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The contents of the Autogynephilia page were merged into Blanchard's transsexualism typology on 11 September 2010. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see its talk page.

The following references may be useful when improving this article in the future: Becker, Judith V.; Perkins, Andrew (2014). "Gender Dysphoria". In Hales, Robert E.; Yudofsky, Stuart C.; Roberts, Laura Weiss (eds.). The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Psychiatry (6th ed.). Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Publishing. p. 688. ISBN 978-1-5856-2444-7. Rider, G. Nic; Tebbe, Elliot A. (2021). "Anti-Trans Theories". In Goldberg, Abbie E.; Beemyn, Genny (eds.). The SAGE Encyclopedia of Trans Studies, Volume 1. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Publications. pp. 39–43. doi:10.4135/9781544393858.n12. ISBN 978-1-5443-9382-7.

Notes From The Stone Age

Once upon a time a long time ago me and two other users, more or less, argued and fought and jousted to create these articles. I still correspond with them off WP from time to time. One was a comedian, the other a psychologist. Points they made that I recall will be attributed in that manner. You can read the talk pages of those old articles to see for yourself. That said here are some observations I hope will help in condensing and re-writing this article.

• Make sure that the first paragraph contains a summary of what Blanchard's typology is and the criticisms of it. The comedian made the point that most people won't read much beyond the first paragraph. Almost 20 years of Twitterfication of internet reading and I believe her. I wonder if people read beyond the title of an article a lot of the time.
• Make sure that you keep tightly to the peer reviewed published papers of Blanchard when describing his work and also to the similarly published works that refute or support his work. The psychologist was understandably big on that. Misplaced Pages may be stricter about that now. Back then a website by the right kind of person could suffice and be presented here as a refutation of such a work.
• Make sure the article is about the the subject not just the criticism and critique of the subject. This is what my mission here was, as I saw it, the comedian and the psychologist might not agree. The comedian wanted almost all of the article to be about the criticism. The psychologist would've had almost none of it. So much of the articles "Autogynephilia" and "Homosexual Transsexual" were about the criticism of the subject. They were about a controversy over a book from that time. Mention those but the article needs to be about the subject for the most part. ( By the by,It refers to sex not gender and so does not misgender. It does reduce transwomen who are into men to their sex drive)
• Last and most important keep this in mind. 'Everyone working on this is acting voluntarily and in good faith.' If I have learned anything by interacting with those people online in other forums and on other topics is that any argument over this does not matter. Just remember to relax.

Those are my points. Feel free to ignore all of it. What do us dinosaurs know?Hfarmer (talk) 16:03, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

You make a good point about the need to ensure the lead is complete. The lead is currently pretty short and contains just one sentence explaining what the typology is: "Blanchard categorized trans women into two groups: homosexual transsexuals who are attracted exclusively to men and are feminine in both behavior and appearance; and autogynephilic transsexuals who experience sexual arousal at the idea of having a female body (autogynephilia)." IMO this could be expanded to include 1) not only that he defines the first group by attraction (which the lead currently does mention), but that the second group is a collection of everyone else — those attracted to women, those attracted to "both", those attracted to "neither" (and hence alternately termed non-homosexual transsexuals). Other things the body devotes sections to which could be added to the lead: 2) why the typology and terminology have been criticized: the terminology for being confusing and misgendering, for which reason 3) alternative terminology has been proposed / is used by others for referring to the types of attraction Blanchard discusses; and the typology for reasons including e.g. that it posits autogynephilia as trans-only but 4) autogynephilia is also found in cis women. Also 5) that the typology or its terminology (homosexual, androphilic, etc) has sometimes been applied to trans men, and 6) a sentence (or two) summarizing the § Societal impact section. -sche (talk) 17:53, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Again I'm just sharing what I recall of our past perspectives and motivations. The page belongs to the present. Those all sound like reasonable things to add. I'd say given the current moment, and wanting to avoid an unending cycle of arguing about terminology.. the following.

"Blanchard's transsexualism typology states that there are two types of transsexual androphillic, and non-androphillic. Androphillic transsexuals are attracted to men, and are a 5-6 or the Kinsey scale (link to that article cite the papers for what they say). According to this typology other transexuals are non-androphillic and instead have a paraphilic attraction to the idea or image of themselves as a woman. This idea is controversial because it reduces transsexual women to their sexualities, it does not account for transmen, and has been used to further political actions against transwomen.

I'd sum it up that way. I am sure the comedian, you'll see which user that was in the archive of the talk page would not think I said enough about why its controversial. The psychologist would not like using androphillic vs non-androphillic. (I can't believe this issue has been a controversy for so long. A child born in 2007-2008 would be in high school now.)Hfarmer (talk) 16:53, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Agreed with sche here that the lead should be expanded, and basically in the way outlined. I also think that just a list of critics and supporters doesn't have a lot of encyclopedic value on its own. The article already makes it pretty clear that Blanchard, Bailey, and Lawrence support the theory, and that Serano, Moser, and others oppose it or parts of it. Loki (talk) 02:31, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

FWIW, I think it's obvious that "autogynephilia" should have its own page, and what really happened here is that Misplaced Pages got played by trans activists who couldn't stand the thought of someone googling "autogynephilia" and being directed to a Misplaced Pages page with a fair and accurate description of this subject matter. All the arguments about POV forks and everything else were just dishonest covers for this desire. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.113.130.250 (talk) 16:02, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

This is already that very page that you crave. It explains the term "autogynephilia" within its context of Blanchard's typology in a fair and accurate way. It makes strenuous effort to take the idea as seriously as it is physically possible to without straining a muscle. There is no point in a stand alone article as it would either have to refer back here for the entire conceptual framework within which the term "autogynephilia" exists or else just duplicate more than half of this article. I don't even think that there is anything more to say about it than we already say here. It would be completely redundant.

The problem is that you want to make it look like "autogynephilia" is an accepted thing, existing in the real world, separate from Blanchard's non-mainstream typology. That simply isn't something that is widely accepted. The only people who think that "autogynephilia" is real and meaningful are people who adhere to the typology. That's a very small group (dare I say fringe?) in the medical community even if the idea has caught, on to a limited extent, outside of academia.

It makes absolutely no sense to spin it out separately. It would be twice as much trouble for the editors and only make things more confusing and disjointed for the readers. DanielRigal (talk) 18:19, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

A few points in response. First, and most obviously, while you can say what you want about Ray Blanchard and his various claims. the CONCEPT of autogynephilia obviously describes a true phenomenon. Why do we know this? Well, in addition to Blanchard's and Bailey's observations, we have: (1) 100 years of data going all the way back to data collected by Magnus Hirschfeld that describe assigned males coming in to clinics and describing an erotic attraction to the notion of being a woman-- Hirschfeld, Kurt Freund, and others gave different names for this, but they all took down detailed histories (because back then, gender clinics gatekept rigorously) and there are in fact tons of documented autogynephiles; (2) clinicians have described fetishistic cross-dressing for decades (I should add, a totally different subject from transsexualism), and one of the causes of fetishistic cross-dressing is males who have an erotic attraction to being or becoming a woman; and (3) we have autogynephiles themselves, which includes not only AGP activists like Anne Lawrence but also even one of the person who led the attacks on Michael Bailey, who said herself that autogynephilia described her experience.

So when you say "I want to make it look like 'autogynephilia' is an accepted thing, existing in the real world", you are arguing from a position of unreality and proving my point. You obviously don't want this thing that exists to exist, in exactly the same way that a devout evangelical might not want Darwinian evolution to be true. And of course, coming from that position of denial of strongly evidenced reality, of course you don't want there to be a standalone Misplaced Pages page, for EXACTLY the reason I said-- because you don't want an authoritative encyclopedia to document this thing that you wish didn't exist even though it does.

Finally, the German Misplaced Pages page has a page for autogynephilia. German Misplaced Pages runs under the exact same rules as Engish language Misplaced Pages. And yet they have this page. That strongly suggests that your position is exactly what I said it is.

An encyclopedia that wants to be authoritative got played by a bunch of trans activists who really, truly, wish something isn't true and want to skew the discourse to misinform readers. That's the whole story here. (BTW the different IP address on my signature is because I am away from home while I type this.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.110.117.250 (talk) 02:31, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

One do not have to be a trans activist to say that Blanchard didn't prove that all gynephilic trans women transition because of sexual fantasies. To prove this, it would take a little more than simply finding such fantasies among a few groups of gynephilic trans women. Freud (who didn't focus on trans people and made such claims about humanity in general) also did not prove this kind of thing. This is Blanchard's point, not that some trans women have sexual fantasies related to having a female body. Neither scholars nor transgender rights activists argue with this. But autogynephilia is not a universally accepted term for this kink, there are scholars who prefer other terms. Reprarina (talk) 09:40, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

So what? There are many concepts out there where some scholars prefer some terms and some scholars prefer other terms. And it's not like Misplaced Pages just lists it under a different term (like Julia Serano's "Female Emobdiment Fantasy"). It doesn't list it all, instead subsuming it under a bunch of jargon ("Blanchard's Transsexualism Typology"), which is just obviously an attempt to bury the concept.

Here's the point. The CONCEPT is notable under the Misplaced Pages definition of that term. It's debated. It's discussed. Everyone talks about it. Indeed, even its use as a slur (which to be clear, I find deplorable) is itself evidence of notability. Everyone knows what AGP is. It has its own page in other languages on Misplaced Pages. So what is going on here?

Isn't it obvious? Trans activists hate this term. They have been out for blood against it ever since Michael Bailey wrote his book about it. And Misplaced Pages has allowed those activists to game the system here, to take a notable concept that absolutely deserves its own page and bury it, because it would hurt their feelings and perhaps harm their political project if someone googled the term and found a Misplaced Pages page for it. 47.145.135.156 (talk) 00:45, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Unfalsifiable

The article presently says: "Many scientists say that the theory is defined in such a way as to be unfalsifiable, and that Blanchard failed to do a proper control against cis women rather than against cis men. They also argue that, when such a control is performed, there is not a significant difference between cisgender women and transgender women on measures of autogynephilia."

Does that make anyone else hear One of These Things (Is Not Like the Others)?

It literally says that it is impossible to prove this idea wrong, and then explains how to prove it wrong. Should this perhaps say something like "Some scientists say it is unfalsifiable, and other scientists say that it has already been proven wrong"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:31, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

It could be more specific, but to be clear, these criticisms are for different aspects of the theory and some are made by the same scientists. Julia Serano in particular has said both of these things: that the theory as written in the original papers is falsifiable and false, while the theory as since defended by Blanchard and Bailey is unfalsifiable, because whenever someone comes up with a falsification, they come up with a reason why it doesn't count. Loki (talk) 01:09, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

That's not really how falsification works. You aren't the sole arbiter of whether someone has disproven an idea, just like you aren't the sole arbiter of whether your own attempt to disprove an idea actually disproved it. If the supporters of an idea think your disproof was ineffective, that doesn't mean that it's unfalsifiable; it means your evidence wasn't convincing to the people most inclined to disbelieve it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:09, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

While I'm here, though, is there a short explanation of why – for an idea that says "These AMAB trans folks are not exactly the same as those AMAB trans folks" – the One True™ Control Group is AFAB cis people? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:12, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

That's not the claim. The claim is that AMAB trans people are divided into gay men and fetishist men. So proving that cis women in fact have the same "sexual fetish" as trans women is very important for proving that it's not in fact a sexual fetish but a normal part of being a woman. Loki (talk) 06:29, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't think Blanchard would describe his typology as 'gay men and fetishist men'. As far as I know, he describes autogyenphilia as a form of sexual orientation, and doesn't believe it is some all consuming 'fetish'. Zenomonoz (talk) 06:46, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

So first, you're mostly thinking of Lawrence there, not Blanchard.

But second, he describes autogynephilia as lots of different things, and this is the core of Bevan's related critique, that autogynephilia is not scientific because it has never been sufficiently operationalized to do research about.

That being said, it's pretty obvious from the terminology Blanchard uses (e.g. he still insists on the phrase "homosexual transsexual" even now that it's received tons of criticism, he's repeatedly called autogynephilia a "paraphilia") that this is in fact the way he thinks of things. Loki (talk) 06:49, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

I have heard him express that he would probably use different terminology if it were being published today. It would've been best to use androphilic rather than 'homosexual', which he used with respect to sex assigned at birth. Anyway, I'm not here to defend Blanchard, and this probably isn't the place to have a debate about the typology. Honestly, I'm a little confused as to the issue that WhatamIdoing has. We go by what the sources say. Zenomonoz (talk) 06:55, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

I forgot to look this up, but Blanchard says here I expect the writer knows that I myself never characterized autogynephilia as a "mere fetish." That is a straw man version of my writings. Zenomonoz (talk) 06:58, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

...one, that's Twitter, but two, he goes on to call it a paraphilia in the very same thread. Loki (talk) 07:01, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

I mean, or that their idea is WP:FRINGE and they keep moving the goalposts, right?

The specifics here are, per Serano and others, that Blanchard and Bailey propose the typology based on surveys of trans women, then trans women say overwhelmingly (both informally and in other research) that the typology does not match their experience, and then Blanchard and Bailey basically just accuse trans women of being liars. But not in their original surveys, or in any of their own research. For, y'know, reasons.

Or, separately, per Bevan, that Blanchard and Bailey have never managed to properly operationalize the concept of "autogynephilia", that even their casual definitions have changed significantly over time, and that partly of a consequence of this issue every attempt they've made to study it has not actually provided support for the overall typology but only for the direct behavior they're studying. So for instance, that Blanchard's surveys do provide evidence that trans women often have an erotic response to crossdressing, but not that this is a major factor in gender dysphoria or a good way to divide up trans people. (This one is a lot more technical and I'd invite you to read this source itself.) Loki (talk) 06:46, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Lots of people say that psychological research does not match their experience, especially if they believe that the result is unflattering.

Above, I said "These AMAB trans folks are not exactly the same as those AMAB trans folks"; you said "The claim is that AMAB trans people are divided into gay men and fetishist men".  I'm not actually seeing much daylight between the two statements.  Both are saying that there are two groups of AMAB trans people (not one, not three, not eleven, but exactly two), right? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:15, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

The claim that trans women are men? Like, you keep using that phrase "AMAB trans people" and it's missing a major part of the reason other researchers don't like Blanchard's typology: it has as a foundational assumption that trans women are in fact men and psychologically like men.

That's why Blanchard doesn't do controls against cis women, and it's why controls against cis women were important in revealing the problems with his theory. It's why he calls the group composed of straight trans women "homosexual". A big part of the reason his theory only applies to trans women and not trans men is that he and many other sexologists believe that paraphilias are much more common in men (and he's been clear about this before).

Blanchard takes this assumption pretty much on faith, and it's the source of the biggest problems with the theory. If you look at the critiques, most of them are very willing to admit that it's possible to divide trans women up into groups or that many trans women have sexual fantasies related to dressing as a woman, especially pre-transition. The core fringey element of Blanchard's theory is the idea that gender dysphoria is motivated by either being a gay man or a fetishist man. If you're not going to engage with that bit and why it's fringe, than I don't really have much to say to you. Loki (talk) 18:38, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

The obvious difference is that one statement is merely saying that there are two groups while the other is making a statement that goes a lot further by making a very specific claim about the nature of the two alleged groups. They are not equivalent statements any more than the two statements "There are right and left handed people" and "There are right and left handed people and the left handed people all pick their noses when the right handed people are not looking" are equivalent statements. DanielRigal (talk) 18:42, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Is it now uncontroversial that there are two subtypes of trans women, and that these two types can usually be identified according to their sexual orientation?

Would the objections to this typology largely dissipate if he had used different wording? Maybe instead of copying the homosexual transsexual label of the 1950s, they wanted him to copy the true transsexual label of the 1970s instead? Or make up a new, more flattering label? Would the trans community be happy with having two groups, if he had labeled one group scientifically proven straight women and the other scientifically proven lesbian women?

Some years back, there was opposition to this idea precisely because it said that trans women were not all alike. There were fears about divide and conquer politics, and there were fears that saying gynephilic trans women were different from androphilic trans women could result in gynephilic trans women being re-cast as "fake" trans women again. This dislike was fundamentally based on the idea of dividing trans women into two groups, no matter what the two groups were called. No amount of re-branding the two groups can overcome wanting to not have two groups in the first place.

Has that changed? Is it now fine to have two groups, so long as you use appropriately trans affirming labels for the two groups? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:17, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Just want to remind everyone that these talk pages are for discussion about how to improve the article. As much as we would all just love to sit around talking about Blanchard's theories all day, Misplaced Pages is not a forum. But I do appreciate everyone's interest in the subject. Hist9600 (talk) 21:28, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree. I'm asking these questions because I'm having trouble making sense of the article as it is presently written. It is unclear, for example, whether the opposition to this centers on the idea that all trans women are alike, or that Blanchard used demeaning language to describe the two different groups of trans women, or that it is impossible to prove wrong, or that it is already proven wrong. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:21, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

All of the above are sources of opposition, and they're not as contradictory as you're portraying them.

1. The idea of a typology that divides trans women into exactly two non-overlapping groups has received some criticism for being oversimplified but it's not the main source of criticism.
2. Blanchard's use of demeaning language (and not just the language, the beliefs about trans women that the language implies) has received very widespread criticism from all sorts of people, including fellow sexologists who haven't otherwise commented.
3. The ways Blanchard and supporters use the typology de facto have been criticized for being unfalsifiable, because they jump between a bunch of contradictory definitions and make all sorts of strange mental leaps and accusations to avoid the fact that...
4. The typology as proposed in the actual original papers has been falsified rather definitively by all sorts of followup work that found that if you actually test Blanchard's hidden assumptions, they are false.

It's not a contradiction to say that, for instance, homeopathy is false and also falsifiable, right? The treatments that are actually offered are testable and don't work. The theory behind why the treatments work cannot be scientifically tested, because in order to rescue the theory from the obvious conclusion, proponents contort themselves into knots about why the scientific research already conducted isn't valid or why their terrible studies in fringe journals are valid actually. Loki (talk) 17:39, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

The theory behind homeopathy has been tested, and has been proven false. Proponents contorting themselves into knots about why the research already conducted isn't valid has nothing to do with whether the theory can be tested.

It is not possible for the same idea to be false and unfalsifiable. This is a contradiction in terms. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:01, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps the problem is that so much has been merged in here that everything's getting all the labels, and only some labels apply to some pieces. For example, perhaps:

• the idea that androphilic trans women and gynephilic trans women are clinically different has been tested and found (more or less – this is psychology, after all) true;
• the idea that gynephilic trans women's interest in themselves as sexual beings is different from gynephilic cis men's interest in themselves has been tested and found true;
• the idea that gynephilic trans women's interest in themselves as sexual beings is completely different from (all) androphilic cis women's interest in themselves has been tested and found false;
• the idea that androphilic trans women should be called (extremely femme) gay men is unfalsifiable (because you can't scientifically disprove the meaning of any word);
• and so forth, through all of the bits and pieces.

Perhaps the article could be made clearer about what, exactly, it is that any given critic or supporter is labelling. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:01, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

That all sounds reasonable to me to add to the body, but trying to put all of that in the lead would make it extremely long and unwieldy. Loki (talk) 03:16, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

I've removed the middle sentences of the second paragraph, and I think that will remove most of the immediate problem (i.e., adjacent sentences contradicting each other).

I have also removed the "theory" language, which I suspect was added by someone who was thinking "Sure, that's one theory" (a colloquial, dismissive term) instead of Scientific theory, which is generally a positive term reserved for things that are well-formulated and supported by at least some evidence. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:43, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

I've re-added everything except the theory language. I disagree that there is a contradiction at all, and so far of the people who have commented here you are the only one who thinks there is. Loki (talk) 04:14, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Do you really think so? I suppose this is a relatively unimportant page, so few editors are going to notice the self-contradiction (and therefore consider commenting on it), but consider what an RFC would look like. Imagine that editors who know nothing about the subject are faced with a question like "Should the lead of this article say that this is both unfalsifiable and falsified?" Do you think they would consider that to be a contradiction? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it says that, I think it says that some aspects of the theory are false and others are unfalsifiable.

But I agree it's unclear, so let me edit it to clarify. Loki (talk) 02:16, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Edited based primarily around this paragraph from Serano 2010; I wanted to also incorporate Bevan's more definition-based criticism but it's hard to add both without it being unwieldy.

Notably, it is always those transsexuals who are constructed as “autogynephiles” that are accused of either lying about their sexual orientation, or of supposedly denying their experiences with cross-gender arousal; in contrast, the reports of those who neatly fit the “androphile” archetype are never questioned (Bailey, 2003; Bailey & Triea, 2007; Blanchard, 1985; Blanchard, Clemmensen, & Steiner, 1987; Lawrence, 2004; Lawrence, 2008). This double standard is not only illogical (as someone who wished to appear like the “classic” transsexual stereotype would likely deny both attraction to women and cross-gender arousal), but it is tantamount to hand-picking which evidence counts and which does not based upon how well it conforms to the model. Furthermore, the evidence cited to support these accusations of misreporting is far from definitive and open to alternative interpretations (Wyndzen, 2005). If proponents of autogynephilia insist that every exception to the model is due to misreporting, then autogynephilia theory must be rejected on the grounds that it is unfalsifiable and therefore unscientific. If, on the other hand, we accept that these exceptions are legitimate, then it is clear that autogynephilia theory’s two-subtype taxonomy does not hold true.

There are other sources that back up this same basic criticism (Bevan's criticism is very similar, though that one is more about Blanchard's shifting definitions, a criticism which Serano and Veale 2022 backs up without explicitly calling Blanchard's theory unfalsifiable). Loki (talk) 02:36, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Loki, when the first sentence of that quotation says "accused", who is making that accusation? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:55, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Blanchard and other supporters of the typology. Serano 2010 is available without a paywall, so you can just check this yourself, but I'll provide the previous paragraph anyway:

One of the most troubling aspects regarding autogynephilia is that proponents of the theory have consistently tried to dismiss the aforementioned exceptions as being the result of misreporting on the part of research subjects. Loki (talk) 23:17, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Accusing trans women "of either lying about their sexual orientation, or of supposedly denying their experiences with cross-gender arousal" sounds like what the US psychiatric establishment did to gynephilic trans women back in the day (e.g., when Blanchard and Serano were still kids, and therefore could not possibly be blamed for anything that anyone said about trans women). Androphilic trans women were the "true" trans women; the others were told that they either were lying about their sexual orientation, or they weren't trans and didn't deserve either psychological or medical care as trans women.

In terms of the lead, though, that criticism is 100% about autogynephilia, not about the typology per se, and that is not clear. One could have two types of trans women divided according to sexual orientation, even if no psychologist had ever said that people sometimes lie about sex. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:17, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Autogynephilia is part of the typology. I don't understand your objection.

In general, I'm not sure why you appear to think the typology is some sort of very general and much less controversial thing, instead of the very specific model that it actually is. Sure, a model that just divided trans women up by sexual orientation would be less controversial, but that's not what this article is about. This article is about a typology of which one of the two types is "autogynephilic transsexuals", not simply trans women who are attracted to women. Loki (talk) 02:48, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

My impression is that the typology is first that there are two types (androphilic trans women vs "everyone else"), and only secondarily (and much more controversially) that "everyone else" happens to be trans women who are sexually aroused by the thought of being female. The binary typology itself (=the split between androphilic and non-androphilic trans women) doesn't depend on the second group being autogynephilic. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:39, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Oh, then your impression is wrong. The typology is that there are two types of trans women: "homosexual transsexuals" and "autogynephiles". (In fact, even saying that the typology is about trans women is giving Blanchard too much credit, as he tends to lump in crossdressing men with trans women.) The sources are quite clear on this point. So for instance, here's Blanchard's ally, Alice Dreger, in a source we cite:

In his work on transsexualism, Blanchard argued that there are actually two types of MTF transsexuals, with autogynephiles being one type and “homosexual transsexuals” being the other.

In fact if you go into Blanchard's own work, he seems to regard autogynephilia as the crucial element of his typology. (Which is not surprising, since it's the part that's most original to him. The idea of a typology dividing "homosexual transsexuals" from "fetishistic transvestites" predates Blanchard, as we already point out in the article.) Loki (talk) 05:58, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

e.g., when Blanchard and Serano were still kids According to their respective biographies, there's a twentyish year age gap between Serano (aged 55-56) and Blanchard (aged 77), and Blanchard had received his BA in Psychology around the time that Serano was born. Even if you're confusing Blanchard for Bailey (aged 66), there's still a ten year age gap.

Based on the timeline of Blanchard's career, I'm fairly certain he was active in clinical practice during a substantial part of the period where the psychiatric establishment disbelieved gynephilic trans women. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:04, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

The psychiatric establishment held that attitude for more than half a century, and one would hardly expect them to reform the day he started clinical practice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:26, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Calling it an unproven theory

I have removed the words "calling it an unproven theory" from second paragraph, as the sentence was attributing to WPATH a label that WPATH does not appear to have used. WPATH says 'there is no empirical evidence for the inclusion of the specifiers "with fetishism, autogynephilia and autoandrophilia"' (for Transvestic fetishism, which we are all agreed is not the same subject as Trans woman, right?), but I find no source in which they call it "an unproven theory". The cited source that does use these words is not written by the WPATH and uses scare quotes around the word theory. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:01, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

More generally on the way we portray WPATH's view, I note that one of the cited sources from WPATH says "Although, these are certainly legitimate proposals (see also CitationLawrence, 2010a), there is in our opinion not enough solid empirical evidence to include these specifiers".

I wonder how many people would read this article and come away with the impression that WPATH thought that adding autogynephilia as a specifier for transvestic fetishism was – in their opinion – a "legitimate proposal" that had any empircal evidence at all? ("Not enough" does not mean "none at all"). I'm guessing a very round number, and that might be a problem. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:04, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Don't confuse academic politeness for support. Loki (talk) 04:12, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it's a case of politeness. It's generally legitimate to propose specifiers. These particular ones aren't proven to have clinical utility, but it's not like someone proposed specifiers that obviously have no clinical value (e.g., "transvestic fetishism in people who are exactly 23 years, 6 months and 15 days old" or "transvestic fetishism with blue clothes"). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:31, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

In their first response they gave the full qualified quote you include. However, in their second response they simply said As stated in our initial critique, there is no empirical evidence for the inclusion of the specifiers “with fetishism, autogynephilia and autoandrophilia” (Gijs & Carroll, 2010) and hence the board of WPATH recommends against it. This refers to their first response but uses much stronger language, indicating that the softer language of the first response was not meant to be serious support for the theory. Loki (talk) 02:46, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

That is clearly sufficient to summarize it as "an unproven theory". I don't know what you're talking about here. We weren't using quotes and "unproven" is a perfectly reasonable summary of "no empirical evidence". Loki (talk) 04:12, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

If we're going to say that WPATH was calling it something, then they need to have actually said that exact thing. It's called an Indirect quote, and it's not fair to summarize someone's words in your own words, and then say that they called it your words. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:27, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

I disagree that the word "calling" means we can't paraphrase, but I don't think this argument is particularly worth having. I'll change the wording to "no empirical evidence" if that will satisfy you. Loki (talk) 02:37, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the current version exceeds the source. The source says there's no empirical evidence to support its inclusion; you have written that there is no empirical evidence. The article now says there is no empirical evidence at all, including: no empirical evidence against including autogynephilia, and no empirical evidence that it exists as a phenomenon in the real world.

I'm not sure that we need to give their reasons in the lead. IMO it is enough to just say that they opposed it. If we're going to give their reasons, we need to be careful that we don't misrepresent their reasons. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:04, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

To say up front that WPATH opposed inclusion in the DSM but not why they did so seems like burying the lede to me. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 19:28, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

We should say why they object concisely but not so concisely as to fail to correctly capture the essence of the objection. DanielRigal (talk) 22:59, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Sangdeboeuf, I'm thinking that The lady doth protest too much, methinks is more relevant.

The facts are:

• WPATH and some others objected to including autogynephilia as a modifier for Transvestic fetishism (NB: not Trans women) in the DSM-5.
• The APA disagreed with them and included it anyway.

That means that one reputable psychological organization said yes, and one reputable psychological organization said no. I'm concerned that on this point the article is sounding a lot like "The DSM-5 included this, but let me give you a l-o-n-g list of reasons why it's wrong, so that you'll forget about the fact that it was included and only remember that it's bad and wrong and hateful and unscientific and disproven and impossible to disprove, too". For example: We have several sentences on why some wanted to see it excluded, but I don't see any sentences about why the APA decided to include it after all. Why would that be, if we were trying to give a fair explanation of how two reputable psychological organizations ended up with opposite ideas? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:27, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Why would that be, if we were trying to give a fair explanation of how two reputable psychological organizations ended up with opposite ideas? From memory, and a quick Google search while drafting this reply, it's due to a lack of sources. We have several sources for why WPATH and others felt that it should not have been in the DSM-5, most of which are from the drafting stage of the DSM-5. But I don't recall nor can I quickly find any justification for inclusion of autogynephilia from either Bailey, as head of the paraphilia working group, or the APA as a whole, published either prior to or subsequent to the publishing of the DSM-5. If there is such a source, it might be best to present it here? Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:18, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

It wasn't Bailey, it was Blanchard. But yes, the reason it was included is because its chief proponent was head of the committee whose job it was to decide whether to include it. Loki (talk) 03:53, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing No, what you're describing is WP:FALSEBALANCE. Notably, it wasn't included as a specifier to gender dysphoria, the diagnosis it would theoretically be relevant for. Instead, it was included as a specifier to transvestic fetishism, a completely different and totally unrelated thing. So it's not that the APA endorses it and WPATH doesn't: neither endorse it in the original context it was proposed.

It's also notable that Blanchard himself was the head of the paraphilia working group, so the APA adding this specifier is not terribly meaningful. Loki (talk) 03:58, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

...so, given that:

• transvestic fetishism is not transsexualism, and
• this article is about transsexualism, then

why are we talking about whether autogynephilia was/wasn't/shouldn't have been included in the DSM for transvestic fetishism, in an article that's supposedly 100% about about transsexualism? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:31, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Is the answer just "because we merged Autogynephilia here, even though this is about (Blanchard's ideas about) transsexualism, and autogynephilia is connected to at least two unrelated subjects (what Serano calls "cross-gender arousal" and transvestic fetishism)". WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:33, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Blanchard thinks of the people his typology covers (trans women and crossdressing men) as the same or at least closely related. When he proposes autogynephilia as a specifier to crossdressing fetishism, it means to him the same autogynephilia that is a part of his typology about trans women. And in the context of crossdressing men considered narrowly, his theory is not that controversial. (Not that it has a ton of empirical evidence to support it there either, just that it doesn't stir up a bunch of controversy, nor does it have the same degree of contradictory evidence.) This is the context where the APA approved his specifier: as an expert on paraphilias giving his expert opinion on a paraphilia.

However, because Blanchard doesn't distinguish between the two domains, and because his theory is very controversial to the point of fringe-ness, when Blanchard proposes something relevant to his typology in one domain (crossdressing men), it gets opposed by people who oppose it for reasons relating to the other domain. Like WPATH (a.k.a the World Professional Association for Transgender Health), who opposed his specifier mostly on grounds relating to their specialty of transgender healthcare.

Or TL;DR: Blanchard's an expert on fetishes, and the APA hired him as an expert on fetishes, but his typology goes beyond his expertise, and so when he tries to use it he gets pushback from the organizations whose expertise he's infringing on. Loki (talk) 02:25, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Just going to comment here since users seem to be going back and forth. "Unproven theory" seems like a strange term here, given practically all hypotheses use cross-sectional data and are thus "unprovable". I think the controversy and debate does the talking already. Zenomonoz (talk) 01:40, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Hypothesis is a good word. It is the best neutral term for an idea which does not rise to the level of a theory and it certainly applies here. It would be best to avoid calling the typology a theory of any kind. If it's proponents start calling it a "theory" then we can probably call it an "unproven theory" but, unless they do, it is a proposed typology consisting of a set of hypotheses. Of course, we can still quote sources that call it an "unproven theory" but we should not say it in Wikivoice. --DanielRigal (talk) 14:44, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Article for Autogynephilia

Autogynephilia (paraphilia) currently links to this page. However, the concept has clearly grown beyond the bounds of Blanchards typology. It has received serious scholarly attention, as well as reams of lay commentary. I intend to create a standalone article. Just wanted to flag that intention here, in case anyone has a compelling reason to hold off. Riposte97 (talk) 11:36, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Please don't. This has been discussed at length many, many times and it will only get deleted. Please find something else to do that will not be a waste of your time. Nonetheless thanks for the phrase "reams of lay commentary". I enjoyed that. It is nice to hear a creative new euphemism. --DanielRigal (talk) 14:35, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

@Riposte97: Splitting autogynephilia into its own article was proposed and overwhelmingly rejected six months ago. While you're of course welcome to propose this again, I find it unlikely that in the absence of discussion and new evidence being published any such proposal would result in a different consensus at this time. Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:52, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Riposte97, I appreciate your raising this point here first, that's definitely the right way to go about this. That said, discussing here (or at a wider venue, like a WikiProject) is a good idea because I'd hate to see you spend a lot of time drafting something, only to have it all deleted. That happened to me early in my wiki-career, and it's no fun, and rather deflating. I tend to agree with the two comments above, but that doesn't mean you can't, or shouldn't, try. Just keep in mind the need for discussion first, if you wish to avoid the risk of a lot of wasted effort.

A tip: reading the "Talk archives" at this, and other related pages, will give you some perspective about what some of the issues are that have been discussed previously, and how they were received. This may help you couch your proposals in ways that avoid reinventing the wheel for certain ideas that never went anywhere, or got shot down. Do you know how to find and search the Talk archives? Mathglot (talk) 20:37, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments! I've just read over the past discussions, and can respect the clear consensus. I'll find something else to do. Riposte97 (talk) 22:44, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Post-script: Just a word about some wiki-jargon: we would say, "Autogynephilia (paraphilia) and Autogynephilia redirect to this page". While it's true that a redirect links to the page, it's a special kind of linkage, and we usually use the term redirect to make that clear. Mathglot (talk) 21:00, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Yeah. Ray Blanchard links to this page, but autogynephilia redirects to it. Loki (talk) 02:01, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

The lead

At the moment the article lists a back and forth dispute over whether the questions used to determine the typology are answered the same by cisgender women. I believe the lead should reflect the body, but currently we only have mention of the original criticisms. user:Galobtter how do you think the lead could be rewritten to be more representative of the cited body text in a way you wouldn't find too confusing? 21:22, 26 December 2023 (UTC) XeCyranium (talk) 21:22, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

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