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Joseph Henry Press on transsexualism
Joseph Henry Press is
the trade publishing arm for the National
Academies Press. This section provides ongoing coverage of the people responsible
for reviewing and publishing J. Michael Bailey's defamation of transsexual women
in The
Man Who Would Be Queen.
Barbara Kline Pope, Director
Responsible for the actions of all the people at Joseph Henry Press.
Stephen Mautner: Executive Editor
States Bailey's book "was reviewed as a well-crafted and responsible
work."
Suzanne H. Woolsey: Chief Communications
Officer
Sent a dismissive form letter to anyone who wrote to express concern.
Jeff Robbins: Senior Editor
Bailey states Robbins "made my writing better than I could."
(pp.
xii-xiii)
Ann Merchant: Marketing Director
Prepared a collection of glowing reviews for Robin Pinnel's press kit.
Robin Pinnel: Publicist
Taking a page from Barbara Kline Pope's aggressive marketing tactics, Pinnel
uses controversy and defamation of transsexual women as a marketing tool
in several press releases.
Gay, Straight or Lying? Science has
the answer (21 March 2003)
Pinnel message (2 April 2003)
"controversial ideas"
by J. Michael Bailey
"praise" compiled by
Ann Merchant
"timeline" by Robin
Pinnel
Press release (28 April 2003)
Advocate advertisement (10 June
2003)
National Academies Press website
(retrieved June 2003)
Stephen Mautner's open letter
Press release
[pdf]
Reviews excerpted for publicity (click authors for more details)
1. James Cantor attribution added upon
request of American Psychological Association DIV 44, August 2003
2. Quotation removed August 2003
3. Simon LeVay quotation removed July
2003, added back September 2003
Selected letters to the Presidents of the National Academies
See also the following letters to those who oversee Joseph Henry Press from
prominent scientists and activists:
•
LINK: Letter
to the National Academies (by Joan Roughgarden, Ph.D., Stanford University)
•
Letter to the National
Academies (by Barbara Nash, Ph.D., University of Utah)
•
LINK: Letter
to the National Academies (by Monica Casper, Ph.D., Exec. Dir., Intersex
Society of N. America.)
•
LINK: Letters
to the National Academies (by Christine Burns, Press for Change UK)
•
Letter to the Academies:
Failure of Due Diligence (by an anonymous contributor)
•
Letter to the National
Academies (by Dallas Denny, M.A.)
•
LINK: Letter to editor
Stephen Mautner (by Barbara Nash, Ph.D.)
Comments
Susan Haack's essay "Science, Scientism, and Anti-Science in the Age of
Preposterism" which was published in the Skeptical Inquirer back in 1997:
http://www.csicop.org/si/9711/preposterism.html
This sheds some light on the academic culture that encouraged the JHP to publish
Bailey's book. Her thesis is basically that as the academic community adopts
business values, it starts to judge scholarship by how well it sells rather
than how well it answers questions. I think the following quote pretty much
exactly describes how TMWWBQ got published:
"It used to be an important role of the academic presses to publish
significant books too specialized to be economic. Increasingly, however, as
subsidies from their universities have shrunk, university presses seek to
publish books they believe will make money. This too is discouraging, to put
it mildly, to the investment of effort in difficult problems. Better, from
the point of view of making oneself heard, to write the kind of book that
might interest a trade publisher, or at least the kind of book that will get
reviewed in the non-academic press. And this too, inevitably, favors the simple,
startling idea, even, or perhaps especially, the startlingly false or impressively
obscure idea. . . ."
Investigation into publication
Professor Lynn Conway is leading our community's preparation of the investigative
report into this book's publication by the National Academies.
Be sure to review Professor Conway's section on Joseph
Henry Press and National Academies.
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