Autogynephilia - A Critique and Personal Narrative

[Ayla]

The idea behind autogynephilia is that you love women so much that you want to be one yourself: you have committed what Blanchard called an “erotic target location error”: you have an erotic target (women) but you have located the target in yourself instead of a real-life woman. Many trans women in Blanchard’s second group reported that they could only climax by having an autogynephilic fantasy, imagining themselves to be feminized in some way or living a female gender role.

That’s the theory in a nutshell. It boils down to the claim that there are two and only two essential kinds of trans women: those who are attracted exclusively to men and those who are lesbian/bi.

There are many points of dispute for Blanchard’s theory. It has been severely criticized along several dimensions, both theoretically and questioning the data itself. I will raise only some of the possible worries about the theory. ..


Would being an autotransgynephiliac delegitimize my identity as a trans woman? Why? Why would that be the case? Why is loving the thought of myself as a trans woman less legitimate than saying I have an intersexed brain, or that I am really a woman trapped in a man’s body?

So what if I “wanted to be trans” or “loved the idea of being trans”? Is that really so bad? Why not phrase it “I didn’t want to live as man with a masculine body and I dont know what other options there are except being known to the world as a trans woman” - I know I don’t want to wear male-coded clothing nor do I want to hear male pronouns directed my way. Nor did I want my body and face to be covered in hair or my chest to be flat. My “desire to be trans” is really just the other side of the coin of no longer wanting to live my life as a crossdressing cis male. That just didn’t seem as desirable as living a life as a trans woman.

Maybe I wanted to socially and medically transition because that would make me happier. If so - what’s wrong with that? So long as I don’t hurt anyone else - why does it matter if I’d rather “choose” to be a trans woman and take hormones than choose to remain living my life where everyone thinks of me as a cis male? Is that so bad? Mainstream trans discourse is so hung up on bio-neurological explanations of I was “born this way” - focusing on brain sex theories, fetal hormone levels, etc. None of that matters to me. I don’t know anything about whether I have a “male brain” or a “female brain” - I’ve never looked at my brain before. But I do know what will make me happy. I do know what my desires are and I know how to take steps to satisfy those desires. I know my desires are not causing anyone else any harm. I know I am happier on HRT than I was before HRT. I know how I want my body to look and I know how I don’t want my body to look. I know how I want others to perceive me and treat me. Scientific technology is available to help me satisfy my desires and I plan on taking full advantage of that technology to help myself live a more enjoyable and satisfying life.


Is being a trans woman such a shitty thing to be in our society that no one in their right mind would rationally choose to be a trans woman? That doesn’t make sense to me. It seems possible that someone could think they’d be happier as a trans woman than being a cis male not because they think they “are a woman” deep down in their brain but because social and medical transition would satisfy their unique set of desires formed by a unique combination of nature and nurture. That’s me. I chose to be trans.   

www.philpercs.com/2016/02/autogynephilia-a-critique-and-personal-narrative.html    

[Deleted]

A good analysis of Blanchard's idiotic theories.

Lately I've been seeing more mention of autogynephilia on the net. It's something that the haters have picked up on. But I have the feeling that this is something we should simply ignore. Hardly anybody takes this stuff seriously any more. As for the haters, if they didn't have Blanchard, they'd find some other hook to hang their hatred on. And I figure that when they start appealing to Blanchard, they truly are desperate. The intellectual opposition to transgenderism is truly on its last legs.

It's my feeling that we should let these theories die a natural death along with their creator. Nietzsche said something like, "There are certain ideas that survive only because every so often somebody comes along who feels himself up to refuting them." Just let it go.

[Shan]

I used to attend a transgender support group many years ago that was moderated by Dr. Anne Lawrence, she had written a thesis along the same lines as Blanchard which along with some rather negative personality traits has created a lot of enemies in MtF circles. I have to admit that I never read either her or Blanchard's works entirely as it seemed like so much meaningless gibberish that I couldn't identify with anyway. I'm sure that very few people believe that they are autogynepheliacs.

[Deleted]

Feb 15, 2016 4:01:59 GMT 8 Shan said:

 I have to admit that I never read either her or Blanchard's works entirely as it seemed like so much meaningless gibberish that I couldn't identify with anyway. I'm sure that very few people believe that they are autogynepheliacs.

Aye, I've never read any of their stuff either.  A brief introduction to it is enough to let you know it's rubbish.  It's like liver for me: one bite is enough to tell me I don't want to swallow any more of it.

[Trinity]

Well they wrote it on my hormone letter.

I just think they are clueless of nonbinary or of transgirls who are attracted to women. So they figure out this stupid thing. And then if you are attracted to what you see in the mirror they make it a philia. Well duh, if you are attracted to women and are wired a woman and want to be taken, and see a woman in the mirror, how the heck are you supposed to not realize you are sexy and want to be sexy?

Duh.

And this thing about being a gay guy that wants to be a woman,

look the whole thing is a bogus line of garbage. I suppose the people defending auto G are transfolks right? Know what its like to have the wrong body? (forget the trapped thing, body dysphoria sucks period).

Look I dont care what the diagnosis was that got me my hormones because I want my hormones. My new shrink is pretty clear out me having gender dysphoria and after 3 years of transition its documented right and just got me my shots in NY. I just dont think these folks know how to handle people that don't have the standard trans narrative of girl trapped in a guy body? Which is VALID by the way, I sponsor a beautiful trans girl who I can't believe has any boy anywhere in her at all, but not all of us are like that. And the insurance laws still are written for only that way for bottom surgery, which is against the SOC v7.

Shifting these paradynes is so bloody hard. I wonder where an activist nonbinary can make a difference in that, how we can get the truth exposed instead of all this hocus pocus being created by cis people.

LOL. Someone got the fairy upset again, now you've done it

[Shan]

The most important thing about this stuff is to not take it too seriously. My evaluation of Blanchard and Lawrence is revealing when you consider motive, something we talked about earlier. The question would be what motive would a CIS male (Blanchard) have for writing this thesis in the first place? More than likely he wanted to make a name for himself in the psychiatric community and thus having been the author of this dubious work it makes him suddenly an "authority," and those psychiatrists that are too lazy to do their own homework in ferreting out a realistic diagnosis of certain patients will refer to Blanchard's insipid work. Then Lawrence who worked as a anesthesiologist at Swedish Hospital in Seattle was a gay man initially who decided to transition, and more than likely bought into Blanchard's mindset for the sake of self justification in the eyes of former medical associates. So these folks and their probable motives come into play and stigmatize others who don't deserve that kind of treatment at the hands of so-called professionals too lazy to do their homework.

[Deleted]

Feb 15, 2016 6:14:43 GMT 8 Trinity said:

look the whole thing is a bogus line of garbage. I suppose the people defending auto G are transfolks right? Know what its like to have the wrong body?

This is perhaps the main problem that we have: cispeople who find it impossible to understand transgenderism.  So they start making up stuff to explain it to themselves.  But they get it all wrong.  And because they so totally misunderstand it, they don't even realize they've got it all wrong.  Their twisted thinking tells them they've got it right.

Very stupid people, assuming that they can know the hearts and minds of others better than those people can themselves.  What's it like to be black?  I don't know.  Maybe in my next life I'll be black and then I'll find out.  What's it like to be trans?  You don't know.  Maybe in your next life you'll be trans and then you'll find out.

Is that really so hard?