[This should probably not be the first thing you read about Blanchard’s theories. I will consistently use “type one” to refer to so-called homosexual transsexuals and “type two” to refer to so-called autogynephile transsexuals, and it is the absence of neutral terms for these distinctions that have driven me to this problem. As always, a caveat that Blanchard’s theories are controversial and that there’s a replication crisis which limits the accuracy of any psychological research.]
So this is a super-fun request post. (Back me on Patreon and get a chance at a request post yourself!)
Monica sent me her thoughts on the type one/type two division. She argues that the division is in fact caused by age at transition, noting that age at transition is not precisely the same thing as when one became gender dysphoric. Later transition causes your brain to be exposed more to your birth sex hormones and you to experience more gender socialization for your assigned gender; we would expect more masculine behavior from this population. Sexual fantasies often don’t develop until adolescence and continue to develop in adulthood; earlier transitioners may have weaker or nonexistent sexual fantasies related to their gender. Orientation change is commonly noted as an effect of hormones; perhaps earlier transitioners are more likely to experience this effect, thus becoming exclusively androphiliac.
Children who were assigned male and who behave femininely may be more likely to transition early. Monica mentions that accepting parents may be more likely to allow their children to behave in a feminine fashion and to transition, and that early transition lends itself to selective memories on the parts of both families and trans people which exaggerate how feminine a child was. I’d add that more feminine assigned-male children may be more likely to be allowed to transition, while more masculine children take longer to transition because they have to get past more gatekeepers.
However, my own anecdotes suggest this is not the case. I personally know many type-twos who transitioned at nineteen or twenty; on r/asktransgender one may find type-twos who have come to a transgender identity as young as fourteen. By Blanchard, this really shouldn’t happen at all. In fact, given the number of trans women in Silicon Valley who come out in their twenties, the proposition that most type-twos transition in their forties or fifties would imply that (contrary to popular belief) there are in fact no cisgender male programmers at all.
Therefore I predict (with a fairly high degree of confidence) that Millennials will be far less likely to transition at midlife than previous generations.
It makes sense that this would be the case. Before relatively recently, there were two kinds of trans narratives. First, there were narratives that embodied cisgender anxieties far more than transgender realities: trans women were depicted as predatory and wanting to lure men into sex, or as pathetic mockeries of women, or surprisingly often both at the same time. (Trans men, of course, did not exist at all.) Second, and far less common, there were narratives from actual trans people sanitized for cisgender people’s consumption. You always knew you were a man deep down, you played with trucks as a child, you have definitely never been attracted to a man, your gender plays no role in your sexuality, and if you ever wore a dress it was by coercion and you threw it out and it is definitely not in the back of your closet waiting for Drag Night.
So whether people transitioned depended a lot on luck: it was hard to get any sort of idea about what trans lives were actually like unless you happened to meet a trans person. It was all too easy to have the idea that your gender dysphoria didn’t really count if you liked wearing eyeliner sometimes and had no deep-down sense of being male.
The trans and gay communities have been linked since inversion was a twinkle in Krafft-Ebing’s eye: thus, trans people who were part of the gay or lesbian community pre-transition generally encountered other trans people young and transitioned earlier. Trans people assigned male at birth who were not part of the LGBT community blundered around in a fog of shame and quiet misery unless they happened to stumble across a crossdresser group or something, and thus transitioned later. Trans people assigned female at birth who were not part of the LGBT community had… as far as I can tell completely nothing, and thus rarely transitioned.
Nowadays, we have Twitter and blogs and Imogen Binnie’s Nevada: narratives written by trans people, about trans people, for trans people. And these resources are accessible like never before. If some sixteen-year-old– hesitant, terrified, palms sweating– enters “am I transgender” into google, they will stumble across an article like this one (first result for me in incognito mode search). It’s not perfect, god no, but look at what’s on the list of signs the author was a trans woman: hating girly things, longing to be pregnant, crossdressing (!), repulsion at the idea of trans people, hating cameras, a bizarre fondness for the song “Lola”. And that means that that kid will not think “oh, I hated boys’ toys at a kid, I can’t possibly be trans”, will sort themselves out sooner, and will be able to transition.
In conclusion, I suspect the early transitioner/late transitioner thing is a mere artifact of transphobia and not a real division, and that trans people of the present generation will transition far earlier regardless of type.
tailcalled said:
pls join our Secret Blanchardian Conspiracy Chatroom
“However, my own anecdotes suggest this is not the case. I personally know many type-twos who transitioned at nineteen or twenty; on r/asktransgender one may find type-twos who have come to a transgender identity as young as fourteen. By Blanchard, this really shouldn’t happen at all.”
Why not? Sexuality exists by then, after all.
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ozymandias said:
Transitioning in one’s teens and early twenties is an early transition by any standard, and Blanchard’s claim is that type-twos transition late.
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tailcalled said:
Yes, but there’s no inherent reason that factors which caused AGPs to transition late couldn’t have changed, so that this finding no longer applies.
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ozymandias said:
So once again we agree Blanchard is full of shit. 🙂 (Apparently he doesn’t believe in gay trans men either…)
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tailcalled said:
Bailey and Blanchard believe that trans women with “””Sudden Onset Gender Dysphoria””” (their word for non-HSTSs who transition relatively early) are often AGP. Source: https://4thwavenow.com/2017/09/08/suicide-or-transition-the-only-options-for-gender-dysphoric-kids/comment-page-1/#comment-21330 (from Bailey himself).
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Lambert said:
>doesn’t believe in gay trans men
In the sense of ‘nobody believes themselves to be a gay trans man’ or ‘those that identify as gay trans men are mistaken’?
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tailcalled said:
Blanchard thinks they’re transitioning for reasons outside his model. I’m not sure you can really say that he doesn’t believe in them, he just thinks they’re likely doing it for queer street cred or something like that.
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leoboiko said:
“I had a lot of trouble in drawing this map so the territory has BETTER fit it”: Blanchardian general semantics.
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tailcalled said:
Younger-transitioning type twos generally do report having experienced autogynephilia, so I don’t really think that it’s unreasonable to consider them AGP.
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tailcalled said:
Bailey and Blanchard apparently believe in “autohomoerotics” (essentially, auto[gay man]philes, kinda like AAP but they say it’s different):
https://www.reddit.com/r/Blanchardianism/comments/7az1l6/introductions/dpo2nt7/
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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tailcalled said:
Also, worth mentioning a difference between “type one” and “type two” which can’t be explained by most non-Blanchardian models:
(This is the version for trans women.) Imagine that you are forced to pick between having a female body but being perceived by others as male, or both having a male body and being perceived as male. Which would you pick?
“Type two” trans women tend to pick the first option, because it only screws you over in one way, rather than two. “Type one” trans women tend to pick the second option, because they see very little point in the first option and it’d be bizarre to experience.
This makes sense under the Blanchardian theory, where type twos are motivated by their sexuality and would want a female body regardless of everything else, and type ones are motivated by social elements and don’t think of having a female body as an ultimate goal.
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subrosiansmithy said:
Late to the party, but I find this a stretch.
The “experiment” shows that Type 2 trans women would have a deeper desire for a female body as a terminal value or end-in-itself (or at least, that they value having a female body for reasons that don’t require social validation of their body/gender). That’s not sufficient to show that AGP is the *cause* of the Type 2 value system, or that Type 2 trans women are transitioning in accordance with sexual motivations; there’s more room than that in human mind design space.
You say that this can’t be explained by non-Blanchardian models, but what models are you arguing against specifically? A theory of trans-ness that would call your Type 2 group “gender dysphoric” and would your Type 1 “gender non-conforming” seems internally consistent and seems pretty popularly espoused in most of the trans circles I know, it just doesn’t attribute “gender dysphoria” to sexual fetishism/urges. And that model may be pretext/rationalization, but it’s still a prominent non-Blanchardian model.
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tailcalled said:
I mean, if you classify Type 1 and Type 2 as having entirely unrelated etiologies, then that can definitely fit into a non-Blanchardian model. However, those aren’t really the ones I see proposed.
Also, I’m not sure that people in trans circles would call Type 1 “gender non-conforming”; trans people generally seem to agree that you shouldn’t transition just because of gender nonconformity, but generally support HSTS transition in practice.
I think most trans people don’t really have an accurate view of Type 1, but instead consider them fundamentally similar to themselves, except less repressing.
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subrosiansmithy said:
[Obligatory disclaimer that I can only talk about my own experiences in trans circles]
>trans people generally seem to agree that you shouldn’t transition just because of gender nonconformity, but generally support HSTS transition in practice.
They support Type 1 transition in practice for the same reasons that trans people are laissez-faire about transition in general: as a reaction to historical and contemporary gatekeeping and transphobia. It’s universalizability (“what if *everyone* argued against other people transitioning?”) and/or self-skepticism (“if my *trained therapist* was wrong about what would be best for me, then maybe I’m wrong about what would be best for other people”).
But trans-exclusionary/second-wave feminist arguments hit hard in the 1970s, and they criticized transgender people in the strongest possible terms for what they saw as a reification of gender and a reification of gender roles — transitioning in order to fit into a gender role, from their perspective, deprived gender-non-conforming people of better role models, and opened up doors to transition as a kind of conversion therapy for gender-non-conforming people
Rather than bite the bullet and (for example) saying that they were grown adults with the right to do whatever the hell they wanted with their own bodies and social lives, trans people instead agglomerated about the idea of gender identity as an intrinsic trait and/or terminal value. If you’re transitioning because you *just deeply want to* on some level (rather than in order to fit into a socially-contextual gender role) then it’s harder for radical feminist gender-abolitionist arguments to undermine your right to transition. It’s hard for other people to undermine you in general (see: the utility of “born this way” arguments).
(You can see this sequence of events as evidence that radical feminists and/or Blanchardians were wrong about the trans issue all along, and that gender dysphoria is a Real Thing; maybe you can see it as evidence that trans people make up convenient rationalizations and/or lie about themselves. That isn’t really the point.
The point is that transitioning for gender role reasons gets a lot of flack and of course no-one wants to stand up and actively say they support it, even though they probably wouldn’t *argue against it*.)
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tailcalled said:
I dunno, I don’t think I’ve ever seen trans people be aware of the nuances of the distinction outside the small Secret Blanchardian Conspiracy Chatroom that I’m in.
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chridd said:
What is your source for the claims you’re making (this, and that there are two disjoint types of dysphoria)? Or, at least, what kind of a source (like, if it’s private communication or somewhere with an expectation that links won’t be passed around, I don’t need names, but knowing whether it’s private communication or surveys or whatever might be helpful)? Is it possible you just happen to be in social groups/websites/subreddits/etc. that tend to attract two types of trans people?
My impression was that there are plenty of trans people who both care about fitting in as a particular gender and have important-in-and-of-itself body dysphoria, and this is the first I’ve heard anyone claim otherwise, so I’m kind of skeptical of these claims themselves (in addition to not believing that they’d support the conclusion you’re drawing). (I mean, I have no trouble believing that there are some people who just care about social role stuff, and some who just care about physical and “counting” as a particular gender; it’s just the idea that there aren’t people with both types of dysphoria that I have a hard time believing.)
(Unfortunately, my own experience is primarily lurking, which makes it hard to distinguish between a person who only experiences one type of dysphoria and a person who only mentions one type of dysphoria in a given post. But a post I was just looking at about one person’s experience (AFAB) talks about both that person’s breasts getting in the way and not feeling like they belong to that person as well as some social role stuff.)
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tailcalled said:
Hm, there’s no common source. I’ve talked to a variety of HSTSs, both some that believe the the typology and some that don’t. They’ve both told me about their experiences, and the experiences of other trans people they know.
I think the source of your confusion is that HSTSs tend to be really hard to find. They don’t usually hang out in trans spaces (I was lucky that I found a subreddit with extraordinarily many HSTSs).
Anyway, the situation is more subtle than just social/body dysphoria:
HSTSs experience body dysphoria, but as a clear derivative of their social dysphoria. For example, it starts and ends at passing (whereas many A*Ps can be dysphoric if they pass, since they prioritize “passing to themselves”, which can be harder, or non-dysphoric if they don’t pass, since they might be fine with some androgyny), and there’s also of course the dilemma I mentioned in the previous comment. There are some things that could be considered body dysphoria that HSTSs also experience (reproductive dysphoria is a big one; I can’t think of anything *obvious* that distinguishes HSTS reproductive dysphoria from A*P reproductive dysphoria, but there’s probably some; genital avoidance, not feeling *any drive* to use their genitals and therefore not doing it).
A*Ps also experience social dysphoria, but in a different way than HSTSs. I have a friend who calls a common form of HSTS social dysphoria “trans-cis”; it is where it is *really important* that others don’t know that one is trans. This leads to HSTSs not transitioning if they can’t pass, and is the motivating factor behind stealth. This is because being perceived as cis by others is obviously pretty fundamental to the reasons HSTSs transition. A*Ps on the other hand will care more about “counting” as the target gender under whatever definition people use, but will often be perfectly fine with being openly trans (as long as people are respectful etc.). A*Ps will of course also care about passing, but are able to consider themselves socially transitioned without passing. Alison is *probably* a good example of A*P-typical social dysphoria.
(Sidenote: the whole thing about being able to split up social dysphoria and body dysphoria, or social transition and medical transition, and considering them separate things, is pretty A*P.)
It’s kinda hard to explain the nuances, but I hope I got something across. I’ve been hanging out around a bunch of HSTSs for months now, so I’ve been noticing some things that I think I have trouble communicating.
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chridd said:
> They don’t usually hang out in trans spaces (I was lucky that I found a subreddit with extraordinarily many HSTSs).
Could not hanging out in trans spaces be part of the cause of the apparent difference? Either in that whatever space they’re a part of selects for one specific type of trans person (and wherever you encounter type 2 trans people selects for a different type of trans person, leaving a lot of trans people you aren’t encountering); or in that type 1 trans people are exposed to people strongly pushing stealth and to the idea that their feelings about physical stuff are caused by their desire to fit in as a particular gender, whereas type 2 trans people are exposed to people encouraging them to transition even if they won’t pass (pretty sure I’ve seen people encourage that) and to the idea of physical dysphoria. Or a combination of both.
I feel like if what you’re saying is true, then I shouldn’t have encountered as many trans people who care about stealth (or at least passing), who feel dysphoric about not being able to experience pregnancy, and who are straight, as I have. Also, if someone incorrectly believes that their feelings about their physical attributes are related to gender roles, that might affect how they think they’ll feel about having just a different body. (And, like I said, people might not realize they have physical dysphoria; I just remembered today, prior to learning what being trans actually meant and realizing that term might apply to me, I thought that my feelings about gender were mostly about gender roles and not wanting to be seen as masculine, until I learned about dysphoria and realized that what I thought caused my feelings about physical attributes didn’t actually make sense.) Blanchard’s finding might just have been the most common things trans people who had little knowledge of transness incorrectly thought caused their dysphoria.
Are there many type 1 trans people who recently realized they’re trans or recently started transitioning? (Even if they realize young, there still should be young people starting to realize they’re trans, and 18ish-year-olds who are finally free to come out and transition without having to go through their parents.) Is there any correlation between the two types and political orientation?
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tailcalled said:
Most AGP trans women care about passing. However, it is common for them to transition even though they can’t pass, unlike HSTSs who’ll only transition if they’ll pass. When I mentioned reproductive dysphoria, I also mentioned that this was the AGP/HSTS distinction that I was least clear on – it was not an example of something only experienced by HSTSs. Straight AGPs are surprisingly common, though, but that’s already well-known (it’s explained by the whole meta-attraction thing).
I guess it’s true that the Type 1s I’ve talked to have generally mostly started recently (how recently are we talking? they’re all some years in, I think, but none are AFAIK more than a decade in), though. It is probably going to be hard to find someone who’s longer into transition, since they tend to disappear and just live a normal life. It’s also hard to ask people these kinds of questions when they’re deeper into transition.
I don’t really find your suggestion that convincing, though. I don’t have any clear, specific disproof, I just find it hard to believe that this can be the explanation for all the differences.
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chridd said:
> Most AGP trans women care about passing. […] it was not an example of something only experienced by HSTSs. Straight AGPs are surprisingly common, though, […]
The more type 2 can be similar to type 1, the less convincing arguments based on the idea that the types are so different become.
> they’re all some years in, I think, but none are AFAIK more than a decade in
…that might still support my hypothesis? “Some years in” would mean that they’d all/mostly have started before Caitlyn Jenner came out, and I don’t think I’d heard the term “dysphoria” before a couple years ago. (Clarification: when I said there should be type 1s starting to realize, I meant if your idea is true; my hypothesis predicts that the number of type 1s is decreasing over time. I don’t know what your sample size is, so I don’t know how unexpected this result is.)
One specific idea that I’m considering is that your “type 1″s are people who came out prior to the more recent awareness/acceptance of trans issues, so they understand their feelings in terms of being feminine because that’s the only framework they had to work with, and care a lot about being stealth because they’ve internalized transphobia and/or the idea that other people being transphobic is a fact of life. (Less-feminine trans people with that understanding of course wouldn’t have come out, or would’ve seen that being trans isn’t about being feminine and rejected those ideas; people where “being trans is about being feminine” kind of fits would play up their feminine traits.)
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tailcalled said:
Oh! I guess there’s another point worth mentioning!
It’s worth remembering that “type one” trans women generally don’t transition if they can’t pass (and generally have higher standards for what “passing” means than “type twos”). This is likely a contributing factor to the timing difference, since passability falls rapidly for trans women with age. Trans men seem to pass better, and as far as I know HSTS trans men have also historically transitioned later, compared to HSTS trans women.
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LeeEsq said:
Does any of this really matter if we are going on an assumption that some people are simply going to want to transition to the other gender and should be allowed to do so? Trying to come up with theories on when and why people decide to transition seems an academic question if we are trying to build a society supportive of transsexual rights. An individual’s reasons for doing so are irrelevant because its a choice of the individual be honored.
Trying to determine the origins of transgenderism or homosexuality beyond curiosity is only important if your assuming that these things that society should want to stop, which I doubt anybody on this blog does. If we want a society where transpeople can freely and fully participate than its really irrelevant why transgenderism exists beyond curiosity or making the transition easier.
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tailcalled said:
See this: https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2016/11/17/truth-matters/
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LeeEsq said:
I’m skeptical about aggressive truth-telling as a way to more just and better society. Having a well-functioning society of any type but particular a small-liberal populous and diverse society requires a lot of fictions to function.
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ozymandias said:
I’ve written about the necessity of lies-to-cis-people before. But this is my blog, not a Trans 101 seminar; my posts about transness cater to an audience that is well-informed about transness and interested in fairly abstruse debates, often (but not solely) trans people and their loved ones. This post in particular is aimed at an audience that’s already familiar with Blanchardian theories and interested in a critique. I write about the topic because I find it interesting and because my Blanchardian commenters provide consistently high-quality disagreement; it is really not for the purpose of convincing people to support trans rights.
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gazeboist said:
There’s no need to be aggressive about truth-telling, but surely a society in which truth can be calmly shared is better than one where we must constantly manage a large and confusing edifice of polite fictions.
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Aapje said:
@LeeEsq
It may help to come up with better treatment options. For example, type 1 people may benefit from treatment that focuses (first) on socially transitioning, while type 2 people may benefit from treatment that focuses (first) on a bodily transition.
[content warning: probably very triggering to those who feel that questioning some transitioning desires invalidates their own desires]:
Also, I disagree with your implicit assumption that anyone who wants to transition has necessarily correctly identified their problem. Some people believe that the ‘normal’ bodily changes during puberty may cause body dysphoria in some, which they incorrectly interpret as gender dysphoria. I’m not sure about the validity of this, but it seems possible.
In any case, we do know that some people detransition and seems helpful to prevent these people from going to a transition they later regret and that may cause further mental issues. Knowing the actual origins of transgenderism may also enable us to determine better which people benefit from transitioning and which people don’t.
PS. In general, we can’t assume that people always make good decisions for themselves, especially when society doesn’t provide them with the information to make good decisions. Knowledge is power (also over the self).
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veronicastraszh said:
I would avoid the term “prevent” people from transitioning, because in fact there is a lot of social weight behind preventing transition for everyone regardless of reason. “Discourage” might be a better word. Even better would be “inform.”
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Aapje said:
@Veronica
Your replacement terms don’t match my intent, although I can see how one can read my term as more extreme than I intended.
Basically, if we discover evidence that for some identifiable group, transitioning causes more harm than good, then I support similar consequences as for any medical treatment that damages people more than it helps. For me, this can go beyond merely informing or discouraging the person.
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tcheasdfjkl said:
I agree with you that it doesn’t matter for trans rights what causes transness, but this isn’t a trans-rights-and-nothing-else blog, this is Ozy’s blog on which they write about all manner of things, so I’m confused about why “this is not relevant to trans rights” is a relevant thing to say?
(I sort of theoretically agree that better knowledge can lead to better treatment, but I highly doubt that we can get knowledge so reliable and fine-grained that it can provide better guidance than individuals’ felt preferences, at least with current methods.)
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Aapje said:
@tcheasdfjklsl
I don’t believe that ‘felt preferences’ exist in a context-independent way.
I’m pretty sure that people don’t neutrally interpret their feelings, but they filter them by pattern matching to others/narratives. Furthermore, social norms and more in general the freedoms afforded to people, as well as the obligations put on them, greatly impact what actual preferences develop.
For example, in Castro Street culture, Bob may identify as gay (also culturally) and get married to a man. If Bob grew up in a conservative Catholic culture, he may consider his desires for ‘sinning’ a trial by God and dedicate his life to God by becoming a celibate priest. Both the desire to cohabitate with a man and the desire to become a priest derive from the same feelings, but they turned into very different preferences due to context in which the person grew up.
Ultimately, we cannot be neutral in this, but have to pick our societal narratives and norms. I think that works a lot better if we base them on knowledge.
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veronicastraszh said:
Hi @LeeEsq! Nice to see you here.
For many of us, this it’s about self-understanding. Also it’s about understanding the shape of our subculture. There really are two “types” of trans women, in the sense a lot of people fall squarely into one group or the other — but not everyone. Others seems to float between. (Let’s queer the blanchardian binary!!!) In any case, the topic interests me for personal reasons, as it interests the host of this blog.
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tailcalled said:
I think people are putting way too much weight on outliers. Even if we assume that Alison is a complete exception to the typology, something like 95% of supposed exceptions will still fit neatly, and it’s worth learning the typology in detail and using what it tells us about the types.
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tailcalled said:
Which is to say, it feels like people are spending a lot more time trying to invent reasons for why A*P can’t be the explanation, and relatively little time learning about and using the typology. It seems reasonable to at least go “oh, A*P explains this phenomenon” whenever relevant, rather than avoiding mentioning it when you don’t *absolutely have to*.
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chridd said:
> It seems reasonable to at least go “oh, A*P explains this phenomenon” whenever relevant, rather than avoiding mentioning it when you don’t *absolutely have to*.
Sure that hypothesis can explain some things, and denying that is bad, but I don’t see why one should mention it without particular reason. There are lots of possible explanations for any given phenomenon, and incorrect explanations that people are considering will generally still explain *something* (that’s why people are considering them). (And bringing up *any* particular hypothesis every time it’s relevant can get annoying.)
I haven’t yet seen any good reason why, out of all possible explanations, the idea that being trans is caused by a sexual fetish is something that should be given special consideration, rather than just being one out of many many possible hypotheses, not any more likely or more useful than the rest; and the evidence I’ve seen supports the idea that being a particular gender is a terminal value, caused by hormones before birth, rather than caused by some other desire (be it sexual or trend-following or disliking gender roles), which directly contradicts the autogynephilia hypothesis, meaning that looking for alternate hypotheses that don’t have this problem is perfectly reasonable.
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veronicastraszh said:
I agree with @chridd. There is an enormous difference between saying, “I’ve noticed two somewhat distinct populations of trans women” and “The reason for this is [insert psychoanalytical speculation].” After all, AGP is a causal story, one invented by sexually preoccupied cis men, not trans women.
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tailcalled said:
Obviously you haven’t seen any good reason why! Nobody points out the reasons! That’s what I’m complaining about.
Anyway, the first question that pops up now is then, how do you account for the type one/type two distinction? There are lots of different proposals, but they generally tend to have flaws.
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tailcalled said:
Also, I guess there’s an obvious question to ask here:
Can you think of anything which is more strongly associated with a desire to be the opposite sex among cis people than A*P? If not, isn’t this by itself a pretty good justification to look closer that this A*P thing?
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chridd said:
> Can you think of anything which is more strongly associated with a desire to be the opposite sex among cis people than A*P?
Dislike of one’s gender role, feeling that one’s gender is lower status, having really bad experiences with someone of the same sex, or curiosity. In any case, the fact that cis people have that association also means that cis people could be more biased towards that explanation, that they may simply be projecting their own feelings onto trans people.
In any case, in my mind, the question of why people are trans is basically settled: it’s due to hormones (or hormone receptors) before birth, determined long before the person has any ability to comprehend sex (do you have any evidence *against* this position?), so I’m more interested in other types of explanations: perhaps these are two possible things that being trans can cause, or perhaps it has something to do with whether one has an inclination towards femininity in addition to being trans, or perhaps these two types are more likely to come out (and there are lots of closeted people who don’t fit those categories) or more likely to be in our social groups (trans people I know tend to be autisticish/geeky, but the same is true for cis people I know), or maybe something involving genes or hormones, or …
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tailcalled said:
“Dislike of one’s gender role”
This seems almost tautological, though. It’s the kind of thing we’d put under the “desire to be the opposite sex” label, rather than a separate thing we could compare to desire to be the opposite sex.
(It seems to have about the same correlation with desiring to be the opposite sex as A*P does, though. Sometimes a bit higher or a bit lower depending on how you measure it.)
“feeling that one’s gender is lower status, having really bad experiences with someone of the same sex”
Do you have any suggestions for good ways to measure this?
“or curiosity”
Curiosity is kinda a fun suggestion. Everyone is curious enough to want to try it for like a day. However, it seems unlikely that the ones who’d do it permanently would do it just for curiosity. (When I say “desire to be the opposite sex”, I mean “desire to permanently be the opposite sex”.) People who want it permanently tend to say that being the opposite sex is appealing to them, and that they’d like it. This seems like something that wouldn’t happen if it was truly because of curiosity.
“In any case, the fact that cis people have that association also means that cis people could be more biased towards that explanation, that they may simply be projecting their own feelings onto trans people.”
So there’s two kinds of AGP? One experienced by some cis men which makes them want to be women, but which can’t make them trans because reasons, and one experienced by most trans women which is caused by (rather than causing) dysphoria? Sounds dubious to me.
“do you have any evidence *against* this position?”
Well, you’d need to explain what exactly the effect of those hormones/hormone receptors is. Is it some weird body map thing? Then why don’t type ones have the body-mappy type of dysphoria? Is it some gender nonconformity thing? Then why are so many type twos gender conforming in their assigned sex? It’s hard to address the position without more details like this.
How about trans-like experiences such as BIID and otherkin? Why are people with BIID sexually attracted to amputees, and otherkin attracted to their kintype?
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gazeboist said:
This is the first time I’ve ever heard that the feminist and men’s rights movements consist entirely of trans people and their allies.
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chridd said:
> “Dislike of one’s gender role”
> This seems almost tautological, though. It’s the kind of thing we’d put under the “desire to be the opposite sex” label, rather than a separate thing we could compare to desire to be the opposite sex.
No, wanting to be a particular sex and wanting a particular set of gender roles are different things. There are cis people who dislike the traditionally masculine/feminine things they’re expected to like but don’t want to be the opposite sex, and people who want to be the opposite sex but don’t care about gender roles. Even your own preferred hypothesis has them being separate (if people really did transition due to AGP, they likely wouldn’t care about having feminine roles).
(Even social dysphoria doesn’t always involve gender roles; people can be socially dysphoric about things like what words refer to them or which bathroom they go into, which are kind of arbitrary and not closely related to gender roles.)
(That said, if someone *thinks* that being a trans woman is about being feminine (which I think is a common misconception, and one I used to have), and some trans women aren’t feminine, then they might suspect there’s some ulterior motive. I wonder if that’s where the AGP idea came from.)
> So there’s two kinds of AGP? One experienced by some cis men which makes them want to be women, but which can’t make them trans because reasons, and one experienced by most trans women which is caused by (rather than causing) dysphoria?
Yes, basically. Although I don’t know that AGP experienced by cis men makes them want to be women; it could just be that cis men incorrectly *think* that if they were AGP they’d want to be women, that “AGP men want to be women” is something that seems to cis people like it should be true but isn’t. It also doesn’t *necessarily* require two *kinds* of AGP, just two (or more) *causes*; “there are multiple things that can cause AGP, one of which is being trans” seems like a perfectly reasonable claim (*lots* of things have multiple causes). (That said, I do suspect AGP in cis men is different from AGP in trans women.)
I don’t think the reasons cis people would want to transition if they did are similar to the reasons trans people transition. I think there’s more of a hard line than a spectrum between cis people who want to transition for other reasons and trans people.
> Well, you’d need to explain what exactly the effect of those hormones/hormone receptors is.
Somewhere in the brain the idea “I’m female” (gender identity) is encoded, but observation shows “I’m male” (AGAB), so various different parts of the brain get conflicting signals about what gender they are. If the predictive processing/Surfing Uncertainty stuff Slate Star Codex has been talking about is at least partially true, then gender identity would be a hardcoded/unmodifiable prior, and dysphoria would be unresolvable surprisal. How each part of the brain resolves or fails to resolve the conflict might differ from person to person—so perhaps the difference between type 1 and type 2 is due to differences in how some important part of the brain resolves/tries to resolve the conflict.
> How about trans-like experiences such as BIID and otherkin? Why are people with BIID sexually attracted to amputees, and otherkin attracted to their kintype?
I don’t know, and I didn’t know they were attracted to that. Some possible ideas of the top of my head (may be totally wrong): (possibility 1) BIID people experience envy towards amputees and mistake that for attraction (I know this can occur among trans people); (possibility 2) these are unrelated to trans-ness; (possibility 3) BIID people’s idea of what people in general look like doesn’t include the limb (so unamputated people look wrong to them, and thus less attractive); (possibility 4) people are often attracted to people who look a bit like (how they think of) themselves.
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tailcalled said:
Ok, maybe dislike of gender role doesn’t fall under “desire to be the opposite sex”. It’s just that when I did surveys on it, I phrased things related to gender roles in a way that made it in a way that made it also tied it into desire to be the opposite sex.
“(That said, if someone *thinks* that being a trans woman is about being feminine (which I think is a common misconception, and one I used to have), and some trans women aren’t feminine, then they might suspect there’s some ulterior motive. I wonder if that’s where the AGP idea came from.)”
Being a trans woman is about transitioning MtF. However, there has to be some reason why people transition in the first place.
“Although I don’t know that AGP experienced by cis men makes them want to be women; it could just be that cis men incorrectly *think* that if they were AGP they’d want to be women, that “AGP men want to be women” is something that seems to cis people like it should be true but isn’t.”
If you ask cis men whether they’re AGP and whether they want to be women, you’re going to get some pretty strong correlations.
“It also doesn’t *necessarily* require two *kinds* of AGP, just two (or more) *causes*; “there are multiple things that can cause AGP, one of which is being trans” seems like a perfectly reasonable claim (*lots* of things have multiple causes).”
Lots of things have multiple causes. Transitioning, for example. 😉
So what sorts of things cause AGP in cis men? Is it these causes that make them want to be women?
“Somewhere in the brain the idea “I’m female” (gender identity) is encoded, but observation shows “I’m male” (AGAB), so various different parts of the brain get conflicting signals about what gender they are. If the predictive processing/Surfing Uncertainty stuff Slate Star Codex has been talking about is at least partially true, then gender identity would be a hardcoded/unmodifiable prior, and dysphoria would be unresolvable surprisal. How each part of the brain resolves or fails to resolve the conflict might differ from person to person—so perhaps the difference between type 1 and type 2 is due to differences in how some important part of the brain resolves/tries to resolve the conflict.”
Well, could you go into more detail about what the resolution attempts in type 1 and type 2 could look like? Otherwise, this isn’t really really much of a description of what’s happening.
“(possibility 1) BIID people experience envy towards amputees and mistake that for attraction (I know this can occur among trans people);”
It occurs among trans people in the sense that envy and attraction are closely linked, because the envy happens through A*P. If you buy the model for trans people, then you can transfer that directly to BIID and otherkin and autopedophiles and whatever.
“(possibility 2) these are unrelated to trans-ness;”
Seems unlikely; they are correlated with transness and many who experience both will say that they have similar feelings in both cases.
“(possibility 3) BIID people’s idea of what people in general look like doesn’t include the limb (so unamputated people look wrong to them, and thus less attractive);”
My experience with AGP dysphoria is that it can feel like men just look *wrong*. Not experienced by everyone, of course, but lots of AGPs think/thought that all men want to be women. It wouldn’t surprise me if you could find BIID anecdotes that match this.
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chridd said:
> Being a trans woman is about transitioning MtF. However, there has to be some reason why people transition in the first place.
Hormones during pregnancy cause being trans causes dysphoria causes desire to transition causes transition.
To clarify my position: A while back, Slate Star Codex had a post “Mental Disorders As Networks”, arguing against the idea that mental disorders have a single cause the way diseases do. I’m saying that gender dysphoria follows the model that SSC is arguing against there: that there’s an invisible variable “transgender”, which can cause symptoms like hating one’s body, hating one’s assigned gender role, fantasizing about being the opposite sex, depression, dissociation, etc.; treating the underlying invisible variable (by transitioning) will cause the symptoms to disappear. Developing a fetish, therefore, wouldn’t cause a person to become transgender, any more than developing flu-like symptoms could give someone the flu; on the other hand, some people with a fetish might be trans and not realize it, which is analogous to having an undiagnosed disease.
> So what sorts of things cause AGP in cis men? Is it these causes that make them want to be women?
I don’t know. I don’t know any AGP cis men (that I know of), and haven’t read much about their experiences.
> Well, could you go into more detail about what the resolution attempts in type 1 and type 2 could look like? Otherwise, this isn’t really really much of a description of what’s happening.
I don’t know; I’m fairly confident that being trans is caused by hormones at birth and relates to some part of the brain encoding the idea “I’m male” or “I’m female” and being distressed due to the conflict, but I only have speculation* about the question of why the type 1/type 2 distinction would exist (or appear to exist). My point, though, is that there are multiple possible explanations for the distinction, which aren’t any worse than the AGP hypothesis; it’s not that one particular explanation is correct.
* see below
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tailcalled said:
“Hormones during pregnancy cause being trans causes dysphoria causes desire to transition causes transition.”
Classifying non-transitioning trans-spectrum people as trans (with no additional qualifiers) works for standard Magical Innate Gender Identity-based models, but it doesn’t really work in Blanchardianism (Is Milo Yiannopoulos trans? Arin Hanson?), which is why I don’t do it.
“I’m saying that gender dysphoria follows the model that SSC is arguing against there: that there’s an invisible variable “transgender”, which can cause symptoms like hating one’s body, hating one’s assigned gender role, fantasizing about being the opposite sex, depression, dissociation, etc.; treating the underlying invisible variable (by transitioning) will cause the symptoms to disappear.”
I mostly get that. That’s the model I used to have. I just can’t see that being true anymore, because the better I understand HSTS dysphoria, the less it overlaps with A*P dysphoria. It’s two entirely different conditions with nothing in common! :O
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chridd said:
> (Is Milo Yiannopoulos trans? Arin Hanson?)
No, yes (would be my guess; obviously I can’t see into either of their minds). Searching for Milo’s name along with “gender” and “transgender” gives no evidence that he’s trans, no claims (from him or others) that he’s trans, and plenty of stuff about him being transphobic. Searching “Egoraptor gender” gives stuff about him crossdressing (which isn’t a definite sign, but it’s more than nothing) and I saw a claim that he made a positive comment about trans people. (Also, there are subtle differences in how English-speaking men and women talk, and Arin talks like a woman, whereas Milo doesn’t.)
> I mostly get that. That’s the model I used to have. I just can’t see that being true anymore, because the better I understand HSTS dysphoria, the less it overlaps with A*P dysphoria. It’s two entirely different conditions with nothing in common! :O
So what is HSTS dysphoria like (in your understanding), and how does it differ from A*P dysphoria?
(It’s possible the people you’re considering HSTS aren’t people I’d consider transgender, but instead gender non-conformant or something. Or that the people you’re considering HSTS aren’t introspective enough to notice their dysphoria and are instead justifying/rationalizing their transition with gender roles or something.)
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tailcalled said:
“No, yes (would be my guess; obviously I can’t see into either of their minds). Searching for Milo’s name along with “gender” and “transgender” gives no evidence that he’s trans, no claims (from him or others) that he’s trans, and plenty of stuff about him being transphobic.”
4chan discussed it here:
https://archive.loveisover.me/lgbt/thread/8530773/#8530773
I understand HSTS dysphoria to a degree (it seems kinda bizarre from an AGP viewpoint, but I’m learning), but not a sufficient degree to say myself how trans he is. However, one of my HSTS friends has agreed that he’s “repressing HSTS”:
https://archive.loveisover.me/lgbt/thread/8530773/#8531621
(He has confirmed in a private chat that he was indeed serious about it, except for the fact that the whole concept of “repressing trans” has some problems, and that “repressing HSTS” has even more.)
“So what is HSTS dysphoria like (in your understanding), and how does it differ from A*P dysphoria?”
Pre-trans HSTSs are essentially people who are so gender nonconforming that they’ve effectively partially socially transitioned. They’re dysphoric not because of a deep urge/desire to be the opposite sex, but more because they’re sticking out, acting like one gender would do but living in the assigned role instead. One HSTS trans woman I know described it as “I didn’t really desire a female body, but having one makes my life easier.”.
This trans woman also described the difference in other ways, e.g. “A*Ps tend to describe crippling physical dysphoria over things that are… weird. i.e. leg hair or not having prominant breasts. Penises are evil etc. HSTSs tend to describe dysphoria in more social or annoyance terms, i.e. facial hair is annoying because it gets me clocked and needs constant removal. Genitals are annoying because there is a lack of a drive to use them and they get in the way.”.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t just a social vs body dysphoria difference either. There exists A*P and HSTS forms of both, but the overlap between the two are relatively minor. HSTS body dysphoria can come from things like functional dysphoria (e.g. not being able to give birth, not being strong enough), as an offshoot from social dysphoria (being clock) or as general body image issues (e.g. not being attractive to potential partners, or being seen as ugly from people; note that these are also in a sense social in nature). A*P body dysphoria of course primarily comes from the A*P, on the other hand, and so will in many (but not all – see e.g. the functional dysphoria for HSTSs) ways be much more internally driven. For social dysphoria, A*Ps will often put much more weight on “counting” as their target sex, on matching the definition of it, and less weight on being seen in exactly the same way as others of that sex. HSTSs on the other hand tend to be “””transcis”””, in the sense that they find it important that nobody knows they’re trans and instead sees them in the way that they see others of the sex. This is what motivates stealth.
One thing worth emphasizing is that it is their actual GNC, not their initial GNC that is a determining factor for HSTS. That is, if an HSTS-spectrum person learns to repress their GNC, then they will literally stop being trans and instead be cis gay. (This is part of why the concept of “repressing HSTS” has a lot of problems; there are two kinds of “repression”, one where you get rid of your GNC and one where you don’t transition despite dysphoria. These two kinds are incompatible with each other.)
A*P dysphoria is generally marked by things like envying people of the target sex, and by fantasizing about post-transition life. A*P dysphoria can sometimes be described as a feeling that the target sex is *really, really good*, and that obviously you’d want to be good, like the target sex, instead of bad, like the assigned sex. These things really aren’t the case for HSTSs.
There’s actually a kinda relevant anecdote here; I know an HSTS trans man who also experiences AGP, and he remembers being fascinated by femininity in his childhood and trying (but kinda failing) to befriend girls because of it. In an essay to a gender therapist, he said that he didn’t understand the “X who wants to be Y” kind of transness (i.e. A*P transness), because he was a boy who wanted to be a girl (despite being FtM).
“It’s possible the people you’re considering HSTS aren’t people I’d consider transgender, but instead gender non-conformant or something.”
I’ve explained HSTS before to people, with them reacting with “So… they aren’t trans?”, so it wouldn’t surprise me.
“Or that the people you’re considering HSTS aren’t introspective enough to notice their dysphoria and are instead justifying/rationalizing their transition with gender roles or something.”
They used to experience plenty of dysphoria, to the point where they were suicidal. However, HSTS dysphoria is *fundamentally different* from A*P dysphoria, so it doesn’t really register as dysphoria in the same way.
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tailcalled said:
When I wrote “being clock” I meant “being clocked”.
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chridd said:
It could still be the same fundamental desire, but interpreted differently due to different everything else. E.g., perhaps the fundamental desire is to be female, whatever that means, but what exactly female means is less set in stone—e.g., some people might see masculinity/femininity as the defining feature of gender, and physical traits as secondary (an appealing position if one is a feminine trans woman, less so if one is a non-feminine trans woman), whereas others might see physical traits as the defining feature or see gender as an arbitrary category. Or dysphoria colors existing desires—e.g. wanting to fit in with women but not being able to only because of one’s sex, for trans women feels like “I should be able to do that!”, and that “I should be able to do that!” is the dysphoria (feminine cis men don’t feel like they should be able to fit in with women, and non-feminine trans women wouldn’t fit in anyways). Or people are simply trying to make sense of and describe a really confusing feeling that brains haven’t evolved to handle (“I’m supposed to be female but I have no idea why, and I’m not even sure what that means”) in terms they can understand, and what terms a person can understand differ from person to person (blind trans women feeling different parts of an elephant called “gender” and coming to different conclusions).
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ozymandias said:
Also, it is possible that there is more than one (for lack of a better word) “neurological intersex” condition. There’s more than one way that reproductive systems can be intermediate between male and female, after all.
(I myself am agnostic about the causes of transness, but consider the A*P explanation to be incorrect due to personal knowledge of my own sexual fetishes.)
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tailcalled said:
I think that “the fundamental desire is to be female, whatever that means, but what exactly female means is less set in stone” really just describes AGP dysphoria. The whole “desire to be X” thing is kinda weird in an HSTS context. It’s not that it doesn’t apply at all, but there seems to be a huge difference between the desparate urges that A*Ps feel, and the things going on for HSTSs.
“Also, it is possible that there is more than one (for lack of a better word) “neurological intersex” condition. There’s more than one way that reproductive systems can be intermediate between male and female, after all.”
I’ve considered concepts like that, but I don’t feel like it’s a good model. Heck, at this point, I don’t really use the “neurological intersex condition” model for HSTSs, except as a starting point. I.e. “neurological intersex has XYZ effects on a psychological level of abstraction.; now lets analyze all of it at the level of abstraction of psychology, rather than faux-neurology”.
(To a large degree, this makes it independent of the underlying causes. We’ve been discussing whether HSTS might actually be independent of neurology in the Secret Blanchardian Conspiracy Chatroom, and while I doubt it is, it no longer matters much for my understanding of it. To some degree, this is a bug – a proper understanding would include knowledge of why it couldn’t possibly be anything but neurology – but this is a bug in my understanding of the neurology of the situation, not in my understanding of the psychology, and AFAIK we don’t in general understand neurology well enough to expect the neurological knowledge to be tightly linked to the psychological knowledge. I more think of it as a feature, in the sense that I believe I understand the phenomenon well enough to no longer “cheat” by appealing to low-level badly-understood implementation details that obscure rather than reveal.)
Anyway, all of this is mostly about whether the “neurological intersex condition” model is useful, rather than whether it is true. I guess my main objection to “neurological intersex condition” for A*P transness is “Why would you want to replace a perfectly functional model (A*P) with a black box that doesn’t really tell you anything???”.
“(I myself am agnostic about the causes of transness, but consider the A*P explanation to be incorrect due to personal knowledge of my own sexual fetishes.)”
Now I’m super curious. It can’t be you not experiencing AAP, because you’ve mentioned that elsewhere. Is there more you’re willing to share on this?
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ozymandias said:
I don’t have to know what the cause of transness is to know that one proposed explanation is wrong. Compare: it is totally licit to be uncertain about what happened before the Big Bang and reject the “God did it” hypothesis.
I mean, sure, I have AAP in the sense that I tend to have male genitalia in my fantasies, I have a preferred body type remarkably similar to one of the types of man I am attracted to, etc. But in terms of its importance to my sexuality, AAP-spectrum things are far less important than sadomasochism, nonconsent, and being desired. In a sexual context, that last overrides my gender dysphoria and causes me to e.g. get off on wearing skirts; outside of a sexual context, I am clearly going to sacrifice being generally desired to have my preferred body type. In fact, my recent breast growth has provided an example of this: I was like “oooh, I’m going to have big boobs, sexy– WAIT NO I DON’T WANT THIS AT ALL THIS IS HORRIBLE GET THESE REPULSIVE THINGS OFF ME.” So I find it somewhat implausible that I am subconsciously sexually motivated to transition to satisfy a fairly minor aspect of my sexuality at the cost of far more central aspects.
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tailcalled said:
How obligate is your AAP? Can you (or rather, could you pretransition) have sexual fantasies where you where in them but where there was no AAP element?
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chridd said:
> Also, it is possible that there is more than one (for lack of a better word) “neurological intersex” condition.
…yes, but that sort of conflicts with the gender identity hypothesis, which predicts that if a cis person transitions they’ll experience dysphoria. If only one condition actually affects gender identity, then people with the other condition should experience dysphoria if they transition. (Possible resolutions: type 1 trans people actually do experience type 2 dysphoria after transitioning (and/or vice versa); one or both types are actually non-binary; type 1 trans people are GNC people who happen to be cis-by-default in terms of innate gender identity [this one actually seems like a fairly good explanation of what tailcalled was talking about]; both conditions affect gender identity, but one or both conditions also affect something else.)
I prefer the gender identity model because I feel like, at least for me personally, the idea that part of my brain has always thought of me as female, even though I didn’t consciously realize it, seems like it could explain more than just things that look like what you’d expect gender dysphoria to look like (e.g. could breasts have looked sort of wrong to me (AMAB) on other people for a while because I don’t have them and I subconsciously expect other women to look like me? is my discomfort with things like #yesallwomen because I wanted to say “no, because not me” but couldn’t?); particularly, if this caused some sort of split between my sense of self and my perceptions (because one is female and the other is male so they can’t possibly be the same person), that could explain like three major unexplained things in my life (one of which is derealization, the other two are… weirder, and one makes much more sense if gender specifically is the issue and is similar to something I’ve seen a couple trans people mention), in addition to the fact that it seems like it could be a part of the explanation about why trans people tend to be autistickish (see below). So… it’s not really a black box to me.
(That said, I’ve often wondered whether this is just because I’m good at coming up with possible explanations for things regardless of whether they’re true.)
The feelings I have that do look like dysphoria should look are fairly subtle, more like “I kind of want this and I’m not sure why”, and I kind of suspect I’ve had slight genital dysphoria this whole time that didn’t even register at all consciously; it’s not at all a “desperate urge”, and I otherwise fall into type 2, so I’m not sure, tailcalled, that your idea of what type 2 dysphoria is like is accurate (it’s probably accurate for some people, but I think there’s more variation than you think), and I could see that if someone had a good reason to care about looking female/male besides the dysphoria, they might think that reason was the only reason.
Gender identity also provides useful predictions like “If you’re trans now, you’ll continue to be trans, and not change your mind when circumstances change or you work through your feelings”; and it suggests that maybe someday (when society’s more trans-accepting, and after a lot of science) we could diagnose people as trans who haven’t realized they’re trans (or, more realistically, maybe point them in the right direction or ask the right questions), and save them from having to go through puberty, or cure their depression if depression is the only obvious symptom. It also predicts that trying to get everyone who’s GNC or AGP to transition is likely to end badly, and perhaps that if one’s supposed gender dysphoria has one very clear, very obvious source then they probably shouldn’t transition; and, conversely, if some is trans, you shouldn’t expect to find a source for their dysphoria (and if you think it’s someone’s fault, it’s not).
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tailcalled said:
“(That said, I’ve often wondered whether this is just because I’m good at coming up with possible explanations for things regardless of whether they’re true.)”
I… feel like that is the case? The examples you mentioned don’t strike me as strongly predicted by the gender identity model.
“The feelings I have that do look like dysphoria should look are fairly subtle, more like “I kind of want this and I’m not sure why”, and I kind of suspect I’ve had slight genital dysphoria this whole time that didn’t even register at all consciously; it’s not at all a “desperate urge”, and I otherwise fall into type 2, so I’m not sure, tailcalled, that your idea of what type 2 dysphoria is like is accurate (it’s probably accurate for some people, but I think there’s more variation than you think), and I could see that if someone had a good reason to care about looking female/male besides the dysphoria, they might think that reason was the only reason.”
I read this as you saying that you have relatively little dysphoria? Is that accurate or am I misunderstanding something?
“Gender identity also provides useful predictions like “If you’re trans now, you’ll continue to be trans, and not change your mind when circumstances change or you work through your feelings”;”
Is that an accurate prediction for everyone? I think it’s mostly just accurate in the more extreme cases (e.g. under my model, cases like obligate A*P, irrepressible GNC) and not so much in other cases.
“and it suggests that maybe someday (when society’s more trans-accepting, and after a lot of science) we could diagnose people as trans who haven’t realized they’re trans (or, more realistically, maybe point them in the right direction or ask the right questions), and save them from having to go through puberty,”
It doesn’t really sound like it gives great suggestions for *how* to diagnose people as trans early on (whereas the Blanchardian model does).
“or cure their depression if depression is the only obvious symptom.”
???
“It also predicts that trying to get everyone who’s GNC or AGP to transition is likely to end badly”
So does Blanchardianism. GNC and AGP aren’t binary states; they can exist at different intensities.
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chridd said:
> I read this as you saying that you have relatively little dysphoria? Is that accurate or am I misunderstanding something?
…maybe? But from what I’ve read it seems like dysphoria being subtle is common; also see below about depression.
>> “Gender identity also provides useful predictions like “If you’re trans now, you’ll continue to be trans, and not change your mind when circumstances change or you work through your feelings”;”
> Is that an accurate prediction for everyone? I think it’s mostly just accurate in the more extreme cases (e.g. under my model, cases like obligate A*P, irrepressible GNC) and not so much in other cases.
My understanding is that it is. But my point in that paragraph isn’t so much that it’s true, but that there are non-obvious predictions made by the gender identity model. It’s not a “black box that doesn’t really tell you anything”; it does tell you things, so it’s worth finding out if this model accurately reflects reality (and also possible to find out if it matches reality)—because if it is accurate, then people experiencing subtle dysphoria should transition.
> It doesn’t really sound like it gives great suggestions for *how* to diagnose people as trans early on (whereas the Blanchardian model does).
No it doesn’t, but it suggests that you can. If I’m understanding the Blanchardian model correctly, a person isn’t trans until they actually go through puberty and start experiencing sexual fantasies, which means that we can’t determine if a person is trans before that because they’re not trans yet. In the gender identity model, a person is trans since birth, even if they don’t start experiencing obvious dysphoria until puberty or later; this suggests that there should be more subtle signs we could look for during early childhood, and that if we find these signs, we could prevent them from having to go through the wrong puberty at all. Determining what those signs are requires further study (and actually using them for diagnosis requires a lot more further study), but whether this sort of study is worthwhile at all depends on which model is correct.
>> “or cure their depression if depression is the only obvious symptom.”
> ???
My understanding is that there are people who are trans, experience depression because of it, but don’t experience as many feelings that are more obviously gender-related, and that transition helps these people with their depression. This sort of thing makes sense in the gender identity model—your gender identity is always there, subconsciously affecting your mood, even if you’re not consciously aware of it. (Similar things might be true about derealization.)
Perhaps if a person walks into a psychiatrist’s office complaining about depression, and they’re AMAB but have a high digit ratio (indicating low testosterone before birth), the psychiatrist should ask questions about whether they have issues with their body or gender roles, and some people will and it’ll turn out that was the cause of their depression and they can transition which will help with their depression, even if the patient hadn’t considered gender as a major issue.
>> “It also predicts that trying to get everyone who’s GNC or AGP to transition is likely to end badly”
> So does Blanchardianism. GNC and AGP aren’t binary states; they can exist at different intensities.
The gender identity model also suggests that the amount of GNC or AGP isn’t necessarily going to correspond to whether they should transition; that there should be super-gender-non-conformant people who would start to experience dysphoria if they transitioned.
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tailcalled said:
“…maybe? But from what I’ve read it seems like dysphoria being subtle is common; also see below about depression.”
It can exist at all intensities. However, people with subtle dysphoria usually don’t tend to transition. I guess this probably doesn’t hold in the rationalist community, though, with our extremely high rates of transness. I emphasized strong dysphoria in my post describing A*P dysphoria not because it’s the only thing that exists, but instead because that’s what you specifically see in trans A*Ps.
“My understanding is that it is. But my point in that paragraph isn’t so much that it’s true, but that there are non-obvious predictions made by the gender identity model. It’s not a “black box that doesn’t really tell you anything”; it does tell you things, so it’s worth finding out if this model accurately reflects reality (and also possible to find out if it matches reality)—because if it is accurate, then people experiencing subtle dysphoria should transition.”
Fair point.
Sidenote: The statement “People who experience subtle dysphoria will continue experiencing subtle dysphoria” does not imply “People who experience subtle dysphoria should transition”. The costs and disadvantages of transition may outweigh the dysphoria.
“If I’m understanding the Blanchardian model correctly, a person isn’t trans until they actually go through puberty and start experiencing sexual fantasies, which means that we can’t determine if a person is trans before that because they’re not trans yet.”
AGP seems to sometimes exist in childhood. It’s unclear how often and that’s something I’d really like to figure out, but it is frequently reported. This is probably similar to how heterosexuality and homosexuality also exists in childhood (e.g. kids have crushes on each other).
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chridd said:
> It can exist at all intensities. However, people with subtle dysphoria usually don’t tend to transition. I guess this probably doesn’t hold in the rationalist community, though, with our extremely high rates of transness. I emphasized strong dysphoria in my post describing A*P dysphoria not because it’s the only thing that exists, but instead because that’s what you specifically see in trans A*Ps.
(You mean “transitioning” in that last sentence?) If we’re trying to understand the causes of being trans, then people who experience dysphoria but don’t transition are relevant, because it could be that gender dysphoric people don’t fall into two clusters, but there are two subsets of gender dysphoric people that tend to transition (e.g., those who experience particularly strong dysphoria over gendered social treatment, and those who experience particularly strong dysphoria over physical traits; or those who care strongly about fitting in, and those whose dysphoria in and of itself is particularly strong; or those who can get past gatekeepers easily, and those who are super-determined to regardless of difficulty). (If this is true, we might expect to see less clustering as trans issues become more widely known.)
(It’s possible this is why your claims of two distinct types of dysphoria don’t match what I’ve heard; my sample is people who talk about dysphoria on the internet, regardless of whether they’ve transitioned. Also, by the way, my sample of trans people whose experiences I’ve read about is not primarily from the rationalist community.)
> Sidenote: The statement “People who experience subtle dysphoria will continue experiencing subtle dysphoria” does not imply “People who experience subtle dysphoria should transition”. The costs and disadvantages of transition may outweigh the dysphoria.
True. But there are two other possible reasons “people who experience subtle dysphoria should transition” may be true:
1. The gender identity hypothesis only predicts that the existence of dysphoria will remain constant, but not necessarily its subtleness; people who experience subtle dysphoria now are at risk for experiencing less subtle dysphoria later in life. I’ve seen it claimed that dysphoria increases over time, but haven’t seen any evidence yet backing up this claim (I think this is worth studying; and I’m aware that evidence for this claim may be biased, in that people whose gender dysphoria has decreased without transition are less likely to talk about it than those where it increased).
2. It’s possible that obvious gender dysphoria is just the tip of the iceberg, and that hard-to-see gender dysphoria is still affecting people’s lives in ways they’re not aware of (which makes sense if it’s a subconscious thing), either due to it not being obviously gender-related (e.g. dysphoria manifesting primarily as depression) and/or due to it just seeming “normal” (e.g., as I understand it, emotional disconnect from one’s body/appearance is one possible manifestation of dysphoria; I’m not sure whether I experience that, because if I do, I don’t know what such an emotional connection would feel like because I’ve never experienced it); this is something I’ve seen people have say they experience (e.g. “wait, that was a gender thing?”, and the depression article I linked and/or its followup).
…I guess one of the things I’m trying to get at here is this: Suppose the gender identity hypothesis is accurate. A trans woman has subconscious knowledge/instincts that say she’s a woman. Presumably these instincts are “supposed” to only occur in AFAB people; being the right sex seems to be a need (it’s important enough to have instincts about, and important enough to make people suicidal if it’s not met), a need that one isn’t supposed to have to go out of their way to get met, and in the past one couldn’t get met if it wasn’t already; and there’s in many cases disagreement between one’s conscious and subconscious about something that the brain seems to treat as fundamental. This is kind of a weird situation, one which brains probably aren’t really prepared to handle, so it could cause problems that don’t look like “wanting to be a different sex” but which are nevertheless helped by transition; we might be lucky that it does register as something that looks like “wanting to be a different sex”, rather than working like pica or like a B-vitamin deficiency—and maybe there are even people where it does work like one of those other things. This isn’t something that the gender identity hypothesis definitively predicts, but it’s something that it allows for and could explain.
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chridd said:
(…that said, this might not be the ideal situation for me to try to discuss speculation that I’m not really sure about and haven’t discussed with other people before. (I don’t know where else I could discuss this sort of thing, though.) I guess my point, though, is that it may be possible to reason about gender identity as not a black box, and get predictions and explanations that we couldn’t get if we treated gender identity as an instrumental desire.)
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tailcalled said:
“(You mean “transitioning” in that last sentence?)”
I consider transitioning (or at least, intention to transition) a requirement to be trans, since the alternatives seem hard to make sense of to me.
“If we’re trying to understand the causes of being trans, then people who experience dysphoria but don’t transition are relevant, because it could be that gender dysphoric people don’t fall into two clusters, but there are two subsets of gender dysphoric people that tend to transition”
Oh, I definitely agree. This is why I do lots of gender surveys primarily targeting cis people.
“The gender identity hypothesis only predicts that the existence of dysphoria will remain constant, but not necessarily its subtleness; people who experience subtle dysphoria now are at risk for experiencing less subtle dysphoria later in life.”
I agree, this is what I’d use to defend the notion that people with subtle dysphoria should transition.
“2. It’s possible that obvious gender dysphoria is just the tip of the iceberg, and that hard-to-see gender dysphoria is still affecting people’s lives in ways they’re not aware of (which makes sense if it’s a subconscious thing),”
I tend to look for that in my surveys. Zinnia Jones has changed her focus from depression to depersonalization, btw., but it only seems to be a smallish effect as far as I can tell.
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hearts said:
“How about trans-like experiences such as BIID and otherkin? Why are people with BIID sexually attracted to amputees, and otherkin attracted to their kintype?”
As a therian, I am unclear how common this is? In my ~6 years in various therian/otherkin/nonhuman/alterhuman communities, I have only encountered one otherkin who is attracted to their kintype (and one other that kiiiinda could maybe look like it if you squint), and it was through a blog post I read (I have never actually talked to one), and I have easily talked to hundreds just on discord, and I’ve read even more blog posts/articles/tumblrs/whatever. It’s entirely possible that this is because of people being unwilling to disclose being attracted to animals, especially when in conversation vs an anonymous blog post that will probably not get read. It’s entirely possible that the majority of otherkin are attracted to their kintype, but it’s definitely not something I would present as a /given/.
Also, if anyone here is interested in poking at the brain of someone who experiences non-gender dysphoria (species dysphoria), feel free!
For the record: imitating animals, “i want to be a cat”/”i don’t want to be human” or even insisting “i AM a cat”/”i AM physically nonhuman” since I was 4; started identifying as a therian and experiencing phantom limbs/serious conscious dysphoria when i was 10-11ish; began experiencing some auto-species-philia (?) stuff either right before or right after my sixteenth birthday. Also, I’m attracted only to human girls (and sometimes human enbies).
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tailcalled said:
“As a therian, I am unclear how common this is?”
I did a poll on it on /r/Otherkin a while ago, and the majority reported yes. Of the ones that didn’t report yes, most reported that it’s complicated, which suggests that they still have sexual feelings related to their kintype.
In addition, this therian survey found that 60% are zoo:
http://liminalbeast.tumblr.com/post/50673557425/reposted-for-the-last-time-anyone-missing-this
This matches with my poll, and suggests that their survey may be an underestimate because it didn’t include an option for ambiguous sexual feelings.
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leoboiko said:
In this as in so much else, I can’t help but wonder if the typology is even defined enough to be worth the trouble. How many people don’t quite fit any of the two labels and live in the in-between spaces? I mean, are the traits of each type really that clustered together, or are they spread all over?
I (AMAB) started dressing in mom’s clothes at the onset of puberty, I was a crossdressing fetishist, I’m transitioning in my thirties, and I’m attracted to women. So I guess that makes me a type 2. But I was effeminate from infancy, visibly enough to be frequently targeted for it, chastised by parents etc; I hated boy’s games, and was drawn to girl things, socializing with girls and so on; and I’m also attracted to men, as far back as I can remember (bisexuality descended clearly and explosively upon puberty, and before it, I had both gyno- and andro early romantic crushes). Aren’t these supposed to be type 1 traits?
Blanchardianism smells strongly to me of massaging data into predetermined categories.
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tailcalled said:
The Blanchardian response to this is, of course, heavy skepticism at your claims of having HSTS traits.
* Are you *sure* you were feminine? In what ways, and how consistently? Sufficiently feminine that people aren’t surprised when you come out as trans? Remember the difference between being *feminine*, and being nerdy, unathletic and socially awkward. Also, remember to not cherrypick.
* How bisexual, exactly? Attraction to extremely feminine men probably doesn’t really count, since that goes more under GAMP than androphilia. How many masculine men have you been intimate with (without crossdressing)?
I can’t think of *any* well-known trans person who doesn’t obviously have traits that belong in one of the Blanchardian-but-with-the-explicit-etiology-removed types (i.e. types based on the visible traits, rather than private defining traits like A*P), and it seems weird to propose that there is some magic filter where you have to fit the typology to become famous. Much more likely, trans people just fit the types in general.
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leoboiko said:
I feel super bummed at being questioned like this, but I’ll try to ignore my hurt and answer your questions:
* In my home Latino country I’ve been pushed, shaken by my shoulders, bullied, slapped at a certain school every day until I moved, punched, kicked in the groin, threatened with named targeted graffiti, stalked by a group neo-nazis, ceremonially told I was not welcomed in a town, and had a bottle thrown on my head by a car driver—all specifically, explicitly, and loudly due to being mariquinha/bichinha (effeminate/fag). I certainly don’t think my family will be surprised, since they work so hard to chastise me for effeminacy. People who knew me when I was a kid won’t be surprised, either; those who only knew me now might be, perhaps, since I’ve learned to perform masculinity more or less passably, for my own safety. (Also I’m tall and hairy now).
* I’ve had sexual relationships with a total of 3 masculine men, plus 2 feminine men and 1 trans man that people like you would claim, wrongly, that doesn’t count as being bi. I’ve also had several dark-room encounters with N>x guys simultaneously at gay bars. Also one plus-size nerdy guy not particularly femme or mascy—I’m not sure whether that counts for you or not. Pre-puberty I’ve sexually experimented with 2 boys; once puberty hit, I would get erections from both male and female models in underwear catalogs, I’d read both the straight and gay confessions of dad’s porn mags, etc. (I distinctly remember the moment when I found out that most people aren’t bisexual; it was a shock). I’ve never crossdressed with men, only with women. I’ve been with at least double as many women as men, including my current long-term partner.
I say this only to reply to you, but in any case having sex with men, or being attracted to masculinity, are not criteria for bisexuality, so it’s a moot point.
* There are several criticisms of Blanchard’s data-mangling and “hand-picking which evidence counts and which does not based upon how well it conforms to the model” already in the literature, including [1], [2] and [3].
* Blanchard’s etiology is also completely just-so, in contrast to the growing evidence for biological correlates.
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tailcalled said:
“I feel super bummed at being questioned like this, but I’ll try to ignore my hurt”
Sounds like this isn’t a conversation we should take further, then?
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ozymandias said:
Alison Sinesalvatorem. (As I recall Bailey heard her story and was like “…you, you are just weird”.)
(Also, yeah, be nice, don’t question people about their childhood traumas.)
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tailcalled said:
Good choice of example, she *is* weird.
My understanding is this: she shouldn’t (according to what she’s shared) be HSTS, because she’s a lesbian and willing to use her penis during sex, but also not AGP, because she reported being very GNC as a kid and has not experienced AGP.
I’d love having her in here to ask about some more details. Many trans women claim not to be AGP, but when you then get deeper into it, they literally could not get off to sexual fantasies in which they were male, and instead always imagined having a female body (before coming out to themselves). This is still AGP, even if it’s not literally TGTF. Was this also the case with Alison?
(I’ll admit, Alison was the very first trans person I asked Trent about, because she also seems like an extreme and rare outlier to me.)
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tailcalled said:
Also, it’s worth adding that feminine-but-learned-to-repress-it isn’t an HSTS trait, it’s a cis gay trait. There’s not much point transitioning because of gender nonconformity if you’ve learned to not be gender nonconforming.
(Such experiences would still contradict Blanchardianism, but not the aspects of it that I’m the most certain about…)
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tailcalled said:
I’ve started thinking about a New And Intriguing theory, which makes me need to ask:
When you were a kid, were you ego-syntonic about your effeminacy?
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tailcalled said:
Btw, would you be interested in hosting an AMA with two HSTSs I know? I think this might help clear up the type 1/type 2 distinction better. They’re not the most normal HSTSs there are (after all, it’d be kinda hard to encounter them if they were), but they help illustrate the typology pretty well.
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sinesalvatorem said:
Hi, I heard people wanted to question me here.
To answer questions I’ve seen in this comment section:
@tailcalled said that a good question for T1/T2 trans people is whether they’d want a female body and not being gendered as female if the only alternative was always having a male body and being gendered as male.
I thought about this a lot before deciding that the only reason having a female body seemed valuable was because it would be an interesting experience and I value novelty. When I consider being physically weaker, it’s certainly not worth it. However, if I had the option of always being gendered as female but having an extremely masculine body I’d take it in a second. I don’t have body dysphoria, so it’s a costless win :p
My lack of physical dysphoria is also why I’m willing to use my penis during sex. To me, it’s just a well-functioning tool, and the fact that I only sleep with women means that it’s an often-valuable one.
I do not have much of a feeling of being a “transwoman” and things that are generally associated with transwomen tend to feel alien to me. However, I am aware from the outside that “transwoman” is an accurate description. Given the opportunity, I would wake up tomorrow as a ciswoman, remembering all AMAB-related things as an unpleasant dream. I would not take this option to become a non-dysphoric cis man, because this does not seem particularly distinct from dying in my sleep and being replaced by a guy. Waking up as white would be similarly identity-fucking. Waking up as straight would honestly not be too strange.
I don’t think I’ve gotten off to sexual fantasies in which I’m male before? But I also don’t think I’ve gotten off to sexual fantasies in which I’m female. I don’t think my gender has actually come up in sexual fantasies before. (Except to the extent that people yelling gendered slurs at me has happened in fantasies, and those have been female, but this is confounded by the fact that I don’t /have/ masculine slurs for fantasy Doms to yell at me.)
If you mean what body type I have in sexual fantasies, either one, tbh. I think I almost always look how I currently do at the time of the fantasising. (eg, before I had breasts, fantasy!me had no breasts. Now she does.) When I don’t have my irl form, it’s usually just that I’m a TV character. Again, my physical form usually has little to do with it.
I do have feelings of “I want to fuck her” when seeing some women, and I do have feelings of “I want to be her” when seeing some women. However, so far, those have never been the same person. Besides not overlapping, the former set is notably far larger than the latter. The former are attractive women of all races and a wide variety of personality types and gender presentations. The latter are all black women who seem distinctly female and that I have some amount of aspirational feelings toward.
Also, I have the ability to tell if a woman I want to be is attractive, even if I do not experience attraction to her, in much the same way that I can tell if a man is attractive but won’t be attracted to him. For example, I know that both Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and Leonardo DiCaprio are attractive people; I just have no desire to have sex with either of them.
If anyone has any other questions for me, feel free to poke me on FB or Tumblr. I can either come back here to update things or respond to you there in PMs.
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chridd said:
Is this a good place to ask for feedback on my own speculation on the causes of the type 1/type 2 distinction? (I mean, it’s kind of relevant, and I’m not sure where else to discuss this. And I guess it’s kind of similar, except it’s more like age of realization than age of transition?)
My latest speculation is that the distinction has to do with the distinction between
(a) mostly thinking of oneself as one’s gender, and experiencing mainly dysphoria from things outside one’s body (more obvious types of dysphoria, hating one’s body and/or being misgendered and/or gender roles pushed on them; body ≠ conscious gender = subconscious gender); and
(b) not thinking of oneself as one’s gender, but not fully thinking of oneself as oneself (dissociation, feeling like one is acting out someone else’s life, or that one is a floating consciousness; body = conscious gender (if any) ≠ subconscious gender).
In particular, my idea is that:
• people who experience mainly (a) during childhood would be more obviously trans and perhaps more inclined to be interested in femininity/masculinity since they’re more aware of their gender identity, and therefore type 1;
• people who experience mainly (b) during childhood would be less obviously trans, but also tend to find things that require thinking about this person whose life they’re living (particularly social interactions, also some physical activities e.g. sports) less interesting or less pleasant or more difficult, and be more inclined towards things that don’t relate to this person whose life they’re living (more abstract things like math and CS and some arts; and fiction, particularly fantasy-type stuff distant from everyday reality)—therefore, autistic(ish) and type 2. (Under this model, then, starting to experience dysphoria when one realizes they’re trans or starts transitioning = changing from type (b) to type (a).)
Does this seem (or something along these lines) at all plausible?
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tailcalled said:
“(Under this model, then, starting to experience dysphoria when one realizes they’re trans or starts transitioning = changing from type (b) to type (a).)”
Shouldn’t AGPs experience HSTS-type dysphoria, then?
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