Just when you think Transsexuals have suffered enough and things were just starting to improve along comes Alice Dregar, an academic, to reopen old wounds. The subject of Autogynephillia by authors Baily, Blanchard and Lawrence was long ago laid to rest by the transsexual community that punched plenty of holes in the theory. The rally the trio expected from gender therapists in their favor never materialized. If anything they were all charged with faulty research. Book sales started to wane and the nasty affair faded into the woodwork forgotten like most bigots are in the end.

Alice Dregar who did a investigation into the Baily affair and made the following comment to the New York times “What happened to Bailey is important, because the harassment was so extraordinarily bad and because it could happen to any researcher in the field,” Of course she doesn't mention that the study was of six people and that Baily had NO previous experience with Transsexuals before his study or his more then obvious homophobic mindset. In addition he was not a licensed clinical psychologist at the time. If an electrician wrote a book about plumbing he could certainly expect to be criticized by some angry plumbers. Calling Transsexuals homosexuals and trying to blend two different and distinct groups together was a lesson in stupidity. One would expect a professor to at least show some brain power and common sense instead of dwelling on his personal homophobia. Dregar's comments ignited a firestorm of blogomania from an outraged public defending "Poor Michael Baily". Slowly but eventually Transsexual bloggers rushed to our communities defense. The results will be listed on this page which I should have started 3 years ago instead of deleting old articles because the smoke had cleared. I should have realized that this was part of our history and that it would come up again.

Academics need to learn that Transsexuality is not equal in any way shape or form to autogynephillia. They are apples and oranges. Both need to be treated differently. You cannot say that a transsexual who has felt trapped in the wrong body since the ages of 3 to 5 years of age is the same as one who is in love with the idea of being a woman. Both sides need to respect the others roots.

We have talked to hundreds of thousands of Transsexuals and transgendered. Certainly there are some who identify with autogynephillia. They are not however Transsexual. Treatment for each needs to be different in gender therapy. Lumping both together can result in disastrous results for the autogynephilliac. We have seen this first hand many times. It's time Baily faces the truth before he harms our community any more than he already has. This is a Transgender, Transsexual, support site and as such both autogynephilliacs and transsexuals will always receive help here.

I think the "Poor Baily" resurgence has but one goal, to boost lagging book sales for an author who wants to profit from his personal homophobia. We talk regularly to some therapists around the world on our Gender Therapist list. If Baily's thesis were actually science I would think that some of them would support him. So far, none have.

Let me know if you have more links to post to this page. Feel free to discuss your thoughts in the forums. Why should this interest you? When an Autogynephilliac Therapist sits on the Board of directors for HBIGDA/Wpath Standards of Care seeking to apply her theories to all Transsexual's medical care it affects you. It's clear this debate is not going to go away.

Trans Petition against Michael Baily

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