Today in ‘Autogynephilia Doesn’t Exist’

One is 'homosexual transsexual' or HSTS: basically the cousins of very feminine gay men--the extreme end of the rainbow. (If you want a dodgy shorthand stereotype, think The Crying Game, or Cindy from Ally McBeal if anyone remembers that episode. Blaire White on YouTube is probably HSTS, as is Georgie Stone for the Aussies reading this. Also probably HSTS: Janet Mock, Laverne Cox, Kay Brown, Jazz Jennings, Bailey Jay, and maybe Rhyannon Styles.)

The other is 'autogynephilic transsexual' or AGP: heterosexual males with an erotic desire to be women. AGP can twist our sexuality into pretzels until we seem to be bisexual, asexual, attracted only to men or 'trans lesbians'. Apart from that, we seem like ordinary blokes--because we are ordinary blokes. We have trouble passing as women and often shock everyone when we come out as trans.

AGP often, but not always, includes cross-dressing to get off. (The term 'autogynephile' also covers other varieties of this fantasy, like heterosexual transvestites.) Some autogynephiles are more turned on by the idea of having the female body, others by behaving in a stereotypically feminine way, others by having female body functions (like menstruating), and still others by wearing feminine clothes. Most of us probably have a little of everything.

In much of the world, the HSTS type is the most common (think Thai ladyboys). However, in the West, the autogynephilic type is the majority among dysphoria cases.

It's worth keeping in mind that some AGPs will distort their life histories and try to pretend they're HSTS. This can stuff up the data even in academic studies. So just because a TIM passes well, appears only attracted to men (nowadays) and claims to have been super-feminine in childhood doesn't necessarily mean they're genuinely HSTS. [EDIT: Those with more expertise than me will probably get a weary chuckle out of some of the comments on this post...]

It's also likely, although I'm not certain, that AGP comes in mild, moderate and extreme/disordered intensities, just like other paraphilias. Some autogynephiles develop gender dysphoria that requires treatment, but many of us don't. For instance, I don't have dysphoria--I'm not distressed that I'm 'trapped in a male body'--but I would very much like to become a woman. For, uh, reasons.

Two good free PDF books on the subject (albeit a few years old now) are Bailey's The Man who would be Queen and Anne Lawrence's Men Trapped in Men's Bodies.

​With all that out of the way ... here's how it went for me

AGP is famously difficult for people to get a handle on--even for we AGPs ourselves. It's also routinely denied, distorted and hushed up by the trans community.

I didn't even know I had it until age 35, even though I thought I was well-informed about sexuality. One of my parents taught sex ed, fer Chrissakes. I read Kinsey biographies for fun. And even I'd never heard of it.

If you met me you wouldn't think I was anything but a bookish, shy, nerdy guy. A bit weird, sure, but in no way naturally feminine or 'gay'.

For as far back as I can remember, I've had a mild but persistent longing to be a woman. It goes right back into childhood, but--importantly--it was a secret fantasy thrill. I wasn't the kind of 'sissy boy' who stresses his parents out because he's always wearing dresses and playing with dolls. (That's sometimes an early sign of the other kind of MTF transsexual, HSTS.) But I was the guy who would always plays as a female character in video games, and preferred books and movies with female leads, and got all invested in lesbian shows. (For the record, Cat/Frankie 4 life.) It even included dreams--the profoundly spiritual kind where you see yourself with a female body in the mirror and wake up from going, 'OMG, the universe just sent me a Message about my True Inner Subconscious Feminine Gender Soul Identity! Which was incidentally kind of hot.'

Unlike many AGPs, I wasn't particularly into erotic cross-dressing. I'm more what you'd call an 'anatomic' autogynephile--it's the female body I fantasise about having.

I don't think it's a coincidence that I feel the same way about real women. I'm not one of those guys who thinks a woman in lingerie is hotter than a fully nude one. The point of clothes is to take them off, dammit!

Because of this, I never twigged to the fact that my fantasies had any connection to transvestic fetishism, which I thought was just about the clothes, or to transsexualism (which was, after all, supposed to be about gender identity rather than sexuality). On the other hand, the lack of cross-dressing helped me dodge the intense feelings of shame that many AGPs suffer. But even so, I've used a wig now and then, and I did find that an excuse to cross-dress (e.g. a fancy dress party) kinda did it for me. This isn't unusual for AGPs--we often have a physical response to cross-dressing even if we think we're not into it.

I'm just old enough to have grown up without the internet having too much influence on my teen years, which may have been a blessing. But I alternated between thinking I had some kind of utterly obscure fetish that nobody else on the planet shared, and thinking that I must be unusually empathetic and sensitive to women because I spent so much time trying to see life from their point of view. (Um...)

At one point I asked my doctor for a karyotype test to see if I had some kind of hidden intersex condition that would explain my strange 'affinity' for women. I don't. This kind of thing isn't unusual among AGPs either.

You might think the sexual nature of a paraphilia would be obvious, and sure, if it were something like 'I want to become a dragon' then it would be. But when it comes to AGP, a lot of us genuinely have trouble figuring out what our feelings mean. 'I'm attracted to women, but I also wish I was a woman and have dreams where I'm a woman... but why? I know intersex and trans people exist, and trans people say it's all about gender identity--so maybe I was born with a female brain?' You end up going in circles trying to puzzle it out. It was hard enough for me, with all my sex-ed knowledge. I can only imagine the maze of confusion and shame other people must go through, trying to work it all out from the weirder corners of the internet.

Until you ask the trans community for advice. And gee willikers, what sensible, evidence-based, scientifically sound advice they give. /sarcasm

Around my 35th birthday I 'cracked my egg' and started secretly identifying as trans. Fortunately I didn't get as far as actually trying to transition. Poking around transgender forums taught me a whole lot about HRT and so on, but nothing about the true nature of my feelings... or why people were trans in the first place. There seemed to be a lot of contradictions. Why were some kids obviously gender nonconforming from an early age, while other people didn't crack their eggs till they were 50? But the general consensus seemed to be, 'If you think you're trans, you probably are!'

Never saw a single reference to Blanchard, the typology or AGP. Not one.

Months later, I was on some unrelated internet surfage when I finally stumbled into GC and discovered the concept of autogynephilia. Talk about a peak trans. I went from sea level to Mt Everest in a single night of horrified Googling.

Analogy time:

Imagine if you were gay, but raised in some remote village where the very concept of males being sexually attracted to other males never even occurred to anyone. There isn't even a word in your language for 'gay'. Or even a way to say 'I am a guy with the hots for other guys'. The very concept is literally unthinkable in your culture.

Then, in your mid-thirties, after years and years of bewilderment at your strange feelings, you stumble onto the fact that 'homosexuality' exists and has been studied for decades, and that millions of other men like you exist. Except... some gay men had conspired to hush up the sexual aspects and insisted that it was all about chaste brotherly companionship. In fact, they destroyed the reputations of anyone who tried to explain what homosexuality was really about.

And, by the way, the gay rights movement is busily renovating the language, rejigging all the laws of sport and prisons and changing rooms, encouraging drastic and unnecessary medical procedures on children, attacking anyone who raises the meekest concern, and demanding that all straight men have sex with them... but that's all totally reasonable, right?

/analogy done

If it's true that we AGPs are prone to narcissistic rage, then guess what, trans rights movement, you've set off my volcano and I'm not happy, Jan. The rainbow warriors didn't get where they are today by being dishonest.

To be clear: I'm not ashamed of having AGP. Any more than a gay man or lesbian should be ashamed of being homosexual. In fact, I'm overjoyed to finally understand myself. Seriously. Like 'yell it from the rooftops' joy. In my view, calling us sicko perverts is counterproductive... although we're giving women plenty of justification these days. That sort of disgust, and the deep shame many AGPs feel, is one of the reasons AGP was hushed up and denied in the first place, because the dysphorics among us couldn't get treatment if we admitted to it. It's contributed to the mess we're in now.

But I am deeply alarmed and concerned by what autogynephilic men like me are doing. Denying and concealing a particular kind of sexuality is dangerous. I'm a man, much as I might wish I wasn't, and I know full well the kind of shenanigans we males try to get away with when nobody's looking.

Especially what we're doing to lesbians. Every time I think about it I want to punch holes in the wall (in a ladylike way, of course). I can't help being a perv, but I can damn well make sure I'm not a creep.

​

Lies and silence

The fundamental problem with autogynephilia--the thing that makes it such a hated idea among many TIMs--is that it means, with cold and merciless scientific precision, that I'm a male with a paraphilia. Which is exactly what the autogynephilic fantasy wants to deny. It's a snake that eats its own tail.

If I have AGP, I want to believe I'm a woman. I don't want to accept that I have AGP. Because that would mean I'm just a man with a glitchy sex drive.

So AGPs like me end up telling ourselves comforting fictions. For instance:

​'AGP doesn't exist.'

So... the hundreds of case histories collected by researchers are all false? And all that feminisation porn out there is made by and consumed by who, exactly?

'AGPs are fetishistic men, but real trans women are totally different. Gender identity has nothing to do with sexuality.'

But... hang on... wouldn't a man with especially intense desire to become a woman take hormones and get surgery? Wouldn't they try to become... a transwoman?

​'AGPs are a tiny minority among transwomen.'

Say the people whose own autobiographies read like textbook AGP case histories.

'Women feel sexy about themselves too, so my erotic fantasies of being female are in fact proof that I have a ladybrain!'

Wait, I thought AGP was rare or didn't exist? Now you're saying it's common and proves your female gender identity? Make up your minds.

Besides... you're telling me women get off on ironing or being pregnant or having their periods, just like the fantasies of some AGP males, do they? And they love to just stand naked in the middle of a room and do nothing, because existing while being female is a helluva turn on? And they get wet just by putting on undies in the morning? Yep, that sure sounds like female sexuality. Not male or fetishistic at all.

Incidentally, why do males get embarrassed by their own hard-ons when they cross-dress? Could it be because they're experiencing a male sexual reaction and they don't like it because they want to believe they're female?

​'There is no evidence that there are two types of MTF transsexuals. The Blanchard typology has been debunked / discredited / proven false.'

Funny thing, I've spent the last eighteen months trying to find these allegedly definitive disproofs and come up empty. Apart from one or two feeble attempts like the Serano and Moser papers everyone raves about.

On the other hand, the academic work that finds evidence for two types--whether or not they accept AGP--goes back a hundred years and just keeps piling up. Every time I turn around I find another paper. Hirschfeld, Freund, Buhrich and McConaghy (AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE OI OI OI sorry), Blanchard, Lawrence, Nuttbrock, that Netherlands team I can never remember the name of, Zahvlin...

Now since I know I'm AGP myself, you could fairly accuse me of confirmation bias. But then you'd have to also admit bias on the part of all those many, many trans activists who really, really don't want AGP to be real. Somehow I think their bias might outweigh mine.

Oh, and even some activists who insist AGP isn't a thing, like ContraPoints, grudgingly admit there do seem to be two 'clusters' of transsexuals.

... Wait, no, what am I saying? There can't possibly be two types. Because if there are two types, then it's obvious why the HSTS type goes trans... 'cos if you're incredibly feminine and gay, living as a woman kinda makes sense. Hey, maybe they're even born with incompletely masculinised brains or something, I dunno. But... it's weird the other type goes trans. The guys like me. We seem like typical straight blokes. Wouldn't we be better off as typical straight blokes? There must be some kind of inner motivation. Oh, how interesting, guess what, these guys all seem to have one thing in common: fetishistic arousal to the idea of becoming a woman. Which leads us to...

... AGP. Oops.

And that's why we mustn't talk about the two types, folks. Loose lips sink ships.

'Um... trans women are women, so shut up, you TERF.'

By Jove, your well-reasoned argument is irrefutable. I am agog.

So what's the big deal?

Whenever I try to raise my concerns about all this with friends and family, their universal response is 'What's the big deal?'

Examples (from my left-leaning circle):

A cousin who said he 'supported me on my journey' should I declare myself trans, but warned he and his wife might never speak to me again if I went public about AGP, because it could hurt transwomen. (Um... what about, oh, I don't know, the other 99% of the population?) He also dismisses concerns about TIMs hassling lesbians as a fringe minority. A fiftysomething lesbian who finds the whole discussion strange, boring and irrelevant (!!!)

A female psychologist and sex researcher who has ranted to me about entitled male sexual behaviour... yet doesn't find AGP convincing, doesn't see why it should matter in any case, and (when confronted with evidence of TIMs harassing lesbians for sex) insists that they must be men with some other kind of lesbian-fetish, rather than AGP. Because... well, I think the chain of reasoning goes something like, 'autogynephilic transwomen are transwomen, and we all know transwomen are women, so they'd never act like that.'

A friend who, when I cautiously suggested that 'some men' might pretend to be trans in order to get into women's spaces, shrugged it off as so rare and unlikely as not to be worth worrying about. We definitely shouldn't demonise a whole marginalised, oppressed and vulnerable group out of paranoia over something like that. (Ooh, I'm secretly part of a marginalised, oppressed and vulnerable group, am I? Sweet as.) Besides, gender-neutral changing rooms are becoming the norm, aren't they? (Um... are they? Well, she works in the creative arts...) I asked her how she'd respond if I announced I were trans on the spot. She seemed happy to start using female pronouns immediately. This is the same woman who has dropped hints about having suffered traumatic abuse at male hands when younger--possibly sexual--and is usually sharply critical of male privilege. To be fair, though, I didn't actually get to the point of mentioning AGP. I wanted to lead into it by talking about homosexuality first, but it turned out she thought at least 25% of men are gay, which derailed the conversation a little. Again, creative arts...

As far as I can tell, most people I talk to are working from a well-trained mental assumption that 'trans women are women' in the brain or soul somehow. Fair enough; I used to assume that too. They start from that position and then work backwards. AGP is an interesting origin story, but nothing more.

The real implications--that AGP means we're all fundamentally heterosexual males, and that women should be just as wary of us as they are of every other heterosexual male--seem to fly over their heads. Even though I'm standing there going, "Hello? I have AGP and I'm telling you not to extend a free pass to guys like me. Hello? Can you hear me? Is this thing on? Hello?"

Nah... the moment a man says he's a woman, he must have been one all along, welcome, how brave, here's your get-out-of-male-free card. I wonder when Trump will hit on that little trick.

Possibly part of the issue is that I'm Australian. We tend to trail a few years behind the bigger English-speaking countries on most social trends. Trans rights issues don't yet seem to have reached the boiling point of total legal lunacy that they have in the US and UK, so it's not on most people's radar. When you talk about a 'transgender woman' here, I think most people still picture the old-school MTF transsexual who's had surgery, been on hormones for years, might be a bit eccentric but basically keeps themselves to themselves and just gets on with their life. We haven't had a high-profile figure comparable to Bruce Jenner, as far as I know. It's hard to tell for sure what's going on here, though, because online chatter from the US and UK tends to drown us out. Only our right-wing media discusses it, which drives me round the bend.

​

My personal nightmare (which has already come true)

I suspect (as do many others) that the vast majority of TIMs these days are autogynephilic males who probably don't even have dysphoria, but are just enjoying the sweet sweet bliss of plugging into the Transgender Orgasmatron Matrix and imagining we're women, while society bends over backwards to stroke our pleasure centres. I was ready to do it. I like to think I'm a fairly smart guy, but the siren call of trans activism very nearly got me. I owe GC a huge debt for throwing cold water on my face.

All this increasingly deranged language? 'Assigned male at birth', 'sex is a social construct', 'women and ciswomen' instead of transwomen and women, 'clit' instead of 'penis', on and on and on... It's not just political correctness gone mad. It's not just thought policing and Orwellian newspeak. It's kink. It's fantasy. We've all plugged ourselves into the Matrix while convincing ourselves that we woke up.

And right now the world seems happy to cater to it, because the world hasn't cottoned on to what it's really all about. The barriers have lowered so far that even mild cases like me, who would previously have never seriously considered adopting a trans identity, are clamouring to get through the gate.

I know many women see this whole thing as an orchestrated plot to destroy feminism and put females back in their boxes. You might be right. (That Everyday Feminism site disturbs me.) But my gut feeling at the moment is that it's something more selfish and unconscious. Something typically male, in other words. I don't think a lot of us even notice the damage we're doing as we rampage around in the china shop.

My hot take: We're not delusional, exactly. We're not convinced we're women, like the guy who's convinced he's Jesus. If we were, we wouldn't get so angry when people refuse to play along; we'd just nod and smile and forgive them. We just really, really, really want to believe we're women. Because it feels so exquisite. We're trying our damndest to stay asleep, but deep down we know it's all a dream. And you just keep on trying to shake us awake with your painful reminders that we aren't women and never can be, that our heart's desire is impossible. We just want you to shut up, you TERFs, so we can stay in bed and live the dream. Oh, whoops, did we smash women's rights in the process? Oh dear, what a shame, but hey, omlettes, as long as we get our kicks.

(Anecdotally, quite a few AGPs do know what's going on and are just as upset as me. But there's a certain coterie of activists who come after any sex researcher or TIM who admits to having AGP and tries to ruin their lives, along with the lives of everyone they know. J Michael Bailey was #1 on their hit list and they've been patrolling us ever since. That was disconcerting to learn. I mean, jeez, paedophiles are hated by pretty much everyone except other paedophiles... but out AGPs are hated by other AGPs. It's a weird world we live in.)

Scary thought: It's hard to get accurate figures, but I've seen estimates (Lawrence 2011) that 3% of males may be autogynephilic to some degree. Now, that includes men whose AGP makes them 'bisexual' or 'asexual' or only attracted to men, and mild cases who are happy to just stick to cross-dressing without identifying as trans.

However, when you realise that lesbians only make up about 1-2% of the female population...

... in other words, the potential pool of AGP males outnumbers lesbians...

... and that a heterosexual male with AGP is quite likely to consider himself a 'trans lesbian' because he still wants sex with women...

... and that males tend to get their way at the expense of females...

... and that paraphilias often come in clusters, i.e. if you're AGP you may well also be into kink/BDSM or any number of other strange things ...

... and that pretty much anyone can identify as trans these days and be instantly believed and have their every whim catered to, without needing a diagnosis for dysphoria ...

... and that most people have no idea there are two distinct types, so that (for example) everyone holds up Georgie Stone as a figurehead for trans rights even though she's almost certainly HSTS rather than AGP...

... and that everybody knows being trans is all about gender identity and being 'trapped in the wrong body from birth', and has absolutely nothing to do with sexuality, how dare you even suggest it, you transphobe...

... hello Cthulhu.

Most days I feel like that guy shouting at passing cars from Invasion of the Bodysnatchers.

Another analogy: Keeping paedophiles from preying on children is hard enough. Imagine how hard it would be if hardly anyone knew paedophilia existed... and anyone who tried to talk about it was fired from child protection agencies or banned from teaching.

I'm not writing all this to wring sympathy from anyone. I'm just trying to say that the denial of autogynephilia doesn't just hurt women and children (and team LGB, and...) It also hurts AGPs ourselves, by misleading us, turning our feelings inside out, and pandering to our selfish desires instead of teaching us restraint. Because if we're women, we must be safe and trustworthy, right?

I came this close to throwing my righteous weight behind trans activism, attacking TERFs and hurting the people I love and adore most of all--women--while totally convinced I was a good guy. Or rather girl.

Phew. Okay. Rant over. Happy to answer questions if anyone has them.

This is brilliant.

OP, Thanks for your story. Reddit banned its Gender Critical sub about a week ago, along with many others (altho porn subs are still A OK). Critical thinking has left the building in the US.

Today in Anti-Trans Trolls are starting their twenty daily threads...

R12 Agreed.

I can't believe Muriel allows all of these crappy threads to continue.

Doesn't this site have any standards?

I wish the search box was improved instead of supporting all of these dumb threads.

AGPs hate the truth about them getting out. Standards, indeed.

[quote]I can't believe Muriel allows all of these crappy threads to continue.

Muriel is a cunt, who craves the revenue from straight women who love these threads.

Plenty of homophobia from those women is allowed to stay up. The only thing she really ever takes down are posts criticizing her or Primetime.

+++++

You bumped your own thread (one of many on this same topic), R16, after an hour?

F&F.

Well, I never. A man owning up to his lecherous con and taking an offensive stance against his brethren. Fair play. Nice to have had one pleasant surprise this week.

.

+

[quote]There’s a critical difference between autogynephilia and most other sexual orientations: Most other orientations aren’t erotically disrupted simply by being labeled. When you call a typical gay man homosexual, you’re not disturbing his sexual hopes and desires. By contrast, autogynephilia is perhaps best understood as a love that would really rather we didn’t speak its name. The ultimate eroticism of autogynephilia lies in the idea of really becoming or being a woman, not in being a natal male who desires to be a woman.

[quote]Well, I never. A man owning up to his lecherous con and taking an offensive stance against his brethren. Fair play. Nice to have had one pleasant surprise this week.

[quote]—Lesbian

Well, I never. A man-hating lesbian on a DL trans thread.

Autogynephilia: The Truth

The only surprise is they admitted it.

Shame and Narcissistic Rage in Autogynephilic Transsexualism

Another anti-trans hate thread.

[quote]Another anti-trans hate thread.

That's because we do hate you, R26.

Christ, we KNOW, R27. You hate men, gays, trans, anyone who doesn't hate trans, Soros, Big Pharma, the BBC, Muriel, bisexuals, statistics, truth and people who know how to Google.

What the fuck is OP talking about?

No, no, yes, not everyone, no, yes, yes, no, no, no, and no.

What Many Transgender Activists Don't Want You to Know: and why you should know it anyway

Facts are transphobic.

R27. you don't have to be trans to point out such obvious bigotry.

Yay! Whatever! Blocked!

Are you transgender?

What bigotry, r33? Why is it that any discussion of trans issues is immediately denounced with cries of transphobia or bigotry but with no attempt to address the issues raised? If such discussions were simply bigotry then they could easily be demolished with arguments instead of cries of "terf" or "hater".

What is wrong with asking if transwomen are women then what does woman mean? Or should there be limits on children transitioning? Should transwomen participate in women's sports? Why can't we discuss observed phenomena such as autogynophelia or clusters of teen girls online influencing each other to transition? Should same-sex attraction be lumped together with people who want to change their sex? Is self-id a good idea?

These issues affect the whole of society and society should be allowed to discuss them and there should be consensus on legal changes, not stuff secretly snuck through. Especially for those of us who are lesbian/gay and are automatically assumed to be supporters of all trans demands because we've been lumped together in the so-called LGBTQ+++ community. As a lesbian, I don't want things being done in my name without being able to discuss them or have an opinion on them or even be able to object to them.

In the video @ r35, he discusses the bullying, gaslighting narcissism of AGPs that leads to that aggressive refusal to engage in any discussion of the subject other than to try to stifle it.

[quote]As a lesbian

Surprise, surprise.

A better question is why you're trying to impose your issues with trans onto gay men.

+

+++++++

———————

Xx. Yy.

..............................................................

I don't care for all these pseudo-quasi-biobabbles as my hard-on will guide me to wherever I want to when I know it and I feel it.

You are woman, hear you roar, 0P.

FF R42 for all these bumps.

One of the most fucked-up things I've ever read was an autogynephile saying that his ultimate fantasy was "the guy version of me fucking the girl version of me". Just. WTF

“Internalized homophobia“ doesn’t even to begin to describe the idiocy, narcissism, self delusion, and outright bigotry of any gay man who would rather be a woman than gay.

[quote]Members of one subtype, homosexual transsexuals, are best understood as a type of homosexual male. The other subtype, autogynephilic transsexuals, are motivated by the erotic desire to become women. The persistence of the predominant cultural understanding, while explicable, is damaging to science and to many transsexuals.

Don't see what the problem is with distinguishing and defining things. This is an important distinction to make.

It's only fair that people be made aware that there are males who get off on being female. Women should not be required to feel comfortable about this or any man that has women relatives or friends he cares about.

r46, they're pathological narcissists.

What are the posts R39, R40, R41, and R42 all about? It appears as if R42 is referencing Klinefelter Syndrome, which I don't believe is fair to bring into these conversations, no matter what one's opinion on autogynephilia is. Lots of gibberish in these posts. I've never heard of the abbreviation or acronym TIM either, and I suppose others may not know WTF it means.

I often wonder who is so obsessed with this topic. What does this say about you, OP? Do you have autogynephilia? I also wonder who gives 15 W/W to the post "We hate Trans". As if these individuals are all alike, or worthy of your hate.... automatically, right out the gate... Are you even gay men, or are you women? Though the topic of autogynephilia is mildly interesting to me, I would much rather prefer studying you, and others similiarly obsessed. You're actually more interesting to me, because I believe you to be disordered, and suffering some sort of sickness. Please tell us about yourselves... I also wonder if some of you are self-loathing trans people, and possibly somehow jealous of those who are living as self-actualised trans people. Something to think about anyhow! Or are you aroused by thinking about autogynephiles?

r50, people and it's people, plural, who bring up the problem of male predators who overtaken the T, and the greater LGBT "community" as a whole, bring it up because it needs to be discussed. The people who bring it up want to preserve gay rights. We want to preserve women's rights. We want gay children to not be sterilized, mutilated and pumped full of cancer causing cross-sex hormones. If you support the above, which is the trans platform, you're on the wrong website.

R51 How exactly are these MTF transsexuals considered to be male predators, whilst taking Oestrogen, and have their testicles removed, and a vaginoplasty? You may then say they all don't go for bottom surgeries, then I shall respond, AGAIN that they are not all the same. The very literature you put forth (Blanchard, et al.) itself makes the argument the transsexual community of MtF are not homogeneous, but rather the opposite. None of this autogynephilia literature purports the autogynephiles to be at a higher risk for predation.

Ironically in the two papers I just spent almost an hour reading, Blanchard and others stated the sex reassignment surgery seemed to be of the utmost importance to the autogynephiles. This was explained as a tendency toward masochism. Nothing about keeping penises to rape women with, or acting out fantasies of a sadistic nature.

I don't really care which reasons or explanations these patients give as to why they wish to have sex reassignment. It's their bodies, and I don't see how it concerns you in the least. You seem hystrionic about it actually when you tell me I don't belong on Datalounge... Fuck you, and the bloody camel you rode here on.

I can be for women's rights, gay rights, AND trans rights. I'm for everyone's fucking rights. I'm not here however to give you the RIGHT to label them all as predators, mentally ill, a danger to society, etc. It's bullshit. I don't give you the right to excuse the poster with 15 W/Ws who screamed YES, We HATE TRANS. Transsexuals are people too. If you are afraid of them, keep your distance. That's your right. You don't have any other innate rights to vilify all of them, as they are as unique and individual as you and me.

You shut down the conversation just as Blanchard's critics did to him. You're no better. You pull this crap even with someone open minded who considers that autogynephilia may indeed be a real phenomenon, despite the majority of the field being in disagreement, since the late 80s. I'm open minded enough to read two articles in their entirety, not the abstracts, and yet YOU still attempt to control the narrative.

I'll posit one thing: if autogynephilia is a paraphilia, why does that need to be considered harmful to you? Why does it need to invite condemnation, or a judgment that it is wrong, or not a valid reason for sex reassignment? What exactly are your professional bona fides that make your opinion valid? Why do you consider yourself an authority on the subject? I suggest if this is a paraphila, so is a foot fetish. I happen to have a mild one myself. Should I be banned from men's shoe stores? Am I a threat to the community? Should I be prevented from purchasing too many pairs of socks? Am I allowed to be in close physical proximity to barefoot men, or those wearing sandals?

Worrying about children doing irreversible things is another story, as is transsexuals competing in professional sports, or sports on a University level. Certain things are not fair. Those two issues aside for the moment, still leaves the hate for them as a group here on this thread. That isn't excusable.

Furthermore R51, if the majority here on DL also share YOUR hateful black and white thinking, whyever do these trans threads constantly get greylined out, or disappear altogether? I think you're just as wrong about the prevailing mindset here, as you are about trans.

Oh my god, what a special set of very unique and magnificent unicorns we have here. So special they cannot be comprehended. They’re like God himself, a wondrous mystery.

This is yet more proof that all non-gay sexuality is malignant narcissism.

[quote]maybe I was born with a female brain?

No such thing. You a born with A brain and it develops based on external stimuli, e.g. how you are treated based on your sex.

We all start out with the same kind of brain. There is no male/female brain.

Only 7% of trans-identified men take cross-sex hormones. Fewer than 5% of trans-identified men have any kind of genital surgery, including amputation of the testes.

Trans women are men. And most have penises.

R52 are you for the rights of people who “rode in here in a camel” too? You discredit any attempt at being on the high ground when you use that sort of language, in particular when you are in the middle of criticizing others for making generalizations.

Trans “women” commit sex crimes, including rape and possession of child porn, with a 15% greater frequency than all other men.

They hate caftans and earrings! Hate!

R58 Get over yourself, camel, horse, what difference does it make? It's just a figure of speech. I'm not claiming to be perfect, I make jokes that are tasteless at times, even about individual trans people. That's not the point here. The idea that they're all deranged, or a menace to society to the extent they're worthy of such hatred is what I'm objecting to.

They're often misunderstood, and worthy of some compassion, as we ALL are. I've know a few, and none of them are as these threads would portray. I don't think it's fair to consider a quasi-political platform encompasses all of them eithet. Terms like "Trans-Agenda", "Trans-Platform" are evocative of right wing conservative allegations that we have "The Gay Agenda". Minority groups want to fight for their equal rights, including Trans. I support equality for everyone. I don't see why anyone should have to apologise for that.