Autogynephilia -- a strange element of LGBTQ+ movement

And one that should not be indulged

There is one topic that is not discussed very much when it comes to the LGBTQ+++ community and movement but given that we are in the midst of Pride Month, let’s take a stab at it. That topic is Autogynephilia — a type of paraphilia* or fetish which causes a biological male to become sexually aroused by the thought of himself as female.

*Paraphilia: defined as a condition characterized by abnormal sexual desires or fetishes.

The term autogynephilia, which comes from the Greek language meaning “love of oneself as a woman”, was coined by Canadian-American sexologist Ray Blanchard. It was intended to cover to the full gamut of the erotically arousing cross-gender behaviours and fantasies of such men—who were often referred to as transvestites back in the day.

Such behaviours include the wearing of women’s clothes or make up, or even simply wearing women’s underwear or shoes. Blanchard also used it to draw a distinction between these men and homosexual transsexuals as follows:

Homosexual transsexuals who are attracted exclusively to men and are feminine in both behaviour and appearance and in many cases seek to physically transition to female.

Autogynephilic transsexuals who experience sexual arousal at the idea of having a female body (autogynephilia).

Blanchard argued that his typology explains differences between the two groups in terms of sexual orientation, a history of sexual fetishism, and the age of transition.

In recent years autogynephilic transsexuals, to use Blanchard’s term, have become a very vocal, visible and disruptive part of the LGBTQ+ community. Many of these men, who don wigs and wear woman’s clothing to feed their sexual fetish, aggressively claim to be women, insist on being addressed as women, treated as women and viewed as women despite the fact that they remain physically intact as men. Yet many transactivists have embraced them as bona fide members of LGBTQ communitiy and have often endorsed or excused their disruptive and in some cases, violent behaviours.

Transsexual sexologist Anne A. Lawrence (author of ‘Men Trapped in Men’s Bodies’) maintains that an autogynephile’s inwardly directed nature, and their frustrations related to requiring others to validate their cross-sex identity, means that the condition co-occurs with narcissistic disorders more often than would occur by chance. Therefore, violent or angry autogynephiles are not unusual, because their narcissism can trigger angry outbursts when people refuse to cooperate with them in their delusions, This anger often targets biological woman stemming from the autogynephile’s envy and resentment of women and for not being accepted as one of them, particularly if these real women refuse to acknowledge their ‘womanhood’.

In the paper “Shame and Narcissistic Rage in Autogynephilic Transsexualism.” authored by Lawrence, Lawrence describes such narcissistic behaviours of autogynphilic transsexuals.as follows: “A sense of ‘entitlement’ and a ‘lack of empathy’ .The grandiose, unrealistic sense of self that is characteristic of many persons with narcissistic disorders can be understood as a defence against what would otherwise be overwhelming feelings of inadequacy or shame. In the case of non-homosexual male to female transsexuals, this unrealistic sense of self might include the belief that one passes undetectably as a woman, despite having unmistakably masculine physical characteristics.”

The bottom line on these observations by both Lawrence and Blanchard can certainly account for much of the violence seen at protests and demonstrations that oppose elements of the LBGTQ+ movement and transgenderism in general. This is particularly apparent when women such as women’s rights activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull try to speak out about how the movement is threatening women’s hard won rights and women’s safety issues and are viciously attacked. Canadian women’s rights activist Megan Murphy, who has also spoken out against the transgender movement and its impact on both biological women and children, has been subjected to violent threats as well. This further undescored by the use of the word TERF to describe biological women, and only biological women who take a stand for the protection of women’s rights and women only spaces in the face of the transender movement.

Author, podcaster, and political commentator Ayaan Hirsi Ali has also jumped into the fray writing an article on the subject on her substack Restoration. In it she succinty makes a further and important distinction between homosexuality and transgender identities such as autogynphilics as follows.

.“Homosexuality and transgender identities are not remotely equivalent. Perhaps the most crucial difference between homosexuality and transgender identification is that the former is not a self-given “identity” which others must affirm as real. The latter is just that: A denial that women are a sex class, not a feeling or a fantasy. Women do not have to identify as women – we don’t “opt in” to womanhood – we just are. Simply bending to the demands of autogynephilics (demands which will surely increase in extremity, as fetishes become more extreme when they are indulged) and their legions of activists is not an option.”

“If there is something hardwired about the autogynephilic fetish, then the men who experience it should receive the private and empathetic therapy they need in order not to be consumed by it. Nobody is suggesting a return to electroshock therapy – arguably, those who wish to castrate these men and risk giving them permanent complications in the hope of giving them “gender euphoria” are more ready to disregard these men’s well being than those who question the safety of transgender surgeries.

It must be difficult to have a paraphilia consume one’s everyday thoughts. But the demand that we call people with these fetishes women in order to satisfy their sexual compulsions is an assault on the very nature of womanhood and a failure to help those individuals to accept reality: That they are men with fetishes.” 

I think she sums up quite nicely why biological woman should not bend to these demands, from a group of people who have been given power from transactivists and extremists who insist that a man, simply declaring that he is a woman is enough for the world to acknowledge their delusions and allow them into women’s spaces and places which further indulges their fetishes.