Transmissions 88
Awarding transphobia

The Lambda Literary Foundation has announced its choices for the 2004 “Lammys” — or Lambda Literary Awards — and somehow J. Michael Bailey’s The Man Who Would Be Queen is one of the finalists in the Lambda Literary Foundation’s “Transgender/Genderqueer” Category.

I’ve spoken at length about Bailey’s book on several occasions, so I don’t want to delve all that deeply this time around. There are only so many ways can I point out that a book is homophobic, biphobic, and transphobic before the proverbial dead horse is beaten into a fine pane of glass.

Of note primarily to transpeople is the later sections of his book, where he sets up an impossible dichotomy as to what a male to female transsexual is: either a man that is so gay as to have to become a woman, or is a man who is has a fetishistic attachment to feminization that is so deep that one acts upon it. If a transsexual claims to not fit this binary then they are either lying or in denial.

While this theory is at the core of his text, there are many other half-truths and stereotypes laid out with a pseudoscientific veneer that simply does not stand up to the most basic of review.

Beyond the book is are allegations that J. Michael Bailey may have engaged in inappropriate research behaviors, including a sexual relationship with one of his “research subjects.” This, as well as other allegations of inappropriate research conduct, may lead to troubles for the Northwestern University — where Bailey teaches — as well as for Bailey himself. Indeed, all of the issues surrounding the book and its creation drags the controversy down even lower than it already is.

Yet, in spite of the book being clearly defamatory, and regardless of the serious flaws in the methods used to create the book, The Man Who Would Be Queen has ended up as a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award.

Many members of the transgender community are up in arms about this selection, even suggesting that the Lambda Literary Foundation suspend the “Transgender” category from this and future events, and asking that the Lambda Literary Foundation remove “transgender” from their mission statement. This is a very big step for a community that has worked for so long on getting the “T” added to so many organizations, and shows just how deep the anger goes towards this selection.

To me, the selection of The Man Who Would Be Queen by an organization that is supposed to be about the recognition and promotion of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community for an award intended to honor the best and the brightest the community has to offer, then something is definitely wrong. To me, it would be along the same line as the Lambda Literary Foundation choosing to honor Anne Paulk’s “Ex-Gay” text, Restoring Sexual Identity, within their Lesbian Non-Fiction category.

The Lambda Literary Foundation has gone on record defending the selection of Bailey’s book, saying that “Bailey has not set out to intentionally do harm to gay men and transsexuals. He doesn’t get it on some fundamental levels but he genuinely thinks he does.” This does not sound like a good reason to award a book for excellence and, as I already suggested, I’m sure that while Anne Paulk doesn’t “get it” on some levels, I suspect she doesn’t think that her book harms anyone either.

The Executive Director of the Lambda Literary Foundation, Jim Marks, even went one step further comparing some of the outrage against this text — and calls to de-list the book from the finalists — as being somehow related to “political correctness.”

Of course, I always find it interesting how many people in power automatically claim that someone is pushing “political correctness” when it is something they just disagree with. It’s an easy card to play, but means nothing when one looks at the issue at hand. This isn’t about trying to “soften” some issue of language, this is about a book that is quite clearly defamatory.

This is, however, more than just about a book. It shows that on some levels, the Lambda Literary Foundation also “doesn’t get it” and seems to think that they do.

From all I can tell, none of the “most knowledgeable GLBT book industry professionals” that picked these finalists are transgendered themselves, and could be assumed to have only a cursory knowledge of the transgender books they selected for the award. Mr. Marks himself seems to have very little personal knowledge of the text, even erring on J. Michael Bailey’s name in his own “open letter” about the controversy.

For that matter, when I look at the possible categories for Lambda Literary Awards, I am struck that only one category — Transgender/Genderqueer — is specific only to a community group. The only other categories even close to this format are the “Gay Men’s Fiction/Lesbian Fiction” and “Gay Men’s Non-fiction/Lesbian Non-fiction” categories. Were these texts not good enough to be considered amongst the larger LGBT categories, or is this some example of “ghettoizing” the transgender category so that only two other transgender-focused books appear anywhere else amongst their finalists?

Could it be, then, that the experts who picked the books actually had little working knowledge of the texts they selected for the category, only choosing the “books they heard about” for some category that they really do not have much interested in anyway?

If that is even remotely close to what happened, then the Lambda Literary Foundation has just run out of credibility, and does indeed need to rethink how it serves not only the transgender community, but the LGBT community as a whole.

Gwen Smith is neither lying nor in denial over being a transgendered writer and activist. You can find her on the web at www.gwensmith.com.

Article originally published March 4th, 2004 in the Bay Area Reporter. Please contact Gwen at gwen@gwensmith.com before reprinting.

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