This just in, from Lambda Executive Director Jim Marks:
March 12, 2004. The Lambda Literary Foundation announced that “The Man Who Would Be Queen” has been removed as a 16th Annual Lambda Literary Award finalist.
Continue reading “Bailey nomination pulled”
Bailey controversy
Unfortunately for everyone involved, the Lambda Literary Foundation chose Bailey’s The Man Who Would Be Queen as a nominee in the TG non-fiction books category for their 2003 Lambda Lit Awards.
Despite emails from various people within the TG community (including me, Lynn Conway, Deirde McCloskey and many others), Lambda chose not to remove the book from the nominations list.
Lambda has not been insensitive about it, in my opinion – but found themselves faced with a situation that they had never encountered before. That all of their advisors and committee members are gay or lesbian and NONE are TG, is the biggest problem, and my hope is that they will actively look for a few bookish TG people who can help inform and educate the existing staff and committees of Lambda.
Sign the Petition
Read more about the controversy on Lynn Conway’s website
Read more about Lambda Literary Foundation
Listen to an interview with Jim Marks, the Executive Director of Lambda, about this book’s nomination and Lambda’s nominating process.
Southern Poverty Law Center Investigates Michael Bailey
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has just published a major expose of Bailey’s book, The Man Who Would Be Queen and the forces behind it. The article is in an issue of SPLC’s quarterly Intelligence Report that focuses on the realities and causes of the terrible wave of hate crimes against transgender and transsexual women now rampant in my U.S. cities. It is also on the web, along with the article on hate crimes.
You can find the one on Bailey here
and the one on hate crimes here
Lynn Conway, who has been one of the people helping dig up information on Bailey, adds: “SPLC confirmed our worst suspicions about the right-wing hatemonger group of elite academics, journalists, writers and media pundits that Bailey and Blanchard have been running with for at least the past 5 years. As Anjelica often says about the entire Bailey mess: ‘It’s unbelievable, yet undeniable…’.”
I don’t find it unbelievable – but all too believable. This is one of the reasons I think it’s important for the TG spectrum to come together, and to provide a united front with the GLBT community against attacks like this.