Letters

From the February 2004 issue

(Page 3 of 4)

Alvin Sylvain
Temecula, CA

I know Wendy Grossman has put tremendous thought into the community-based solution to the spam problem, but I have to ask one question: Why is the burden of controlling unsavory activity to be placed on the community? In the offline world, isn't that what we have laws for?

I am one of those libertarians turned rabid anti-spam law advocates precisely because letting spammers continue unfettered is anti-libertarian. "Do what you want unless it harms someone else" is a libertarian credo, but spam clearly harms other people. Even if a technology-based solution works flawlessly, I still must advocate laws and enforcement, simply because spam harms others.

Spammers steal other people's resources: bandwidth, server capacity, whois databases, netadmin time, time spent deleting. When people are stealing, we don't solve it through benign vigilantism. We call the cops.

Mark Metz
Hollywood, FL

Queer Science

In her review and indictment of J. Michael Bailey's book ("Queer Science," November), Deirdre McCloskey uses no evidence to refute his findings. Furthermore, she fails to explain just how any of Bailey's theories would be harmful to the transgender community.

McCloskey implies that Bailey has a "conservative" agenda because his sex research has led him to classify male-to-female transsexuals into two distinct categories. She provides no alternate theories or meaningful rebuttal, but instead lambastes Bailey for daring to study the issue.

Perhaps McCloskey wants everyone to believe that there are male and female souls floating about that, through some trick of nature, are assigned to mismatched bodies. That is fine and good, but it isn't science. Her reaction to Bailey's research is like a child covering his or her ears and screaming to avoid hearing the truth.

Bailey is not a Christian fundamentalist with a political agenda, nor is he homophobic. He is a psychologist looking to illuminate the mysteries of gender dysphoria. It is unfortunate that McCloskey, a supposed scholar, would respond in such an unscholarly fashion. It is also unfortunate that a woman who preaches acceptance takes arbitrary swings at institutions like the Veterans of Foreign Wars, implying they are all homophobic yokels. McCloskey's article was not a review; it was a rant.

Ron Holsey
Myrtle Beach, SC

Deirdre McCloskey replies: I do provide evidence -- for instance, the evidence of my own life and, indeed, of the Chicago women and children Bailey so brutally exploited to write his book, some of whom I know well. My view of gender crossing is the standard scientific one -- not Professor Bailey's or (it seems) Ron Holsey's. The "alternative theory" Holsey asks for is available in the numerous competent books and articles on transgender, few of which, I'm afraid, Professor Bailey has read. Providing new evidence is the responsibility of people who want to change science. Bailey has none.

I did not accuse Bailey of being a Christian fundamentalist. As a devout Christian myself, I saw no sign of religious depth in his book. I said, what is true, that the homophobes and the transphobes and, yes, the Christian fundamentalists of a certain sort are delighted by his book, and are even now actively conspiring to use it to reverse the freedoms flowering since the 1960s.

If Bailey and his friends do not want people to be upset by their work, they should do better work. It is not I but the head of the Kinsey Institute who called Bailey's book "not science," an opinion then repeated by the president of the main scientific and therapeutic group dealing with transgenders.

My one regret -- I thank Ron Holsey for giving me a chance to repair some of the damage -- is my ill-advised witticism about homophobic yokels at the Veterans of Foreign Wars. I apologize. Of course not all members of the VFW are to be classed with Bailey's friends. It was unfair of me to associate defenders of our freedom with such bitter enemies of it.

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