I'm gonna start this article with a dare.
Go on Twitter or Facebook and mention autogynephilia on a public post. Await, with true suspense, for the response. If you did this an hour ago and haven't been bombarded with abuse, a load of tag groups or received some unsolicited PMs etc please contact me and let me know what world you live in. I want to join you.  |
| If you don't include Jami in your feminism, you're apparently not a feminist |
The conflating of what we once called transexuals with transvestites has not, contrary to popular belief, been the fault of us bigoted TERFs. It has actually come from places like Stonewall and all number of other advocacy groups
Here's Stonewall on Twitter
The Scottish Trans Alliance
There's actually few Gender Critical Feminists (GC) who don't distinguish between the two, although it is always how it's presented - 'you TERFs think girls should wear pink dresses and bake cakes and boys should wear blue and never cry'. It's been a huge part of the incessant campaigning to remove all boundaries and categories. This is a central thesis to Queer Theory, for which I'd recommend you read Jane Clare Jones, Kathleen Stock, Heather Brunskell-Evans or Dr Em.
Erasing categories is integral here. The idea that gender dysphoria is the critical basis for being trans is now anathema. How dare you police bodies? You only recognise a trans woman as a woman if she's had her penis inverted? Shame on you, fascist.
In essence, this is the problem. If a woman has fears over sexual violence she's now a TERF and should be excluded, ridiculed and if she's beaten up, oh well, what-a-pity-nevermind.
She will be misrepresented by an extent she is a parody of a creepy, frigid hysteric who wants to inspect pants and is obsessed with genitalia. In the (similar) words of the Republican right; penises dont rape people, people do.
So, back to autogynephilia, or AGP for the frequent flyer.
I take issue with the ridiculing of the condition by some GCs. I'm far from convinced it's helpful, and, as we know, some of our trans allies have openly admitted to having AGP as the driving factor behind their transition; this includes those who surgically transition, i.e. lose their penises. There's got to be a very powerful drive to compell someone to make such radical and brutal changes to their body.
That said, with the notion of self ID, the expansion of the trans umbrella and the fact we know well over 80% of trans women retain their penises, it's more a crucial conversation than ever.
It's just extremely difficult to speak about without being condemned, abused and dismissed as the parody feminist who chants that all sex is rape.
Ray Blanchard, a sexologist, first created the term. It was in response to his treatment and study of patients with a trans identity. It wasnt an unheard of term then - the old style transvestic disorder could cover it. Other people have followed, with Ann Laurence, an autogynephilic trans woman who wrote Men Trapped in Men's Bodies. Michael Bailey, who wrote The Man who would be Queen has, along with all those with the temerity to defend the taxonomy, been unfairly dismissed. Here's a typical take down of Blanchard, with some digs at Laurence for good measure.
So, apparently it's a trope, a dog whistle. What this means is it is forbidden; taboo.
The most open displays you'll ever seen are the AGPs themselves, however.
Genuine apologies for the imagery. It's an infinitesimal fraction of the tip of a very large iceberg. If you have stomach for it, look at the hashtags #girlslikeus and #sissy, a whole world of degradation that hinges on cock-hungry submission.
Andrea Long Chu is a transwoman who wrote a book called ‘Females’ with the quote “distilling the femaleness to its barest essentials- an open mouth, an expectant asshole, blank blank eyes”. When describing how porn made Andrea trans...
Autogynephilia has seen a rise in popularity on porn sites. Sissy porn, too, has boomed. It's all about the subjugation, the worthless-fuck-puppetry of BDSM, and it's easily found online.
Blanchard theorised that male-to-female trans people come in two types; the homosexual transexual, who feels a deep unease with their sexed body at a very young age. These are the people who mainly comprised the transexuals of old - naturally effeminate, often passing pretty well, attracted to men. Then there are the autogynephiles, or what we might have just known as transvestites. Autogynephilia, meaning love of oneself as a woman in Greek, is clearly evidenced in the multiple groups, tags, displays and porn genres which litter the internet. According to Blanchard's typology, AGPs are those who tend to be heterosexual. They transition later in life and often after long relationships with women, often having had children too. The end result is not that one group deserves more sympathy than another, but that the demands and expectations of the two are different.
Autogynephilia may begin with some excitement in cross-dressing. This will normally be private and shameful. All of this feeds into the fetishism - the forbidden. It's often described as a drug-like hit, which in a similar path as addiction, becomes required more frequently, with more exposure to the world and the risk that brings. Ultimately this leaves us where we are now - middle aged, normally white males with a growing need for validationas women. While homosexual transexualism is an internal need normally sated by physical transition, the autogynephile will be caught in a cycle of growing fixation. Among the most prized achievement is that of pushing it to the point they become synonymous with other women around them. Autogynephiles boast online of entering women's spaces to masturbate, sometimes of leaving spunk on the hooks of changing rooms etc. It is not necessarilyas nefarious as this; but it happens far more than anyone would like to admit.
The crucial point here is breaching boundaries. It is not, as the 'classic' homosexual transexual, to merge seamlessly, but to encroach. Those AGP transexuals who have spoken out about this are pretty brave, and it's important to note that many of them are respectful of our spaces, and campaign for third spaces to accommodate them rather than demand they be allowed access.
Demanding validation, joining lesbian dating sites and reporting the women who turn them down on account of their 'lady-dicks'. Does this make sense yet?
Still, if you were lucky and experienced no deafening pushback earlier with that AGP comment, it might be worth checking it now. Have you been called a transphobe? A TERF? Have you finally been exposed as a notorious human rights abuser, erasing trans people and their rights? Are YOU the Christian right, climate denialism and Sargon of Akkad?
There's many places you can find decent and honest descriptions of autogynephilia; Miranda Yardley writes about it; and here is the story of one man who has been deeply caught in it; Maya Kaye, a sensitive, sympathetic and wise transwomen talks here and here is Debbie Hayton, also being empathetic and honest.
You can also find the testimony of one wife here, advice to the wives of sufferers from a transexual ally, and their clinicians and more.
Trans activism fails to provide on-the-ground resources and outreach for homeless or domestic violence-fleeing trans people. Instead it demands those built by and belonging to women. It doesn't help struggling trans people who need a safe space, one that could actually fulfill their needs and not force them to either come out in an alien, potentially hostile environment, or to live stealth among women and their children, who will ask blunter questions.
No. It demands everyone, from drag queens to fetishists and men who choose their gender differently on any given day are seen as credible, committed and sympathetic as those who will pay to have their genitals reconfigured beyond any resemblance and removed. It isn't helping trans people, it wont accept the realities behind the numerous causes of trans-ism, and it ruthlessly vilifies any dissent, especially from women.
So, what is really going on?
*Edited in response to Kay's comment. Occasionally worth reading his blog
