John Michael Bailey (born July 2, 1957) is an American psychologist, behavioral geneticist, and professor at Northwestern University best known for his work on the etiology of sexual orientation and paraphilia.
[2][3][4] Bailey wrote The Man Who Would Be Queen, a book about male sexual orientation and Blanchard's typology of transgender women, which generated significant controversy.
[11][12] In December 2003, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) reported that J. Michael Bailey and Ray Blanchard were associated with far-right blogger Steve Sailer's Human Biodiversity Institute.
[14][15] Bailey's dissertation research tested Günter Dörner's hypothesis that prenatal stress may cause homosexuality in male offspring, for which he failed to find evidence.
Bailey has written about cases of typical boys, including David Reimer, who were surgically reassigned and raised as girls from infancy, yet grew up to be attracted to females.
[3]: 72–74 [20] Bailey et al. describe this as a "near perfect quasi experiment" testing nature versus nurture on male sexual orientation.
[29] In 2023, Springer retracted a paper co-authored by Bailey [30] on the rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) hypothesis "due to concerns about lack of informed consent", which had been published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior.
Dreger included additional details in Galileo's Middle Finger, an analysis of modern clashes between scientists and activists whose beliefs are challenged by them.
[5][37] Transgender professors Lynn Conway and Deirdre McCloskey filed a complaint against Bailey with Illinois state regulators, alleging that he practiced psychology without a license by providing brief case evaluation letters suggesting candidacy for sex reassignment surgery; however, the department did not pursue those allegations, as he did not accept remuneration for the services and therefore did not violate the law.
"[38] While Conway compared his work to Nazi propaganda, and Andrea James posted pictures of his children (taken when they were in middle and elementary school) on her website with sexually explicit captions, other critics believe that their actions against Bailey and his book represent legitimate comment on a topic of public interest.
[48] Author David Ehrenstein, writing for The Advocate, said the show was "replete with the sort of clichés about gay men and effeminacy that haven't been seen in a network news context since the 1967 CBS broadcast The Homosexuals.
[50] In 2011, Bailey's human sexuality class at Northwestern made the headlines of major news organizations after he allowed a female guest speaker and her male partner to perform a live mechanized sex toy demonstration using a "fucksaw"[51][52]—a modified reciprocating saw[53] converted into a sex toy by attaching a "phallic object" instead of a blade[54][55]—to bring the woman to orgasm in front of the audience.
[52][56] Bailey at first defended the demonstration, saying that students found lectures featuring guest speakers valuable, but subsequently issued an apology, saying he regretted the upset caused and its effect on the university's reputation.
[54] He said there would be no repeats,[54] but maintained that the demonstration had been relevant to the topic of his course, and said that the students who chose to attend were over 18, "legally capable of voting, enlisting in the military, and consuming pornography", and contended that the criticism he had received was poorly reasoned.
[59] Alice Dreger also defended Bailey's class as being of high quality in general, but agreed with Schapiro that the demonstration "was a case of poor judgment, because it wasn't worth it".