@Quillette recently published an essay by Deirdre McCloskey @DeirdreMcClosk that many people seem to admire. quillette.com/2019/11/10/ref… @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger Having “known” McCloskey as a public transsexual since 2003, I believe that they are missing a few things. (Long thread, ending with Galileo)
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger Who can blame McCloskey for wanting to take control of her own public narrative? However, I think she can be blamed for some other things, and this long Twitter thread is a reminder of some of these.
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger I question two things I noticed in her article: her claim that her transition was not sexually motivated and the idea that her ex-wife and children have cruelly shunned her due to her transition.
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger I also question the degree to which she has lived by her own principles and the idea that she has been an admirable public transsexual.
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger Let’s start with sex. McCloskey’s autobiography Crossing is open about her unusual sexual interests, especially dressing in girls’ and women’s clothing. Cross-dressing was invariably sexual for male McCloskey: 
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger According to McCloskey, all of the 5,000 times crossdressing before her 1995 transition were sexual. But transition had nothing to do with sex?
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger The urge to crossdress must have been powerful. In her autobiography she reveals that she broke into neighbors’ houses to wear teenage girls’ skirts. Powerful enough to motivate burglary. Not powerful enough to motivate transition, evidently:
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger Like many natal males, she used pornography, albeit an unusal kind:
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger She was most aroused by pornography featuring transsexuals like she would eventually become. But transition had nothing to do with sex?
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger When I told a reporter in 2003 that McCloskey seemed autogynephilic, she threatened to sue me if I called her autogynephilic again. So I won’t. She is rich; I’m not. Is this legal threat admirable and a strong argument against autogynephilia?
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger In a 2003 review of my book, she dismissed the theory of autogynephilia as “proven wrong.” She has never revealed this proof, despite the late Seth Roberts’ repeated requests: link.springer.com/article/10.100…
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger After my book was published, I received many emails like the one below. Apparently, no one has told these people that autogynephilia has been “proven wrong.”
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger Another person who is thankful to know about autogynephilia:
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger These writers are grateful to know about autogynephilia. In her crusade against me and my book, McCloskey has increased the stigma against autogynephilia, frightening and shaming many who might otherwise engage in open discussion about it.
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger But writers such as this one are pushing back against this stigma, and indirectly against McCloskey et al.:
unremediatedgender.space/page/5/
unremediatedgender.space/page/5/
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger On to principles. McCloskey identifies herself as a “Christian libertarian.” I thought libertarianism stressed, well, liberty and freedom, and was opposed to various government coercions. If so, several aspects of McCloskey’s behavior toward me are surprising.
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger McCloskey filed a complaint to my university’s IRB because I did not get approval to write about people I knew, with their permission, in a popular science book. Legal scholar Philip Hamburger has equated IRBs with “government licensing of speech.” Who’s libertarian?
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger McCloskey filed a complaint at the Illinois psychology licensing board, accusing me of practicing without a license because I wrote letters (gratis) as a knowledgeable scientist for transsexuals so that they could get sex changes. Libertarians for licensing to prevent kindness?
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger Did I mention that McCloskey threatened to sue me because I expressed an opinion about the behavior she wrote openly about in her book? Libertarians against free expression?
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger Family time. In her Quillette article, McCloskey writes about her estrangement from her ex-wife and children. Her account lacks empathy for what she put them through. I can do no better than this Amazon reviewer of Crossing (the top critical review):
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger Note, Twitter officials, that the pronouns (referring to the pre-transition McCloskey as “he” and post-transition as “she”) exactly mirror how McCloskey writes about herself in Crossing.
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger I do not entirely lack sympathy for McCloskey. Her plight has not been easy. But nor was her family’s. Today we are too quick to dismiss their pain and celebrate the pursuit of gender authenticity.
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger For a beautiful memoir about being left for the other woman inside the man, see: amazon.com/Sex-Changes-Me…
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger The dilemma of pre-transition McCloskeys is quite similar to that of 1950s closeted gay men. One feels sympathy for both them and their wives.
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger The solution then was to destigmatize homosexuality so that male-attracted men could be open, understand themselves, and maybe not get married (to women) in the first place.
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger Deirdre McCloskey’s campaign against me, my book, and most importantly the ideas she dislikes in my book, have worked against analogous destigmatization of autogynephilia.
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger McCloskey’s actions have made it more difficult to conduct research that could help guide autogynephilic individuals in living their lives most happily.
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger As such, I cannot see much admirable in her life as a public transsexual, regardless of her high profile, her accomplishments as an economic historian (which I am incapable of judging), and her own evident high self-regard.
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger I close by providing a few important links. First a free pdf of the book that McCloskey tried to bury: researchgate.net/publication/28…
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger Second, Alice Dreger’s scholarly account of my book controversy (lots of McCloskey here!):
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger Third, a link to Dreger’s excellent book, Galileo’s Middle Finger, with several chapters about the controversy: amazon.com/Galileos-Middl…
@Quillette @DeirdreMcClosk @BlanchardPhD @AliceDreger Finally, a message from Galileo to McCloskey and her cronies Lynn Conway @lynnconway and Andrea James @jokestress
