In defense of autogynephilia.

Narratives of autogynephilic trans identity, by Rosey Bloom, 2023:

I am producing these writings in response to the claims by some members of my own transgender community that the concepts presented by Blanchard (1989) are not scientifically valid, that they are “debunked”, or that autogynephilia “is not real”.

I should preface: I am of the view that autogynephilia is a sexual orientation, something the individual who has it cannot help, it can lead to cross-sex gender identity, gender dysphoria, and autogynephiles can benefit from gender transition and lead happier lives that way. I am not a gender-critical, I am not a supporter of the “fetish” view of autogynephilia.

I have collected quotes from ten different trans women who describe autogynephilia or similar symptoms (although some give explanatory alternative beliefs for the symptoms), I will analyze them in the following essay.

    Before we begin, I will give a brief description of my own experience: As of today I am a 20 year old natal male who is in the starting phases of a gender transition. As a child, I was unmasculine and never fit in because I did not play sports or shoot guns. However, I would not say I was extremely feminine. My preferred activities were telescopes and video games. I was always seen as “gifted”. I began to cross-dress in late childhood (about 8 years old, if memory serves) and it became more common when I entered adolescence. I began to identify as a girl online when I was 12 and chose a new name when I was 14. I was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and gender dysphoria as an older teen. I self-medicated estrogens when I was 19 for a period of four months. I regard myself as homosexual, but not in the “HSTS” category, as my primary attraction is to other natal males who are MtF women. My ideal partner would probably be a non-op trans woman who has similar interests to me. I am also attracted to cis men, but less so.

    Jones (2009), a MtF transsexual who’s history is consistent with nonhomosexual transsexualism, she was explicitly attracted to women, married twice, fathered a child, and transitioned at a late age (55). In her narrative published on her website, she explicitly describes a confusion between attraction to women and desire to be a woman. This can be interpreted as a recounting of autogynephilic sexual orientation:

“Some of my early memories come from about the age of 4 or 5.  By then I knew I wanted to be a girl.  Maybe I was born with a kind of gender inversion-- some call it a birth defect.  I know nothing of these things.  I do know that my identification has always been with females-- in books, movies, art and life.  My best friends have always been female and I have always been exclusively physically attracted to females.  So, along comes puberty.  Whoa!  We were all confused, I know, but within that maelstrom was my desire for, and the desire to be, a girl.”

    Phillips (1993), another nonhomosexual MtF transsexual-she was unambiguously sexually attracted to women and fathered children, and continued to date women following gender transition-provides an extremely explicit description of autogynephilic sexual desire in her online autobiography:

“I was non-agressive [sic] in school, both in sports and dating, and excelled at neither. My only erotic interests were not in what I could do to or with a woman, but what it would be like to be one.”

Phillips also goes on to describe dynamic competition between autogynephilia and heterosexuality:

“I married as a virgin in 1976, and the longings to be female vanished more than they were there. But, gradually, as I progressed through adult life, the waves became stronger and more frequent.”

    Berry (1995), a nonhomosexual MtF transsexual who was married to women three times and had three children (but displayed androphilic interest after transition in 1992, at the age of 43) describes a transvestic history in her letters warning of potential transition regrets. She directly ties her gender issues to sexuality, as well as explicitly describing how autogynephilic arousal was lessened by hormone replacement therapy:

“I'm now concerned that much of what I took as a gender dysfunction might have been nothing more than a neurotic sexual obsession. I was a cross-dresser for all of my sexual life and had always fantasized going fem as an ultimate turn-on. Ironically, when I began hormone treatment my libido went away. However, I mistook that relief from sexual obsession for validation of my gender change.”

    Fenton (2004), a nonhomosexual transsexual who was married to a woman before making a gender transition in her late 30s, writes about autogynephilia in an essay on her website:

“Autogynephilia theories are both a matter of interest and intense controversy in the TG community. Autogynephilic arousal exists and it is more properly viewed as a coping mechanism rather than as a prime motivating force. This reconceptualization can explain primary/secondary TS clustering along the age and sexual orientation dimensions.”

Although she is positing a more politically correct explanation, as does Serano (2015), in which autogynephilia is an effect, rather than a cause, of cross-sex identity, she is certainly making an admission of her own experience with sexuality.

    Hayton (2022), a nonhomosexual MtF transsexual-married to a woman and a father of three children-explicitly describes herself as having autogynephilia and transitioning as a result of it:

“AGP [acronym for autogynephilia] drove my own transsexualism.”

Hayton describes early life experiences with autogynephilia and refutes the claim that the condition is driven by pornography:

“[Kathleen] Stock described it as a fetish and suggested that it was likely to be influenced by pornography. While it might exhibit itself in fetishistic behaviour and be fed by porn, my experience of AGP extends back to my earliest memories. If I was not born with this pervading condition, it had gripped me by age three.”

Although I disagree with Hayton and much of her activism in many ways, this statement is much needed.

Hayton also describes a transvestic history:

“Clothes were the issue for me throughout childhood. But I had no sisters and I had to make do with my own fantasy world. During primary school, however, I stumbled upon two opportunities to turn that fantasy into reality. I remember them like oases in a desert.”

    Elvenes (Hoyer, 1933), a nonhomosexual MtF transsexual-she was married to and sexually active with wife Gerda Wegener for much of her life-describes being attracted to men but only whilst in the female role. This can be interpreted as a firsthand description of autogynephilic pseudo-bisexuality (colloquially “meta-attraction”):

"I will honestly and plainly confess to you, Niels, that I have always been attracted to women. And to-day as much as ever. A most banal confession!"

“ ‘What is the attitude, for instance, of-I thought I heard the name Lili just now-well, of Lili, towards men? I mean, do men interest Lili?’ ‘Yes, indeed,’ laughed Elena ; ‘it is positively incredible what an attraction Lili has for the other sex.’ “

    James (Dreger, 2006) has supposedly admitted to an autogynephilic history in the past:

“your paper backs up my own experiences….I readily admit to my own autogynephilia.”

Considering James’s later extensive crusade against anyone who supports Blanchard’s concepts, this admission is rather ironic.

    Cartwright (James, 2017), a nonhomosexual MtF transsexual, describes her life history and its resemblance to the autogynephilic profile, although she disagrees with Lawrence:

“Some months later, I talked with Anne at the 2001 IFGE convention in Chicago, and I tried to explore the issue further. I told her that I thought her theory was too narrow to describe our lives, and pointed out that while in some ways I fit the classic AGP profile — I was a late transitioner (over 50) and not gay-identified or particularly effeminate in youth — there were other aspects of my life that didn’t fit. For example, I had strong cross-gender identification long before I had any erotic fantasy (I cross-dressed for years before puberty); those feelings that I did have that focused on my own body were confined to the long period when I was closeted and had little other outlet for my transgenderism, and they dwindled away and ultimately disappeared as I moved through transition.”

Cross-dressing before puberty and overt autogynephilic fantasy disappearing with transition are not uncommon claims, and both are probably true to an extent. Sexuality is complicated, can show signs before puberty, and can alter in exact manifestation over the life course.

    Wynn (2018), a nonhomosexual MtF transsexual-she self-identifies as a lesbian, although she has bisexual history-describes her own experience in an attempt to refute Blanchard’s typology in a video essay:

“When I had regular heterosexual sex it was like my soul had to leave my body in order for me to get the poison out, which is how I thought of it. The cross-dressing was never a solo or masturbatory activity, there was always a partner or sometimes several partners. Bailey, are you paying attention to this? This is for you.“

The mental phenomena described by Wynn here resembles obligatory arousal on autogynephilic fantasy in order to achieve orgasm during heterosexual intercourse, as described by Lawrence (2013). Wynn continues to describe her pre-transition sexuality:

“What I liked about it was the way that dressing like a woman changed the way partners interacted with my body, how they would kind of treat me like a woman. I fully acknowledge that a lot of the feminization was pretty fetishistic. There was a lot of short dresses, and thigh-highs, and occasionally also a BDSM submissive aspect. But over time I realized that the fetish aspect wasn’t really what I liked about it. It wasn’t humiliating for me to be feminized. It was affirming. And one day I kind of realized that I didn’t actually want to be feminized at all; I wanted to be feminine."

Described here resembles the process of romantic attachment to the feminine persona persisting outside of sexual arousal, a phenomenon illustrated in an article by Lawrence (2007). Wynn refutes Lawrence’s concept:

“If these trans women are essentially men with a paraphilic desire to become women, why would they continue preferring to live as women after the paraphilic desires go away? Well, this is where things get really weird. According to Blanchard and Lawrence, the only way to explain this is to shift the goalpost and say that actually autogynephilia isn’t a paraphilia at all, it’s actually a sexual orientation.

So what happens when you transition is you actually pair-bond with yourself, forming a kind of stale, sexless marriage with the woman you’ve become. And if that sounds like it doesn’t make any goddamn sense at all, it’s because it doesn’t. A pair bond is a social relationship between two or more people, are you saying that trans women are a man and a woman inside the same… Why do they continue falling in love with other people?!... I can’t even start with this.”

I refute Wynn’s refutation: Wynn’s claim is that this concept is essentially too Freudian and bizarre. My refutation is as such: the in-love-with-the-female-persona schema is too bizarre, but the some-males-just-have-female-souls schema is not? Gender identity is an equally bizarre concept as autogynephilic orientation, when you really stop to think about it.

    Lastly, I will include this poem by Shupe (2019), a nonhomosexual gender dysphoric individual (she was married to a woman and fathered a daughter) who became the first legally non-binary person in the United States in 2016:

“She’s the woman you love and the woman is you

With each binge and purge, your desire for her continued to surge

To escape her allure, you took a wife

Vowing to change by building a new life

To ensure she stayed gone, you fathered a child

None of that matters now, she’s back and it’s time to go wild

As your daughter clings to her mother

Your wife explains, you’ve left them for another

All these years, you’d kept your love for her pushed down

But now you’re being seen with her out on the town

Since the divorce, your closets are no longer male

You’ve unleashed that inner female

But being with her has its rules

So to show your commitment, you remove the family jewels

Only to find, that your love for her is no longer divine.”

Shupe had formerly de-transitioned back to male, but now lives as a trans woman again. Shupe now completely denies the validity of the concept of autogynephilia. Considering Shupe’s extensive experience in abusive, hateful gender-critical circles, this denial is understandable and I can sympathize. Considering the current anti-trans movement, I completely understand why many trans individuals would prefer to give the most socially palatable explanation as to how gender dysphoria develops and why people transition. However, I think science must come first. They will monster trans people regardless of what the science says, so the science should simply say what’s true.

Works cited:

Berry, D. (1995). Special Note to Those Thinking About a Sex Change. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20021107203828/http://www.anticlockwise.com/dani/personal/changes/dont.htm. |Accessed 29 March 2023|

Blanchard, R. (1989). The concept of autogynephilia and the typology of male gender dysphoria. J Nerv Ment Dis. 1989 Oct;177(10):616-23. doi: 10.1097/00005053-198910000-00004. PMID: 2794988.

Dreger, A. (2006). The Blog I Write in Fear. Available at: https://alicedreger.com/in_fear/. |Accessed 29 March 2023|

Fenton, J. F. (2004). The Lemonade Stand of Desire. Available at: http://www.jamiefaye.com/lemonadestand.html. |Accessed 29 March 2023|

Hayton, D. (2022). My autogynephilia story. Available at: https://unherd.com/2022/05/the-truth-about-autogynephilia/ |Accessed 4 March 2023|

Hoyer, N. (1933). Man into Woman.

James, A. (2017). Anne Lawrence incident with Donna Cartwright. Available at: https://www.transgendermap.com/community/anne-lawrence/donna-cartwright/ |Accessed 29 March 2023|

Jones, J. C. (2009). Autobiography. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20110908004256/http://www.jeffreyjones-art.com/autobiography.html. |Accessed 4 March 2023|

Lawrence, A. A. (2007). Becoming what we love: Autogynephilic transsexualism conceptualized

as an expression of romantic love. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 50 , 506–520.

Lawrence, A. A. (2013). Men Trapped in Men’s Bodies: Narratives of Autogynephilic Transsexualism.

Phillips, M. A. (1993). A Transgender Diary. Available at: http://melanieannephillips.com/journal/diary.htm. |Accessed 4 March 2023|

Serano, J. (2015). Reconceptualizing “Autogynephilia” as Female/Feminine Embodiment Fantasies (FEFs). Available at: http://juliaserano.blogspot.com/2015/05/reconceptualizing-autogynephilia-as_26.html. |Accessed 29 March 2023|

Shupe, E. R. (2019). Ode to Autogynephilia.

Wynn, N. (2018). Autogynephilia. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6czRFLs5JQo, Transcripted version: https://www.contrapoints.com/transcripts/autogynephilia |Accessed 29 March 2023|