Tag Archives: sexual orientation

Michael Bailey

The standard lecture is that sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender role behavior are separate, independent psychological traits; a feminine man is as likely to be straight as gay. But the standard lecture is wrong. It was written with good, but mistaken, intentions: to save gay men from the stigma of femininity. The problem is that most gay men are feminine, or at least they are feminine in certain ways. A better solution is to disagree with those who stigmatize male femininity. It is a false and shallow diversity that allows only differences that cannot be observed.

Michael Bailey, The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism, Washington, 2003, p. xi