Rating: 
Summary: The only thing sadder than this book ...
Review: ... is the fact that the author and Amazon are actively censoring peoples' reviews. Oddly enough it seems like only the negative reviews are being pulled off after a few days. I wonder why?
For example, I wrote a review about why I disagree with the content of this book and about a heartfelt commentary on the devastation that this book may cause for young minority trans women like me in particular. My review is gone now like so many of the others that have challenged the transphobic, biphobic, homophobic, heterosexist, and sexist core of Bailey and his buddies' work. Are we back in the McCarthy era? Next thing you know, our "radical" transgender thoughts and words will not only be removed from the screen but treated as a threat to homeland security.
Well, I guess if we are going to take away a woman's right to choose which gender she is going to be then we might as well also take away her freedom of speech.
Rating:
Summary: Welcome to the Bronze Age, Esther
Review: Great Googly Moogly. This is somehow supposed to be a cogent exposition of Transsexual, Transgender, Crossgender, and Crosssexual consiousness? Better yet to try to pacify the mob. J. Edgar Hoover undoubtably would have been proud. You know, "cows are gonna kill me; bisexuals are going to kill me."Queen indeed.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: I am the girlfriend of a man who tries to honeslty explain his feelings. Yet, no matter how honest he is with me, I struggle to understand, because what he says is so foriegn to my basic understanding that my brain refuses at times to accept everything. I watch him look up information on the internet regarding his fascination with becoming a women. So I start to review the same sites attempting to understand. Then I began researching and trying to learn everything that I could. Does this make me a bad girlfriend - probably in many ways it does. I don't mean to treat my boyfriend as a research subject and feel terrible at times for trying to understand. But I don't understand and need to understand, so I continue to research (while telling him everything I do, to at least maintain some ethical side to my wrong behavior.)
I read theories and explainations on cross-dressors and transexuals. My boyfriend professes to being heterosexual, while he states that he has often questioned his sexual orientation because of the sexual fantasies that he has. His interest as a child were stereotypical male. His interest as a man outside of items that enhance the female appearance are stereotypically male. He claims to not have even considered the notion of becoming a women until he developed a sexual arousal towards the idea of him being a women. Should I believe him? I do. He has been so completely honest regarding his fantasies and his desires to become a women. I think sharing the fact of when this interest began would be less difficult.
I think that if he could choose, as he has stated, it would be easier to be homosexual. A homosexual wanting to become a women moves closer to socially exceptable heterosexual views. But to be a heterosexual man who wants to become a women barely makes sense to him.
I was at a loss trying to find a theory that matched what he was describing. None of what I read seemed to capture what he explained until I read this book. I woke my boyfriend from a nap and said, "Would you please read this now!" He read the entire manuscript, absorbed in the words he was reading. Once he was finished I asked what he thought. He stated that he had never read anything that described what he thought and felt so accurately and completely.
So all of the educators and clinical professionals out there who deam this book as unworthy or lacking in some way, may need to talk with the individuals that read this book and saw themselves in it. Imagine the feeling an individual gains in learning that other people may feel what they feel. So if this book has helped even one person feel less alone, I think it deserves the merit of being a great book. Very few of us have the power to touch a life as this book no doubtedly has. Whether the theories were new or not, scientifically tested or not, based on previously supported research or not does not mean this book should be ignored. Research and scientifically supported ideas have to start somewhere. This book reached out to individuals who may not ever have read Blanchards research.
I beg individuals in the research and scientific community to NOT ignore this theory. If nothing else, please be open to its possibilities. As the girlfriend who has decided she needs to stop obsessing over what her boyfriend thinks and feels (unhealthy for both parties) just hopes that others out there will continue. To help another person, you must first allow yourself to truly understand and empathize with them. No one could tell my boyfriend that this is not what he really really feels. But where does he go from here? Without the support and continued research on this theory, individuals such as he may be without the help they desparately want and need for a much longer time.
O.K., I know this is supposed to be a review. I didn't even know what others thought of the book until I began reading the reviews. And quite frankly I became a little scared by the negative and hostile reviews of some. I am not scared of this theory, but scared that if it is not recognized at some level then help is no closer tomorrow than it is today.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful
Review: I found this book to be insightful and profound. J.M. Bailey weaves the science of sexology with some very interesting stories from the lives of people he's both seen in and out of a laboratory environment. The book is more objective than many transsexuals are willing to admit. It seems a lot of transsexuals do not like the idea of autogynephilia and feel it undermines their cause, invalidates their feelings, and/or detracts from their progress. I have experienced autogynephilia firsthand and didn't realize it until I read the book and was honest with myself. This is not a work that should be read like a scientific paper, and I don't believe if it was meant to be one. Bailey clearly indicates where he is speculating or expressing and opinion, and I can say from my personal experience that he is probably right in most if not all of his opinions (this comes from my firsthand experience). If you read this book with an open mind, you might learn something about yourself. If you're expecting a sappy "man trapped in a woman's body" depiction of transsexualism, you should look somewhere else, because this is not it.
Rating:
Summary: A Primer on Gender-Bending and Transsexuality
Review: I read this book while doing research for a paper on transsexuality. I wish had read this book at the start of my research rather than at the end because it caused me to rethink my original assumptions about the origins of transsexualism. Challenging the commonly held belief that transsexuals are women trapped in men's bodies, Bailey posits that transsexuals are either "super" homosexual (i.e. feminine) men, OR heterosexual men with an odd sexual fetish. In the latter case, these are men who are sexually aroused by the thought of possessing breasts, vagina, and clitoris.
In either case, the motivation for gender reassignment is not so much to assume the female role as it is it become a sexually intact woman. What does mean? Well, for homosexual transsexuals, the promise of sex with straight men. For non-homosexual transsexuals, the ability to possess realistic looking female secondary sexual characteristics.
Bailey's book does not delve into the causes of either type of transsexuality other than to suggest biological or genetic factors. He doesn't explore other theories, such as environmental conditioning.
In my opinion, the best sections of this book are the clinical case histories of transsexuals. Written in a chatty, vernacular style, Bailey's transsexual vignettes are wonderful illustrations of his general theories of transsexual development.
Rating:
Summary: Spellbinding
Review: I received this book as a gift and devoured it in one evening. It's THAT good. Bailey's book is billed as "science" but reads more like a good mystery novel. You'll keep reading--- wondering, who are these transsexuals, why do they want to become women? The answers will surprise and shock any reader.
Rating:
Summary: Reductionist - distorted conclusions - lacking respect.
Review: I would give 0 stars if permitted.
This book takes one aspect of broad phenomenon - and tries to make a general case. This is not good science - it's reductionism. It is like trying to define a cruise ship - by focusing on the type of anchor that is used. Once you focus on that narrow scope, your general conclusions and deductions - go very, very awry. Such work as this does more harm than good. It's a work filled with disrepect. Don't bother buying this book. For TS information, read "The Uninvited Dilemma: A Question of Gender" - a book which provides a more complete (and more correct) understanding.
Rating:
Summary: Convincing and well written
Review: J. Michael Bailey is a clinical psychologist and author of dozens of scholarly articles in the field of human sexuality. This book focuses on gay and transsexual men. According to Bailey, the causes of homosexuality and transsexualism are sometimes the same and sometimes very different. One kind of transsexual is characterized as an advanced form of homosexuality marked by extreme femininity. Transsexual homosexuals tend to be younger at diagnosis and transition.
The other kind of transsexual is heterosexual in outlook and tends to be diagnosed in mid-life following years of cross-dressing. Bailey states that this kind of transsexualism is a paraphilia with biological origins. He notes that heterosexual transsexuals are more likely to exhibit other paraphilias. For example, a heterosexual transsexual is statistically more likely to be a sadist.
Bailey's based his book on personal accounts of transsexuals he knew or encountered through research and socializing. He also relied on studies of transsexuals who passed through Toronto's Clarke Institute, a prominent Canadian research centre.
Rating:
Summary: Sympathetic Analysis of Transsexuals and Gays
Review: Lay and scientific readers alike will benefit from this nuanced account of the etiology of (male) homosexuality and transsexualism. The first half of the book addresses homosexuality; the latter half concentrates on transexualism. Bailey introduces homosexuality almost as a preface to his discussion of transsexualism. According to Bailey, homosexuals are generally more feminine than heterosexual men. Some homosexuals who are exceptionally feminine represent one type of transsexual. The other kind of transsexual is completely different and consists of straight men who are obsessed with the notion of being fully functioning sexual females. Bailey calls these transsexuals "autogynephiliacs." He goes on to argue that autogynephilia is probably biological in origin and compares transsexulism to other paraphilias, such as sadism. The book is based on studies completed at a Toronto clinic for transsexuals seeking treatment and surgical clearance. Bailey also did his own (rather unscientific) case study analysis of transsexuals he met at bars and clubs in Chicago. The book is entertaining and well written, free of jargon, and compelling in its analysis and conclusions.
Rating:
Summary: the ugliest kind of bigotry - dressed up in academic robes
Review: People like Bailey may feel as if they are helping, but it's the kind of "help" we don't need in our community. He's like a condescending 19th-century National Geographic writer reporting on "savages." He is like Shelby Adams taking portraits of only the poorest Appalachian families and showing them out of context in New York galleries. These depictions only serve to reinforce negative stereotypes about extremely misunderstood groups of people, often by focusing on the most egregious examples which support the prevailing worldview, no matter how non-representative they are of the demographic as a whole.
When a condition is as sexualized as transsexualism is, the most troubling stereotypes we have to overcome in order to stem the violence and discrimination we face are stereotypes involving our motivations for transition. People like Bailey only serve to validate the stereotype that we are simply promiscuous "gay men" who want to fool straight men into having sex with us. I wish I could convey how utterly inaccurate this assumption is. It negates the identity and desires of the majority of transsexual women I know, not to mention that this theory does not even translate to transsexual men.
There is an enormous silent majority of transsexual men and women who live happily and quietly by necessity, for fear of ostracism, or being fired without recourse, or having their marriages declared invalid, or being beaten and murdered by bigots.
People like Bailey are not coming to this from a compassionate place. There is a reason the Clarke Institute is called "Jurassic Clarke" in our community. These people are very dangerous, to be perfectly frank. They are quite possibly the greatest hindrance we face to making progress toward acceptance in this country and the western world. Similar people at Johns Hopkins managed to set back our progress as a community by about 20 years, and I'll be damned if scum like Bailey are going to get away with that again while I'm drawing a breath.
This isn't some academic exercise for us. This is about gaining equal rights under the law. This is about not having to choose between college or uninsured "experimental" medical expenses. This is about being seen as productive members of society who make positive daily contributions in every trade and profession. This is about being accepted as human beings. Bailey and others actively seek to efface the experiences and existence of anyone who does not fit their prurient stereotypes. Since he feels entitled to opine on my motivations, let me ascribe motivation to Bailey: his is the ugliest kind of bigotry, dressed up in academic robes.
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