I’ve been down a YouTube rabbit hole for the past few days watching trans women tell their stories. During those views, the omniscient YouTube algorithm apparently thought I’d also be interested in something called “Autogynephilia.”

Oh lord.

If you’re not familiar with the term—and why would you be?—it was coined by “sexologist” Ray Blanchard four decades ago. In Blanchard’s own words, it means “a male’s propensity to be sexually aroused by the thought of himself as a female.”

Say what now?

Blanchard categorized trans women into two groups: homosexual transsexuals who are attracted exclusively to men and are feminine in behavior and appearance, and autogynephilic transsexuals who experience sexual arousal at the idea of having a female body.

I don’t even know where to begin with that.

First of all, look at the men creating more boxes to force women into! What a surprise. Yet another binary, yay. I guess we’re too messy for them. They don’t understand us, so they need to try to classify us. Second, what about trans men? They are conveniently left out of the theory, though I’m pretty sure our experiences and motivations are the same.

If you’re a trans woman, or so goes the theory; you are either someone who’s always been gay and femme (so why not transition, I guess?) or if that’s not you, then you’re just turned on by imagining being a woman. So wonderfully reductive, isn’t it? Blanchard was so enamored with his “work” that he said any trans woman who claimed not to fit his model was lying.

He really said that.

As far as science is concerned, Blanchard’s hypothesis failed peer review for many reasons, including overt biases, bad methodologies, incorrect data, the fact that it wasn’t a controlled study, etc. For those reasons, “Autogynephilia” was never taken seriously by the psychiatric community. Not for a moment, not ever. Yet here we are. Like post-apocalyptic cockroaches, he and his weird idea persist.

And it’s been widely understood for some time now that transgender does not equal transsexual. Many trans people, myself included, don’t particularly want to stand under the transsexual umbrella. It’s an old-fashioned, insufficient term that’s now even offensive in some circles. I get that. I mean, there are trans women who don’t ever take steps to change their bodies, and they are just as legitimately trans as someone who undergoes half a dozen gender-affirming surgeries.

Look at it this way: for most of my life, I was not openly trans and didn’t pursue transition. I was still trans during that time; I just didn’t do anything about it. If I’d never chosen to come out and transition, if I’d left things as they were and died a miserable, closeted trans woman, I would have still been trans. That’s who I am, regardless of what I do or don’t do about it.

But back to “Autogynephilia.” I’m sure there are some trans women out there who fit those unscientifically defined binary descriptions. Because, again, we come in all flavors. But, for me, it’s not a concept I can even comprehend, and if it doesn’t apply to me, it can’t apply to all of us. And that’s the problem: trying to apply something—anything—to all of us. Seeking to classify us as if we were butterflies or invasive flora.

Trust me when I say there’s nothing arousing about anything I’ve gone through related to transitioning.

• Justifying or explaining myself to every medical worker I see doesn’t make me feel amorous.
• Battling the Trump voters who staff my local Social Security office was not a turn-on.
• Enduring 150 hours—so far—of electrolysis (at a cost of over $10,000 and counting) has not been sexy.
• Getting my blood drawn every 12 weeks is not an erotic experience.
• Losing family and friends has not been titillating.
• Men assuming I’m stupid isn’t hot.

Getting dressed every day is no more a turn-on for me than it is for you. Wearing a bra to keep my old lady boobs up is just an unpleasant necessity. Maybe unpleasant necessities turn some people on. If so, you go, girl.

Before I came out and started transitioning, the idea of transition didn’t sexually excite me; it terrified me. I knew it was going to be a long, drawn-out, difficult process, and it has been. More than I could have imagined.

I’d hazard a guess that most trans women share that experience. We fight against so many misguided preconceptions and so much inexplicable outright hatred that the idea anyone would go through this if they didn’t absolutely have to is laughable.

Speaking of hatred, Googling “Autogynephilia” reminded me of something someone said about me on a forum when I came out, “‘Hannah’ turned out to be an autogynephilic transexual!!! HA!! HAAAAA!!!!”

HA!! HAAAAA!!!! indeed. I didn’t even bother to Google “autogynephilic” at the time because I had just come out, so I had other things on my mind. And because a MAGA troll made the comment.

From what I’ve seen, “Autogynephilia” is mainly used now as a weapon in the MAGA right’s relentless war on trans people. They’ve dug up a long-discredited theory and weaponized it, as they are wont to do with everything trans-related. They use it to marginalize (and target) us as a bunch of (liberal) fetishists and freaks out to drink the blood of their home-schooled children.

I suppose we have to include trans-exclusionary radical “feminists” (TERFs) as another woefully out-of-touch group using “Autogynephilia” to insult and exclude the trans women they so vehemently refuse to accept or even acknowledge. Just a tool in their sad quest to divide feminism (and women) into haves and have-nots.

But along those lines, here’s yet another thing I don’t understand: some (presumably straight) people’s literal obsession with trans people.

I can’t imagine being that involved in something I didn’t have an abiding interest or stake in. So I have to ask the people making the “Autogynephilia” videos, writing the articles, and tweeting the tweets, is there something you’d like to admit to the class? The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

I’m not sure why so many people feel that trans people are obligated to justify our existence. The tsunami of transphobia blanketing the earth is an unapologetic attempt to erase us, to dismiss us as fetishists and kooks, to tell us—and the world—that we don’t really exist.

When you press us to justify our existence, you sound like a bunch of dung farmers in ancient Greece clustered around Pythagoras, waving your torches and shouting that the earth couldn’t possibly be round because, in your mind, such a thing is simply impossible.

Oh wait, there are people who still believe that, too…

 

(If the title of this post makes sense to you, congratulations, you are a connoisseur of experimental 20th-century pop music and excel at reading into things. My friend Jordan once said my sometimes cryptic blog titles reminded him of a band he likes and their overly long song titles that don’t have anything to do with the content of the songs. Sorry once again, Jordan.)

WRITTEN BY A HUMAN