Is there such a thing as “autogynephilia”?

Is there such a thing as “autogynephilia”, that is, sexual arousal at the thought of being a woman? The transgender community online adamantly assures each other there is no such thing:

“a made-up thing from Ray Blanchard”

“It is not AGP, because AGP does not exist”

Both screenshots above are from this thread, in which a poster wants to know why his therapist is asking questions about his desire to transition to a woman. Note how the second comment tells the original poster to ditch the therapist who is asking questions, and find someone who will go along with the desire to transition.

There is a great reluctance in the trans community towards the concept that some male people can feel arousal at the thought of themselves as being women. Considering that there are a plethora of different fetishes, people are aroused at pretty much anything from rubber boots to trees, it seems odd to claim that such a thing as autogynephilia does not even exist.

The assertions that AGP does not exist pop up in any discussion where someone is questioning whether they are actually transgender or are experiencing a sexual fetish, like this one.

“those things don’t actually exist”

“Has anyone punched Ray Blanchard lately?”

Denial that AGP exists, together with encouraging physical violence towards the researcher who described it, and implications that he should not be able to get work because his research is unpopular with transgender people.

It is curious also, that there are online communities of self-identified autogynephiles, who happily post away about their fetish and related fantasies, apparently oblivious to the fact that they do not exist (WARNING: links lead to sexually explicit websites).

Posters who identify themselves as transgender very often talk about the sexual component to their transgender identification. In this thread, the following is posted and then deleted:

“I stole the swimsuit and wore it for masturbatory purposes”

In another thread, one poster discusses pretending to be a woman when masturbating, then gradually escalating:

pretending to be a woman during masturbation

In yet another thread, the poster talks frankly about the sexual motivations for wanting to transition:

“sex is probably the biggest driving factor that makes me want to transition”

Yet other posters talk about how arousing it is to wear women’s underwear:

“when I wear them I get semi-erect”

“I get very turned on with the thought of being a girl”, this poster writes, and is reassured that this is normal:

“Picturing what I will look like really turns me on”

Does anyone else get really turned on checking themselves out in the mirror? asks yet another poster. Among the replies is someone who is aroused by stockings, and someone who masturbates to their own nudes:

“I just need stockings”

“I jack it to my own nudes”

Another poster is worried about excessive masturbation:

“ever since puberty I’ve been obsessed with sissy hypno and forced fem”

With one exception, the comments are all about how taking hormones will decrease the poster’s libido. It is not brought up how this young person’s extreme porn consumption might have affected his sexuality and identity.

Finally, let us close this already long post with this post, wherein the poster describes arousal at being called a female name:

“I just get hard for some reason”

“I just get hard for some reason”. We will let those words stand for themselves, and the readers can make up their own minds regarding the existence of autogynephilia.

“We tried to make this kid be a boy”

In an article about a child who wants to be a boy, the parents talk about how the child “began taking on names commonly used for boys during playtime and displayed ‘male role modeling’.” They talk about how the child was happy when allowed to wear “boy clothes”. They talk about taking their child to a pediatrician and then to a psychologist.

Their pediatrician recommended visiting with a child psychologist who, after a three-hour evaluation, determined the child was gender variant. The psychologist explained it could be a phase or the child could later affirm a male identity — either way, she recommended that Ann support him by letting him play and dress as he wanted.

Then two years later:

When Ben turned 7, the child psychologist formally determined Ben was transgender.

This is eyebrow-raising (or should be), because according to research, most children who are “gender dysphoric” go on to become regular adults satisfied with their biological sex. From the WPATH  (World Professional Association for Transgender Health) guidelines: (note: link goes to a pdf file)

most cases of childhood gender dsyphoria do not persist into adulthood

and,

Gender variance in childhood is normal. Risks of a GI-Childhood diagnosis include: Stigmatizing children with a diagnostic label when there is no disorder; diagnosis can become iatrogenic, instilling a sense in the child that “there is something wrong with me”; and a poor predictive value – 80% of children diagnosed with GID do not continue to have GID of adolescence or adulthood.

4 out of 5 children who experience gender identity disorder do not persist. They grow up to become well-functioning adults. Often, they grow up to be gay or lesbian. Furthermore, as the WPATH document points out, giving children a diagnostic label can turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What is even more worrying is that so often these diagnoses are given to children that have been heavily policed by their parents regarding how they are allowed to express themselves. This story of a conservatively religious parent is a good example:

For Shappley and her family, it all began with a hair bow.

“I want a bow like Daisy,” her then-three-year-old son Joseph Paul begged of her. Shappley knew the big red bow, ponytails and princess dresses were things almost every little girl wished for. However, these weren’t for a daughter — Shappley reminded herself these were the requests of her son.

So a child with a penis asks for a hair bow. Instead of just letting the child wear a hair bow and not making a huge deal out of it, the parents tell him he can’t have them because they are for girls. They make him do “boy stuff”:

His desire to dress in little girl’s clothes is a secret Shappley has kept from the outside world since Joseph was just a toddler. As an infant, she put him in blue clothes. As a toddler, she made him do what shes says is ‘typical boy stuff,’ like fishing, playing football with his siblings and throwing little boy’s birthday parties.

“We tried to make this kid be a boy,” said Shappley. Still, Joseph kept seeking out what the girls had and, by the age of three, he was telling everyone he was a girl.

Of course the kid is telling people he’s a girl! You’ve been telling him that the thing he wants, that his female peers have, are only for girls. Why wouldn’t he try to get access to the pretty bows by saying he’s a girl? Three year old children do typically not have a good understanding of what it means to be a boy or a girl, most commonly understanding the terms by using stereotypes.

Shappley sought out more help, turning to pastors and her faith. Her hope was that her young boy would act like one.

The mother is hoping her child will “act like a boy”. What do  boys act like? Why does this child have to act in a certain way?

“So Christians are not gay, OK, that’s the mindset that I had.”

Having a gay child would of course be difficult for a person belonging to a religion in which being gay is seen as wrong. And children who strongly identify with the opposite sex in childhood do often grow into homosexual adults. This mother will now have a straight daughter.

Parents and children like these are now wildly popular in the news, there’s hardly a week or even a day without a story like this, a documentary, a reality show. How easy will it be for these children to change their minds, as 4 out of 5 of them will, statistically? How easy is it to change your mind about being the opposite sex when your parents have campaigned for your right to use the opposite bathroom and changing room at school? When your parents have spent money to sue the school district? When your entire family makes money and is famous from your transness?

 

“Feeling pretty and delicate, that is clearly female behavioral traits, right?”

A recurring theme on this blog is the relationship between transgender identity and gender roles and stereotypes. We have seen over and over and over again that when trans people talk about how they experience being transgender, they rely heavily, if not exclusively, on gender stereotypes. From wanting to wear specific clothes as toddlers to wanting specific hair cuts as teens, to wanting specific fashion choices as an adult, all kids of superficial things are taken as evidence of some innate identity.

However, since most people agree that gender roles are not actually progressive or good, but actually restrictive and bad, there is also a rush to assure people that being transgender does not actually have anything to do with gender roles or stereotypes:

“Gender identity doesn’t know about gender roles”

Except for when these same stereotypes and roles are used as a direct reason for transitioning:

“Feeling pretty and delicate”

But when someone explicitly asks about the connection between stereotypes and transitioning, they are quickly told that the two are never connected:

“Nobody transitions so that they can dress a certain way”

So nobody transitions so that they can dress a certain way, except this person, who wants to wear short shorts and knee-high boots, but cannot because they are for girls:

“I wanna wear knee high boots so bad”

Or this person, who wishes to “rock this or that outfit”.

“I wish I too could try to rock this or that outfit”

Or this person, who upon transitioning from male to female looks forward to never having to wear a tie again:

“I am looking forward to never having to wear a tie again”

Or this person, who is looking forward to buying clothes from any store:

“being able to buy clothes in pretty much any store”

Funny how many examples there are of this thing that supposedly doesn’t happen, isn’t it?