http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conw...207-05-05.html
J. Michael Bailey attacks the identities of yet another sexual minority group:
He claims that the plethysmograph proves bisexual men are "lying",
and that most are just gay men after all.
Here he goes again. This is such a familiar pattern:
Having been burned by exposure of his research misconduct while attacking the identities of transsexual women, J. Michael Bailey of Northwestern University has moved on to attack yet another sexual minority group. In this case the group is self-identified bisexual men, who number in the millions.
Bailey and his graduate student Gerulf Rieger (whom he is grooming for a similar career in "science by press release") are claiming to have proven that bisexual men are "lying" about their identities, as reported in the New York Times science section on July 5, 2005. Mr. Bailey bases this claim on further applications of pseudoscience in the form of plethysmograph arousal tests.
Mr. Bailey's "discovery" is now being widely announced in the media, and promises to provoke a new storm of controversy. However, he thrives on controversy and will likely exploit news of it as evidence at Northwestern University that he is "doing important work" - as a substitute for publications in respected journals. The controversy can thus advance both Mr. Bailey's notoriety and scientific career, and those of his promoters and supporters at CAMH (the notorious Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto; formerly known as the Clarke Institute) and at NIH (National Institutes of Health).
Nevertheless, if the past investigations of Mr. Bailey's psuedoscientific defamations of transsexual women are a guide, we'd expect that criticisms of his bisexuality research will be countered with personal attacks on bisexual critics as being "gay men in denial". Other critics will be dismissed as being either "anti-science" or as having inadequate credentials. Thus bisexual men should be forewarned that Mr. Bailey intensely dislikes any criticism of his work, and responds accordingly,
What kind of intellectual milieu generates such strange pseudoscience? During the investigations of Bailey's defamation of trans women, we learned that he works closely with a clique of rather conservative, mostly older-generation gay psychologists, academics and pundits - men like Simon LeVay, Dean Hamer (NIH), Ray Blanchard (CAMH), James Cantor (CAMH), etc.
Those men love Bailey, in his role as their "straight man" spokesman, for his vicious Fourattist denials of the existence of transsexualism, as in his 2003 book "The Man Who Would Be Queen". As we know, the gay elite of that generation view postop trans women as "crazy queens" who are gay men and who should have been satisfied staying that way. Here's a classic statement by old-time gay thought-leader Fouratt, which well conveys such men's misplaced paranoia about transsexualism:
"Modern medicine is once again trying to cure us of our desire for same sex love. Our gender variant gay and lesbian population is under intense pressure to deny their homosexuality and to take all physical, hormonal and emotional steps in order to be accepted into heterosexual society." - Jim Fouratt
It's likely that such men love Bailey even more for his pseudoscientific denial of bisexuality. After all, there are many more people who identify as bisexual than as transsexual, thus bisexuality represents a much bigger threat to their narrow conception of gay male identity.
Also recall that LeVay and Hamer claim to have discovered the existence of a gay gene. Could it be that the existence of anything other than a very narrow notion of gay maleness would put at risk Hamer's and LeVay's claims to scientific fame? Or could their certainty of the existence of the "gay gene" possibly bias and compel them to project a narrow concept of gayness onto anyone who is not totally straight?
Whatever their motives, it must be reassuring to this clique that in Mr. Bailey's hands the plethysmograph can identify all those liars out there - the millions upon millions of liars - in all their rich variations and cultural diversity all around the world.
Even so, it's surprising that Mr. Bailey retains strong support from this clique. These men must be well aware of Bailey's work in homosexual eugenics, including his recent bizarre attempt to defend homosexual eugenics (more) in a widely announced seminar at Northwestern (a seminar that was widely shunned, with almost no one attending). What's wrong with this picture? Lots.
Meantime, how is it that Bailey gets such press coverage anyways?
We can understand Bailey getting help from his right-wing homophobic journalists friends such as John Derbyshire (National Review), Dan Seligman (Forbes Magazine) and Steve Sailor (VDARE), all of whom jumped to Bailey's defense and viciously attacked the transsexual community on his behalf when Bailey was brought up on research misconduct charges at Northwestern (for which he was later forced to resign his chairmanship).
After all, Mr. Bailey and all three of those Bailey supporters are active members of the "Human Biodiversity Institute" (HBI aka HBES aka HBDG), a "think-tank" exposed by the prestigious Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a clique of racists and anti-immigrationists in a 2003 Investigative Report entitled "Queer Science: An 'elite' cadre of scientists and journalists tries to turn back the clock on sex, gender and race."
But how is it that that journalists such as Benedict Carey and Dennis Rodkin don't see through Bailey's obvious pseudoscience, nor apparently care a whit about his bashing of sexual minorities? Rodkin even wrote a major feature article in the Chicago Reader defending Bailey's defamation of trans women - right at the time that Chicago was becoming one of the most trans friendly cities in the US - a time when the gay community was much more fully aware of the reality of trans identities. How could these gay writers go so wrong? Could it be that as rather naive and inexperienced journalists they were drawn into this charade upon being "noticed" and getting attention from the self-proclaimed "famous gay scientists" who stand behind Bailey?
If so, let's remind them of Andrea James' recommendation: “I suggest checking out Columbia Journalism Review’s “Blinded by Science” regarding the unfortunate tendency to present crackpot findings for “balance” ”
You might also ponder why Mr. Bailey would widely announce such a defamatory "scientific claim" about how all bisexual men are "lying about their identities", unless his work had been independently repeated and confirmed by other independent research groups?
After all - all we have is this one "new study", which is simply a recently warmed-over version of his old 2002 paper about the same study. That old 2002 study aroused no interest in the scientific community at the time, and has not been scientifically repeated and confirmed by any independent researchers. Nevertheless, is Mr. Bailey claiming that his research is perfect and that we are to believe him, without outside independent confirmations whatsoever?
To put forward such startling claims in the name of "science" based on such tenuous evidence - claims that are causing angst to millions of people worldwide - seems the height of professional irresponsibility. Following as it does on his similarly defamatory accusations that all transsexual women are "lying" (about their personal histories and inner identities) appears to many people to border on sociopathy.
However, Mr. Bailey may have had his reasons. For background on why he may have felt compelled to make these pronouncements when he did, please carefully read the report below from a confidential source (someone who is attending a conference the article was apparently closely timed to coincide with).
To follow this situation, check back from time to time for additions to the list of links above. For more background on Mr. Carey and his work at the New York Times, and discussions of follow-on actions regarding his article, see "How Benedict Carey trolls for 'science stories' for the New York Times".
