Talk:The Man Who Would Be Queen/Archive 7

Back in the fray (ProudAGP)
I have been away from WP until today (admittedly after reading Proposal 2 and thinking that it would take a lot of time and effort to edit and not feeling like it at the time). My goodness!!!!!

I don't quite know how to proceed, given that it appears we are awaiting some kind of judgment from WP Adiminstrators. Some thoughts, in the meantime. First, DarlieB you are currently a very negative influence on this process. Several editors whose views are quite opposed to each other and who sometimes express overt hostility toward each other nonetheless have managed to work together in a way that was satisfactory for the first recent edit to this page, which you repeatedly changed. In my opinion, if you continue to do this, we (again, "we" include editors who disagree vehemently with each other) should try to get you removed from this page.

Second Jokestress, I quite disliked your Proposal 2 and logged on today with the intention of offering a new one with explanations. I won't do that yet for obvious reasons. But one guide I suggest is that you consider this page an opportunity for both sides to be told. The accusations against Bailey are one side. Dreger's analysis (which agrees with Bailey's and others') is the other. Obviously it is relevant how much either side fits with the facts. However, it is obviously unfair to tell the "other" side while discounting it, as you repeatedly attempt to do. For example, if we're going to consider writing about Dreger "suppressing" Andrea James' attempted speech, we're going to have to consider including her reasons why, as well as Andrea James' subsequent behavior (sending Dreger messages that Dreger found intimidating and offensive and visiting her office uninvited). I think this detracts from the article, which is not about Andrea James.

2A, Jokestress, just because someone says something in print, even if it is a reliable source, doesn't mean that it belongs on a WP page. There are other concerns like undue weight, accurate representation, etc. Proposal 2 (and continuing to Proposal 4) had repeated problems with this, which I will point out when it makes sense to do so. I don't know that I have a problem with the commentaries on Dreger being included. I do have a major problem with any of them (or even all of them together) being given nearly as much weight as her analysis, as you've tried to do.

So how do we proceed?ProudAGP (talk) 22:06, 15 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Negative ? Humorous considering unprecedented amount primitive faux intellectual garbage in the TMWWBQ . My edits were fair and neutral despite my beliefs, unlike the one sided and obviously prejudice version left by Dr Bailey's peers and his academic subversives. They had turned this into a trash gossip piece that was unsupported by any  reasonable standard of truth. When you substitute truth with opinion it makes the article into  a rambling , incoherent rant against helpless victims violating the "Do no harm rules"  . Again, the article is about the book, not the person despite every effort to make it so. Hiding conspiracy theories ( it is clearly spelled out as such in Alice Dreger's articles over and  over so unless you want to stop linking her articles accept it) within the pretense of loss of intellectual freedom isn't honorable or truthful. You allow Dreger's constant babbling about a three transsexual conspiracy yet you refuse to let James have rebuttal showing that hypocrisy of Dreger's own attempts at censorship ? Negative ? In this gossip article, how is that not valid ? My vote is with Jokestress and her last version. I have pulled myself out of the debate sir but I will vote. Expect it. Shall we vote on this ? DarlieB (talk) 20:13, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * A large amount of discussion has (understandably) focused on whether the commentaries on Dreger's article meet WP's criteria for inclusion. (Specifically, whether the commentaries were "reliable sources".)  Because no consensus was likely to arise here, the issue has been posted on the "reliable sources noticeboard" so that uninvolved editors might provide some input.  That discussion is going on here.
 * — James Cantor (talk) 22:24, 15 October 2008 (UTC)


 * ProudAGP, your revised proposal is not dependent on the outcome of the Reliable Sources discussion. Please feel free to add it here. As I said earlier, it seems we should write this proposal long, including points for and against each part of the controversy, then edit it down to something we can put in the article. For instance, Dreger and WhatamIdoing feel the Human Biodiversity Institute is a non-issue; psychologist Margaret Nichols wrote that she felt it was a serious issue. Dreger and Hfarmer think this was a conspiracy led by three trans women; several people have written that they think this is clearly untrue. I feel it's important to add counterpoints to Dreger's attempts to spin this as a self-aggrandizing master narrative. If you want to include Dreger's and my interactions, please include that in your proposal for discussion. I think it's important to note how many people have commented on Dreger's hypocritical attacks on academic freedom when she attempts to suppress her critics in the name of academic freedom. Jokestress (talk) 23:57, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Conspiracy. When have I ever used the word conspiracy? All I have done here is point out the absurdity of you writing yourself and Dr. Conway completely out of your version.  Any objective observer would know how positively ludicrous that was.--Hfarmer (talk) 02:59, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
 * If you look at the history, you'll see I never did any such thing. We all agreed on a first section of the controversy which was put in the article (it mentioned me and Professor Conway), then began work on a second section that didn't. That's when you starting going on about "effrontery" and making infobox templates that reflect your POV. That's when I did the combined version above with the materials already in the article, since you didn't seem to understand what was going on and were getting upset because of your lack of underststanding. Jokestress (talk) 05:38, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * You bet I used the word effrontery to describe what you wrote here. That was you first proposal for the "post publication summary".  It does not mention you or Dr. Connway's roles in this matter at all.  That you would write the history that way and think that would stand showed a lack of respect for everyone's common knowledge. You display that again by trying to spin the fact that I called you for attempting such a thing into me accusing you of a conspriacy is just more of that.  I just say you and Conway were involved in the controversy, you publlicised it, and you agitated it.  If James Cantor tried such a thing I would call him out on it.


 * Like I said before this is like negotiating a settlement to a war in Lebanon. If your neutral both sides will think you are working for the other guys. --Hfarmer (talk) 09:08, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Furthermore I will note that "WhatamIdoing" more or less agreed with me. While Dicklyon only disagreed with the word "furore" which I used to describe all of this ruckus. (I was suppose to write a long string about how prominent and respected the two of you are. :-/ You both have articles that cover that rightly and fully no need to do it every time you are mentioned.)  I suppose you are going to accuse WhatamIdoing of being Alice Dreger now?--Hfarmer (talk) 09:13, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Once again, that was the second part of the proposed revision, after the first part mentioning me was already put in the article. If you still don't understand, please take this to my talk page. Jokestress (talk) 09:15, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Here I list some of the bigger problems I have with Proposals 2-4. I do not think any of those proposals are close enough to being acceptable that I will commit to working on them (as opposed to offering alternatives), and I don't really like Jokestress' suggestion that we list every grievance we have and start from there. To remind, that contradicts the explicit proposal to the contrary that I, Jokestress, and Dicklyon agreed upon. Problems (no particular order):

1. Both the framing and prominence of Dreger's protest against Andrea James' speech at Northwestern. (Dreger's view of this is here: http://www.alicedreger.com/in_fear.html) Jokestress would like to make the case that Dreger tried to censor James and was being hypocritical. Any claims to that effect would have to be balanced by Dreger's view that she was appalled that Northwestern would invite someone like Andrea James, whose "idiotic methods" included attacking young children to intimidate scholars: "By allowing her to speak on our campus, her student hosts are essentially saying that her tactics—of intimidating others, including by attacking their families—represent an appropriate political or scholarly reaction. I strongly disagree." (Jokestress, you insult our intelligence and waste our time by your attempts to inject only your viewpoint into the article.) I could go on, and will if I have to. But I think that the better solution is to omit this event entirely from this page (or figure out a way to mention it later in the article in a balanced fashion).

2. You have added material to the final paragraph that we previously had agreed upon. I don't like that practice. Furthermore, all three of the new quotations are from the commentaries on Dreger, but they are placed in a paragraph about "negative responses of the transgender community." This seems to me to be misleading as to their nature. Based upon the discussions happening on the "reliable sources noticeboard" I think it is likely that the total space given to these commentaries will have to be much smaller than it is currently. And also, of course, commentaries on Dreger should be labelled as such. And bringing in the complaint that Bailey disbelieves transsexuals who don't fit Blanchard's theory warrants consideration of the revelations that Andrea James at one time considered herself autogynephilic and that Deirdre McCloskey herself writes that she (and many) transsexuals lie about their conditions.

3. The paragraph beginning "Following complaints" is somewhat redundant with the paragraph beginning "Besides criticizing," and it is not as good. The SPLC "investigation" is certainly more minor than, and chronologically later than, the formal complaints, and it should not be up front like that.

4. Again in the last paragraph, we have "Dreger's attempt at suppressing" "by attacking." I see what Jokestress would like the reader to believe about Dreger. I think that Dreger simply abhors people writing malicioius falsehoods about others. Accusations about Dreger's motives and practices will have to be balanced with Dreger's explanations, etc. And this will be result in an article that seems more about Andrea James feud with Alice Dreger than about the book.

5. It seems to me that the only attacks on Dreger that really belong here are attacks on the accuracy of her article. I understand that Jokestress disputes Dreger's general conclusion that it was an orchestrated harassment campaign organized by Conway, James, and McCloskey. The draft I previously offered had both James' and Conway's response to that (with links to their pages of course). But are there specific facts disputed? ProudAGP (talk) 15:44, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * ProudAGP's comments are right on target, in my opinion. There is no need for me to repeat those points, except for one: I would reinforce ProudAGP's point that Jokestress insults the intelligence and wastes the time of all editors (on both "sides") with half-truths.  Naive readers can be swayed by spin-doctoring, if temporarily, but such Jedi mind-tricks will not work on any of the regular contributors here, who clearly have the intellegence to see through it and are clearly aware of the information Jokestress' keeps leaving out.  Even Dicklyon sometimes calls Jokestress on such things.  Jokestress' perpetual and willful neglect of information, such as Jokestress' own pivotal involvement in what is being described on this page, is coming closer and closer to tendatious editing from someone in very clear COI.  (Before someone bothers to point out that some believe that I am also in a COI, please note that I do not edit the main page here, in accordance with my agreement with Dicklyon.) — James Cantor (talk) 16:30, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * @ProudAGP
 * Point 2: You are right: that proposal has some of the chronological stuff out of order, and that should be revised. The Dreger commentaries should generally be in that section. Because some editors here echo Dreger's claims that the SPLC publication is not relevant, I thought it was appropriate to give a reliably-sourced statement from someone notable who considered it quite relevant. The proposed additions were because previous proposals implied that only trans women had a critical response, when in fact a wide range of academics, clinicians, and activists found the book problematic.


 * Point 3: I agree with you about combining the formal complaint info. If you have other materials/sources you think should be discussed, please make a version with them included and we can start to whittle this down.


 * Points 1, 4 and 5: The record shows that Dreger's motivation was her rage about me personally. She mentions me an average of 3 times a page (about 180 times) in her hit piece. She spent 18 months obsessing over how she could escalate her trolling after several failures to punish me in 2006. No one except the most partisan people in this think Dreger is objective. Key objections to Dreger's article include her motivation, objectivity, and publication venue. I can pull those quotations if you wish. As I have noted in the press, she is merely an angry mommy and an irrelevant troll, as well as an astonishing hypocrite.


 * As an example of how this might be condensed while retaining citations for interested readers, here's what the second paragraph might look like condensed:


 * Some reviews in the LGBT press were positive Those in the transgender community who agreed with Blanchard's taxonomy also reviewed the book positively.


 * I believe each paragraph could be condensed significantly like this once we agree on what sources should be included. If you have additional sources, please add them or list them for discussion. Jokestress (talk) 16:50, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Post-publication summary, proposal 5
Jokestress had her chance and offered ridiculous stuff, as I have detailed (and could go on, but she's wasted enough of my time). Jokestress, you write: "The record shows that Dreger's motivation was her rage about me personally. She mentions me an average of 3 times a page (about 180 times) in her hit piece. She spent 18 months obsessing over how she could escalate her trolling after several failures to punish me in 2006. No one except the most partisan people in this think Dreger is objective. Key objections to Dreger's article include her motivation, objectivity, and publication venue. I can pull those quotations if you wish. As I have noted in the press, she is merely an angry mommy and an irrelevant troll, as well as an astonishing hypocrite." I think that this kind of quote could be at least partly (maybe completely) used to give your opinion of Dreger's motivation. (If you would like this, then please put it on your website somewhere that we can link to it.) But you can't merely say this and eliminate the opposing viewpoint on this (or any ) WP page.

So for Version 5, I'm offering, again, Version 2, which is better than anything that has come since. Jokestress it is your turn to take the time to discuss what your problems are with it. Please do not offer an extensive revision of it until you have done so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ProudAGP (talk • contribs)


 * The Lambda Literary Foundation nominated the book as a finalist in the transgender award category for 2003. The Foundation then reconsidered the nomination but decided to keep it on the list. After protest of the nomination intensified via an internet petition, a second reconsideration led to the book's removal from its award finalists. Executive Director Jim Marks said removal was due to the belated decision that the book was transphobic.


 * Besides criticizing the book, some transgender women alleged that Bailey had breached professional ethics. These included the accusations that Bailey had conducted scientific research without first submitting the project for review to a scientific ethics committee, that he had had sex with a research subject (a transsexual sex worker called "Juanita" in the book), and that he had practiced psychology without a license. Northwestern University conducted a formal investigation only of the charge that he had conducted research without proper oversight and interviewed research subjects without informed consent; there is no evidence the other charges were investigated. Although the findings of that investigation were not released, Northwestern’s Vice President for Research, C. Bradley Moore, said, "The allegations of scientific misconduct made against Professor J. Michael Bailey do not fall under the federal definition of scientific misconduct."


 * Some critics attacked Bailey in more personal ways. Andrea James constructed a webpage of what she called "satire" by taking pictures of Bailey's young children (obtained from Bailey's website) and placing sexually offensive captions beside them. (James has said that she was echoing the disrespect that Bailey's work shows for vulnerable people, including children.) She constructed webpages attacking or mocking Bailey's supporters, his colleagues, and his friends (including an ex-girlfriend of his).  James questioned Bailey's sexuality, asserted that he hand "abandoned" his family, and sent a message to his colleagues claiming that Bailey suffered from "alcohol abuse and dependence."


 * The Southern Poverty Law Center printed a report that key figures involved in promoting the book (including Bailey, Blanchard, Buss, Derbyshire, Pinker, Sailer, and Seligman) "belong to a private cyber-discussion group of a neo-eugenics outfit, the Human Biodiversity Institute (HBI)."


 * In 2008, Northwestern University professor and intersex activist Alice Dreger published a historical investigation of the controversy, in the Archives of Sexual Behavior. According to New York Times reporter Benedict Carey, Dreger concluded that Bailey was "essentially blameless." Dreger wrote that "almost none [of the accusations] appear to have been legitimate," but she also wrote that Bailey should have done a better job of protecting the actual identity of Cher (Anjelica Kieltyka) and that he should have made it clearer to her that he was unlikely to be convinced by her theory of transsexualism, which conflicted with Blanchard's. Addressing the specific accusations against Bailey, she argued that he did not conduct scientific research without required supervision, that he probably did not have sex with "Juanita" (and even if he had, there was no scientific ethics violation in doing so), that he did not illegally practice clinical psychology without a license, and that his membership in the "Human Biodiversity Institute" constituted merely being a member of an email listserv with a range of members some, including some who were conservative. Moreover, Dreger concluded: "[T]he historical evidence indicates that Conway, James, and [Deirdre] McCloskey tried to destroy Bailey’s book and his reputation through these truly extraordinary measures because they didn’t like what he had to say." Dreger's paper was published in 2008 together with 23 commentaries in Archives of Sexual Behavior, including comments from John Bancroft, Ben Barres, Ray Blanchard, John Gagnon, Richard Green, Deirdre McCloskey, Charles Moser, Seth Roberts, Julia Serano, and Ken Zucker. Conway has responded that Dreger's piece was a "bizarrely one-sided history of the Bailey book investigation" and a "hit piece," and that its publication in Archives of Sexual Behavior and coverage by The New York Times reflected pro-Bailey bias by the journal's editor on the one hand and by a science journalist at the Times, on the other. James attributed Dreger's article to a "personal feud" between James and Dreger.  Dreger won a Guggenheim fellowship to write a book that considers the controversy in the broader context of "identity-politics-meeting-research."


 * Proud, I don't have the impression that you've paid much attention to reliable sources issues, or balance; I don't see why you would consider this version to be less biased than Jokestress's. For example, the NYT article (not necessarily unbiased, but undeniably a reliable source) says: "Ms. James downloaded images from Dr. Bailey’s Web site of his children, taken when they were in middle and elementary school, and posted them on her own site, with sexually explicit captions that she provided. (Dr. Bailey is a divorced father of two.) Ms. James said in an e-mail message that Dr. Bailey’s work exploited vulnerable people, especially children, and that her response echoed his disrespect."  You've included James's explanation, that latter part, as an unsourced parenthetical.  And you've cited what appears to be an anonymous reconstruction, and Dreger in addition, when all you really need is one good source; there's no need to drag the Dreger opinion piece in as a source when what you're seeking to verify is a fact; if you want to also say what Dreger says about it, that should be expressly attributed to Dreger, along with a note that she had a long-running dispute with James before writing her piece.  It's simpler to just omit Dreger and stick to what the NYT says.  I haven't gone over all of the rest yet, but I notice you take Cantor's approach in saying "Northwestern University professor and intersex activist Alice Dreger published a historical investigation of the controversy"; this gives way too much weight and credence to the opinion of a principle in the disputes, characterizing it as "historical", etc.  And you didn't give any of the balancing comments.  Dreger probably can't be ignored here, but the treatment should not be setting her as totally outside the argument that she is a principle in. Dicklyon (talk) 05:49, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

The only concrete thing I can find in Dicklyon's comment is that a parenthetical phrase should be made non-parenthetical. There exist only few RS's on this topic, and Dreger's is the most substantial. Thus, ProudAGP's version is quite well balanced relative to the RS's, which is all that matters. Dicklyon can continue to type out "p-r-i-n-c-i-p-a-l" all he likes, but without a WP rule behind him, that too is irrelevant. As I said on RS/N: everyone, including Andrea James, Conway, and all the commentators have had five years to say whatever they want and to submit their comments to an RS for publication. (It isn't as if Conway and James have been short on producing documents...just short on sending them out for fact-checking.) — James Cantor (talk) 13:09, 19 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll address James Cantor's comment first. The people who feel a need to prepare formal responses to Bailey/Dreger have done and are doing so. I don't personally plan to participate in a charade of academic or scientific debate, because there's no need. This isn't an academic or scientific controversy, as I've said several times. It's about the misuse of academia and science to exploit and assert power over an oppressed people. It's also remarkable that you are complaining about a lack of formal responses to Bailey/Dreger, when you are doing everything in your power to suppress those formal responses as "unreliable" on Wikipedia.
 * @ProudAGP: your unchanged version is missing several key elements in my counter-proposal, including:
 * Reliable sourcing for the investigation by Chicago Tribune higher education reporter Robert Becker
 * Assessment of the Southern Poverty Law Center Report's importance by psychologist Margaret Nichols
 * Reliable sources with criticism from gay academics, including psychiatrist Vernon Rosario
 * Assessment of Dreger's findings by sexologist Charles Moser
 * Commentary about the Lambda Literary fiasco by its current director
 * A whole bunch of clarifications to your spin. For instance, you claim "Dreger concluded that Bailey was 'essentially blameless.'" I changed it to be more accurate, since Dreger never wrote or said that: "New York Times reporter Benedict Carey reported that Dreger found Bailey 'essentially blameless.'"
 * Sourced comments about academic freedom and institutional review boards
 * Context for Dreger's involvement
 * Dreger's assaults on the academic freedom of Bailey's critics
 * Themes in the published responses to Dreger
 * One of the main issues is that you continually spin this as transsexuals vs. science, suggesting that Bailey's comments on the identities of trans people are science, but comments on Bailey's identity are unfair personal attacks, rather than quid pro quo. Bailey's clearly got a lot of narcissistic rage when he calls a critic "a big fat liar" and continues to replay his injuries again and again on his site and to the press through surrogates. I understand that sort of rage is common among people like him, according to "experts." If we are going to list all his injuries, we should include his attacks on critics and people depicted in his book.
 * Finally, if you feel your time is being wasted (a complaint Bailey frequently makes), I strongly encourage you either to go spend your time more productively, or to leave that kind of unproductive nonsense out of your contributions here. Jokestress (talk) 16:52, 19 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Can we please not try the case of Bailey VS James here? --Hfarmer (talk) 17:28, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate Jokestress' laying out some of the issues she has with Proposal 5. A good start will be to address each of them, either by making modifications in Proposal 5 directly or by arguing about whether the changes she wishes are merited. I anticipate both, depending on the issue.


 * Reliable sourcing for the investigation by Chicago Tribune higher education reporter Robert Becker

We can certainly do that.


 * Assessment of the Southern Poverty Law Center Report's importance by psychologist Margaret Nichols

There is no evidence that the Human Biodiversity "Institute" is anything more than an email listserv. Does Bailey's membership in this listserv really make him an "enemy of queer people?" (We are not bound to include assertions from even reliable sources if those assertions are silly.) Furthermore, Nichols' quotation is a commentary on Dreger. At the very least, it should go with other commentaries, and that is assuming it is included at all. I don't think it should be, because I think that is giving undue weight to a highly misleading accusation. I know that Jokestress and Dicklyon disagree with me, but I will appreciate hearing others' opinions.


 * Reliable sources with criticism from gay academics, including psychiatrist Vernon Rosario

The quotation you included from Rosario had the same theme as Lane's and Bettcher's (and the latter two are Dreger commentaries). I don't think you need three quotations to make the same point. Arguably, though, it is a point worth making (i.e., that some transsexuals resented Bailey saying they were one or the other of Blanchard's transsexual types, whether they agreed or not). Before doing so, however, (a) I think the point should be made in a new paragraph focused on this particular issue, and (b) I think it should be discussed whether it is permissible and desirable to include evidence consistent with Bailey's skepticism of denial, such as McCloskey's passage about how she lied about her condition and the revelation about James' early identification as autogynephilic.


 * Assessment of Dreger's findings by sexologist Charles Moser

The quotation that you put from Moser ("the allegations were basically true; they just did not constitute any formal misconduct.") is in my view not a fair summary of the following argument, from whence it came:

"There have been many allegations in this case. Dreger dis- cussed three in detail; conducting research without IRB approval (which would have included obtaining informed consent from one’s subjects), practicing psychology without a license, and engaging in sex with a research subject. It is important to realize that Bailey did ﬁeld research for TMWWBQ without IRB approval, did not obtain informed consent from his ‘‘subjects,’’ and he did engage in activities that could be construed as practicing psychology without a license. All these acts were judged not to be a violation of law, ethics, or university rules. The complaints were not spurious; they also were not actual violations. Although there is disagreement as to whether Bailey engaged in sex with a subject, even if he had, that would not be a violation of law, ethics, or university rules either. I have no way of judging the validity of this allegation and frankly do not care."


 * Commentary about the Lambda Literary fiasco by its current director

Why is this relevant? This would be relevant on an article about Lambda, but I don't think it's relevant here, except as it allows you to get in another negative quotation about Bailey.


 * A whole bunch of clarifications to your spin. For instance, you claim "Dreger concluded that Bailey was 'essentially blameless.'" I changed it to be more accurate, since Dreger never wrote or said that: "New York Times reporter Benedict Carey reported that Dreger found Bailey 'essentially blameless.'"

Well I can't give you a "whole bunch" of responses to this until you get more specific. But we can certainly change that, and we can even add the things that Dreger thinks Bailey could have done better:

"So in conclusion, what did Bailey do wrong legally, ethi- cally, and morally? It seems J. Michael Bailey should have been more proactive in protecting the identity of Anjelica Kieltyka. It also seems he should perhaps have worked harder to be as clear as humanly possible with Kieltyka just how unlikely she was to ever convince him that Blanchard’s theory was wrong, so that she was not at risk of continuing to relate with him under an umbrella of wishful thinking. That’s it? After months of investigation evinced by the foregoing, I must conclude: that’s it."

Also in her response to critics, Dreger says that Bailey was "insensitive" in his portrayal of trans people.


 * Sourced comments about academic freedom and institutional review boards

I think these go in future paragraphs. Indeed, I had such paragraphs in with my first proposal, long ago. I suggest we defer these for now until we've made progress on the issues in the passage at hand.


 * Context for Dreger's involvement
 * Dreger's assaults on the academic freedom of Bailey's critics

I have already addressed these, and I believe I did so correctly. To repeat, your "context" and your "assaults" accusations are not objective facts but your opinions that conflict with Dreger's (and in my opinion, with reason). Your opinion about Dreger's motivations (i.e., "feud") is already in the article, and I have invited you to expand it into a lengthier sentence. (Something like: "The record shows that Dreger's motivation was her rage about me personally. She mentions me an average of 3 times a page (about 180 times) in her hit piece. She spent 18 months obsessing over how she could escalate her trolling after several failures to punish me in 2006. No one except the most partisan people in this think Dreger is objective. Key objections to Dreger's article include her motivation, objectivity, and publication venue. I can pull those quotations if you wish. As I have noted in the press, she is merely an angry mommy and an irrelevant troll, as well as an astonishing hypocrite.") But you can't say it in the article like it's true. And you can't overweight the article with this "feud" construction. (It's not all about Andrea James versus Alice Dreger.) When we write about the accusations against Bailey in the first paragraph that mentions them, we don't simultaneously talk about falsehoods that Conway, James, and McCloskey committed as revealed in Dreger's investigation. No we simply say what they are. Then we tell the other side. You want to tell the other side while simultaneously taking it back. No.


 * Themes in the published responses to Dreger

Such as? Let's discuss.


 * One of the main issues is that you continually spin this as transsexuals vs. science, suggesting that Bailey's comments on the identities of trans people are science, but comments on Bailey's identity are unfair personal attacks, rather than quid pro quo. Bailey's clearly got a lot of narcissistic rage when he calls a critic "a big fat liar" and continues to replay his injuries again and again on his site and to the press through surrogates. I understand that sort of rage is common among people like him, according to "experts." If we are going to list all his injuries, we should include his attacks on critics and people depicted in his book.

I think it is questionable whether the attacks by Andrea James were "quid pro quo" or rather, attempts to intimidate and harrass someone. Proposal 5 does in fact have Andrea James' explanation of her most infamous personal attack, and it is in the terms Jokestress desires. Nevertheless, I would consider including a longer explanation by Andrea James of her conduct, if one exists. But I think that listing the things Andrea James did to Bailey is necessary to understand what Dreger means when she writes: "the historical evidence indicates that Conway, James, and [Deirdre] McCloskey tried to destroy Bailey's book and his reputation through these truly extraordinary measures because they didn’t like what he had to say."

I suggest that we continue to discuss each of these issues, ideally making modifications only when some consensus emerges on how to treat them. I am not confident that consensus will be unanimous, but we should at least try for a while.ProudAGP (talk) 03:11, 20 October 2008 (UTC)


 * To you last point Autogynephile :-/ You say that this article should talk about all the ways AJ attacked you. The article I wrote about this whole mess Blanchard, Bailey, and Lawrence theory controversy  List all of the ad hominem arguements that I could reliably source.  This is why such an article is necssary.  As I have argued time and again it is not  POV fork to have that article (because both sides find it's honest telling slanted against them)...This controversey is a legti topic for an article all by itself.  Just look at how much discussion of the book we have done VS discussion of various facets of the controversey.  :-?  --Hfarmer (talk) 14:01, 20 October 2008 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict)@ProudAGP: Sounds as if we are back to paragraph by paragraph discussion, so please propose the next one and I'll show you all the places I feel you have inserted your bias. Basically, this controversy comes down to CAMH employees and supporters vs. everyone else, rather than three enraged transsexual conspirators vs. "scientific truth." Obviously CAMH employees and supporters are heavily invested in asserting their authority, but looking at the contemporary citations and taking the long view, it's pretty clear what their place in history will be 20 years from now. Jokestress (talk) 14:13, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Your slip is showing again.
 * "CAMH employees and supporters vs. everyone else" could have been just as accurately expressed as "a more or less mainstream academic view vs. members and supporters of a politically active but mathematically small group of gender-queer people".
 * If I compare your "everyone else" group to my own extended family (~20 adults that are "abnormally normal" middle-class, heterosexual, cis-gendered Americans), I find exactly zero people in this so-called "everyone else" group, and all of them more inclined to Bailey's view -- to the extent that they would care about the subject at all, which is unlikely. (Half of them would be very much more interested in telling you about Jesus Christ than about considering the relative merits of the two views.)
 * My point is that we don't want to claim in this article that either side has the support of "everyone else" or "most people" or anything like it. The fact is that most people do not care.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:38, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I should have specified stakeholders. I agree that this is a non-issue to over 99.99% of the world. What I meant was that among the fewer than 0.01% of people who care about this, it comes down to CAMH employees and supporters vs. everyone else. People like you count as CAMH supporters, in that your goal on Wikipedia appears to be to extort some sort of apology from me (or otherwise argue against any POV I hold) because of some sort of moral indignation you have about my tone and tactics, and a desire to "punish" me. Hope that clears things up. Jokestress (talk) 07:55, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I am making some changes to Proposal 5 in a way that you should be able to see exactly what I do by comparing versions (or looking at diffs). I believe these will be relatively uncontroversial changes, but I won't make more until they have been vetted (if not unanimously applauded). ProudAGP (talk) 03:52, 23 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I say we leave the Dreger junk for later. I have made some changes to the LLF nomination to remove misinformation and spin. Jokestress (talk) 17:10, 23 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Haven't heard back, so I did the SPLC paragraph today. Jokestress (talk) 15:47, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Jokestress' newest edit illustrates my point. Nichols' quotes does not express Nichols' personal experiences nor those of the trans community. It merely uses WP to cast unfalsifiable aspertions, which is not the purpose of including expert opinion as SPS was intended to permit. — James Cantor (talk) 16:17, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I think it would have been much more clear and complete if the quote were extended through the next sentence: "In my opinion, the HBI connection alone makes Bailey an enemy of queer people."  There can be no doubt that what's being quoted is one commentator's opinion, since she included the words "in my opinion" right there. Dicklyon (talk) 17:17, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Do we have a ref for "Although Bailey and his supporters have stated that his connection to HBI is not important..."? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:43, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * That is Dreger's opinion, reiterated in her "self-published" response to the "unverifiable" commentaries like Nichols'. Bailey shares his thoughts on the connection in his 2005 "Academic McCarthyism" piece on Northwestern's conservative student-run blog. Both are in the refs. Not many others, since as you noted, few people care about the Bailey fiasco and far, far fewer care about the Dreger fiasco. Jokestress (talk) 00:03, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I dislike all three edits that Jokestress has made, but I strongly object to only two of them. The least objectionable concerns the added sentence about Jim Marks' successor's opinion that the nomination of the book revealed flaws in the nomination process that had been changed. Why is this relevant here? If people (aside from Jokestress and Dicklyon) think that it belongs, I will defer to them. Second, I agree with James Cantor regarding the Nichols' quote. Jokestress is merely cherry picking from the Dreger commentators to support things that she wants. In my view, the SPLC "investigation" has already received undue weight here. Jokestress (nor anyone else) has never challenged the conclusion of Dreger that the Bailey was simply a member of an email list. Nichols has no expertise on this matter, and I object to this use of the commentaries on Dreger. Third, the recent addition of the sentence regarding "personal attacks" on Bailey by gay academics who commented on his clothing and masculinity trivializes the other attacks considered, namely the attacks by Andrea James that many/most people find appalling. Perhaps that is Jokestress' intent? Regardless of her motivation, this sentence should be removed.ProudAGP (talk) 00:06, 12 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The article should explain LLF's side of things. LLF found the whole fiasco humbling, and the new director was very unhappy with Benedict Carey's deliberate omission of LLF's final decision on the book (part of the revisionist push by Bailey allies in 2007). The article should reflect that.
 * Nichols is in there because Bailey allies have been trying to downplay the Human Biodiversity Institute list, which is sort of what the Pioneer Fund list is for race science: a who's who of the key players. If we are going to have a link to Dreger, who pooh-poohs the HBI connection, we should show that plenty of others considered the HBI list an important finding.
 * Bailey setting off gay academics' transdar is just as important as other kinds of flaming by him and about him, especially given what a big deal he makes about the reality and accuracy of gaydar. Many have noted that they believe Bailey is a closeted transfan, because he is a prime example of a very specific archetype. I also feel the article should note that one of the "sexually offensive captions" in the satire that included his offspring was written by Bailey himself about trans children. Bailey and his allies' fixation on his narcissistic injuries should be discussed in the article, but we should also include comments from people who noted that it was not surprising in the slightest that attacks on Bailey's self-identity followed his attacks on the identities of gay, bi, and trans people. Jokestress (talk) 16:52, 12 November 2008 (UTC)


 * As happens from time to time on this I agree with jokestress. The various Ad Hominems that have flown about in this contorversy should be included in some form.  Where we will eventually clash is in her inevitable effort to make her side Vs. the other side look like good Vs. evil.  :-/  For now as far as I am concerned Such comments about Dr. Bailey should be included right along with simmilar crticisms of AJ.  They are what happend.  Not including them is like writing about a war and not mentioning the casualties or battles. --Hfarmer (talk) 00:44, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Hfarmer, you are of course entitled to agree with Jokestress. However, the reason you give, that you would like to have all the "various Ad Hominems that have flown about" on this page, conflicts with everyone else's opinion (at least everyone else who's given an opinion). Jokestress, Dicklyon and I began this page's revision with the express wish of replacing the BBL Controversy page and not having the former look like the latter.

Jokestress, your justifications for your revisions are inadequate:


 * 1) The LLF is already well covered by the article. The omission by Carey is not sufficiently important in the context of the numerous facts and disputes that must already be covered in the article.
 * 2) The SPLC accusations are mentioned, and Dreger's critique of those accusations are mentioned. Adding the comment by a nonexpert from the Dreger critiques is illegitimate.
 * 3) The reference you gave says nothing I saw about setting off gay academics' transdar, and in any case, your justification is weird. The fact remains that adding the trivial insults trivializes the shocking attacks by Andrea James. ProudAGP (talk) 20:26, 15 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Re the ad hominems, the extent to which we should mention such things should be proportional to the extent to which they are covered in reliable secondary sources. Trying to interpret and summarize what various participants have said in their respective web sites is not a suitable approach, too subject to POV.  Furthermore, using something like Dreger as a source for such things is a not a very good idea, as her "peer reviewed" article is really a primary source of her own interpretations, and she has been acting as a principle in the debates, so if her interpretation is used it pretty much needs to be balanced with some pushback from the commentaries.
 * As to Jokestress's other suggestions, same idea: only report what's in reliable secondary sources, not the primary sources or primary-source reactions to secondary sources; a few external links will allow others to read more and make their own interpretations, but we shouldn't be writing the article with our interpretations. This approach should help us keep it from getting too long. Dicklyon (talk) 22:15, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Well Dick. I would say to that mission accomplished. People on both sides think my controversey page was lopsided towards the side that they aren't on.  On such a polarized issue how could it be any more neutral.  FYI Look at the controversy page again.  I took one of Jokestress's post publication summaries and used it in it's entirety because I liked it.  (Now would the hard core dyed in the wool member of "team Bailey" that she thinks I am do that?  :-\)  I would not say this exercise has been totally futile.  But to be honest I don't see AJ JC, Whatamidoing, me and you all ever agreeing on a prose laden narrative of the controversy.  That would be like getting the USA, China, Russia, UK, and France to agree to totally abandon nuclear weapons. --Hfarmer (talk) 01:20, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Dreger will be on this page in a substantial form, because she is a very important source, and a highly reliable one. This page will not become a piling on of every accusation, no matter how trivial or unsubstantiated. It will represent both sides' major claims and some evidence for them. I think it does that quite well in the present form (i.e., in the revision being crafted here), and I will look very closely and skeptically at modifications.ProudAGP (talk) 18:39, 28 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I find nearly everything you assert above unconvincing. Unfortunately, Hfarmer has decided to ramp up the homosexual transsexual debate before this was resolved, so things here may be derailed for a while. Once all that is handled, we can get back to productive discussion here. Maybe some of those disinterested editors will join us over here once that is resolved. Jokestress (talk) 18:55, 28 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I too find Hfarmer's attitude puzzling, arrogant, and unconvincing. Dreger is fine as a source for Dreger opinions, but then whey did she remove Nichols and other citations to related opinions in the same journal? Dicklyon (talk) 19:16, 28 November 2008 (UTC)