lff12

I've been reading this theory with an interest as to how different worldviews and perspectives are addressed in the issue and in light of Alive Dreger's report on the matter.  As an issue of worldviews and ethics as well as bias, it is deeply interesting.

Put simply, Bailey divides GID patients into two groups, largely based on their affirmed sexual identify and perceived level of masculinity.  For whatever reason, he only refers here to M2F patients - F2M candidates remain a pitiful enigma in the world of transpolitics - denied the level of surgical intervention on the grounds of both expertise and higher costs, not to mention caught up in the less binary world of feminist gender politics.  He divides M2F patients into two groups: very feminized candidiates who are attracted to men, and more traditionally masculine candidates who are attracted to women.  He suggests that the latter suffer from greater levels of misunderstanding than the former: something I can personally testify to, having seen many years in the late 1990s of "born women only" policies in Dublin lesbian nights out.

What seems to upset TG activists is that Bailey's suggestion that "woman trapped in a mans body" is a mthology that does not necessarily apply to all M2F folks can be taken to assert that therefore SRS as a means of therapy is not justifiable treatment.  In fact that appears to not be the case at all - what I like about Bailey's theory is that it in fact widens the net for SRS by making it just as acceptable to have "other causes" rather than unproveable and possibly spurious theories such as the "brain" theory (which apparently is based on a Dutch dissection of no more than 7 brains - hardly true "scientific" evidence).  What it does also, and this I find is evidence of holistic ethicality in systemic terms, is by permitting "cases for treatment" outside of the traditional (and probably massively outdated DSM criteria), it no longer requires patients to be socially conditioned to give a particular set of answers to practitioners in order to get treatment.  This surely would be wonderful.

Sadly, I think the TS movement has moved in the direction of the LGB movement in seeking a "physical irrefutable cause" politically to justify their case rather than making different sexual choices acceptable.  I have also heard TG activists in Dublin deeply insult other gender-different communities by insinuating that those who do not qualify for SRS as "perverts."  (This organisation is pushing this case hard in Dublin - in fact the "organization" consists of just one person!)  It is worrying that so many within the TG continuum are so intent on closing down debate on different perspectives, choices and possibilities.

I would highly recommend Alice Dreger's study on the issue as she specialises in ethicality in terms of medical treatment.