Yes, and Bailey can be read (I am sure he would prefer to be read) as merely making the valid point that what he calls "temperament" must be part of the dynamic. I instead read him politically as representing a segment of the research community that prefers to emphasize the biological over the social, an approach that in my view favors entrenched biases rather than promoting liberating social change. As we have learned from their participation here, the fact that a researcher focuses on stigma does not imply an activist stance. Scientists tend toward scientism, with its claims to rational objectivity and political neutrality. Nevertheless imho stigma research helps us by tending to focus attention on the "cognitive distortions" about us in the public mind that support discrimination against sexually marginalized populations. The "alternative" hypothesis Bailey wishes to see receive more attention would focus instead on innate characteristics of those populations. It's not a matter of which is correct. As you point out, both dynamics must be part of the total equation. It's a matter of which approach facilitates the social change we want to see occur -- which is more likely to, in the words of TPKA halos, help us "burn down the axes of pedophobic socialization." I don't doubt that our biologically determined temperaments make some contribution to our stigmatization. But there isn't much to be done about that, and nothing politically. The lies society tells itself about us to justify our marginalization, however, can be exposed and through exposure will eventually be robbed of their power. hugzu ;-p |