Alice Dreger

Alice Domurat Dreger is an American historian, bioethicist, author, and former professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, in Chicago, Illinois.

Dreger engages in academic work and activism in support of individuals born with atypical sex characteristics (intersex or disorders of sex development) and individuals born as conjoined twins.

She supported J. Michael Bailey in the face of controversy over his 2003 book The Man Who Would Be Queen.

Early life and education Dreger was born to Polish Catholic immigrants. Her mother's experiences played an important role in Dreger's upbringing, emphasising the importance of the freedoms in the US, particularly those granted by the First Amendment.

Dreger received her Ph.D. in history and philosophy of science from Indiana University Bloomington in 1995.

Academic career

Dreger has taught at both Michigan State University, where she received a Teacher-Scholar Award in 2000, and at Northwestern University (2005–2015).

In The Man Who Would Be Queen (2003), J. Michael Bailey defended Ray Blanchard's controversial transsexualism typology. In 2008, Dreger published an article in Archives of Sexual Behavior, describing in detail the opposition to Bailey and his work. A major concern for her was the ways in which she believed attacks targeted him as a person and a scholar, rather than addressing his ideas.

Galileo's Middle Finger In 2015, Dreger published Galileo's Middle Finger, a book that covered her observations and experiences with controversies in academic medicine, especially those surrounding human sexuality. This included her work with intersex people, the career of Napoleon Chagnon, Dreger's criticisms of Maria New, and her defense of J. Michael Bailey and its consequences. The New York Times described Dreger's "smart, delightful book" as "many things: a rant, a manifesto, a treasury of evocative new terms (sissyphobia, autogynephilia, phall-o-meter) and an account of the author's transformation" from activist to anti-activist and back again. the Chronicle of Higher Education, and activist and author Dan Savage, Galileo's Middle Finger also reignited controversy over her defense of Bailey and her discussion of transgender issues. The book was removed from consideration for a Lambda Literary Award after complaints. One critic accused Dreger of transphobia, saying that her book promoted the idea that trans women are "just self-hating homosexual men who believe they could have guilt-free sex if they were female and heterosexual men with an out-of-control fetish (autogynephilia)". Dreger protested the removal in an open letter to the Lambda Literary Foundation. Dreger herself has since reiterated her articulation of ideas in Galileo's Middle Finger that relate to trans women, stating that she considers both gender and sexuality to be relevant and valid concerns for people and therefore finds value in Blanchard's dual categorization, if not his terminology.

I want to emphasize that I think both of these developmental paths are perfectly legitimate ways to become women, and regardless of how someone becomes a woman, if she identifies as such, we owe her the respect of recognizing her identity and addressing her appropriately. The school had ordered her and other editors of Atrium, a bioethics journal, to take down an article written by a paralysis patient, William Peace, about his purported firsthand experiences of consensual oral sex with nurses in the 1970s. Although the article was eventually reposted, the university established its own editorial committee to approve future issues of the journal.

Dreger is the founder of East Lansing Info, a nonprofit local journalism web outlet covering the city of East Lansing, Michigan. From 2012 to the end of 2023, she worked as publisher, president, and reporter for the organization. In 2025, she took on the role of editor for the Medical Evidence Project, a venture of the Center for Scientific Integrity.

Fiction writing In June 2022, Dreger self-published her first novel, The Index Case, under the pseudonym Molly Macallen. She discussed its origins with Iona Italia on Areo Magazines Two for Tea podcast. The sequel was self-published in 2023.

Selected bibliography Books

Journal articles