Thank you for this. I've watched some of the responses to the Genspect debacle, and the common opinion was an outraged "this man is forcing us to participate in his sick fetish", the implication being he was getting an erotic charge out of it (who can say for sure though?) when it's obviously more complicated than that. I think those reactions, some of which seem pretty unhinged to me, illustrate nicely that a *little* knowledge is a dangerous thing. I've mentioned your work once or twice in those spaces, but I don't think they're open to nuance :-(
This was a great piece. One of the things that bugged me about dressgate was that Genspect is supposed to help people like Phil Illy find non-medical paths to gender diversity - that's obviously not going to work if they tell him he's disgusting and needs to repent his sins for existing. I feel for the people who have been hurt by gender ideology and want Genspect to be their safe haven, but there's a fundamental conflict in trying to serve both groups. Maybe we need a model like AA and Al-Anon for gender ideology - the addicts and their loved ones each need care and support that centers them so they have the space to feel empathy and patience for the other.
Unfortunately, I didn't finish the piece feeling that optimistic that there are other options for such an all-consuming compulsion. Has anyone successfully integrated AGP, once it has emerged, into 'normal' sexuality? I hope it's not an overly personal question, but Shannon, why do you think this became such an obsession for Jamie after so many years of what would seem to be a normal orientation?
I mean, that's the million dollar question, isn't it? If I had to guess, Jamie acquired gender dysphoria by obsessing on it: social media, trans support spaces, porn; then there was the tremendous social rewards he reaped for going down that path (applause, pity, likes, follows).
Also, I don't feel optimistic, either, which is partly why I think it's good or at least neutral that Phil is examining his own motivations and making his intentions clear so that no woman unwittingly wastes time dating him.
I appreciate this fair and firm exploration. I agree it appears sincere, not an act, but a clear lack of concern for the needs of others. And not directly exhibitionistic. But I still don’t have a big enough picture to trust I understand what it is, assuming just one thing, but agree orientation seems more accurate than a fetish.
I don’t know how much porn is a factor, but it makes sense the safety of porn could allow fantasy to develop. It makes sense online trans forums help solidify with mutual support and validation. So that allows the obsessive mind to go farther than without the external validation.
I try to imagine psychology, like the fact a man’s first relationship is with his mother, and differentiation can be more painful for young boys, and Jung might say the mother is the first projection of the Anima feminine archetype, and first experience of ambivalence, love and hate. So projection continues onto other females in his life, and they define what he is not, while male admiration is acceptable and they define what he is allowed to be. I believe Jung also talked of anima possession, a bad thing as unconscious identification, but possibly a step towards more conscious integration.
The fact it is not unhappy lonely men but often men in peaceful marriages and kids makes it doubly confusing, unless it contains something psychological needing attention. I think of the obsessions of Devils tower imagery in Close Encounters of the third kind. Richard Dreyfuss knows he’s acting crazy, building monuments in potatoes and later dirt, in front of his family but can’t help himself. He knows he is hurting them, but the calling is too strong.
If it was just men in dresses I’d be less afraid, but it is the literalization that is the problem, the impulse to medicalize and try to physically manifest themselves as women, and society now encouraging this, that’s what scares me. I mean the lies scare me, but I accept what we calls lies can be “true” at figurative level.
Like we can see civilization is at a cross roads, built on a lie, like raising ourselves up by our bootstraps while burning 1 million years of stored fossil fuels every year and knowing this can’t continue forever, but masculine heroics keeps finding a way to push destiny down the road a bit further.
Collective collapse in the next 20 years seems unavoidable, so maybe this unconscious fear is a source of reactions, like Musk’s multi planetary species and trans humanism which embraces our malleable natures to the limits, merging with the machine. It is all disorienting and ungrounded.
AGP would seem to have nothing to say about it, but it is clearly a component to the trans movement. Trans is such a great word of the imagination, but the movement immediately falls into literalism, disregarding the body and natural wisdom from our inheritance.
I’ve thought “gender nonconforming” was the answer to the madness, but we experimented with that in the 1970s and broke gender stereotypes to degrees (Free to be…you and me) but it was clearly not enough. Courage is still required to be GNC, while easier (once cult ideas take hold) to claim actually being the opposite sex.
I know Jungian psychologists must be able to see this is a psychic problem requiring psychic responses. AGP seems to be like a dead end road, leading to alienation and self destruction. Any thing that requires deception is trouble.
A tomboy is a masculine girl, not a boy, but why can’t a transwoman be definitively a feminine man, not a woman? Why must they take the leap into delusion to “be their true selves”? Why must their delusion be affirmed and protected as reality?!
I wonder if we could define stages of AGP, with early stages connected to a need for psychic integration, but later stages fall into narcissism and delusion when it must be literal?
Jung said “People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul.”
Is AGP part of that? Reading a good Jungian book on Anima and Animus might help. But maybe once a person had fallen too far into delusion, it becomes too painful to admit it was all strange lies.
I recall a few years ago seeing clever bumper stickers “don’t believe everything you think.” A take off from maxim “Don’t believe everything you hear.”
ChatGPT shows examples of the hallucinations created by disconnected, misinterpreted knowledge. It confused me for a while until I discovered such falsifications disappear if you start a new session, and it resets its house of cards.
Humans also need reset process. Ideally we do this with more critical “system 2” thinking which can help us clarify contradictions. Jung was supportive of a neutral observer consciousness that just gathered information while ignoring analysis in early stages.
I accept there can be a “vertical nature” to consciousness and things may be absurd at lower level, profound at higher values, or vice versa. And the key is to see the higher does not replace the lower but builds upon it.
Like “Might is right” is lower level (practical), while “Might for right” is a higher level (idealistic). Still you can fall into hubris if you try to only exist at the higher level. Like my mentally ill sensitive sister first decided to be a vegetarian, but it was not enough. Everyone needed to be one for her compassion to be true. But not enough. Animals also needed to be vegetarians and humanity needed to devote all our resources to help animals live without killing. That grandiosity felt totally credible to her in that moment of idealism.
I conclude Leftist support for trans identification is idealistic. They think they are following the highest principle of self-definition without limits. And their hubris says the lower level of biological sex must be abandoned as artificial and wrongly limiting. They live in my sisters totalitarian idealism that utopia is within reach if we just reorganize language and law to ignore the lower and only validate the higher (gender identity)
I do accept the analysis that the madness in letting kids transition with chemical and hormonal interventions is to be blamed on the straight middle age males like Richard/“Rachel” Levine. They see correctly they will never “pass” as biological females so their project their “wrong body” delusions onto children, promising them that early transition will allow them to transparently present as female and the only cost is reproduction and sexual pleasure of healthy bodies. But they falsely claim kids will commit suicide, and thus justify confusing 100% of kids, and wrongly transing kids who would desist with a natural puberty and time to integrate their mind and body, all for a hypothetical set of kids who would otherwise transition with “wrong puberty” as adults.
I still don’t know how to classify AGP but I accept there is some “psychological reality” needing attention. I don’t want to demonize AGP as the problem, but seems fair it creates alienation, unhealthy self -absorptions, and eventual grandiose hubris that is willing to sacrifice unlimited children for a select few like themselves.
I don’t hate likely AGP Richard Levine for identifying as transgender. I hate his arrogance that will sacrifice children to his altar. He can be a feminine man if he likes, but calling himself a literal woman is what leads us to this madness.
What’s odd about these AGP stories is that I’ve yet to read one where it came to light at age 20, or 25. It seems to arise at around 50, when testosterone levels have declined to half immediate post-puberty levels. Very curious. It could just be that I hear it from wives who were abandoned at that age...
I dated a man I now understand to be autogynephilic, though I didn’t know the word or formal concept at the time. I’m a bisexual man, and I was in my late 30s or early 40s at the time (I’m 45 now) and he was in his late 20s or early 30s and bisexual too, though that part of it is complicated, of course. I know one case is an anecdote, but this experience has definitely influenced the way I look at this topic.
I’ll try to come back to write more about it here. Time is always an issue, and I’m traveling for work in the coming days, but I’ll do my best to make it back here, as I really like this newsletter’s no nonsense, compassionate approach (which reminds me to say to the author: I really like your no nonsense, compassionate approach! 😂).
Tl;dr my relationship with him lined up with a lot but not all of what I’ve read and heard here and from Phil Illy, Leonard Sax, and others.
My son is 24, came out to me at 22 (I believe he is possibly AGP since he fits the description), and interestingly, he had testicular cancer at age 20 and had an orchiectomy which caused his testosterone levels to plunge. The trans identification came during the second recurrence of his cancer and when he was facing a very difficult treatment path.
I've encountered self-identified AGPs who claim they had those desires as young 12. One individual was even on puberty blockers and hormones by age 12.
To be clear, you were sexually excited at 6 imagining yourself to be an adult woman? I’ve read a lot, but that has never occurred in any medical research I’ve come across. Generally 6 year olds cannot imagine beyond puberty because their central nervous system hasn’t even developed sexual responsiveness in tandem with the maturing body and brain. They still have a hard time understanding that things like rocks and trees aren’t conscious.
I would not call that AGP, that is simply atypical sex behavior, transvestism. What I did not hear you say was that you got sexually excited about it, and did it as part of sex acts and fantasises. That’s the ‘philia’ part of autogynephilia. It’s a sex fetish. Children don’t have sex, a prerequisite for having a sex fetish.
There are quite a few of them, but you will perceive them as ROGD (Possibly partially) (and the reasons will be mixed). Their profile is slightly different.
It will deteriorate with age, also people understand that it is painfully and does not go anywhere.
Children grew up. Maybe people love their wives less with age, I read about this.
Discussions of AGP always bring me back to this cartoon I saw many years ago ... of a young boy saying, "if i was a girl, i'd just want to look at myself in the mirror ALL DAY".
your ex is lucky to have had you with your clear intelligence, sensitivity and desire to understand. i have much less nuance. these men are nasty wankers and fraudulent pretenders no matter how they seek to justify themselves. a selfish bullshit artist in a dress is a selfish bullshit artist nonetheless.
Some justification for "fraudulent" -- I've periodically argued that it is, at best, "sailing under a false flag". Though I think that people like Richard Feynman and Robert Trivers have argued that it's easier to fool others if one has first fooled oneself -- which is, rather sadly, too easy.
But not sure that the suggested or implied endpoint is all that palatable -- ALL women must wear dresses all the time, and ALL men must wear pants all the time? A point emphasized by Benjamin Boyce and endorsed by Genspect:
Something of a serious pathology. Though many have argued -- in particular, Konrad Lorenz in his "Civilized Man's Eight Deadly Sins" argued -- that such pathologies often provide an insight, an avenue into understanding normal processes. In this case, how we all develop our senses of self -- which clearly can go off the rails in many ways. "Gender ideology" not helping much in many cases.
But often argue that Woody Allen's Zelig does likewise.
But Lawrence seems an "interesting" case "herself" -- though I got the impression she's a transsexual herself, though the Wikipedia article isn't too helpful:
I’m glad you linked to the article about Lawrence’s firing from his position as an anesthesiologist for touching the genitals of an anaesthetized female patient. There are also several allegations of sexually inappropriate behavior towards transwomen. I find everything he says to be very transparently filtered through his own narcissism, and frankly, don’t trust anything he says about himself or others.
Trans-parently, indeed. A trans-mogrification of normal thought processes, a manifest case of motivated "reasoning". So to speak. 🙂 Though not sure that Andrea James is much more credible -- when thieves fall out, I guess.
But, as I've suggested, a fascinating and illuminating pathology, though one might wonder at, and be apprehensive about its increasing prevalence. Interesting that, in particular, some transwomen handle it better than others. Some recognize that they want to be treated AS IF they were women, were adult human females, without crossing the Rubicon into crazy-town by insisting that they actually are such. But many others don't. For an example of the former, see my oldish essay -- hard to believe, depressing to realize that I've been engaged in this Lilliputian civil war, this clown show for over 4 years -- on UK transwoman Debbie Hayton:
The wife of an apparently "heterosexual" man. He dresses yet has no desire to be female. He dresses and wants those around him to play pretend. He dresses and expects to be protected. When it starts getting in the way of marriage, intimacy, average weekends you see it's absolutely a fetish.
When he can't get hard unless you're stroking him through nylon tights. When he feels he isn't listened to because he's sooo different. They fantasize themselves as women, hot young women. Not tiered women in jeans and jumpers.
What about the wives who are just want intimacy with their husband/partner?
The partner is busy buying cheap clothes on Amazon, fantasizing about wearing them out but never will and making the life of their partner a misery. Welcome to the world of the autogenophile.
Thanks for sharing your story! I have a few qualms with your understanding of this behavior though, and I’m curious what you think:
Your, Blanchard’s and Lawrence’s understanding of sexual fetishes or paraphilias is inaccurate. People develop fetishes and paraphilias not just for sexual arousal, but as self-soothing techniques and emotional coping mechanisms: *especially* autistic people. So the idea that these men feel romantically attached, soothed, comforted, and erotically fulfilled (aka sexual pleasure AND romantic fulfillment- btw the separation of these two things in the first place seems very unnatural and stereotypically masculine to me: of course physical sexual gratification and emotional fulfillment are intertwined!) by their fetish/paraphilia is not a contradiction to it being a fetish or paraphilia at all. In fact, that is what fetishes/paraphilias ARE and why they can be so addictive and destructive. It’s like saying “it’s not a drug bc it makes them feel happy, safe, and fulfilled, it helps them with their depression/anxiety/trauma. This substance is an integral part of their identity.” Um…YEAH. That’s what drugs do, and why they usually become a problem for people.
Your sexual orientation is which sex you are oriented towards; male, female, or both.
Fetishes/paraphilias can be extremely strong and take over the person’s personality when personality disorders, trauma, and other developmental issues are present. So your husband may have not been able to break free from his paraphilia aka complex psychosexual acting out/coping mechanism/disordered behavior with sexual an emotional components bc to do so he would have to address deep personality and developmental issues, which is hard and impossible for some. Sorry if this is a personal question, but I would bet money he was not a socially normal person to begin with either due to deep personality quirks, autism, or trauma? I’m actually curious.
This is clearly unlike homosexuals, who (rightly) are no longer considered as having paraphilias: they have unusual sexual orientations but are otherwise developmentally normal people, aka normal socially and in terms of personality.
“Autogynephilia, per Blanchard, “coexists with and simultaneously competes with sexual attraction toward women.””
Yet further proof it’s not a sexual orientation, but rather a disordered sexual behavior like a paraphilia or fetish interacting with and disrupting the true sexual orientation.
“In fact, autogynephiles may have worse dysphoria than their homosexual counterparts.“
Well since dysphoria seems to just mean “severe depression” and that dysphoria can become centered around whatever is going on in the person’s life, I would assume so, since men who develop this disordered sexuality must have bc they had other deep issues going on prior to the gender/sexual fixation, that affected the development of their sexuality. Aka: I would expect deeply disordered men to have more dysphoria.
The core failure of understanding here is that these men (Blanchard, Lawrence) miss the most major issue with “agp” sufferers: they don’t want to be women. They don’t want to look like women. They don’t want to act like women. They want to be and look like and act like THEIR PERSONAL SEXUAL/ROMANTIC FANTASIES of women. So it is a fetish/paraphilia, and these boys/men will never be helped if it’s not addressed as such.
“This isn’t primarily a sexual thing for me,” reports one of Lawrence's patients. “It’s about my identity as a woman.””
No, it isn’t. It’s about his identity as HIS SEXUAL/ROMANTIC FANTASY OF a woman.
The excerpt of your husband twirling in his bimbo fetish costume (something MOST women wouldn’t wear) is proof of that.
This is the crux that must be understood.
None, not one, of these men wants to be an actual woman. They want to be their sexual fetish/romantic fixation. The question is: why? What emotional need does this serve? I think it may be a need for control and ownership of women, of one’s sexuality, an inability to process the intensity of their desire for women, inner self hatred for the self, or profound, pathological levels of narcissism. Curious what others think.
This phenomenon is clearly a form of sexual perversion that results from developmental issues like autism (btw autism is called AUT-ism for a reason. Self-ism. “The Greek word ''autós'' meant self and the word “autism” was used by Bleuler to mean morbid self-admiration and withdrawal within self.” Struggling with social expression and accompanying sexual expression and those social/sexual needs turning inward or being stuck inside and unable to get out. I believe many autistic people, especially men, can become pathologically narcissistic, and that this can affect their sexuality.) It’s not a sexual orientation. It’s a disorder. Disorders are unusual behaviors that harm oneself and others and generally negatively interfere with one’s life. Sexual orientations don’t, or needn’t, do that. These behaviors (“agp”) DO and MUST.
People with autism have notoriously poor insight, and are prone to black and white thinking and ESPECIALLY emotional reasoning (if I feel it, it’s true), contrary to stereotypes of autistic people being logical.
Just bc a man feels something so strongly, doesn’t mean it’s innate or natural, it may just mean he feels things strongly.
First of all, my ex did not display autistic tendencies. He was in IT, which some people want to connect with autism, but that's a very weak link in his case. He was popular, not especially inwardly-focused, had no difficultly with social cues, was very adept at communicating, etc. Your comment relies very heavily on some link with autism, so most of it doesn't really apply here.
You say: "I would bet money he was not a socially normal person to begin with either due to deep personality quirks, autism, or trauma."
That's not really the case here. Curious, do you see these traits in Caitlyn Jenner too? While there are links between autism and transgenderism, especially in the young, there is also this cohort who has been highly successful in life, relationships and career. The pilots, the military men, the CEOs.
"So your husband may have not been able to break free from his paraphilia [because of...]"
Blanchard et al say that almost no one breaks out of it.
"Well since dysphoria seems to just mean 'severe depression'..."
No. Gender dysphoria is extreme discomfort with the sexed body. This is what my ex exhibited.
I don't feel especially moved by hair-splitting over whether they want to be a woman or whether they want to be their (sexual etc.) conception of a woman, because yeah, a man's conception is all he's got, even if it's wrong.
This looks to me less like you disagree with me or Blanchard or Lawrence, and more like you object to the word "orientation." Which, as I said, is your prerogative.
I guess I don’t see a point splitting hairs about fetish vs paraphilia. Fetishes are paraphilias centering objects. I would argue these men definitely have fetishes for women-as-objects, and for the accoutrements they associate with women (like your husband wearing women’s clothing: the definition of a fetish).
All fetishes have complex emotional layers beneath them.
Rather, I think it seems that you are experiencing motivated reasoning, bc you don’t want it to have been a fetish. You said “Jamie wasn't pursuing a mere erotic thrill. If that were the case, I’m sure we could have worked around it.” But we already agreed that fetishes and paraphilias ARE erotic thrills…and that erotic fulfillment is both physical AND emotional. I imagine this has been an extremely painful experience for you, but I want to present the idea that maybe it was *primarily* an erotic thrill, and you still couldn’t work around it, and that isn’t any reflection on you. (As I’m sure you know).
Got it. Was just curious about the autism link. Sorry if that question was prying.
I guess I just assume men like this 1. Are autistic, 2. Have a history of trauma 3. Have “Dark Triad” traits or 4. have a history of other disordered sexual behaviors like BDSM. I just find it hard to imagine men can “turn into” this when they didn’t already have other problems.
FULL disclosure, and said with empathy and compassion: I sometimes wonder if women who were married to these men say there weren’t signs (any of the 1-4 items I listed above) bc they feel like they are being accused of missing obvious red flags. That’s not my intention. And maybe this is me trying to believe that there must have been SOMETHING bc no normal, well-adjusted man would start doing this out of absolutely nowhere (a terrifying thought). This is scary and painful stuff.
Re Caitlyn Jenner: yes I do. Anyone who is a Olympic-champion decathlete is someone who is clinical-levels of obsessive and could easily have autism-spectrum traits or general “neurodivergence.” Ditto for CEOs and military men.
Tbh, I see several other traits linking men to this issue that is a bit more taboo to mention, but: psychopathy (flat affect and thrill seeking) common in athletes, soldiers, BDSM practitioners, etc) and narcissism (common in CEOs, and more prevalent in anyone focusing on themselves enough to perfect a difficult skill) seem to be even more of a predictor for full-blown “agp” than even autism.
I also don’t see high success in career or traditional markers of external success in life (ie acquiring a partner) as contradicting signs of dark-triad traits (psychopathy, narcissism, Machiavellianism), although I might expect someone with autism struggle with healthy relationships compared to career.
“Blanchard et al say that almost no one breaks out of it.” I’m not suggesting that men who reach that level of disorder that they start LARPing as their sex fantasies are likely to “break out of it.” Tbh, I assume all men who reach that place have pathologically antisocial and narcissistic personalities, autism spectrum or not, or else have clinically significant poor insight. Maybe most men who are the type of people who might think “this is really dehumanizing to women and isn’t good for me” would get help and change their behaviors before it started impacting their life. Who knows! But I think men like Blanchard are more interested in sorting and labels than helping people work though complex psychosexual issues (which likely requires psychoanalysis). There are lots of highly-trained psychiatrists and psychologists who subscribe to a very rigid traditional medical understanding of disease, and actually believe their patients can’t change or get better, even for typical mental illnesses, bc they see the absolute worst, most severe cases: not the people who CANT change. The people who WONT change. So they think it’s “a chemical level in the brain that’s off” and can’t be fixed.
“No. Gender dysphoria is extreme discomfort with the sexed body. This is what my ex exhibited.” You misunderstood me. I meant the word “dysphoria” means “a profound state of unease or dissatisfaction” which I would define as basically equivalent to depression. I think people who have depression can become fixated on gender (if exposed to it) and can channel their depression in such a direction that they experience gender dysphoria. I’m not saying that gender dysphoria isn’t real. And as you know, people can have extreme distress over their sexed body due to many diverse reasons.
“I don't feel especially moved by hair-splitting over whether they want to be a woman or whether they want to be their (sexual etc.) conception of a woman, because yeah, a man's conception is all he's got, even if it's wrong.”
That’s a good point about men’s conception but I don’t think it’s hair splitting. I think it’s a subtle distinction that is overlooked in almost all cases of gender dysphoria to the sufferer’s detriment. The statement that “agp” men are “sexually aroused/romantically fulfilled/emotionally soothed by being women” is factually incorrect. They are sexually aroused/romantically fulfilled/emotionally soothed by being THEIR FANTASIES OF women.” This seemingly subtle shift recalibrates the whole conversation and could even help someone with GD find distance from and understanding of their experience by addressing symbol formation “woman” literally versus “woman” as a symbol for…what?
Yeah I mostly disagree with Blanchard for the reasons I stated above, I think Lawrence is a predatory psychopath/narcissist who transparently lies about his experiences to serve his own ends so I distrust pretty much anything he says, and I think allowing men like this to appropriate the term “sexual orientation” from gay people will lead to the wholesale destruction of gay rights, in the same way that verbal slippage of “woman” and “she/her” is destroying women’s rights…but my main qualm is that I think people need to face that this behavior IS a fetish AND paraphilia, IS primarily a sexual disorder, and is a CHOICE by the sufferer, and thus need to question what is going on with the personality of the man experiencing it.
You are also applying unfalsifiability and no-true-scotsman fallacies. You have a narrative you'd like to believe, as you admit, so you're retrofitting the facts to it.
Well I have no way of refuting most of those accusations, bc you won’t tell me if your husband met my criteria or not. You said he didn’t meet the criteria I listed in my first comment re autism...but you won’t answer if he met the other criteria I listed in my second comment...which is fine bc it’s your private affairs and I respect your boundaries and frankly I don’t want to know. I didn’t know the Rules of Debate were that you had to list ALL your criteria in the first comment. Jeeze.
You can accuse me of the no-true-Scotsman fallacy but just bc I think autistic traits AND dark triad traits are relevant here doesn’t mean I’m just tacking on random extra criteria every time I’m proven wrong. Like, I DONT think that confidence and high-self esteem are common traits in these men. I don’t think that healthy body image is common in these men. I don’t think that stable moods are common in these men. I’ve said: autism, trauma, obsessiveness, and dark triads: narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism (BDSM interests being a common red flag of dark triad) seem relevant to me. There’s no further list of traits I’d start listing if proven wrong. If your husband didn’t have any of these traits...then I’d be well and truly stumped and I’d have to throw out my theory and admit I was wrong.
I’ve already been open that I find the idea that someone is born with an innate set of un-changeable sexually disordered behaviors like this to be horrible, I guess bc it challenges my belief in self determination and some degree of free will/personal responsibility.
I’m afraid I think women who say “it can’t have been a fetish bc then I could have fixed the issue and saved the marriage” are showing us that they’re deeply biased about this topic.
“Jamie wasn't pursuing a mere erotic thrill. If that were the case, I’m sure we could have worked around it. Jamie had developed something much closer to a sexual orientation.”
^ Are you telling yourself that bc you want it to be true, or bc there’s evidence these heterosexual (already have a sexual orientation) men with disordered sexual behaviors have developed a new, additional “sexual orientation” aka paraphilia and fetishes of dressing up as their sex fantasies? I suspect emotional reasoning here. I’m sorry, but pretty much ALL sexually disordered behavior like this is a choice past a certain point. It’s within everyone’s ability to NOT do things that harm themselves and their loved ones. They may need lots of support but they ultimately have to CHOOSE to stop bad behavior. Sometimes people don’t mean to cause hurt, but enabling people with disordered behaviors with the “he had to bc it’s innate” bs (whether it’s about gender identity, fetishistic crossdressing or anything else) is, while comforting for all involved, not true and not helpful in the end. These men may be innately prone to disorder and that disorder may impact their sexual and social behavior...but their disorder is not an “innate sexual orientation.” Again, strong desire doesn’t = innate.
This comment is long, so I'm still working through it, but you've made a mistake (about my supposed making of a mistake, ironically) right out of the gate.
You said: "The idea that these men feel romantically attached, soothed, comforted, and erotically fulfilled... is not a contradiction to it being a fetish or paraphilia at all."
I never said autogynephilia isn't a "fetish or paraphilia" (fulfilling or not).
I said it IS a paraphilia.
It is not, however, a fetish. The distinction between these two things is central to the entire discussion, so the discussion can't really proceed as long as these are being conflated.
WOW! NAILED IT! This is what I have been trying to articulate about my son! Although he has never been diagnosed with ASD, he did have some of the characteristics growing up. Trauma? Absolutely. Personality disorder? Not sure (he was evaluated and we were told he had nothing except mild anxiety and clinical depression). Your reasoning makes SO MUCH sense to me! I also disagree with all the "experts" on AGP or anyone who is trying to push this off as a "sexual orientation" like Bailey. Narcissism? I get that. Normal emotional development (and understanding of sexuality) interrupted by access to online porn way too early? Yes, abso-fn-lutely. My kid is only 24 (NOT IN HIS 50s) and just came out 2 years ago after a major trauma, but also with a history of bullying throughout school; he was just a "different" kid. But he did display some AGP tendencies as a very young kid - as young as 5 or 6, maybe even 4. I really believe this IS a DISORDER that needs treatment - but what treatment? What is the treatment? Intensive therapy? Unfortunately, he is not open to that (believe me, I have tried 5 different therapists with him) since he thinks he's trans and that "getting boobs" will complete him and make him happy enough to go on with his life. HRT will, at a minimum, turn him into a eunuch, but more importantly, be toxic and damaging to his fragile health and his liver, probably causing an early death. But he says he is aware of the risks and still wants to pursue this path. There needs to be real help for some of these men, and not in the form of affirmation and glorification of this awful path (spurred on by the Devil himself: the Discord trans chat group). There is definitely a social contagion component with the younger males as well as the females. My son has always been socially awkward but put some headphones on him and hook him to the internet and he comes alive as a boisterous, outgoing guy (or he did, until he lost his hearing). He repeatedly tells me about all the information he got on tumblr ("when tumblr was good and had all the porn") and Reddit during his MS an HS years (when he first heard of trans) - interestingly, the year coincides with the coming out of Jazz Jennings on TLC and Bruce Jenner coming out as Caitlin Jenner (2014-15). His case follows most of the other young transitioners in his age cohort (Helena, interviewed on Gender a Wider Lens podcast, articulated this exact path to her trans identity). It is so predictable. Ugh, I have no answers, just questions! But thank you for commenting. It was comforting to read something that makes sense to me and for my kiddo.
Glad to hear you connected with my comment and sorry to hear about your challenges with your son! I hope he finds a path that is healthy for him. May I ask, what do you mean by “AGP tendencies” at a young age? I don’t mean to pry, I’m just curious. If you don’t want to share, I understand. I was just under the impression that fetishistic crossdressing emerges at adolescence.
I think that lots of people have tendencies to various disordered behavior, and that it’s best to be compassionate, and that the way to be compassionate is by clearly identifying disordered behavior as such, so that people can get help. Calling disordered behaviors “innate identities” is so wrong- literally encouraging people in their disorder. But ultimately people must recognize on their own that their behavior is unhealthy and choose to change it themselves- we can’t MAKE anyone change, even if it would likely be best for them.
Of all the stuff I have read about transgenderism, the best explanation for autogynephilia is that these men want a woman -- conveniently inside themselves -- whom they can completely dominate and control. No matter how good the relationship, they will never find an actual woman who will be as submissive and malleable as they desire, so they create the "perfect woman."
There is no question this is a glaring mental illness and that no woman should play along with it. Perhaps it is more complicated, but the number of transwidows whose experiences are quite similar -- their partners' total obsession with silly junk such as makeup and lingerie for one -- make me doubt it. Like way too many Westerners, these men do not want to come to grips with reality, want to spend their lives in fantasy, and probably need complete physiological as well as mental workups because there are nutritional deficiencies that contribute to obsessiveness.
I too have a hard time understanding the mentality of a woman who would have a reaction to a husband twirling in a fetishized woman-costume with anything other than “stop being a pervert, I want a divorce.”
They try going to therapy with their partners and find the therapist bending over backward for the man and criticizing the woman. Women are taught to be helpful and supportive, and these men exploit that. I think most transwidows eventually utter your last sentence.
Wow - not the first really nasty comment on this thread, just the one that prompted me to comment. I'm trying to navigate my way through this without wanting to sacrifice realtionships, avoid obligations, dilute my respect for women in general and particular and preserve my sanity. I don't expect anything from you or anyone else save basic civility and I'm disappointed in that.
You heavily rely on the “expertise” of Anne Lawrence who wouldn’t know normal sexuality or sexual orientation if it slapped him in the face. He said he would have castrated himself at the age of 14 if internet was available to him with information on where to get tools and how to do it (yes, he meant cutting off his balls).
He also believes that “autogynephilic” minors should be able to medically transition to prevent effects of male puberty. Is that what you mean by “treatment” you mention a couple of times in the emotionally manipulative context of trying to help children - childhood transition?
You have an actual response? How do you envision “helping kids” while normalizing public agp? Do you agree with Anne Lawrence on importance of adolescent medical transition - since you seem to agree with him on everything else?
I'll be honest and say ... I recognize the narcissistic dimension of my trans experience, and I am terrified by its gravitational force and potential consequences. I'm just not sure how to escape it.
I have a complex relationship with AGP as a language / framing. It made sense to me when it was a compartmentalized obsession. But as I've moved it into the frame of conscious contemplation, I resonate more with a holistic trans interpretation, although I'm resisting the draw towards full transition for the sake of my capacity to love and serve others to whom I am committed. The eroticism is gone, and I don't feel a romantic attraction to my feminine self projection. It is more to me an inconvenient but mysterious and powerful dimension of my history and interiority that is there regardless of whether or how I engage it. So I'm trying to figure out how to accept and honor it on the one hand, without letting it occlude my other goals, interests, and priorities, on the other.
It is so important for me to name, acknowledge, and explore this dimension of myself. For most of my life, I just carried it around, feeling that it (and so, ultimately, I) was inexpressible, unredeemable, unloveable. If you would excuse the religious particularity, it has been the most powerful spiritual experience of my life to come to a place of deep confession, and receive the forgiveness and love of Jesus in this most deeply shadowed and hidden place; to confess it to my wife and receive her understanding and compassion, despite the inherent difficulties of trying to navigate a path that is complex and inherently very inward with another person. It would be so easy to just let it take over and consume everything. In part because that's what everyone expects, and it's almost the only story that gets told. I hope it's not inevitable. I hope we're able to write a different story.
It includes transcriptions of Dr. Blanchard in interview, and illustrations of autogynephilia, which is currently understood by the public as "gender identity".
I think the best article on this subject is "Gender dysphoria is not one thing" by Blanchard and Bailey.
"Failure to make scientifically valid and fundamental distinctions among different kinds of gender dysphoric persons can only prevent progress toward finding the best approach to helping each."
Indeed. Wish I would have added that quote to my latest post on the New Puritans.
This is interesting. I’m sorry that your ex spouse treated you so poorly. It was unfair of them/her (I’m not going to misgender) to either understand themself so incompletely as to enter into a relationship with you so blindly or to have been repressing for so long that it finally came out and could not be put back or controlled in any way. They should have known better and should have considered you as part of the process not some non participant.
As a counter narrative I will say I knew from a young age that I had a deep seated desire to be a girl/woman. It’s extremely difficult to explain how this manifests when one is young, say 8-10 or so but in my case it was always deeply ingrained. I was born in 1971 so it had nothing to do with ‘porn’ or internet influence it was just who I was. As I grew older there was a definite and relentless sexual component. I realized fairly soon in my life that I was ‘not like other boys’ and couldn’t figure out if I was gay or what the hell was wrong with me but I knew I was not straight. This self admitting that at the very least I had an ‘atypical sexuality’ was a lightbulb moment for me and it allowed me to move forward knowing that I would never have a ‘traditional’ relationship. Now, my feelings of desire to be the oppo sex were very strong and honestly blocked out most if not all allosexuality so there was no chance of fooling myself but my point here is that males need to be honest with themselves about their sexualities. I think that is happening more often these days. I think internet interconnectedness helps with that tbh. In my case I probably would have transitioned earlier because it would have been an option unlike just going out to drag bars in the 90s lol.
One last point here is the vast difference between male and female sexuality. Especially in the rigidness of such sexualities. Like I said I had these feelings, albeit not completely sexual, from a very young age. I tried everything I could many, many times to not get turned on by the transformation fantasies but nothing worked. Repression definitely didn’t work. The best path forward is accepting that this is who you are, this is who you are going to be, and you have to find the best way to be happy with that and be good to the people around you!
Unlike female sexuality which is just a mishmash of warm fuzzies that is much more malleable and much less a demon screaming constantly in your brain.
I absolutely refute this characterization of female sexuality ! There is considerable variation - certainly for biological females I have met . ( I dislike the term 'cis' because it suggests we are an inferior type of human being ) . I am 70 yrs old , bisexual and have had very varied sexual experience . Maybe others have a 'mishmash of warm fuzzies' but in this context it does sound like an insult and is most certainly a generalization .
Thank you for this article. I am curious about something if you don't mind talking about it. Acc. to things that I read this kind of "sexual orientation" or predisposition is visible early on. I read your book and it feels like Jamie's autogynephilia came out of nowhere. Do you believe something existed prior to his initial interest in cross-dressing or was it brand new feature within his personality? (e.g. DSM-5 pages 702-704 "the first signs of transvestic disorder may begin in childhood, in the form of strong fascination with a particular item of women’s attire. Prior to puberty, cross-dressing produces generalized feelings of pleasurable excitement. With the arrival of puberty, dressing in women’s clothes begins to elicit penile erection and, in some cases, leads directly to first ejaculation. In many cases, cross-dressing elicits less and less sexual excitement as the individual grows older; eventually it may produce no discernible penile response at all. The desire to cross-dress, at the same time, remains the same or grows even stronger. Individuals who report such a diminution of sexual response typically report that the sexual excitement of cross-dressing has been replaced by feelings of comfort or well-being".
I mean, I honestly don't know. It did seem to come out of nowhere, and he even candidly shared early erotic experiences with me before the trans identity, so theres no reason why it shouldn't have come up.
Either he repressed or hid it, or he acquired it later, which I absolutely do think is possible. Not sure anyone will ever know.
Thank you for this. I've watched some of the responses to the Genspect debacle, and the common opinion was an outraged "this man is forcing us to participate in his sick fetish", the implication being he was getting an erotic charge out of it (who can say for sure though?) when it's obviously more complicated than that. I think those reactions, some of which seem pretty unhinged to me, illustrate nicely that a *little* knowledge is a dangerous thing. I've mentioned your work once or twice in those spaces, but I don't think they're open to nuance :-(
This was a great piece. One of the things that bugged me about dressgate was that Genspect is supposed to help people like Phil Illy find non-medical paths to gender diversity - that's obviously not going to work if they tell him he's disgusting and needs to repent his sins for existing. I feel for the people who have been hurt by gender ideology and want Genspect to be their safe haven, but there's a fundamental conflict in trying to serve both groups. Maybe we need a model like AA and Al-Anon for gender ideology - the addicts and their loved ones each need care and support that centers them so they have the space to feel empathy and patience for the other.
Unfortunately, I didn't finish the piece feeling that optimistic that there are other options for such an all-consuming compulsion. Has anyone successfully integrated AGP, once it has emerged, into 'normal' sexuality? I hope it's not an overly personal question, but Shannon, why do you think this became such an obsession for Jamie after so many years of what would seem to be a normal orientation?
I mean, that's the million dollar question, isn't it? If I had to guess, Jamie acquired gender dysphoria by obsessing on it: social media, trans support spaces, porn; then there was the tremendous social rewards he reaped for going down that path (applause, pity, likes, follows).
Also, I don't feel optimistic, either, which is partly why I think it's good or at least neutral that Phil is examining his own motivations and making his intentions clear so that no woman unwittingly wastes time dating him.
I appreciate this fair and firm exploration. I agree it appears sincere, not an act, but a clear lack of concern for the needs of others. And not directly exhibitionistic. But I still don’t have a big enough picture to trust I understand what it is, assuming just one thing, but agree orientation seems more accurate than a fetish.
I don’t know how much porn is a factor, but it makes sense the safety of porn could allow fantasy to develop. It makes sense online trans forums help solidify with mutual support and validation. So that allows the obsessive mind to go farther than without the external validation.
I try to imagine psychology, like the fact a man’s first relationship is with his mother, and differentiation can be more painful for young boys, and Jung might say the mother is the first projection of the Anima feminine archetype, and first experience of ambivalence, love and hate. So projection continues onto other females in his life, and they define what he is not, while male admiration is acceptable and they define what he is allowed to be. I believe Jung also talked of anima possession, a bad thing as unconscious identification, but possibly a step towards more conscious integration.
The fact it is not unhappy lonely men but often men in peaceful marriages and kids makes it doubly confusing, unless it contains something psychological needing attention. I think of the obsessions of Devils tower imagery in Close Encounters of the third kind. Richard Dreyfuss knows he’s acting crazy, building monuments in potatoes and later dirt, in front of his family but can’t help himself. He knows he is hurting them, but the calling is too strong.
If it was just men in dresses I’d be less afraid, but it is the literalization that is the problem, the impulse to medicalize and try to physically manifest themselves as women, and society now encouraging this, that’s what scares me. I mean the lies scare me, but I accept what we calls lies can be “true” at figurative level.
Like we can see civilization is at a cross roads, built on a lie, like raising ourselves up by our bootstraps while burning 1 million years of stored fossil fuels every year and knowing this can’t continue forever, but masculine heroics keeps finding a way to push destiny down the road a bit further.
Collective collapse in the next 20 years seems unavoidable, so maybe this unconscious fear is a source of reactions, like Musk’s multi planetary species and trans humanism which embraces our malleable natures to the limits, merging with the machine. It is all disorienting and ungrounded.
AGP would seem to have nothing to say about it, but it is clearly a component to the trans movement. Trans is such a great word of the imagination, but the movement immediately falls into literalism, disregarding the body and natural wisdom from our inheritance.
I’ve thought “gender nonconforming” was the answer to the madness, but we experimented with that in the 1970s and broke gender stereotypes to degrees (Free to be…you and me) but it was clearly not enough. Courage is still required to be GNC, while easier (once cult ideas take hold) to claim actually being the opposite sex.
I know Jungian psychologists must be able to see this is a psychic problem requiring psychic responses. AGP seems to be like a dead end road, leading to alienation and self destruction. Any thing that requires deception is trouble.
A tomboy is a masculine girl, not a boy, but why can’t a transwoman be definitively a feminine man, not a woman? Why must they take the leap into delusion to “be their true selves”? Why must their delusion be affirmed and protected as reality?!
I wonder if we could define stages of AGP, with early stages connected to a need for psychic integration, but later stages fall into narcissism and delusion when it must be literal?
Jung said “People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul.”
Is AGP part of that? Reading a good Jungian book on Anima and Animus might help. But maybe once a person had fallen too far into delusion, it becomes too painful to admit it was all strange lies.
Great post! I find your conception of this complex sexual disorder most compelling. I don’t find the sexual-orientation conception convincing at all.
I recall a few years ago seeing clever bumper stickers “don’t believe everything you think.” A take off from maxim “Don’t believe everything you hear.”
ChatGPT shows examples of the hallucinations created by disconnected, misinterpreted knowledge. It confused me for a while until I discovered such falsifications disappear if you start a new session, and it resets its house of cards.
Humans also need reset process. Ideally we do this with more critical “system 2” thinking which can help us clarify contradictions. Jung was supportive of a neutral observer consciousness that just gathered information while ignoring analysis in early stages.
I accept there can be a “vertical nature” to consciousness and things may be absurd at lower level, profound at higher values, or vice versa. And the key is to see the higher does not replace the lower but builds upon it.
Like “Might is right” is lower level (practical), while “Might for right” is a higher level (idealistic). Still you can fall into hubris if you try to only exist at the higher level. Like my mentally ill sensitive sister first decided to be a vegetarian, but it was not enough. Everyone needed to be one for her compassion to be true. But not enough. Animals also needed to be vegetarians and humanity needed to devote all our resources to help animals live without killing. That grandiosity felt totally credible to her in that moment of idealism.
I conclude Leftist support for trans identification is idealistic. They think they are following the highest principle of self-definition without limits. And their hubris says the lower level of biological sex must be abandoned as artificial and wrongly limiting. They live in my sisters totalitarian idealism that utopia is within reach if we just reorganize language and law to ignore the lower and only validate the higher (gender identity)
I do accept the analysis that the madness in letting kids transition with chemical and hormonal interventions is to be blamed on the straight middle age males like Richard/“Rachel” Levine. They see correctly they will never “pass” as biological females so their project their “wrong body” delusions onto children, promising them that early transition will allow them to transparently present as female and the only cost is reproduction and sexual pleasure of healthy bodies. But they falsely claim kids will commit suicide, and thus justify confusing 100% of kids, and wrongly transing kids who would desist with a natural puberty and time to integrate their mind and body, all for a hypothetical set of kids who would otherwise transition with “wrong puberty” as adults.
I still don’t know how to classify AGP but I accept there is some “psychological reality” needing attention. I don’t want to demonize AGP as the problem, but seems fair it creates alienation, unhealthy self -absorptions, and eventual grandiose hubris that is willing to sacrifice unlimited children for a select few like themselves.
I don’t hate likely AGP Richard Levine for identifying as transgender. I hate his arrogance that will sacrifice children to his altar. He can be a feminine man if he likes, but calling himself a literal woman is what leads us to this madness.
What’s odd about these AGP stories is that I’ve yet to read one where it came to light at age 20, or 25. It seems to arise at around 50, when testosterone levels have declined to half immediate post-puberty levels. Very curious. It could just be that I hear it from wives who were abandoned at that age...
I dated a man I now understand to be autogynephilic, though I didn’t know the word or formal concept at the time. I’m a bisexual man, and I was in my late 30s or early 40s at the time (I’m 45 now) and he was in his late 20s or early 30s and bisexual too, though that part of it is complicated, of course. I know one case is an anecdote, but this experience has definitely influenced the way I look at this topic.
I’ll try to come back to write more about it here. Time is always an issue, and I’m traveling for work in the coming days, but I’ll do my best to make it back here, as I really like this newsletter’s no nonsense, compassionate approach (which reminds me to say to the author: I really like your no nonsense, compassionate approach! 😂).
Tl;dr my relationship with him lined up with a lot but not all of what I’ve read and heard here and from Phil Illy, Leonard Sax, and others.
Thank you!
My son is 24, came out to me at 22 (I believe he is possibly AGP since he fits the description), and interestingly, he had testicular cancer at age 20 and had an orchiectomy which caused his testosterone levels to plunge. The trans identification came during the second recurrence of his cancer and when he was facing a very difficult treatment path.
I've encountered self-identified AGPs who claim they had those desires as young 12. One individual was even on puberty blockers and hormones by age 12.
Why would they be? AGP is an ideation of being an adult woman.
I had these feelings with six. A friend with a similar problem is somewhere like that. The third may have 13.
To be clear, you were sexually excited at 6 imagining yourself to be an adult woman? I’ve read a lot, but that has never occurred in any medical research I’ve come across. Generally 6 year olds cannot imagine beyond puberty because their central nervous system hasn’t even developed sexual responsiveness in tandem with the maturing body and brain. They still have a hard time understanding that things like rocks and trees aren’t conscious.
My beginning is to represent myself as a girl.
I asked the second person with the beginning in childhood. He represented himself as a girl of his age. He grew up and also represented himself older.
That is, I was not an adult.
I would not call that AGP, that is simply atypical sex behavior, transvestism. What I did not hear you say was that you got sexually excited about it, and did it as part of sex acts and fantasises. That’s the ‘philia’ part of autogynephilia. It’s a sex fetish. Children don’t have sex, a prerequisite for having a sex fetish.
There are quite a few of them, but you will perceive them as ROGD (Possibly partially) (and the reasons will be mixed). Their profile is slightly different.
It will deteriorate with age, also people understand that it is painfully and does not go anywhere.
Children grew up. Maybe people love their wives less with age, I read about this.
Discussions of AGP always bring me back to this cartoon I saw many years ago ... of a young boy saying, "if i was a girl, i'd just want to look at myself in the mirror ALL DAY".
your ex is lucky to have had you with your clear intelligence, sensitivity and desire to understand. i have much less nuance. these men are nasty wankers and fraudulent pretenders no matter how they seek to justify themselves. a selfish bullshit artist in a dress is a selfish bullshit artist nonetheless.
Some justification for "fraudulent" -- I've periodically argued that it is, at best, "sailing under a false flag". Though I think that people like Richard Feynman and Robert Trivers have argued that it's easier to fool others if one has first fooled oneself -- which is, rather sadly, too easy.
But not sure that the suggested or implied endpoint is all that palatable -- ALL women must wear dresses all the time, and ALL men must wear pants all the time? A point emphasized by Benjamin Boyce and endorsed by Genspect:
https://twitter.com/BenjaminABoyce/status/1722722271662657968
https://genspect.org/the-split/
i think we will be ok. before this madness was swept over us women and men managed to suss each other out regardless of who was wearing the trousers.
Something of a serious pathology. Though many have argued -- in particular, Konrad Lorenz in his "Civilized Man's Eight Deadly Sins" argued -- that such pathologies often provide an insight, an avenue into understanding normal processes. In this case, how we all develop our senses of self -- which clearly can go off the rails in many ways. "Gender ideology" not helping much in many cases.
But often argue that Woody Allen's Zelig does likewise.
But Lawrence seems an "interesting" case "herself" -- though I got the impression she's a transsexual herself, though the Wikipedia article isn't too helpful:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Lawrence
Though the infamous Andrea James may provide some illumination, even if it's likely to be heavily biased:
https://www.transgendermap.com/community/anne-lawrence/investigation/
I’m glad you linked to the article about Lawrence’s firing from his position as an anesthesiologist for touching the genitals of an anaesthetized female patient. There are also several allegations of sexually inappropriate behavior towards transwomen. I find everything he says to be very transparently filtered through his own narcissism, and frankly, don’t trust anything he says about himself or others.
Trans-parently, indeed. A trans-mogrification of normal thought processes, a manifest case of motivated "reasoning". So to speak. 🙂 Though not sure that Andrea James is much more credible -- when thieves fall out, I guess.
But, as I've suggested, a fascinating and illuminating pathology, though one might wonder at, and be apprehensive about its increasing prevalence. Interesting that, in particular, some transwomen handle it better than others. Some recognize that they want to be treated AS IF they were women, were adult human females, without crossing the Rubicon into crazy-town by insisting that they actually are such. But many others don't. For an example of the former, see my oldish essay -- hard to believe, depressing to realize that I've been engaged in this Lilliputian civil war, this clown show for over 4 years -- on UK transwoman Debbie Hayton:
https://medium.com/@steersmann/reality-and-illusion-being-vs-identifying-as-77f9618b17c7
It is a fetish. It is a kink.
The wife of an apparently "heterosexual" man. He dresses yet has no desire to be female. He dresses and wants those around him to play pretend. He dresses and expects to be protected. When it starts getting in the way of marriage, intimacy, average weekends you see it's absolutely a fetish.
When he can't get hard unless you're stroking him through nylon tights. When he feels he isn't listened to because he's sooo different. They fantasize themselves as women, hot young women. Not tiered women in jeans and jumpers.
What about the wives who are just want intimacy with their husband/partner?
The partner is busy buying cheap clothes on Amazon, fantasizing about wearing them out but never will and making the life of their partner a misery. Welcome to the world of the autogenophile.
It's a fetish.
Thanks for sharing your story! I have a few qualms with your understanding of this behavior though, and I’m curious what you think:
Your, Blanchard’s and Lawrence’s understanding of sexual fetishes or paraphilias is inaccurate. People develop fetishes and paraphilias not just for sexual arousal, but as self-soothing techniques and emotional coping mechanisms: *especially* autistic people. So the idea that these men feel romantically attached, soothed, comforted, and erotically fulfilled (aka sexual pleasure AND romantic fulfillment- btw the separation of these two things in the first place seems very unnatural and stereotypically masculine to me: of course physical sexual gratification and emotional fulfillment are intertwined!) by their fetish/paraphilia is not a contradiction to it being a fetish or paraphilia at all. In fact, that is what fetishes/paraphilias ARE and why they can be so addictive and destructive. It’s like saying “it’s not a drug bc it makes them feel happy, safe, and fulfilled, it helps them with their depression/anxiety/trauma. This substance is an integral part of their identity.” Um…YEAH. That’s what drugs do, and why they usually become a problem for people.
Your sexual orientation is which sex you are oriented towards; male, female, or both.
Fetishes/paraphilias can be extremely strong and take over the person’s personality when personality disorders, trauma, and other developmental issues are present. So your husband may have not been able to break free from his paraphilia aka complex psychosexual acting out/coping mechanism/disordered behavior with sexual an emotional components bc to do so he would have to address deep personality and developmental issues, which is hard and impossible for some. Sorry if this is a personal question, but I would bet money he was not a socially normal person to begin with either due to deep personality quirks, autism, or trauma? I’m actually curious.
This is clearly unlike homosexuals, who (rightly) are no longer considered as having paraphilias: they have unusual sexual orientations but are otherwise developmentally normal people, aka normal socially and in terms of personality.
“Autogynephilia, per Blanchard, “coexists with and simultaneously competes with sexual attraction toward women.””
Yet further proof it’s not a sexual orientation, but rather a disordered sexual behavior like a paraphilia or fetish interacting with and disrupting the true sexual orientation.
“In fact, autogynephiles may have worse dysphoria than their homosexual counterparts.“
Well since dysphoria seems to just mean “severe depression” and that dysphoria can become centered around whatever is going on in the person’s life, I would assume so, since men who develop this disordered sexuality must have bc they had other deep issues going on prior to the gender/sexual fixation, that affected the development of their sexuality. Aka: I would expect deeply disordered men to have more dysphoria.
The core failure of understanding here is that these men (Blanchard, Lawrence) miss the most major issue with “agp” sufferers: they don’t want to be women. They don’t want to look like women. They don’t want to act like women. They want to be and look like and act like THEIR PERSONAL SEXUAL/ROMANTIC FANTASIES of women. So it is a fetish/paraphilia, and these boys/men will never be helped if it’s not addressed as such.
“This isn’t primarily a sexual thing for me,” reports one of Lawrence's patients. “It’s about my identity as a woman.””
No, it isn’t. It’s about his identity as HIS SEXUAL/ROMANTIC FANTASY OF a woman.
The excerpt of your husband twirling in his bimbo fetish costume (something MOST women wouldn’t wear) is proof of that.
This is the crux that must be understood.
None, not one, of these men wants to be an actual woman. They want to be their sexual fetish/romantic fixation. The question is: why? What emotional need does this serve? I think it may be a need for control and ownership of women, of one’s sexuality, an inability to process the intensity of their desire for women, inner self hatred for the self, or profound, pathological levels of narcissism. Curious what others think.
This phenomenon is clearly a form of sexual perversion that results from developmental issues like autism (btw autism is called AUT-ism for a reason. Self-ism. “The Greek word ''autós'' meant self and the word “autism” was used by Bleuler to mean morbid self-admiration and withdrawal within self.” Struggling with social expression and accompanying sexual expression and those social/sexual needs turning inward or being stuck inside and unable to get out. I believe many autistic people, especially men, can become pathologically narcissistic, and that this can affect their sexuality.) It’s not a sexual orientation. It’s a disorder. Disorders are unusual behaviors that harm oneself and others and generally negatively interfere with one’s life. Sexual orientations don’t, or needn’t, do that. These behaviors (“agp”) DO and MUST.
People with autism have notoriously poor insight, and are prone to black and white thinking and ESPECIALLY emotional reasoning (if I feel it, it’s true), contrary to stereotypes of autistic people being logical.
Just bc a man feels something so strongly, doesn’t mean it’s innate or natural, it may just mean he feels things strongly.
Ok. Now that I've read the rest...
First of all, my ex did not display autistic tendencies. He was in IT, which some people want to connect with autism, but that's a very weak link in his case. He was popular, not especially inwardly-focused, had no difficultly with social cues, was very adept at communicating, etc. Your comment relies very heavily on some link with autism, so most of it doesn't really apply here.
You say: "I would bet money he was not a socially normal person to begin with either due to deep personality quirks, autism, or trauma."
That's not really the case here. Curious, do you see these traits in Caitlyn Jenner too? While there are links between autism and transgenderism, especially in the young, there is also this cohort who has been highly successful in life, relationships and career. The pilots, the military men, the CEOs.
"So your husband may have not been able to break free from his paraphilia [because of...]"
Blanchard et al say that almost no one breaks out of it.
"Well since dysphoria seems to just mean 'severe depression'..."
No. Gender dysphoria is extreme discomfort with the sexed body. This is what my ex exhibited.
I don't feel especially moved by hair-splitting over whether they want to be a woman or whether they want to be their (sexual etc.) conception of a woman, because yeah, a man's conception is all he's got, even if it's wrong.
This looks to me less like you disagree with me or Blanchard or Lawrence, and more like you object to the word "orientation." Which, as I said, is your prerogative.
Sorry I misread your point.
I guess I don’t see a point splitting hairs about fetish vs paraphilia. Fetishes are paraphilias centering objects. I would argue these men definitely have fetishes for women-as-objects, and for the accoutrements they associate with women (like your husband wearing women’s clothing: the definition of a fetish).
All fetishes have complex emotional layers beneath them.
Rather, I think it seems that you are experiencing motivated reasoning, bc you don’t want it to have been a fetish. You said “Jamie wasn't pursuing a mere erotic thrill. If that were the case, I’m sure we could have worked around it.” But we already agreed that fetishes and paraphilias ARE erotic thrills…and that erotic fulfillment is both physical AND emotional. I imagine this has been an extremely painful experience for you, but I want to present the idea that maybe it was *primarily* an erotic thrill, and you still couldn’t work around it, and that isn’t any reflection on you. (As I’m sure you know).
Got it. Was just curious about the autism link. Sorry if that question was prying.
I guess I just assume men like this 1. Are autistic, 2. Have a history of trauma 3. Have “Dark Triad” traits or 4. have a history of other disordered sexual behaviors like BDSM. I just find it hard to imagine men can “turn into” this when they didn’t already have other problems.
FULL disclosure, and said with empathy and compassion: I sometimes wonder if women who were married to these men say there weren’t signs (any of the 1-4 items I listed above) bc they feel like they are being accused of missing obvious red flags. That’s not my intention. And maybe this is me trying to believe that there must have been SOMETHING bc no normal, well-adjusted man would start doing this out of absolutely nowhere (a terrifying thought). This is scary and painful stuff.
Re Caitlyn Jenner: yes I do. Anyone who is a Olympic-champion decathlete is someone who is clinical-levels of obsessive and could easily have autism-spectrum traits or general “neurodivergence.” Ditto for CEOs and military men.
Tbh, I see several other traits linking men to this issue that is a bit more taboo to mention, but: psychopathy (flat affect and thrill seeking) common in athletes, soldiers, BDSM practitioners, etc) and narcissism (common in CEOs, and more prevalent in anyone focusing on themselves enough to perfect a difficult skill) seem to be even more of a predictor for full-blown “agp” than even autism.
I also don’t see high success in career or traditional markers of external success in life (ie acquiring a partner) as contradicting signs of dark-triad traits (psychopathy, narcissism, Machiavellianism), although I might expect someone with autism struggle with healthy relationships compared to career.
“Blanchard et al say that almost no one breaks out of it.” I’m not suggesting that men who reach that level of disorder that they start LARPing as their sex fantasies are likely to “break out of it.” Tbh, I assume all men who reach that place have pathologically antisocial and narcissistic personalities, autism spectrum or not, or else have clinically significant poor insight. Maybe most men who are the type of people who might think “this is really dehumanizing to women and isn’t good for me” would get help and change their behaviors before it started impacting their life. Who knows! But I think men like Blanchard are more interested in sorting and labels than helping people work though complex psychosexual issues (which likely requires psychoanalysis). There are lots of highly-trained psychiatrists and psychologists who subscribe to a very rigid traditional medical understanding of disease, and actually believe their patients can’t change or get better, even for typical mental illnesses, bc they see the absolute worst, most severe cases: not the people who CANT change. The people who WONT change. So they think it’s “a chemical level in the brain that’s off” and can’t be fixed.
“No. Gender dysphoria is extreme discomfort with the sexed body. This is what my ex exhibited.” You misunderstood me. I meant the word “dysphoria” means “a profound state of unease or dissatisfaction” which I would define as basically equivalent to depression. I think people who have depression can become fixated on gender (if exposed to it) and can channel their depression in such a direction that they experience gender dysphoria. I’m not saying that gender dysphoria isn’t real. And as you know, people can have extreme distress over their sexed body due to many diverse reasons.
“I don't feel especially moved by hair-splitting over whether they want to be a woman or whether they want to be their (sexual etc.) conception of a woman, because yeah, a man's conception is all he's got, even if it's wrong.”
That’s a good point about men’s conception but I don’t think it’s hair splitting. I think it’s a subtle distinction that is overlooked in almost all cases of gender dysphoria to the sufferer’s detriment. The statement that “agp” men are “sexually aroused/romantically fulfilled/emotionally soothed by being women” is factually incorrect. They are sexually aroused/romantically fulfilled/emotionally soothed by being THEIR FANTASIES OF women.” This seemingly subtle shift recalibrates the whole conversation and could even help someone with GD find distance from and understanding of their experience by addressing symbol formation “woman” literally versus “woman” as a symbol for…what?
Yeah I mostly disagree with Blanchard for the reasons I stated above, I think Lawrence is a predatory psychopath/narcissist who transparently lies about his experiences to serve his own ends so I distrust pretty much anything he says, and I think allowing men like this to appropriate the term “sexual orientation” from gay people will lead to the wholesale destruction of gay rights, in the same way that verbal slippage of “woman” and “she/her” is destroying women’s rights…but my main qualm is that I think people need to face that this behavior IS a fetish AND paraphilia, IS primarily a sexual disorder, and is a CHOICE by the sufferer, and thus need to question what is going on with the personality of the man experiencing it.
"bc you don’t want it to have been a fetish"
No, you are projecting.
You are also applying unfalsifiability and no-true-scotsman fallacies. You have a narrative you'd like to believe, as you admit, so you're retrofitting the facts to it.
Well I have no way of refuting most of those accusations, bc you won’t tell me if your husband met my criteria or not. You said he didn’t meet the criteria I listed in my first comment re autism...but you won’t answer if he met the other criteria I listed in my second comment...which is fine bc it’s your private affairs and I respect your boundaries and frankly I don’t want to know. I didn’t know the Rules of Debate were that you had to list ALL your criteria in the first comment. Jeeze.
You can accuse me of the no-true-Scotsman fallacy but just bc I think autistic traits AND dark triad traits are relevant here doesn’t mean I’m just tacking on random extra criteria every time I’m proven wrong. Like, I DONT think that confidence and high-self esteem are common traits in these men. I don’t think that healthy body image is common in these men. I don’t think that stable moods are common in these men. I’ve said: autism, trauma, obsessiveness, and dark triads: narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism (BDSM interests being a common red flag of dark triad) seem relevant to me. There’s no further list of traits I’d start listing if proven wrong. If your husband didn’t have any of these traits...then I’d be well and truly stumped and I’d have to throw out my theory and admit I was wrong.
I’ve already been open that I find the idea that someone is born with an innate set of un-changeable sexually disordered behaviors like this to be horrible, I guess bc it challenges my belief in self determination and some degree of free will/personal responsibility.
I’m afraid I think women who say “it can’t have been a fetish bc then I could have fixed the issue and saved the marriage” are showing us that they’re deeply biased about this topic.
“it can’t have been a fetish bc then I could have fixed the issue and saved the marriage”
No, that's not why.
“Jamie wasn't pursuing a mere erotic thrill. If that were the case, I’m sure we could have worked around it. Jamie had developed something much closer to a sexual orientation.”
^ Are you telling yourself that bc you want it to be true, or bc there’s evidence these heterosexual (already have a sexual orientation) men with disordered sexual behaviors have developed a new, additional “sexual orientation” aka paraphilia and fetishes of dressing up as their sex fantasies? I suspect emotional reasoning here. I’m sorry, but pretty much ALL sexually disordered behavior like this is a choice past a certain point. It’s within everyone’s ability to NOT do things that harm themselves and their loved ones. They may need lots of support but they ultimately have to CHOOSE to stop bad behavior. Sometimes people don’t mean to cause hurt, but enabling people with disordered behaviors with the “he had to bc it’s innate” bs (whether it’s about gender identity, fetishistic crossdressing or anything else) is, while comforting for all involved, not true and not helpful in the end. These men may be innately prone to disorder and that disorder may impact their sexual and social behavior...but their disorder is not an “innate sexual orientation.” Again, strong desire doesn’t = innate.
This comment is long, so I'm still working through it, but you've made a mistake (about my supposed making of a mistake, ironically) right out of the gate.
You said: "The idea that these men feel romantically attached, soothed, comforted, and erotically fulfilled... is not a contradiction to it being a fetish or paraphilia at all."
I never said autogynephilia isn't a "fetish or paraphilia" (fulfilling or not).
I said it IS a paraphilia.
It is not, however, a fetish. The distinction between these two things is central to the entire discussion, so the discussion can't really proceed as long as these are being conflated.
WOW! NAILED IT! This is what I have been trying to articulate about my son! Although he has never been diagnosed with ASD, he did have some of the characteristics growing up. Trauma? Absolutely. Personality disorder? Not sure (he was evaluated and we were told he had nothing except mild anxiety and clinical depression). Your reasoning makes SO MUCH sense to me! I also disagree with all the "experts" on AGP or anyone who is trying to push this off as a "sexual orientation" like Bailey. Narcissism? I get that. Normal emotional development (and understanding of sexuality) interrupted by access to online porn way too early? Yes, abso-fn-lutely. My kid is only 24 (NOT IN HIS 50s) and just came out 2 years ago after a major trauma, but also with a history of bullying throughout school; he was just a "different" kid. But he did display some AGP tendencies as a very young kid - as young as 5 or 6, maybe even 4. I really believe this IS a DISORDER that needs treatment - but what treatment? What is the treatment? Intensive therapy? Unfortunately, he is not open to that (believe me, I have tried 5 different therapists with him) since he thinks he's trans and that "getting boobs" will complete him and make him happy enough to go on with his life. HRT will, at a minimum, turn him into a eunuch, but more importantly, be toxic and damaging to his fragile health and his liver, probably causing an early death. But he says he is aware of the risks and still wants to pursue this path. There needs to be real help for some of these men, and not in the form of affirmation and glorification of this awful path (spurred on by the Devil himself: the Discord trans chat group). There is definitely a social contagion component with the younger males as well as the females. My son has always been socially awkward but put some headphones on him and hook him to the internet and he comes alive as a boisterous, outgoing guy (or he did, until he lost his hearing). He repeatedly tells me about all the information he got on tumblr ("when tumblr was good and had all the porn") and Reddit during his MS an HS years (when he first heard of trans) - interestingly, the year coincides with the coming out of Jazz Jennings on TLC and Bruce Jenner coming out as Caitlin Jenner (2014-15). His case follows most of the other young transitioners in his age cohort (Helena, interviewed on Gender a Wider Lens podcast, articulated this exact path to her trans identity). It is so predictable. Ugh, I have no answers, just questions! But thank you for commenting. It was comforting to read something that makes sense to me and for my kiddo.
Glad to hear you connected with my comment and sorry to hear about your challenges with your son! I hope he finds a path that is healthy for him. May I ask, what do you mean by “AGP tendencies” at a young age? I don’t mean to pry, I’m just curious. If you don’t want to share, I understand. I was just under the impression that fetishistic crossdressing emerges at adolescence.
I think that lots of people have tendencies to various disordered behavior, and that it’s best to be compassionate, and that the way to be compassionate is by clearly identifying disordered behavior as such, so that people can get help. Calling disordered behaviors “innate identities” is so wrong- literally encouraging people in their disorder. But ultimately people must recognize on their own that their behavior is unhealthy and choose to change it themselves- we can’t MAKE anyone change, even if it would likely be best for them.
Of all the stuff I have read about transgenderism, the best explanation for autogynephilia is that these men want a woman -- conveniently inside themselves -- whom they can completely dominate and control. No matter how good the relationship, they will never find an actual woman who will be as submissive and malleable as they desire, so they create the "perfect woman."
There is no question this is a glaring mental illness and that no woman should play along with it. Perhaps it is more complicated, but the number of transwidows whose experiences are quite similar -- their partners' total obsession with silly junk such as makeup and lingerie for one -- make me doubt it. Like way too many Westerners, these men do not want to come to grips with reality, want to spend their lives in fantasy, and probably need complete physiological as well as mental workups because there are nutritional deficiencies that contribute to obsessiveness.
I too have a hard time understanding the mentality of a woman who would have a reaction to a husband twirling in a fetishized woman-costume with anything other than “stop being a pervert, I want a divorce.”
They try going to therapy with their partners and find the therapist bending over backward for the man and criticizing the woman. Women are taught to be helpful and supportive, and these men exploit that. I think most transwidows eventually utter your last sentence.
Wow - not the first really nasty comment on this thread, just the one that prompted me to comment. I'm trying to navigate my way through this without wanting to sacrifice realtionships, avoid obligations, dilute my respect for women in general and particular and preserve my sanity. I don't expect anything from you or anyone else save basic civility and I'm disappointed in that.
You heavily rely on the “expertise” of Anne Lawrence who wouldn’t know normal sexuality or sexual orientation if it slapped him in the face. He said he would have castrated himself at the age of 14 if internet was available to him with information on where to get tools and how to do it (yes, he meant cutting off his balls).
He also believes that “autogynephilic” minors should be able to medically transition to prevent effects of male puberty. Is that what you mean by “treatment” you mention a couple of times in the emotionally manipulative context of trying to help children - childhood transition?
Oh lord, she followed me here.
You have an actual response? How do you envision “helping kids” while normalizing public agp? Do you agree with Anne Lawrence on importance of adolescent medical transition - since you seem to agree with him on everything else?
I don't support medicalizing kids, but you would know that if you scrolled through any of my writing for thirty seconds.
I'll be honest and say ... I recognize the narcissistic dimension of my trans experience, and I am terrified by its gravitational force and potential consequences. I'm just not sure how to escape it.
I have a complex relationship with AGP as a language / framing. It made sense to me when it was a compartmentalized obsession. But as I've moved it into the frame of conscious contemplation, I resonate more with a holistic trans interpretation, although I'm resisting the draw towards full transition for the sake of my capacity to love and serve others to whom I am committed. The eroticism is gone, and I don't feel a romantic attraction to my feminine self projection. It is more to me an inconvenient but mysterious and powerful dimension of my history and interiority that is there regardless of whether or how I engage it. So I'm trying to figure out how to accept and honor it on the one hand, without letting it occlude my other goals, interests, and priorities, on the other.
It is so important for me to name, acknowledge, and explore this dimension of myself. For most of my life, I just carried it around, feeling that it (and so, ultimately, I) was inexpressible, unredeemable, unloveable. If you would excuse the religious particularity, it has been the most powerful spiritual experience of my life to come to a place of deep confession, and receive the forgiveness and love of Jesus in this most deeply shadowed and hidden place; to confess it to my wife and receive her understanding and compassion, despite the inherent difficulties of trying to navigate a path that is complex and inherently very inward with another person. It would be so easy to just let it take over and consume everything. In part because that's what everyone expects, and it's almost the only story that gets told. I hope it's not inevitable. I hope we're able to write a different story.
I submitted my writing on autogynephilia to Genspect:
https://genspect.org/the-truth-about-trans/
It includes transcriptions of Dr. Blanchard in interview, and illustrations of autogynephilia, which is currently understood by the public as "gender identity".
I think the best article on this subject is "Gender dysphoria is not one thing" by Blanchard and Bailey.
https://4thwavenow.com/2017/12/07/gender-dysphoria-is-not-one-thing/
"Failure to make scientifically valid and fundamental distinctions among different kinds of gender dysphoric persons can only prevent progress toward finding the best approach to helping each."
Indeed. Wish I would have added that quote to my latest post on the New Puritans.
This is interesting. I’m sorry that your ex spouse treated you so poorly. It was unfair of them/her (I’m not going to misgender) to either understand themself so incompletely as to enter into a relationship with you so blindly or to have been repressing for so long that it finally came out and could not be put back or controlled in any way. They should have known better and should have considered you as part of the process not some non participant.
As a counter narrative I will say I knew from a young age that I had a deep seated desire to be a girl/woman. It’s extremely difficult to explain how this manifests when one is young, say 8-10 or so but in my case it was always deeply ingrained. I was born in 1971 so it had nothing to do with ‘porn’ or internet influence it was just who I was. As I grew older there was a definite and relentless sexual component. I realized fairly soon in my life that I was ‘not like other boys’ and couldn’t figure out if I was gay or what the hell was wrong with me but I knew I was not straight. This self admitting that at the very least I had an ‘atypical sexuality’ was a lightbulb moment for me and it allowed me to move forward knowing that I would never have a ‘traditional’ relationship. Now, my feelings of desire to be the oppo sex were very strong and honestly blocked out most if not all allosexuality so there was no chance of fooling myself but my point here is that males need to be honest with themselves about their sexualities. I think that is happening more often these days. I think internet interconnectedness helps with that tbh. In my case I probably would have transitioned earlier because it would have been an option unlike just going out to drag bars in the 90s lol.
One last point here is the vast difference between male and female sexuality. Especially in the rigidness of such sexualities. Like I said I had these feelings, albeit not completely sexual, from a very young age. I tried everything I could many, many times to not get turned on by the transformation fantasies but nothing worked. Repression definitely didn’t work. The best path forward is accepting that this is who you are, this is who you are going to be, and you have to find the best way to be happy with that and be good to the people around you!
Unlike female sexuality which is just a mishmash of warm fuzzies that is much more malleable and much less a demon screaming constantly in your brain.
I absolutely refute this characterization of female sexuality ! There is considerable variation - certainly for biological females I have met . ( I dislike the term 'cis' because it suggests we are an inferior type of human being ) . I am 70 yrs old , bisexual and have had very varied sexual experience . Maybe others have a 'mishmash of warm fuzzies' but in this context it does sound like an insult and is most certainly a generalization .
Thank you for this article. I am curious about something if you don't mind talking about it. Acc. to things that I read this kind of "sexual orientation" or predisposition is visible early on. I read your book and it feels like Jamie's autogynephilia came out of nowhere. Do you believe something existed prior to his initial interest in cross-dressing or was it brand new feature within his personality? (e.g. DSM-5 pages 702-704 "the first signs of transvestic disorder may begin in childhood, in the form of strong fascination with a particular item of women’s attire. Prior to puberty, cross-dressing produces generalized feelings of pleasurable excitement. With the arrival of puberty, dressing in women’s clothes begins to elicit penile erection and, in some cases, leads directly to first ejaculation. In many cases, cross-dressing elicits less and less sexual excitement as the individual grows older; eventually it may produce no discernible penile response at all. The desire to cross-dress, at the same time, remains the same or grows even stronger. Individuals who report such a diminution of sexual response typically report that the sexual excitement of cross-dressing has been replaced by feelings of comfort or well-being".
I mean, I honestly don't know. It did seem to come out of nowhere, and he even candidly shared early erotic experiences with me before the trans identity, so theres no reason why it shouldn't have come up.
Either he repressed or hid it, or he acquired it later, which I absolutely do think is possible. Not sure anyone will ever know.
Why are you not mentioning porn, Shannon? You have said that porn played a role in Jamie’s development of agp.
For what it's worth, my ex enthusiasticly said the exact same things (minus the vagina envy) a couple of years before he had full SRS/bottom surgery.
I don't know how he identifies, but he's currently with a woman who identifies as a man, so: straight with extra steps.
I believe that activity has successfully occurred in the world zero times.
That's what my ex said! Do me a favor and check in in about three years, and tell me if you changed your mind.
This comment was by a guy who said he was trans but had no desire to transition. My ex said that too, then got SRS. Thus my skepticism.
I betcha he deleted it because he changed his mind, as I predicted, but in less than a month rather than three years. Jibes with experience.