A spotlight on transgender and queer issues from the Crossdream Life forum

Crossdream Life is a forum for discussion of gender variance where members can explore their own identities, discuss transgender and queer issues and in general take a look at whatever it is that interests them.

This sometimes leads to very interesting discussions that will also be of interest to others. Here are some topics from the last 12 months or so.

Should you be offended if someone calls you trans?
Brigitte Macron sues people who call her trans. Is that transphobia?

Sampling and Blanchardianism
Ray Blanchard and the followers of his "autogynephilia" theory do some wild statistical acrobatics in order to find the facts fit a misleading theory. See also: Bailey on autogynephilia and AGP as a zombie theory.

Strong American support for the LGBTQ-community, but trans people do not get as much love as the rest
A debate on the mixed signals from American surveys of attitudes towards trans people.

The Cass Review heralds how all trans medicine will die
The British Cass review on transgender health care is a mess. See also the thread Cass Says Transition Should Be Measured By “Employment," Not Satisfaction

All you need to know about autogynephilia

Some (relatively) easy to read articles on the autogynephilia theory of Ray Blanchard.

The autogynephilia theory has been debunked by both science and the lived lives of real transgender people.  However, since this "theory" fits well with the prejudices of transphobes and homophobes world wide, it is still referred to, in the dark backwaters of social media, and increasingly also elsewhere.

The autogynephilia theory – which argues that trans women who love women are straight men who are in love with their inner female – might easily confirm the internalized homophobia and transphobia of transgender people. Because of this I have had to spend a lot of time debating and deconstructing the theory.

Blanchard's theory is really traditional transphobia masquerading as science. However, since it is presented as science, this give the model much more power than it deserves. It is really bad science.

It is important to note that Blanchard is in no way a disinterested observer of gender identity. He is actively helping TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) and right wing extremists by writing for the web sites and taking part in their podcasts and videos. This tells us that his real motives are based on bigotry and not a desire to help trans and queer people.

If you, for some reason, find "autogynephilia" or "AGP" mentioned in the transgender debate, here's what you need to know about this and similar beliefs:

The autogynephilia theory explained and dissected

• All you need to know about "autogynephilia"
• "I feel pretty!" (On the "Autogynephilic" Woman and More)
• The Autogynephilia Theory Debunked by New German Study
• New Study Dismisses the Autogynephilia Approach to Transgender
• Julia Serano gives us the perfect antidote to transphobic pseudoscience
• New research shows that gender variance does not follow sexual orientation
• On Moser's critique of Blanchard's autogynephilia theory
• Kourtney Kardashian on "Autogynephilia" in Non-transgender Women
• On women who have sexual fantasies about being men
• The Pseudo-Science of Autogynephilia
• Women's Health Debunks Transphobic Autogynephilia Theory
• What the sexual fantasies of non-transgender people tell us about the dreams of those who are trans
• More than one third of non-transgender people have had crossgender dreams and fantasies
• What Transphobic Norwegian Doctors can Teach Us about the Diversity of Transgender People

On using "autogynephilia" as a transphobic tool of oppression and invalidation:

• What Dr. Zhana Vrangalova Taught Me About Transphobia in Science
• Blanchard and the DSM-V, redefining paraphilia
• Science and Transphobia: Ray Blanchard is Now Assisting White Supremacists. Why?
• Ray Blanchard lied when including autoandrophilia in the DSM-5 proposal
• Ray Blanchard and the Missing Trans Men (The DSM-5)
• The word "paraphilia" does indeed mean "sexual perversion". Don't let the transphobes whitewash their transphobia.
• A Short History of the Roots of Transphobic Science
• How radical feminists are using the autogynephilia theory to persecute trangender people

• For articles on AGP by others, see this list!

The word "paraphilia" does indeed mean "sexual perversion". Don't let the transphobes whitewash their transphobia.

In some of the online "autogynephilia" debates I come across Blanchard-supporters who tell me that "paraphilia" is a benign term that simply means "unusual". The implicit message is that calling a trans woman "paraphilic" cannot be stigmatizing, as it is an innocent descriptive term. They are wrong.

For those who are unfamiliar with these terms: "autogynephilia" is a term made up by Ray Blanchard, a transphobilc psychologist, who have spent much of his time helping anti-trans activists, arguing that trans women who are attracted to women are suffering from a "paraphilia".

Many of his supporters, some of whom are trans folks who have internalized the transphobia of their society, try desperately to picture him in a more positive view, to the point where they even try to turn into a friend of trans people.

He is not, as I have documented in the article Science and Transphobia: Ray Blanchard is Now Assisting White Supremacists. Why?

Blanchard has never presented "autogynephilia" as anything else but a sexual perversion. And given that his "autogynephilia" is a "paraphilia", his message is, and has always been that gynephilic and bisexual trans women are sexual perverts. It cannot get much more stigmatizing than that.

Here's what he said in an interview with the conservative site National Review:

Kearns: I’m really interested in your work on “paraphilia.” What is the difference between “paraphilia” and, say, a “disorder” or an even older term perhaps, a “perversion”?

Blanchard: Yeah sure, “perversion” was an older label for what’s now called paraphilia. Correct.

Kearns: And is the only difference a linguistic one where the morally loaded connotations of the word are removed? Or is there a substantive difference?

Blanchard: I don’t think there is any substantive difference. I mean the word “pervert” had become part of the lay vocabulary and was routinely used as an insult or as a derogatory comment whether seriously or in jest. Everybody knew the word pervert, had a vague idea of what it meant, and knew that it was something bad. So, the word paraphilia was substituted because it had a nice medical sound to it, and it had not and still has not entered the popular vocabulary as an insult.

Can We Trust Science in the Transgender Debate?

Bigoted science has caused tremendous suffering, here represented with a still form the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. But does this mean that all science is bad?

In my article on the sexologist Ray Blanchard and his embrace of transphobic TERFs and white supremacists, I have made the argument that science, throughout history, has been used by racists, misogynists, homophobes and transphobes to  harass and invalidate marginalized groups. Does this mean that we cannot trust science?

The answer to this question is both yes and no. The fact that something is written in a science paper published in a peer reviewed journal does not make its message true. Ray Blanchard has presented his transphobic theories in such journals.

But then again most recent peer reviewed papers on this topic criticizes his model, and these days the great majority of papers addressing gender variance and gender incongruence are affirming the identities of trans people. Most of these researchers want to help.

Science is a process

Here's the problem: Too many people have a too simplistic understanding of the scientific process. They do not grasp that it is a process. It is a process where ideas and findings are presented and discussed in the scientific community, and where the goal is that this collective process shall end up in some kind of consensus or – at least – clarify what the disagreements are all about.

So, over time, the idea is this community may end up with a clearer understanding of what is really going on.  This means that one single peer review article says something is true, does not prove that it is so. However, if a large number of studies, performed by different scientists at different locations, end up with similar results, the chances are that they are on to something.

The SAGE Encyclopedia of LGBTQ Studies on Autogynephilia

This is what the SAGE Encyclopedia of LGBTQ Studies has to say about autogynephilia:

'The term autogynephilia was first used in 1989 by Ray Blanchard, a sexologist, to describe a purported class of transgender women.  Classifications of transgender women prior to this time tended to divide this group into those who were sexually and romantically interested in men as “homosexual transsexuals” and those who were sexually and romantically interested in women were classified as “heterosexual fetishistic transvestites.”   

Critiques of these classifications noted that the “homosexual” and “heterosexual labels were applied incorrectly, failing to recognize the gender identities of trans women themselves.   

These classifications also reflected mainstream stigma around transgender identity as they resigned many transgender women to little more than sexual fetishists.  The autogynephilia label only intensified this view of some transgender women as sexual fetishists.   

The theory of autogynephilia asserted that many of the trans women classified into the “heterosexual fetishistic transvestites” category were primarily attracted not to women but to the idea of themselves as women.  In this way, autogynephilia was proposed as a type of primary sexual-identity category for transgender women.   

Subsequent research has found little empirical basis for such a classification, and many researchers have criticized the classification as transphobic.  

One particular critique of this classification system concerns its failure to recognize the way in which all sexual attraction depends on one’s own gender identity.  For example, a critical component of both homosexual and heterosexual attraction among many cisgender men involves an erotic charge around one’s own manliness or manhood.   

To assume that such attachments to (and sexual desire motivated through) one’s own gender identity and expression, in relation to another’s, exists only among transgender women, is misguided.   

Despite a relative lack of empirical support for the diagnoses of autogynephilia among transgender women, some segments of the radical feminist community endorse this diagnostic category in their own writing as well. ( … )  

The most outspoken critiques of the theory of autogynephilia have emerged from self-identified transfeminist academics (e.g. Julia Serano and Talia Mae Bettcher), who have highlighted not only the lack of empirical support for these theories but also the underlying biases and assumption revealed in the very foundations of the theory itself.'

Autogynephilia defined (original version)

This is the original version of the Crossdreamer.com 2009 introduction of autogynephilia. Since this version could be interpreted as support for the theory, I have replaced it with a new.

[Click here for a more recent discussion of autogynephilia!]

When I started this blog last year, it was to have a place for discussing a phenomenon so rare that I it is never mentioned in popular media.

There are men (like me) that fantasize about having a woman's body and get sexually aroused by this. If you met me, you would find no sign of this inner woman in my outward appearance.

I do not look particularly feminine (quite the opposite, actually). I dress like a man, and have many typical male interests (including science and technology). I love women and have a  girlfriend.

Gay or what?

It is more than a little confusing, because -- even if I cannot for my life think of having sex with a man as a man -- my female self has no such scruples. I could be a closet homosexual, of course, living in denial. Still, going down a busy city street, I have only eyes for the women and rarely remember the men.

Sometimes I wish I was a homosexual, because then I get out of the closet and start living a normal life. I live after all in a country where the male finance minister took his male partner to a royal reception and noone objected.

But I am not. Sometimes I also which that I could just come out as a transsexual, get gender reassignment and start a life as a woman. But my inner man protests and tells me that I am definitely "more than a woman".

The search for language

Given that the identity of modern man is so strongly defined by sexual orientation and gender, I have a huge problem, and it is hard to grasp this problem out of lack of words. For a long time I found no words for this condition, and you need language in order to understand yourself.

This is why I was so relieved when I found the term "autogynephilia" on the net: "to love the image of one self as a woman". If there is a scientific term for this condition, it means that I am not alone. And if I am not alone, there may be others I can discuss this with.

So I started this blog. Then I stopped writing, because it dawned on me that this area of research is very much in its infancy, and also very controversial.

Although I recognized much of myself in the descriptions given, there were also parts of the research that did not ring true to me, not so much the descriptions of autogynephiliacs as the explanation -- the underlying narrative. I needed to read more.

Anne Lawrence

In a series of blog posts I will try to sum up some of this reading. I will quote Anne Lawrence liberally. She is an expert in the field. Moreover she is male to female transsexual herself, and a self-confessed "autogynephiliac".

Summary of autogynephilia

Anne Lawrence gives the following summary of what autogyenphilia is, referring to the researcher Ray Blanchard, who coined the term:

"Ray Blanchard proposed that these transsexuals have a paraphilia [i.e. sexual disorder] he called autogynephilia, which is the propensity to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of oneself as female.

"Autogynephilia defines a transsexual typology and provides a theory of transsexual motivation, in that Blanchard proposed that MtF transsexuals are either sexually attracted exclusively to men (homosexual) or are sexually attracted primarily to the thought or image of themselves as female (autogynephilic), and that autogynephilic transsexuals seek sex reassignment to actualize their autogynephilic desires."

Two categories of male to female transsexuals

In another article, she makes the following summary:

"One category of MtF transsexualism includes persons who were overtly feminine as children, who are very feminine as adults, and who are exclusively sexually attracted to men; these individuals are usually referred to as homosexual MtF transsexuals (Cohen-Kettenis & Gooren, 1999). [called nonautogyephiliac by Lawrence].

"The other category of MtF transsexualism includes persons who were not overtly feminine during childhood, who are not remarkably feminine as adults, and who are not exclusively sexually attracted to men, but who may be sexually attracted to women, to women and men, or to neither sex; these individuals are usually referred to as nonhomosexual MtF transsexuals (Cohen-Kettenis & Gooren, 1999).

"Nearly all persons of this second MtF transsexual type have a history of transvestic fetishism or sexual arousal with cross-dressing (Blanchard, 1985; Blanchard, Clemmensen, & Steiner, 1987).[also called autogynephiliacs]"

Four types of autogynephiliacs

Autogynephilia denotes the propensity to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself as female. This imagening may take different forms. Blanchard operates with four types of autogynephilia:

1. Transvestic (fantasy of wearing women's clothing)
2. Behavioural (fantasy of engaging in typical feminine behaviour, let's say knitting together with women)
3. Physiologic (fantasy of pregnancy, breast feeding, menstruating)
4. Anatomic (fantasy of having a woman's body, including partial autogynephilia, where the focus is on a mix of male and female bodyparts, as in -- for instance -- becoming a "she-male".)

More autogynephiliacs take the plunge

The autogynephiliacs are, according to Lawrence, now dominating the group of men who undergo sex reassignment surgery:

"Most of the increase in MtF transsexualism can be accounted for by men who would have been considered atypical—and probably inappropriate—candidates for sex reassignment only a few decades earlier. These men are usually unremarkably masculine in their appearance and behavior, and they typically seek sex reassignment after having lived outwardly successful lives as men, often in male-dominated professions such as engineering or computer science.

"Most have been married to women, and many have fathered children. They invariably have a history of sexual arousal with crossdressing or cross-gender fantasy (Lawrence 2003, 2004). Most MtF transsexuals who undergo sex reassignment in the United States and the United Kingdom now appear to fit this pattern (Green and Young 2001; Lawrence 2005)."

Again: the reason I have found the term so useful, is because I recognize my own life in these descriptions.

That does not mean that I necessarily will accept the theories that lies behind these terms.

In the next blog post I will take a look at why this terminology has been considered so controversial.

[Note of September 2010: Due to the negative connotations following the world "autogynephiliac" I am no longer using it to describe men with feminization fantasies. Instead I use the term crossdreamers.]

[Note of August 2012: I realize now that new reader's who come to this blog and read this post only, may believe that I am a supporter of the autogynephilia theory. This is not the case: Although I know for a fact that crossdreamers (or "autogynephiliacs") exist, the theory used to explain their condition is seriously bad science). Take a look at the following blog post for an in depth discussion of the term and the theory:

Autogynephilia Dismissed (the main arguments against the theory)

Dr. Charles Moser's critique of the autogynephilia theory.

Julia Serano's critique of the autogynephilia theory.

On Blanchard and the DSM-5 discussion of perversions]