While reading Roughgarden's piece, I was impressed at how upset Bailey could make me with his ignorance and stupidity. Although Joan didn't do too much of a better job avoiding ad hominem or charged words against individuals like Bailey, which seemed unprofessional, most of what she said, I agree with. The word "bigot" would probably e the absolute perfect word to describe someone like Bailey, but he's also a homophobic and a misogynist. Although I was bothered by his levels of LGBT biggotry, I was expecting something like this in a reading. However, the misogynistic comments that he makes in general and as applied to trans individuals was completely unexpected to me. It's disappointing to see homosexuality or transgendereds degraded through some connection to the weaknesses of women, and therefore, lack of masculinity in themselves. "The disease of being gay is the disease of being a woman. 'Gay men's
pattern of susceptibility to mental problems reflects their femininity. The problems that gay men are most susceptible to---eating disorders, depression, and anxiety disorders--- are the same problems that women also suffer from disproportionately.'" If Bailey believes that women are soley these accursed individuals with only negative effects, then it should be obvious that his vision of homosexuality, transgenders, and any orientation would be greatly skewed. I'm not a hardcore feminist, but I think that almost any non-misogynistic individual could see error in this. This isn't really an attempt to lead this into some feminist speech as much as an expression of disappointment in Bailey's way of thinking; negativity toward females entirely and disregard insulting them in order to further insult non "cis gendered" persons.
Something that definitely struck the wrong note for me was the mention of "Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion" R. Thornhill and C. Palmer, which claims "that rape is an evolutionary
adaptation wired into the male psyche." How the hell do people honestly find this stuff to be true? These people are making such extreme and horrible claims and it doesn't even phase them that something might be wrong. I can "understand" where the idea of a mental or psychological issue would seem to be what made these indiviuals "different" at the time, but how did everything else make it? It baffles me. We're so modernized, yet we are just barely getting the LGBT community a glimpse of acceptance in society.
From a scientific standpoint, or a rhetorical (or really any academic standpoint), not having data to backup claims as drastic as Bailey's. You would think that organizations would at least check sources or quality of the content and validity of something before engulfing it for its dissection of something not so frequently addressed. I feel really bad for the people that Bailey wrongly interviewed and manipulated the words of. Nobody likes to have words put into their mouth, and it doesn't matter if you are transgendered or not. When Bailey did his talk at Stanford, I was thinking the audience was actually buying what Bailey was saying. I was thinking "what about any audience members that were gay?" "did everyone have the same ideas?" "this was 2003, could it really be that much different than today?" and other things.I'm glad that they found or believe that the students were laughing and animatedly interacting based on awkward discomfort or because everything seemed so unlikely that they played along.
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I'm glad that Anne Lawrence was able to understand Blanchard's paper (from Tuesday), because I definitely didn't. Reading about autogynephilics, I think that I may know someone who is. The reason I've probably never heard about it before is because in my group of people, we're still young and ignorant, and we don't know what's out there for self classification beside very common titles. I think if the person I'm thinking about knew about autogynephilia, she (as current;y preferred pronoun) would possibly look into it. I might shoot them an ask on tumblr about it. I could totally be wrong, and I am absolutely not someone to diagnose these things, but from what I do know about them and from them talking about themselves, it seems possible.
I liked the statement "To many autogynephiles, the idea of being a woman is more than just sexual arousing: It is also comforting, aesthetically pleasing, inspiring, and spiritually transformative, just as other kinds of love frequently are." It puts a positive aspect on it and romanticizes it a little. To me, it made me feel a little more understanding and open to individuals. However, there was also the statement that "others find it to be inconsistent with their identities, pejorative, and stigmatizing," which also makes sense. If I assumed my friend was autogynephillic, and she wasn't (or even if she was), it could be offensively categorical. It's a hard world to please, and there's often a oscillating medium. Hopefully, the unanswered questions will find their truths and people will more happily embrace themselves.
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