Topic: Books & Authors

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #104, Winter 2004.

J. Michael Bailey is Chair of the Department of Psychology and Professor at Chicago?s prestigious Northwestern University.

A Ph.D. graduate of Louisiana?s Baylor University, he is trained in clinical psychology and known as a sexologist. The bulk of his research has concerned the behavioral and vocal mannerisms of gay men. This year, Bailey made a play for the big time?if one considers the talk show and lecture circuit the big time?via a book published under the imprint of the prestigious National Academies of Science. The title is The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #105, Spring 2004.

Dress Codes Review by Spencer Bergstedt
Dress Codes: Of Three Girlhoods?My Mother?s, My Father?s, and Mine. (2002). Noelle Howey, Picador USA/St. Martin?s Press, 332 pages, $24.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #105, Spring 2004.

Eunuch Monks of Krat

Review by Sam More

The Insatiable Adventures of the Eunuch Monks of Krat. (2002). Tucker Lieberman, XLibris, $14.95.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #103, Fall 2003.
Review by Christine Beatty

Sex sells. That tenet is a mainstay of modern marketing. For decades everything from toothpaste to new cars have been marketed using the suggestion of sex. And sexologist J. Michael Bailey?s new book, The Man Who Would be Queen: The Science of Gender Bending and Transsexualism, is a glaring example. Combine lurid sexual description with some fact, with controversial research done a decade or more prior, with long-debunked stereotypes and with the author?s smug assurance, and you have Bailey?s book. And while it should be easy to dismiss it as sensationalized exploitation, in reality it is dangerous to the entire transgender community, and especially to transsexual people.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #103, Fall 2003.