Bailey Quartered

[bcholmes]

I'm having a debate on a trans mailing list about the recent announcement that (finally), the Lambda Literary Foundation has dropped Dr. Bailey's book The Man Who Would Be Queen from the list of finalists for the Lambda Literary Awards. The essence of the debate is that someone posted a lengthy rant about how the trans community was engaged in book burning. Other terms were thrown about: censorship; hypocracy.

I disagree that this is censorship. And I'm really getting tired of the number of times people cry censorship when they don't get their way. Here are things that I don't think are censorship:

• criticizing someone's opinion about things. Just because we think you're a looney (and we tell you that to your face) doesn't mean we're censoring you.
• pressuring an organization like the Lambda Literary Foundation to drop a book like Bailey's from consideration for a queer-friendly award.
• closed spaces in which certain viewpoints aren't welcome. For example, I don't think it's censorship to have a mailing list for pagans that doesn't allow discussion of Christianity (or vice versa). I am often hugely suspcicious of closed spaces of any sort, but I view them as a necessary evil.
• corporations that decline to publish certain material. By extension, I don't think that it's censorship for CBS to refuse to air MoveOn.org's commercial during the superbowl. I happen to disagree with CBS's decision, and I think that because CBS does not own the airwaves that they broadcast on, they are obliged to air various views, including the MoveOn.org commercial. But I don't think their action constitutes censorship.

There are some people who believe that governments are the only ones who are capable of censorship. I'm not convinced that that's true, what with all the ugly games that corporations are capable of. Admittedly, they're usually using the legal system as their weapon of choice, but I don't think that's actually the government doing the dirty work.

And I've even been wishy-washy for several years about my objection to censorship. For example, I think that cigarette advertising restrictions are pretty much censorship, and I'm okay with that.

There are a coupl'a other aspects of the Bailey issue that I'm interested in. First, I argue that Bailey had lots of opportunity to observe the objections that the trans community has to the autogynephilia debate. I feel that he could have incorporated those objections into his writings. He could have taken part in more dialog with the trans community and tried to figure out why we object to autogynephilia. I think he didn't feel any obligation to do so, and I'm glad that he's getting his comeuppance. In general, though, what obligation does scientific research have to take into consideration the social response to that research?

There's a saying that prevailing theories really only change as an old generation of "big names" in a field retire or die off. Newton was said to have done any number of horrible things to discredit ideas that he disagreed with. I've often been fond of Charles Hoy Fort's line:

I conceive of nothing, in religion, science or philosophy, than is more than the proper thing to wear, for a while.

I think that science goes through fashions and that culture affects science far more than scientists want to acknowledge. What kind of processes help ensure that unpopular theories like Bailey's aren't dismissed out of hand?

Comments

[deepforestowl.livejournal.com]

hmm....looks like I have my homework cut out for me. thanks for the heads up.