kids, and we don’t think labeling them with a gender category that in essence doesn’t exist

would help them.

Source: http://www.isna.org/faq/third-gender