It’s been nearly five years since psychology Prof. Michael Bailey’s “The Man Who Would be Queen” was published, but it is still generating a steady stream of controversy. Earlier tussles have dissected the book’s content, research methods and the methods transsexual activists employed to discredit the professor. Now there is a dispute over an article originally published online last year in the Archives of Sexual Behavior by NU visiting Prof. Alice Dreger that examined the methods the transsexual activists used in opposition.
Last month, Robin Mathy filed ethics complaints against both Dreger and Bailey with the American Psychological Association, which accredits NU’s psychology department. Unlike the most vocal opponents of Dreger and Bailey’s work, Mathy is an accredited psychologist and a clinical research fellow at the University of Minnesota’s Medical School. She also filed a charge with the Illinois Board of Examiners of Psychology for Bailey’s alleged misrepresentation of himself as psychologist.
Mathy’s charges focus on the professional connections between the board of the Archives of Sexual Behavior and Bailey. In the article, Bailey and Dreger both expressed that having sex with a research subject is not inherently wrong.
Mathy said Dreger was wrong to submit her article to the ASB, which is edited by Kenneth Zucker, who has had contact with Bailey and has similar views on transsexuality. By doing this, she said Dreger sought to bypass the peer review process, which ensures research remains unbiased.
“This is a blatant conflict of interest,” Mathy said. “(Dreger) exploited a key network friendship with Michael Bailey to get a truly horrible paper published.”
While Bailey was accused of having sex with the research subject known as “Juanita”, the charge was never proven conclusively. Meanwhile the research subject Dreger admitted to having sex with was her husband.
This did not matter to Mathy, nor did Bailey’s alleged sexual activity.
“I’m concerned with his prurient attitude,” Mathy said. “If you use people you have sex with in your research then the research is not objective and it is not unbiased.”
Both Dreger and Bailey were tight-lipped on the subject.
Dreger denied any wrongdoing.
“Ms. Mathy’s claims that I have acted unethically have no merit,” she wrote in an e-mail. “I stand by my work.”
Bailey wrote that he does not take Mathy seriously.
“I won’t dignify these ‘new charges’ with a discussion of their accuracy,” Bailey wrote in an e-mail.
Bailey also provided a string of e-mails to The Daily from Mathy from the summer of 2003, after the release of his book. In the first e-mail, Mathy wrote that while she also had some issues with his research, she was considering applying to study with him at NU. She wrote that her experience as a former transsexual could aid him greatly in studying the community.
He did not reply to this e-mail.
A month later, she sent him a second e-mail, in accordance to APA rules, informing him she was in the process of preparing an ethics complaint against him and asked for access to his research materials to pursue it. Four days later, she wrote that she did not understand Bailey’s unwillingness to reply to her e-mails and was only interested in making sure his data substantiated his theories about transsexuals.
Mathy acknowledged the e-mails’ authenticity. The reason she did not file ethics charges before was because her requests did not produce concrete evidence to substantiate her claims, she said. Now that Dreger has published the article outlining the views Bailey holds, Mathy said she has sufficient evidence.
As for her offers of help, she insists they are still on the table.
“We have to do something to move beyond this conflict,” she said.
