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Andrea James

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Andrea James
Born (1967-01-16) January 16, 1967 (age 57)
Occupationfilm producer
Height6 ft 1 in (1. 85m)
WebsitePersonal Site

Andrea Jean James (born January 16, 1967), is an American film producer, screenwriter, actress, controversial LGBT rights activist, transsexual woman, and consumer activist.

Early life

Near her high school hometown, in Crawfordsville, Indiana, James attended Wabash College, a liberal arts college for men, where she majored in Latin and Greek and initially planned to teach English. She then attained her Master's degree in English from the University of Chicago.

Transition

Beginning in 1996, James underwent a series of facial feminization surgery procedures performed by Douglas Ousterhout, MD. James then posted before and after photographs on her then relatively new TS Roadmap web site and wrote an extensive web diary about her experience, which helped give notability to facial feminization surgery. The facial surgery modified her chin, jaw, nose, forehead, eye bones, and hairline. In 1998, in Portland, Oregon, James received vaginoplasty surgery from Toby Meltzer, MD.

Career

After graduating from college, James worked for nearly a decade at various Chicago advertising agencies, including DDB Worldwide, where she wrote print, radio, and television advertisements for high-profile clients, some of which aired during Super Bowl broadcasts.[1]

In 2003, she co-founded Deep Stealth Productions with her business partner Calpernia Addams, to create educational materials for transsexual women, to raise awareness about the epidemic of violence perpetrated against transpeople and to combat the poor image of transpeople in the media.[2] James is the host of the Deep Stealth Productions instructional film Finding Your Female Voice.

On 21 February, 2004, James was a member of the first all-transgender cast, as well as a producer, of The Vagina Monologues, performed on V-Day in Los Angeles. She gave the welcome alongside Calpernia Addams, and performed the monologues "The Woman Who Liked to Make Vaginas Happy" and "They Beat the Girl Out of My Boy - Or So They Tried 04", and took part in the introduction of the Vagina Warriors, along with Addams and Monologues writer Eve Ensler.[3] She has also consulted for the production of a documentary film project about the 2004 V-Day performance entitled Beautiful Daughters and appeared in this film.[4]

James was a script consultant for the 2005 film Transamerica,[5] and also consulted with actress Felicity Huffman for her role in the film. She also made a brief appearance, in an excerpt from her voice video, shown at the opening of the movie.[6]

James appeared in the HBO production Middle Sexes: Redefining He and She,[7] which aired on 6 December, 2005.

James appears in the Logo original reality dating television series Transamerican Love Story. She is a confidant to Calpernia Addams as she tries to select from among eight suitors.

Transsexual activism

She also operates the free TS Roadmap website, a source of information for transsexuals, concerning physical, social, and legal aspects of transition. The section of TS Roadmap on hair removal proved so popular that James spun it off into its own site, Hair Facts, with a companion discussion forum called Hair Tell.

One section of TS Roadmap criticizes the controversial work of psychology professor J. Michael Bailey and of Ray Blanchard and others with similar beliefs dealing with biology and sexual orientation as scientifically unsound, outdated, and defaming of transsexual people.[8] Bailey denies this characterization of his work and has provided his own account of the controversy.[9] Furthermore, in a 1998 email, James endorsed Blanchard's work and said that she considered herself autogynephlic: "I got body slammed by the usual suspects in 1996 for recommending a Blanchard book. Sure, he’s pretty much the Antichrist to the surgery-ondemand folks, and I’ve heard some horror stories about the institute he runs that justify the nickname 'Jurassic Clarke.' However, I found many of his observations to be quite valid, even brilliant, especially in distinguishing early- and late-transitioning TS patterns of thought and behavior. I don’t buy into all of Freud, either, but that certainly doesn’t invalidate his many brilliant insights.I found many of his observations to be quite valid, even brilliant, especially in distinguishing early- and late-transitioning TS patterns of thought and behavior.... I have noticed in most TSs, and in “surgery addicts” especially, a certain sort of selfloathing, a drive to efface every shred of masculinity. While I readily admit to my own autogynephilia, I would contend that my drives towards feminization seem to have a component pushing me from the opposite direction as well [i.e., away from masculinity]."[10]

According to the New York Times, James "downloaded images from Dr. Bailey’s Web site of his children, taken when they were in middle and elementary school, and posted them on her own site, with sexually explicit captions that she provided. (Dr. Bailey is a divorced father of two.) Ms. James said in an e-mail message that Dr. Bailey’s work exploited vulnerable people, especially children, and that her response echoed his disrespect.".[11] James subsequently apologized for posting pictures of Bailey's children, although the apology includes further personal accusations.[12] A history by Alice Dreger of James' role in the controversy concluded that James participated in generating false allegations against Bailey.[13]

References

  1. ^ "Wolfman Productions: Biography of Andrea James". Retrieved 2007-03-07.
  2. ^ "LesbianAlliance.com interviews DeepStealth's Andrea James". Retrieved 2007-03-07.
  3. ^ "V-Day: Until the Violence Stops - cast". Retrieved 2007-03-07.
  4. ^ Beautiful Daughters at IMDb
  5. ^ Transamerica at IMDb
  6. ^ James, Andrea. "Transamerica with Felicity Huffman". Retrieved 2007-03-07.
  7. ^ Middle Sexes: Redefining He and She at IMDb
  8. ^ James, Andrea. "Categorically wrong? - A Bailey-Blanchard-Lawrence clearinghouse". Retrieved 2007-03-07.
  9. ^ "Academic McCarthyism". Retrieved 2007-05-15.
  10. ^ Dreger, A.D. (2008). The Controversy Surrounding "The Man Who Would Be Queen": A Case History of the Politics of Science, Identity, and Sex In the Internet Age. "Archives of Sexual Behavior, Volume 37," 366-421.
  11. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/health/psychology/21gender.html?scp=1&sq=%22andrea+james%22&st=nyt
  12. ^ A note regarding Bailey’s children – Though James does state, "in retrospect, I see the error of my ways," the article further accuses Bailey of, among other accusations, "abandon[ing] his wife and children" and exploiting his children to promote his work, without offering evidence for either statement. (See that article for a brief summary of Bailey's responding criticism.)
  13. ^ Dreger, A.D. (2008). The Controversy Surrounding "The Man Who Would Be Queen": A Case History of the Politics of Science, Identity, and Sex In the Internet Age. "Archives of Sexual Behavior, Volume 37," 366-421.
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