Crossdreamers

On lesbians who watch gay pornography and what it means for transgender crossdreamers

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 13:30:00 +0000

Did you know that many lesbians watch gay male porn?

I didn't either, before I saw the movie The Kids are All Right with Julianne Moore and Anette Benning as a lesbian couple with kids.

Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as lesbian
mothers liking gay male pornography

In one scene we can see the two of them watch a movie with men having sex with men in order to get into the mood.

By accident, their son finds the movie later on, and in wonderfully akward scene we see how the two parents try to explain what this is all about.

In the name of fair use I have taken the liberty of embedding the relevant scenes here. (This is not office material.)

And yes, this has a lot to do with crossdreaming. Read on!

An illuminating anomaly

Here is the thing: The scene represents an anomaly.

According to nearly all dominant theories about sexuality and sexual orientation homosexual women are not supposed to be turned on by men having sex with each other, at least not to the point of making gay porn an integrated part of their love life.

The reason for this is that sexual orientation is supposed to be triggered by sex specific visual stimuli: big breasts, broad hips and a general feminine appearance for those loving women, and broad shoulders, tight asses and a masculine look for those attracted to men.

Yeah, I know that this is not always the case in real life, but some scientists are really not that interested in real life.

Anyway, gay women are therefore not supposed to be aroused by the sight of men having sex.

And yes, I have checked. This is not something the movie makers have made up. A simple Google search reveals that this is a common phenomenon.

So what is going on here?

Jules explains

In the movie one of the mothers, Jules, try to explain this to their son, Laser:

"Well, sweetie, human sexuality is complicated. And sometimes, people’s desires can be...counter-intuitive... For instance, since women’s sexual responsiveness is mostly internal, sometimes it’s exciting for us to see sexual responsiveness more, you know......externalized... Like with a penis."

For them an erect penis is exciting, because the man's arousal is so obvious and visible. Or so Jules says. The fact that Jules is explaining this in a very embarrassing context may lead her to hold back some information.

The explanations given by lesbians online are very diverse, which tells me that many of them have no clear idea of why they find such movies exciting. Still, I am beginning to see a pattern.

More reasons

Gwennie B over at Yahoo! Answers have listed some reasons given by lesbians:

"1) Although it's changing, most lesbian porn kinda sucks. It's made for men, with plastic Barbie doll pornstars who usually aren't even bisexual, let alone lesbian. That porn lacks the passion and chemistry of straight and gay porn."

This does not explain the paradox, though. Lesbians are still not supposed to get turned on by the male physique.

"2) For lesbian women who are part of the butch/femme dynamic, straight or gay porn most often resembles that much better. If you're a butch woman who likes getting her strap-on sucked, for example, it's very easy to mentally place yourself as the guy in some gay or straight POV [Point of View] porn. It's easier to relate to than femme-on-femme porn."

This makes more sense to me. Even if lesbian women are oriented towards the female body, they may express the sexual need to be receptive or penetrative. In other words: These basic sexual instincts are independent of their sexual orientation.

This may also explain why some straight men (non-crossdreamers included), take part in pegging, where their girlfriends penetrate them with a strap-on.

"3) Gay porn is more visual. When you're with a woman in real life, you can feel and smell and touch her arousal. In porn, it's a lot more difficult to tell if the woman is faking it, as is so often in porn. You can't do that in gay porn- the guys have visible erections that prove their arousal, and the visual pop shots of ejaculation. It can make the porn feel a lot more authentic than lesbian or straight porn."

Again this is an argument that makes no sense according to the traditional science narrative. But if you accept that lesbian women can be turned on by the sight of an erect penis without buying the whole male package, this is starting to make sense to me.

"4) In straight porn, there's often a lot of misogyny and anger, which can be a turn-off for more feminist-minded lesbian women. Gay porn, on the other hand, is supposed to be more equal and egalitarian- two guys doing what they want."

This does not explain the fascination of the male body, though.

"5) Queer is queer, baby. Lesbian porn is made with a straight aesthetic- despite being two women, it fits into ideas of heterosexuality. Obviously straight porn does this as well. Gay porn tends to appeal to the queer aesthetic of many lesbian women."

I will take her word for it.

"6) It's kinky and taboo and different. People like watching porn that doesn't reflect their real lives. Ergo, gay porn!"

The need to explore the borders of the acceptable is very human. Maybe the straight man's reluctance to watch gay male porn is caused by a strong cultural conditioning.

Gwennie argues that some gay men may watch lesbian porn, even though there is -- according to her -- a vagina-phobia in the gay male community.

The relevance for male to female crossdreamers and lesbian trans women

You do find a parallel among male to female gynephilic (woman-loving) crossdreamers and lesbian transsexual women. Many of them report fantasies where they are having sex with a man. Many of them also display a fascination for the penis.

This phenomenon has become an important part of the very controversial "autogynephilia" theory.

Gynephilic and bisexual male bodied crossdreamers suffer from an "erotic target location error", this theory says. They get turned on by the idea of themselves as women, and the most important proof of this is that they imagine themselves being taken by a faceless man.

In other words: They are not attracted to the male body per se, but get aroused by the idea of being a woman. The male character in the imaginary bed serves only as a prop that reaffirms the femininity of the crossdreamer.

I have always found this argument strange, because it is depending on one important premise: That you cannot be fascinated by the penis or taking the traditional role of the woman in bed, unless you are a straight woman or an effeminate gay man.

The argument also requires that "visual attraction" is the only legitimate reason for having sex. In real life people have sex for a wide variety of reasons: For comfort, for the fascination with someone's personality or intellect, to achieve power or safety, to help someone and so on. All of these situations can lead to arousal.

The sexist angle

Note that no one is claiming that lesbians watching gay male porn are suffering from a target location error, probably because pairs like Jules and Nic are clearly able to bond with another sexual partner.

For some reason being married to a woman does not count as sexual bonding for "autogynephiliacs", they are still locked into their narcissistic self-desire, according to researchers like Ray Blanchard, J. Michael Bailey and Anne Lawrence.

But what if the male to female crossdreamer has a receptive, "feminine", copulation instinct, and desire penetration in the same way a straight woman or a lesbian "femmes" want to be receptive? Wouldn't this lead to fantasies where they were taken by men, women with strap-ons, pre-op transwomen or "futanari"?

Indeed it would. And these are exactly the kind of fantasies you will find among some (but not all) crossdreamers.

The strongest taboo

And it is this "womanly" desire to be receptive people find so offensive, because men are not allowed to take on the female role in our culture.

This taboo is so strong, actually, that even gay men will sometimes deny that they have been the receiving party during anal intercourse.

This is also an old taboo: In ancient Greece and Rome, men would gladly have sex with men, but they would never admit to "taking the role of the woman".

The "autogynephilia" theory takes this taboo to its extreme.

The theory denies that male to female crossdreamers can have a receptive copulation instinct. They are attracted to women, right? And heterosexual men cannot have typical feminine desires per definition. Ergo: Their desire is a misdirected masculine urge to copulate with a woman, in this case themselves.

It is fascinating to see how the cultural stereotypes forces male researchers like Blanchard to select the most complicated explanation for a phenomenon in order to save the ruling paradigm of the day.

For Blanchard sexual orientation = copulation instinct = sex identity. In the real world these may be independent variables.

Women are never perverts

No one cares about what women do, however. A lesbian's fascination for the penis only confirms the dogma that women love the male sex organ.

Women who play the role of men may be considered strange, but this is not much of a taboo. After all, who can blame them for wanting to be a strong and powerful man? Being a man is good. Being a woman is... less so.

In other words: the pathologization of male to female crossdreamers is the result of a sexist culture that finds women inferior to men.

A second opinion

This being said, there are important differences between the MTF crossdreamer's desire to be receptive and the birth assigned female lesbian's fascination for the penis.

Their life trajectories are very different, and this also shapes their experience of life and their sexual fantasies.

I discussed this phenomenon with my Thai sexologist friend, Natalie, (the one who helped me develop the slider model of sex and gender) .

She points to an important difference between female born lesbians and MTF crossdreamers and lesbian trans women: They will normally find it easier to be confirmed as women by other lesbian women. The MTF gynephilic crossdreamer are most often confirmed as men by the women who loves them, which means that their inner woman gets nothing in way of affirmation.

Natalie on sexual validation

Natalie says:

"It is true that majority of MTF crossdreamers have always reported some kind of sexual fantasy about men although very few FTM crossdreamers have reported fantasies involving women, unless gynephilic [attracted to women].

This, I believe, has to do with the idea of being validated as a woman by a man rather than anything else.

"It must be noted that it is with this same idea that many men like to have sex with women, even if they are not really gynephilic. One of the remarkable aspects of our contemporary sexual psychology theories is that they often miss the idea that people like having sex not necessarily with people they may find attractive but with people who validate them!

"If for example, I remove the connection between masculinity and heterosexuality, and make it socially feminine, many otherwise straight men may lose interest in women strongly and exclusively. It is all about the validation factor.

"Just like many men may live in heterosexual relationships solely due to the validation of their being masculine, received from women (rather than other men, with whom an intimate contact may make them feel feminine or queer), many MTF transsexuals may find that they are better affirmed as women by men rather than other women.Things may totally change if the artificial connection between gender and sexuality is removed.

"That said, a gynephilic MTF crossdreamer being turned on by man may not have much to do with a genetic female lesbian turned on by male porn. This is because the contexts under which they operate are different. .A lesbian's turn on by a male porn may well have something to do with fascination with penis."

I think she is spot on in her analysis of our need for confirmation. The only difference between her and mine interpretation is that I put a little more emphasis on the fact that many (but probably not all) MTF crossdreamers have a dominant receptive copulation instinct.

References
So, Why Did The Lesbians Watch Gay Male Porn InThe Kids Are Alright?

An Indie Hit's Sex Message

Why do lesbians love gay male porn?

Women who like to watch gay porn
The Kids are All Right Screenplay

Related blog posts
The female and male copulation instincts
The cause of crossdreaming, an alternative model

The Massey University Study of Transgender People

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 08:33:00 +0000

When the gender shoe does not fit (photos.com)

In my post Jaimie Veale's study of gender variant people throw new light upon crossdreamers I presented the high lights from one of the most important new studies of gender variant people. In this post I give a more in depth assessment of the findings.

The study

What makes the underlying study from Masset University of New Zealand and her Ph.D: thesis much more reliable than similar research, is the number of respondents.

Ray Blanchard, who coined the term "autogynephilia", used the database of the Clarke Institute in Toronto for his studies of transsexuals. His ""Heterosexual and Homosexal Gender Dysphoria" paper of 1987, for instance, refers to a selection of 197 respondents, all of them patients at the university clinic.

Veale, on the other hand, is working on a sample of 2277 respondent, gender variant and gender typical, recruited via the internet.

There is still a bias towards white, "western", respondents, but she manages to cover a much wider group of gender variant people, also people who have not and will not seek out gender therapists.

In other words: Veale does to a much larger degree include non-transsexual transgender and crossdreamer people.

Gender Variant

Veale defines gender variant as "a subjective sense of not belonging completely to the gender of one's birth-assigned sex."

Note the word "completely". The term gender-variance is used to refer to the behavioral expression of this identity which could range from occasionally dressing as one's identified gender to living full-time in this gender.

She has deliberately chosen to look into biological, psychological and cultural factors that other researchers have argued may influence the development of gender identity.

She explains this in this way:

"Previous research has found that genetics, prenatal hormone exposure, neuroanatomy, handedness and dermatoglyphics [studies of fingerprints] (proposed to be related to susceptibility to developmental disturbances), fraternal birth order, and abuse are related to gender identity. While a number of investigators have studied these variables individually, the present study is the first know research to examine the inter-relationships between these variables." (p. 2).

Her point is that variations in gender identity and the intensity of alternative gender experiences may be the end result of an interaction between various factors -- genetic, hormonal, psychological and cultural. Moreover one variable might "hide" another influential cause of gender variance.

How to intepret results

When one read studies like this one, it is extremely important to keep in mind that she is writing about statistical aggregates, and not absolutes that apply to all people of a certain category.

For instance: Relative finger length varies between men and women on average.

Among men the the second (index) finger is more likely to be shorter than the fourth (ring) finger. This so-called 2D:4D digit ratio is believed to point to a higher exposure to "male" hormones (androgens) in the womb. Among women we will find that the fingers are more likely to be of equal length.

I have seen male to female transgender people enthusiastically proclaim that they must be female, because they have a "female" 2D:4D ratio. That is mixing the macro level with the life story of the individual. A lot of women born women have a "masculine" ratio. That does not stop them from being real women.

This graph can serve to illustrate the fact that we are talking about relative small, although significant, differences. Note the huge overlap between men and women.

Digit ratio visualization according to data from Bailey and Hurd
Blue line represents men, green line women. Click on image to enlarge!

With the exception of body height and sex organs practically all differences between men and women are less significant than this.

It is clear from this figure that if there is a causal relationship between exposure to androgens in the womb and the digit ratio, the effect must be masked in many, otherwise "manly", men.

This tells me, at least, that we should be very careful to interpret such findings in a dogmatic way. Androgen exposure alone cannot explain the existence of all male to female gender variant people.

Her main findings

Since Veale has only studied a limited number of potential factors influencing the development of gender identity, she finds that somewhere between 7 and 23 percent of the variance found can be accounted for from the biological and psycho-social factors listed above.

I will go through the variables, one by one.

Number and ratio of siblings

Male to female (MTF) transsexuals are more likely to have older brothers than non-transgender males, according to Veale's data. This difference is not found to the same effect in other gender variant MTF gender variant people:

"Birth order and sibling sex ration did not differ between birth assigned males with other gender variant identities [as opposed to transsexual] and males with gender-typical identities in spite of previous research suggesting that cross-dressers are more likely to be first-born males."

I guess someone would argue that this proves that real transsexual women are completely different from non-transsexual transgender male bodied persons. However, the difference is a matter of degree, non-transsexual MTF transgender taking an intermediate position between MTF transsexuals and non-transgender men. This finding could be used to support a spectrum model of gender variance.

Click on image to enlarge! (Figure from Veale's thesis)

There is no difference for the number of older brothers among birth assigned females.

You might ask what all of this has to do with the price of eggs.

Well, it turns out Ray Blanchard has argued that homosexual men are more likely to be effeminate if they have a larger number of older brothers, while we will not see this effect among non-homosexual men (and by implication MTF transgender attracted to women). This argument has been used to "prove" that gynephilic transwomen are "less feminine" than the ones loving men.

Veale finds no significant difference between androphilic (man-loving) and non-androphilc (woman-loving and bisexual) MTF transsexuals in her data.

Sexual orientation

This conclusion, i.e. that there is no significant differences between male to female transgender who are attracted to men and those that are attracted to women, applies to the whole data set as well.

Blanchard argues that there are two distinct types of male to female transgender and transseuxals: the "homosexual transsexual", who is a extremely feminine man, and the "autogynephile" who is a non-homosexual man suffering from an erotic target error. He is basically a pervert in love with the idea of himself as a woman.

On the Blanchard scale of perversions, the man loving trans woman is slightly above the "autogynephile" on the mental illness scale. The fact that Blanchard also considers homosexuality a mental disorder, doesn't leave much respect for any of the two categories, however.

Veale, of course, knows this theory very well, and has very carefully checked her own data to see if they support Blanchard's dichotomy.

"Blanchard's theory predicts that there would be improvement in the model if biological and psychosocial variables' prediction of gender variance in this study were allowed to vary between androphilic and non-androphilic birth-assigned males. However, when these restrictions were relaxed, no significant improvement in the model fit was observed."

Anne Lawrence and J. Michael Bailey had tried to shoot down earlier papers by Veale and her colleagues, by arguing that she had no real androphilic trans women in her sample. Because of this she and her friends had imposed strict criteria for being categorized as androphilic. Veale argues strongly that the sample size is large enough to detect group differences.

There are no such differences. Sexual orientation does not determine different types of gender variant people. The autogynephilia theory is wrong.

The role of gender variant relatives

Transsexuals and gender variant respondents were much more likely to report gender variant relatives than respondents with gender typical identities.

Veale explains:

"Given the methodology of this research, it is not possible to distinguish whether this concordance is the result of a genetic or a social learning effect. However, it has been reported elsewhere that usually these individuals are not aware that their relative is gender variant until they reach adulthood, suggesting a genetic explanation is more likely." (p. 110)

Handedness

Handedness has been used to determine hormonal effects in the womb.

"The study found non-righthandedness was significantly related to adult gender variance in birth assigned females, but not birth-assigned males. The results are in accordance with previous findings for both birth-assigned females and consistent with the hypothesis that developmental instability has a role to play in the development of gender identities." (p.111)

I am not sure how she comes to this conclusion given that she finds no such effect among the birth assigned males.

She provides a methodological discussion that is simply to complex for me to popularize it here. See chapter 8.1.4 in the thesis.

Other studies have shown, however, higher levels of left-handedness among MTF transsexual women, and it is the fact that this study does not confirm these findings that causes confusion.

Abuse

Veale finds an increased level of emotional, physical and sexual abuse among transsexuals and participants with other gender variant identities.

It is harder to decide whether the abuse is causing gender variance or whether it is caused by it:

"The SEM [Standard Error of Mean] results showed that recalled childhood gender-variance partially meditated the relationship between emotional abuse and adult gender-variance among both birth assigned genders. This suggest that as well as having a direct influence on adult gender variance, emotional abuse was also the result of gender variance being the target for abuse. (p. 112)

In other words: Veale believes abuse is caused by gender variance, but that it will also influence its development. This study does not provide a final answer to this enigma.

Finger length ratio

As explained above finger length ratio (2D:4D) is believed to be a marker for prenatal androgen exposure (i.e.variations in the presence of "male" hormones in the womb).

Veale finds no differences between gender typical and gender variant respondents or between the different types of gender variant people.

Her conclusion is the following:

"Overall, these findings tell us little about the extent to which 2D:4D is related to prenatal exposure, or the role that prenatal androgen exposure might play in the development of gender identities."

Mental rotation and systemising quotient

Throughout the history of sexology there has been made many attempts to test for differences in male and female cognitive capabilities. We have all heard the "truism" that men are good with numbers and women are good with words.

Being a male bodied person with a preference for words, I might have taken this as proof of my inner femininity, but the existence of a significant number of successful male authors (and female engineers) has dampened my trust in such arguments.

As time goes by, and women enter more and more occupations and take over the universities, the differences reported by researchers become more and more insignificant.

In other words: I suspect that men and women are equal intellectually and mentally, and that the differences found by researchers are the results mainly of nurture rather than nature. This means that I doubt that such tests can be used to determine whether gender variance is inborn or cultural. (See my post on the differences between men and women for details.)

In Veale's scientific world you have to look into such variables, however, and she does.

She notes that past studies have found that transsexuals are more likely to score in the same way as persons of their target sex when it comes to tests of three-dimensional object mental rotation (which is something men are supposed to excel at). This suggest a neuro-biological explanation for gender variant identity development.

Veale gets the same results among the birth assigned males in her study. The results for the female bodied gender variant responents are less clear, however, as Veale will have to disregard the "systemising quotient" (the interaction between variables) to get the expected results.

She concludes:

"It can be concluded from these inconsistent results that there is at best limited further evidence for a neurobiological explanation of gender variant identity development among birth assigned females."

She finds similar results for the axis "systemising ability" (typicallly male according to sociobiologist Simon Baron-Cohen) and "empathizing ability" (a female enhanced trait according to Baron-Cohen). The male bodied gender variant respondents are more likely to have a "female brain", while there is no significant differences between birth-assigned females with gender variant or gender typical identities for systemizing.

I find it very hard to believe that gender variance in male bodied persons should be neurobiological and variance in female bodied persons should be cultural. There is clearly something wrong with the premise for the argument -- and the methodology.

Veal seems to believe these variables do say something about the origins of gender variance, though:

"Overall, these results are consistent with a prenatal hormone predisposition for gender-variant og gender-typical identities, although the possibility of systemising being caused by more than prenatal androgens and the role of socially desirable responding should not be discounted."

In other words: Gender-variant people may also be tempted to live up to gender stereotypes as this may make their target gender identity more understandable in the eyes of others.

This leaves us with the question of why female bodied respondents are less likely to live up to the stereotypes. Maybe this is caused by the fact that women in general are less likely to be punished for masculine behavior than men are for feminine behavior.

Parental age

This is the first study that shows that gender-variant birth-assigned females are more likely to have older mothers than the rest of the population:

"The more gender-variant a birth-assigned female's identity was, the older the mother tended to be [at the respondents birth]"

The sexual orientation of the respondents was of no relevance.

Veale notes that:

"The link between autism and adult gender-variance that is discussed in Section 8.1.8 [on the systemising quotient] is also relevant here, and it is notable that it was also birth assigned females with gender-variant identities that this study found tended to score more autistic-typically (as opposed to gender-variant birth assigned males who scored less autistic-typically.)"

Please note that Baron-Cohen argues that autism is caused by some kind of hyper-masculine systemizing brain. Finding more autism among female bodied gender variant people might therefore indicate that a male gender identity is caused by a masculine brain development.

At the same time the finding that male bodied transgender people are less likely to be autistic, indicates that their brains are more female.

Again: I strongly advice readers to proceed with caution when reading these types of arguments. There are just too many undocumented steps leading up to the conclusion.

It is interesting to see that Veale finds fewer autistic traits among gender variant male bodied persons than among the non-transgender men, though.

In online fora you will find MTF crossdreamers arguing the opposite: that crossdreaming is somehow related to autism or Asperger among the birth-assigned males. I have suspected that it is gender confusion and shame that have made them less socially adaptable, and not some kind of autism.

Parental cohabitation

In the Veale study the chances of being gender-variant increases the earlier the father leaves the home. On the other hand, cohabitation with mother and parental death is not related to gender variance.

Veale says that:

"Generally, the finding provides some evidence in favour of theories that have proposed that parental absence plays a role in the causation of gender-variance as a psychosocial factor."

Earlier studies has found this correlation among male bodied persons only. Veale's study, however, finds this correlation among birth-assigned females, and not among birth-assigned males.

I am not sure what to make of that, and nor does Veale it seems, who suggests that more research is needed.

Socially desirable responding

When Blanchard & Co find that their data does not support their theory about "autogynephiliacs", they pull up the "they are lying" card.

In their book androphilic (man-loving) trans women cannot be crossdreaming (having "autogynephilic" erotic fantasies), so the ones that do report such arousal are reclassified as "non-homosexual". They must be deceiving themselves and/or the researcher about their love for men, according to Blanchard.

Interestingly, Blanchard never seems to look equally close at the truthfulness of androphilic transwomen. Maybe they are lying about their lack of crossdreaming fantasies, trying to live up to Blanchard's fantasy of the proper "homosexual transsexual"? But such a result would undermine Blanchard's theory, so he ignores this possibility.

I have always found Blanchard's respondents to be extremely frank about their crossdreaming fantasies. If they had been less forthcoming, maybe we wouldn't have been in this mess.

That being said, it is definitely true that many male to female transsexuals have lied to the gate-keepers of hormones and surgery to get the surgery they want. If the gate keepers lives in a world of sexual stereotypes, you'd better learn to live up to them. And if the gate keeper believes proper women love men, you tell him what he wants to hear.

Veale has one big advantage compared to Blanchard. She is not a gate keeper, and in an anonymized online survey the respondents do not have the same reason to sugar coat their life stories.

Veale writes:

"Accounting for social desirability did not significantly change the results. It is possible that the anonymous nature of the survey made it less susceptible to social desirability bias than the past research conducted by Blanchard & al.... and this differs from participation in Blanchard's et al's study which assessed participant's reports of gender-variance experience. Furthermore, participants in Blanchard's et al.'s study may have believed that their access to treatment was contingent on how they responded."

Transsexual vs. no-transsexual gender variant people

Veale finds support for Richard F. Docter's theory of gender variance. He has proposed a continuum from no gender variant identity at one end (often misleadingly labelled as "normal people") to transsexuals at the other end.

Veale puts it this way:

"As outlined in Chapter 2, Docter's (1988) theory of gender variant identity development proposes a continuum from no gender variant identity to transsexualism at the ends, with persons with other gender variant identities being somewhere between these. If this proposal is correct, then it would be expected that the participants with other gender variant identities would score intermediary between transsexuals and participants with gender typical identities on biological and psychological variables."

This is exactly what she finds:

"This was the case for the majority of the biological and the psychosocial variables in the present research that showed between group differences."

The biological origins of gender variance

All of this leads Veale to conclude that biological factors play a role in what causes gender variant identities. She is even willing to consider the possibility that this has one genetic origin:

"While there is evidence for a number of biological variables, this does not necessarily imply more than one biological mechanism plays a role -- these biological factors may be related and share a common precursor. For instance, it is plausible that there is a causal pathway in which genes that cause atypical prenatal hormone levels lead to neuroanatomical differences linked to gender identity."

Conclusion

Does all of this mean that Veale has provided the final truth about the origins of transgender conditions?

I seriously doubt that. But she has made an important contribution to our understanding of what this is all about. What is especially important for crossdreamers, though, is that she has debunked the theories of Ray Blanchard and his followers, on his terms.

This will not make Blanchard change his mind, though. He has invested too much in his restrictive view of humanity do to so. This research will make it easier for other researchers and care takers to develop a less toxic and stigmatizing view of gender variants, though.

Veale puts it this way:

"These findings suggest sexual orientation is not a moderating factor in the development of gender-variant identities in birth assigned males. This is likely to decrease the social stigma associated with gender-variant identities."

Jaimie Veale's publications can be found at her web site.

Jaimie F. Veale: Biological and Psychosocial Correlates of Gender Variant and Gender-typical Identities, a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirments for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand, 2011.

Richard F Docter: Transvestites and Transsexuals: Toward a Theory of Cross-Gender Behavior (Perspectives in Sexuality) Springer 1988

Jaimie Veale's study of gender variant people throw new light upon crossdreamers

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Tue, 28 May 2013 11:36:00 +0000

Jaimie Veale believes in the diversity of
humanity (photo from Photos.com)

Extensive study confirms spectrum of gender variance and debunks the autogynephilia theory.

Jaimie Veale is a New Zealand scientist who has spent quite some time on understanding transgender and transsexual conditions, including what I call crossdreamers.

I 2011 she published her doctoral thesis on gender variant identities, a follow up on earlier work that had also discussed Blanchard's autogynephilia theory about birth assigned males who get aroused by the idea of having a woman's body.

In her Master thesis from 2005 she warned strongly against Blanchard's idea of dividing male to female transsexuals into two distinct groups ("autogynephiles" who are attracted to women on the one hand and "homosexual transsexuals" who are attracted to men on the other.).

Her own research supported a model with a wide diversity of gender identity and gender expressions, all with some kind of common core.

Her doctoral thesis efficiently debunks the whole model of Blanchard's. She finds none of the patterns he has projected upon the transgender populations. The sexual orientation of transsexual women (or transgender male bodied persons in general) cannot be used to sort them into two distinct groups with different origins.

Her study is based on a a survey of of 2277 respondent, gender variant and gender typical, recruited via the internet. This makes it, to my knowledge, the largest survey of this kind, and the fact that she has included non-transsexual transgender persons as well, makes it much more reliable as a source of knowledge about crossdreamers.

By the way, the survey covers both female bodied and male bodied respondents. Later on, I will see if we can use the survey to learn more about female to male crossdreamers.

Reading Veale

A warning: Although Veale is a doctor in psychology, she is deeply embedded in the tradition of biologically oriented sexology. In this respect she uses a terminology and methodologies resembling Blanchard's own.

Like him she bases her research on surveys, and like him she does some heavy statistical work on her findings to identify collerations and causations between the various findings.

If you are the kind of person who loves regression analysis and structural equation modeling, you will love the complexity of her work. If you have never heard about statistical modelling, you will probably find her thesis hard to follow (with exception of the historical chapter, which gives an easy to read overview over the current scientific debate on gender identity).

Those who have followed this blog, know that I have some reservations regarding some of the research done within this tradition, as I feel that not all of the researchers are able to take the cultural bias of their own upbringing and cultural setting into consideration when doing research. In other words: They are often blind to their own prejudices. Ray Blanchard gives us, for instance, an extreme example of sexual stereotyping masquerading as science.

Jaimie Veale, photo from her web site.

Veale has also an agenda (she is herself a transsexual woman), but she never hides it, and does everything in her power to cover all bases in an impartial manner, including using the methodology of people like Blanchard to argue her case.

She clearly believes that by using his terms on his terms, it will be harder for the "autogynephilia" school to shoot her down.

This is a risky strategy, though, as the terms and definitions you use will always limit what it is possible to see.

Executive Summary

I believe Veale deserves our full attention, so I am going to discuss her thesis in more detail in a later post. And I apologize for not having covered this study earlier.

The following abstract i based on Veale's own summary:

Compared with people with gender-typical identities, people with gender-variant identities are more likely to report having a gender variant family member. This indicates, according toVeale, that genes play a role in determining of gender identities.

Veale defines gender variant as "a subjective sense of not belonging completely to the gender of one's birth-assigned sex." The term is very similar to the term "transgender", and includes both transsexual and non-transsexual people. The crossdreamers are definitely on board, as one of the phenomena she has looked into in her research, are people who experience erotic TG fantasies and who read TG fiction.

Finger-length ratio, tendency towards systematizing, and a systematic review of case-reports of gender identity outcomes for adults with intersex and related conditions, all indicates prenatal hormone determinants of gender identities, according to Veale.

That is: Gender variance, transsexual or non-transsexual, is at least partly grounded in some kind of biological variance. This variance is caused by the hormones the fetus was exposed to while in the womb.

Elevated levels of non-right handedness among birth-assigned females with gender-variant identities also indicate biological factors, she says.
There is a relationship between having experienced abuse when young and the degree of adult gender-variance.

It is unclear whether this abuse experience is a cause or an effect of gender identity development, though.

Contrary to other researchers, Veale finds no differences in biological and psycho-social factors between birth-assigned male participants of different sexual orientations. In other words: Blanchard is wrong when he says that "autogynephilic" trans women are completely different from ""homosexual transsexuals" (i.e. man-loving trans women).

The study shows that the biological and psychosocial factors are the same for transsexuals as for persons with other gender-variant identities. This means that the difference between transseuxals and other transgender persons is a matter of degree, not a matter of completely different causes.

Veale concludes:

"Overall, these findings add support for a biological predisposition for gender-variant and gender-typical identities. Learning and social environment factors are likely to be complex and work in interaction with biological factors."

The study points a way out of the autogynephilia trap

Those who have followed this blog for a while, will know that Veale's conclusion is more or less the same as the one I have been presenting as the most viable explanation for crossdreaming and other transgender conditions.

Although there is a lot of variation among transgender people -- or "gender variants" as Veale calls us -- it is impossible to draw an absolute and clear line between these different variants.

This does not mean that a male to female crossdreamer who engage in gender bender fantasies to spice up his sex life is exactly the same as a gender dysphoric transsexual woman who knows in her heart and bones that her male body is not her own. The first is most likely a man at heart, the other definitely a woman (and yes, there are also people who fall between the gender normative chairs).

Veale shows us, however, that they have something in common, also as regards what causes their gender challenging dreams and desires.

So in my book, this makes the work of Veale and her New Zealand colleagues extremely important for the discussion of crossdreaming (or "autogynephilia", to use Blanchard's stigmatizing term). Indeed, the study has already led to much discussion among sexologist and gender researchers. It makes it much harder for people like Blanchard and Lawrence to present the "autogynephilia" theory as an unchallenged fact.

Doubts

That does not mean that I necessarily buy all of her findings.

For instance: When she makes use of the research of researchers like Simon Baron-Cohen, who refers to "systematizing" and "empathizing" as masculine vs. feminine traits respectively, I am afraid she might have fallen into a trap. Baron-Cohen's masculine and feminine brains look awfully much like the end result of socialization to me. I will come back to this in my in depth review of her work.

However, this does not weaken the positive effect her research may have in sexology circles, as many sexologist believe in the science of Baron-Cohen and his associates.

UPDATE: Read more about this study in this blog post!

See also the paper "Biological and psychosocial correlates of adult gender-variant identities: A review", by Jaimie F. Veale, David E. Clarke and Terri C. Lomax, from Personality and Personal Differences 48 (2010) 357-366, which presents high lights from the study. It can be read in the Crossdream Life library.

Jaimie F. Veale: Biological and Psychosocial Correlates of Gender Variant and Gender-typical Identities, a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirments for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand, 2011.

Other publications by Veale.

Some good news from the DSM and the Gender Dysphoria working group

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Thu, 23 May 2013 08:31:00 +0000

There is some cause for transgender celebration
in the DSM (photos.com)

The male to female crossdressers and crossdreamers who feel distress from their condition are still to be considered mentally ill by American psychiatry. That is the bad news from the new edition of the DSM-5, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

There is some really good news to be found in there as well, though.

The Gender Dysphoria working group has clearly had wiser leadership than the paraphilia working party of Ray Blanchard.

First: gender dysphoria is no longer called a "disorder". It is no longer considered a mental illness (although it is still included in a manual of mental illnesses).

Secondly: they refuse to give in to the notion that there are two distinct types of transsexuals, where one is perverted and the other is not.

Being -- or having been -- a crossdreamer does not disqualify you from being recognized as transsexual.

I have gotten hold of the "Gender Dysphoria" chapter and this is what it says about crossdreamers (in the text referred to as "an individual with transvestic disorder"):

"An individual with transvestic disorder who has also clinically significant gender dysphoria can be given both diagnoses. In many cases of late-onset gender dysphoria in gynephilic natal males, transvestic behavior with sexual excitement is a precursor."

It is as if the Gender Dysphoria group has looked at all the pain the paraphilia subworkinggroup will cause transsexuals through their Transvestic Disorder text and decided to do something about it.

What the Gender Dysphoria texts says is basically what I have said for a long time: Crossdreamer fantasies are symptoms of an underlying gender variance. In some crossdreamers this condition is strong enough to cause gender dysphoria (i.e. distress caused by a mismatch between biological sex and sex/gender identity).

This is important, because it makes it harder for Blanchard-supporters, militant HBS classic transsexuals and radical feminists to use the DSM to stigmatize transsexual crossdreamers.

This does not mean that everything is well, though: MTF transsexual women, who have experienced crossdreamer fantasies, will have to live with the fact that according to one section of the DSM they are sexual perverts, while according to another they are not.

Still, they may at least use the Gender Dysphoria chapter for what's it is worth.

Non-transsexual transgender are not protected

Non-transsexual MTF crossdreamers do not have this protection,. Paradoxically, you have to transition to get to the good side of the DSM.

This means that there remains a lot of work to do for those who want to see crossdressers, crossdreamers and girfags generally accepted.

Late-onset

I am still more than a little frustrated by the use of the term "late-onset transsexual" in the gender dysphoria chapter, as it reflects the idea that all gynephilic (woman-loving) transsexuals transition late.

This probably used to be true, as most of these trans women tried hard to adapt to a "manly" life in order to find love with a woman. Lately, however, we have seen more and more transsexual crossdreamers transition early.

Not only are the general attitudes towards sex and gender changing in parts of the world. The Internet has also given them a support system that helps them understand themselves at an earlier age.

The early-onset/late-onset binary was an artifact caused by the cultural context. The androphilic trans women could find support and acceptance in the gay community. The gynephilic ones could not.

"Autoandrophilia" did not make it into the DSM-5

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Thu, 23 May 2013 07:28:00 +0000

The absurdities of the DSM continues (stockbyte).

I have had a hard time getting a hold of the relevant texts from the new edition of the American psychiatric manual, the DSM.

So much for democratic transparency.

From what I hear, though, it seems "autoandrophilia" did not make it into the DSM.

Someone within the DSM machinery might have concluded that enough is enough. There is no research underpinning this "disorder", so let's leave it out. That would be the optimistic version of what has happened.

I fear, however, that they all believe that female to male crossdreamers do not exist. Because if they knew the female to male variant existed, it would be close to impossible for them to leave "autogynephilia" and male bodied crossdressers and crossdreamers in the manual.

According to my source the "autogynephilia" term remains under the Transvestic Disorder category.

This means that male bodied crossdreamers who feel distress from their gender variance are considered mentally ill, while female to male crossdreamers and crossdressers are not.

For the female to male crossdreamers and girlfags this is good news, as they avoid the stigma attached to a disorder diagnosis. On the other hand, this also means that they remain unrecognized by those who are supposed to help them.

Because even if crossdreaming is not a mentall illness in itself (and it isn't), many crossdreamers suffer from the effects of a oppressive and bigoted society, which can cause much distress and depression.

They need to be seen. They need to be understood. They need help.

What the American Psychiatric Association should have done is to recognize that female to male crossdreamers exist, but they should have not included them in the DSM.

This is the principle that underpinned the 1973 decision to leave homosexuality out of the manual: At that time the psychiatrists decided that it was not the sexual orientation as such that caused distress, but the way in which society treated homosexuals.

Somehow the APA masters have forgotten this principle. But then again, that should come as no surprise They did, after all, appoint a man who still believes homosexuality is a disorder to lead the work on paraphilias (sexual perversions).

The calendar tells me it is 2013. That must be an error. It should say 1913.

For more information, see my post on Ray Blanchard and the missing girlfag

Ray Blanchard and the Missing Girlfag (The DSM-5)

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Sun, 19 May 2013 17:03:00 +0000

Blanchard refuses to let transgender people
out of the DSM (Drawing by Jayna Pavlin)

Ray Blanchard denies the existence of female to male crossdreamers, in spite of including "autoandrophilia" in the DSM-5, and in spite of having described a girlfag in a 1987 paper on transsexual men and women.

Tomorrow the American Psychiatric Association is to publish the fifth edition of the American manual for mental illnesses (DSM-5).

(Update 1: The manual was presented at the APA annual meeting today, but the text has not been published online)

Unless there has been a miracle "autoandrophilia"will be included as a new mental disorder.

"Auotandrophilia" is, as some of my readers will know, Ray Blanchard's term for female bodied persons who get aroused by the idea of being men -- people I call female to male crossdreamers.

Many of them call themselves girlfags. Some, but not all of them, are transsexual. Others, but not all, are crossdressers.

Blanchard refuses to believe in girlfags

In a recent interview Blanchard, who is the leader of the "paraphilia" (perversion) subworkinggroup of the DSM, admits that he had been the one to suggest the inclusion of "autoandrophilia, not because he believes "autoandrophiles" exist, mind you, but because he would like to avoid attacks from feminists.

You read me right. The DSM is going to include a diagnosis for a new mental disorder the leader of the responsible working party, Mr. Blanchard, does not even believe exist.

This is also why he has not presented any scientific research that documents that this "non-condition" is a sexual paraphilia (perversion).

This is a scandal that undermines the legitimacy of the whole DSM-5 enterprise.

Girlfag disbelief

Blanchard's bizarre tactics made one girlfag make the following comment to me in an email:

"First this idiot tells me I am mentally ill. Next he tells me I do not exists. Is this man crazy?"

It would be tempting to include a new disorder for people like Blanchard in the DSM. His obsessive attempts to classify sexual perversions is more than a little disturbing.

However, this is not so much about madness, as it is about a scientific and mental lock-in.

The female to male crossdreamers threaten to undermine his whole autogynephilia vs. homosexual transsexual theory, so he has to deny their existence.

How can a so-called expert on transgender conditions not know about FTM crossdreamers?

Yaoi is a comic genre for female bodied crossdreamers
or "girlfags". The girlfags identify with one of the
gay men in the stories.

Several readers have asked me -- in comments and in emails -- how it is possible for Blanchard not to have heard about female to male crossdreamers.

There is after all, a thriving girlfag yaoi culture out there, and if he had read this blog, he would have found comments from a large number of what he calls "autoandrophiles" discussing their lives.

Moreover Uli Meyer has written extensively about girlfags, and Dr. Tracie O'Keefe have several case studies on FTM crossdreamers.

I decided to go back to some of Blanchard's early papers on transsexuals to see if I could find any references to FTM crossdreamers attracted to men.
It turns out he has heard about girlfags.

Blanchard's whole theory is at stake

But first, let me remind you that Blanchard's theory states that:

All androphilic (man-loving) male to female transsexuals are effeminate homosexual men.
All gynephilic (woman-loving) and bisexual male to female transsexuals are manly heterosexual men with a misdirected masculine sexuality.
All female to male transsexuals are sexually attracted to women ("homosexual women" in his terminology).

In the interview referred to above Blanchard admits that he believes homosexuality to be a disorder (in spite of it being removed from the DSM in 1973), so all of the above are sexual deviants.

The unbalance between male to female and female to male transsexuals is based on an archaic understanding of sexuality where only men are sexually agressive and where women are more passive and reactive. This is a way of thinking that has been used to present women as inferior to men for millennia.

If female to male androphilic, man-loving, crossdreamers with a pro-active, aggressive, sexuality exist, he would be forced to interpret this as an expression of a typical masculine sexuality. But he cannot, as they only women "suffering" from a masculine sexuality in his book are lesbians. In his world only homosexual men and women can mirror the sexuality of the opposite sex.

He cannot interpret the aggressive FTM crossdreaming as an expression of a misdirected female sexuality either, as heterosexual women -- in his world -- are supposed to be sexually reactive.

The majority of girlfags are not "homosexual" (defined in relation to their birth sex). Their existence tells us that a typical male sexuality can be found in people whom he considers to be heterosexual women.

But if that is true, that would mean that his idea about male to female crossdreaming as an expression of a typical male sexuality would be wrong. The "autogynephiliacs" would not be suffering from a erotic target location error, but from some kind of genuine female sexuality.

Some of Blanchard's supporters do not get this nuance, but he does, which is why he is why he denies the existence of FTM crossdreamers so adamantly .

(Please note that not all girlfags express a stereotypical masculine sexuality, in the same way there is much variation in the dreams and expressions of male to female crossdreamers. But those crossdreamers represent no threat to the sexist binary of Blanchard.)

Turns out Blanchard knew about girfags all along

It actually turns out Ray Blanchard has met female to male crossdreamers before. He has even written about one of them.

I am taking the liberty of quoting his 1987 paper "Heterosexual and Homosexual Gender Dysphoria" (Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol 16, No 2, 1987):

"The one heterosexual female [transsexual] was a single. university-educated woman in her early 30s who complained that the [sic] subjectively felt herself to be male and requested surgical sex reassignment. She was erotically attracted to homosexual males, particularly 'gentler, nonmacho gay men', in relation to whom she felt herself more masculine.

"She expressed romantic fantasies of being a man in a homosexual relationship with another male whom she could protect and care for, and there were less obviously erotic fantasies of protecting a homosexual male friend from being assaulted and ridiculed in public. Unlike the many heterosexual male gender dysphorics [Blanchard's offensive term for gynephilic trans women] who relate fantasies of being, or becoming, a lesbian, she denied ever having been aroused erotically by cross-dressing.

"It is possible that this patient was one of a type descirbed by Hirschfeld (1925): heterosexual women with strong masculine traits, who say that they feel as if they were homosexual men, and who feel strongly attracted to effeminate men."

If this is not a perfect description of a female to male crossdreamer or a girlfag, I do not know what is.

And please, do not get distracted by the fact that she did not get aroused by crossdressing. I am sexually turned off by crossdressing. That does not stop me from being a crossdreamer (or an "autogynephiliac" in Blanchard's offensive terminology).

In this quote Blanchard also confirms that he has read Hirschfeld's description of female bodied "transvestites". In other words: He is perfectly aware of the existence of female to male crossdreamers.

What did he do with this amazing insight in his 1987 paper?

This is what he did:

"We do not mention this very unusual case further, and she is not included in the statistics that follow."

You know what, I think this sentence says so much about Blanchard and the whole autogynephilia/autoandrophilia theory that I think I will repeat it once more:

"We do not mention this very unusual case further, and she is not included in the statistics that follow."

I am sure that there are those of you who will point out that in statistical regression analysis you leave out the outliers, but a good scientist never leave an anomaly like this one behind. Blanchard does. But then again Blanchard is an extremely bad scientist.

Let me repeat what Blanchard said in his recent interview with Motherboard:

Do you think autoandrophelia, where a woman is aroused by the thought of herself as a man, is a real paraphelia [sic]?

"No, I proposed it simply in order not to be accused of sexism, because there are all these women who want to say, 'women can rape too, women can be pedophiles too, women can be exhibitionists too.' It’s a perverse expression of feminism, and so, I thought, let me jump the gun on this. I don’t think the phenomenon even exists."

Fascinating, isn't it?

He has, himself, presented proof of the existence of female to male crossdreamers, but somehow these examples fail to register. And now he is instrumental in labelling female to male crossdreamers -- for the first time in history -- as mentally ill, simply because he knows it is hard to keep a "paraphilia" in the DSM that is exclusive to men in this day and age.

This man is a walking disaster.

My next step will be to find out to what extent the chair of the DSM process, David Kupfer, was aware of what Blanchard was doing, and why the APA did not stop this travesty before it was too late.

Important note to new readers:

The fact that I point out that female to male crossdreamer exists should not be taken as support for Blanchard's DSM entry: That "autoandrophilia" exists.

The autogynephilia/autoandrophilia theory is an explanation for crossdreaming that says that these men and women suffer from some kind of erotic target location error.

I can assure you that what the truly sex dysphoric transsexuals are feeling cannot be reduced to a misdirected sexual desire -- or a simple fetish for that matter.

It is only natural that transgender people get aroused from the fantasy of being their target sex. How else are they going to imagine the love life they wish for?

Crossdreamers exist, but this is not a sexual paraphilia, and the whole "transvestic disorder" with its "autogynephilia" and "autoandrophilia" should therefore be removed from the DSM.

For those of you who are interested in this topic, there are a lot of blogposts exploring this discussion in depth.

Update May 23: From what I hear it seems "autoandrophilia" did not make it into the DSM. See this blog post for more.

New films and music videos about the lives of trans people

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Thu, 09 May 2013 14:16:00 +0000

I have found myself writing more about transgender film lately.

And while I was working on a review of the Canadian film Laurence Anyways, I got an email from the German Transgender Film Festival, regarding their award winners of 2013.

This give me an opportunity to present a wide variety of film and music covering the whole spectrum of transgender lives and expressions, male to female and female to male.

There is a lot here that leaves an impression, and you can see for yourself.

I would like to draw attention to one interesting trend: Non-transgender people who use their art to give support to cross-dressers, drag queens and transsexuals.

I can remember one friend telling me once that I could not possible like the Pet Shop Boys, because they were homosexual. It dawned on me that there was a rule in the universe that the gay were given all the good music, probably in compensation for all the other crap they had to go through. Moreover, I learned a valuable lesson about what it means to be a "real man".

Their Winner video has now, finally, given me an explanation for my abnormal enthusiasm for gay electronica.

I am also glad to announce that fellow countryman, Morten Harket from a-ha, has made a video about a crossdresser.

We are moving forward, one step at a time!

Best Feature Movie of the Year:
ROMEOS directed by Sabine Bernardi

Romeos is a German movie about a transitioning transman who falls in love with a gay man.

Best Trans-Performance (MtF) in Feature Movie
Devid Striesow in TRANSPAPA
German movie: Fifteen year old Maren finds out that her absent father is now Sophie.

German language trailer.

Devid Striesow in Transpapa

Best Trans-Performance (FtM) in Feature Movie
Zoe Heran in TOMBOY
French movie about the ten year old girl Laure who uses the name Mickäel.

Best Actress (non-tg-character) in Feature Movie
Luisa Sappelt in TRANSPAPA

Best Actor (non-tg-character) in Feature Movie
Maximilian Befort in ROMEOS

Befort in Romeos (left)

Best Long Documentary Film:
MAN FOR A DAY by Katarina Peters

Man for a Day is a documentary about gender activist and performance artist Diane Torr.

Best Song (long film):
VALENTINE’S DAY by Klaus Nomi
Film ROMEOS

Best Short Film:
I’M IN (L) by Gsus Lopez
Hey, here are someone who makes fun of the "autogynephilia" concept. I have seen it all now!

I'M IN (L) from Gsus Lopez on Vimeo.

Best Trans-Performance in a short Film (MtF):
Gintas Jocius in DRESSED AS A GIRL
Film about male to female crossdreamer who dreams about being a girl singing on stage.

Best Short Documentary:
VICTOR by Buck Angel
From the movie Sexing the Transman, about the sexuality of transsexual men.

Best Song in a Short Film:
HIDE & WAIT interpreted by Gintas Jocius
written and composed by David Rubin
in DRESSED AS A GIRL

Best Film Website:
Peaches Does Herself

Best Concert Performance:
AUF DER REEPERBAHN NACHTS UM HALB EINS by Elke Winter

THAT’S WHAT I AM by Conchita Wurst

WE STAND by Our Lady J

Best Music Video:
HEY JANE by Spiritualized

I’M THE ONE by Morten Harket

THIS IS MY LIFE by Mandy

WINNER by Pet Shop Boys

Misfits: Gender Swap

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Tue, 07 May 2013 14:31:00 +0000

There are not that many TV episodes and movies out there who depict the sexual aspect of the "what if" scenario of crossdreaming. This is probably because crossdreamers are invisible in the public debate, or they are classified as weird crossdressers on the one hand and weird/suffering transsexuals on the other.

The two sides of Cutis in Misfits

We are again saved by British television.

Misfits is series based on the same concept as American TV series like Heros, Alphas and Mutant X, but it is much darker, funnier and explicit in comparison.

The superheroes of Misfits are juvenile delinquents doing community service.

SPOILER ALERT! If you have not seen the series, you definitely ought to. Note that the following paragraphs include spoilers!

In the episode called Gender Swap, Curtis, who has been banned from organized sports, used his newfound ability to change into a woman to get on the women's track team.

As most often is the case in Misfits, this episode (and the one to follow) breaks a lot of taboos regarding sex and gender, while at the same time delivering a strong message on misogyny and the treatment of women.

I have edited some selected clips from the episodes here for reference:

I have no way of proving this, of course, but I doubt that the script writers are crossdreamers. At least they do not have to be to develop a plot like this one.

Howard Overman and his team has probably argued something like this:

- Hey, what kind of unlikely scenario are we going to develop for Colin now? He has lost his power to turn back time. What other amazing ability can we give him?

- We can't. So let us do the exact opposite. Let us give him the super power that is left when every one else have chosen their favorite?

- And that is?

- The ability to change sex!

- OK, I can work with that. It will give us a chance to challenge some gender stereotypes and some misogyny, I guess. Ah, yeah, I can see it now. He's having the period, right, and is drugged with Rohypnol.

- You are getting far too serious. What is the first thing a bloke would do if he turned into a girl?

- We cannot!

- We can do anything we want!

- Ah, you naughty you!

And so on and so forth.

What makes this scenario interesting for me, is that the fantasy of masturbating as a girl or having lesbian sex as a girl flows naturally from the admittedly absurd idea of a man changing sex at will. You do not have to be a crossdreamer to be fascinated by this.

This may also explain why true transgender of all shades -- transsexual and non-transsexual -- end up crossdreaming. Gender confusion of any intensity will make use of this script, simply because it is impossible not to imagine it, unless you are completely asexual or suffer from a sexual suppression of an epic scale.

In other words: gender variance + sexual desire = crossdreaming.

Misfits can be seen on Netflix in the US and some other countries.

Ray Blanchard lied when including autoandrophilia in the DSM-5 proposal

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Sun, 05 May 2013 19:24:00 +0000

Cracks appear in Blanchard's facade.

It turns out it was Ray Blanchard who suggested that "autoandrophilia" should be included in the new edition of the American psychiatric manual, labeling a large number of transsexual men as mentally ill in the process. He now admits that he did so in order to avoid being attacked by feminists. He does not really believe in their existence.

As some of my readers will remember, the new proposed version of the DSM-5 include a category called "autoandrophilia" refering to female bodied persons experiencing sexual arousal when imagining themselves as male.

It now appears it was Dr. Blanchard, the chair of the paraphilia sub-workgroup, who proposed the inclusion. But he does not believe in it.

Let me quote a recent interview with Blanchard:

"[Motherboard:] Do you think autoandrophelia, where a woman is aroused by the thought of herself as a man, is a real paraphelia [sic]?

[Blanchard:] No, I proposed it simply in order not to be accused of sexism, because there are all these women who want to say, 'women can rape too, women can be pedophiles too, women can be exhibitionists too.' It’s a perverse expression of feminism, and so, I thought, let me jump the gun on this. I don’t think the phenomenon even exists."

Blanchard is lying to the public in order to avoid criticism

Let me make this absolutely clear for you:

Blanchard is including a psychiatric diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders that he believes is false, in order not to be called out as a sexist! And the American Psychiatric Association (APA) accepts this charade.

Are these people for real?

This is not only scientific fraud. The APA is actually willing to stigmatize a whole group of people so that Ray Blanchard will not be bothered by an open, democratic, debate about the role of psychiatry in society.

And here is the clincher: Female to male crossdreamers do undeniably exist

What truly shocks me is the fact that he is not recognizing the existence of female to male crossdreamers (female bodied persons who get aroused by the idea of imagening themselves as the other sex).

The reason he does not do so is clear to me. In his sexist universe only male sexuality can generate "paraphilias". Women are apparently not wired for what he considers "erotic target location errors".

Because of this their existence threatens the whole model. The autogynephilia theory requires the male to female transsexual women to be driven by a unique male sexuality, characterized by a need to conquer and possess women.

According to this world view female bodied individuals must be driven by a female sexuality, which is understood to be the exact opposite. The existence of women who would like their feminine boyfriends to bend over and take it from behind is therefore an impossibility.

But yet: There they are, proving once and for all that Blanchard's dogmatic binary is nothing but a mirage created by his own prejudices.

The FTM crossdreamer/girlfag community is probably as big as the MTF

I have documented their existence in a large number of blog posts, and the wide dissemination of yaoi and other types of FTM crossdreamer erotica is undeniable.

And if blog posts aren't good enough for the esteemed doctor, peer reviewed papers are available. (See, for instance, Uli Meyer: "Hidden in straight sight: Trans'gressing gender and sexuality via BL")

I suspect his mind is so closed off, that it now actively filters out anything that can threaten his world view. Or maybe none of his colleagues dare to tell him, as it may break his bubble of academic arrogance.

Blanchard continues to believe that homosexuals are abnormal

The interview also makes clear that Blanchard still believe that homosexual sex is abnormal.

Homosexuality was removed from the DSM in 1973.

I think it is time someone removed Blanchard from the DSM as well.

Unless the President of the APA, Dilip V. Jeste, and the DSM Task Force Chair, David J Kupfer, take action immediately, Doctor Blanchard will do irreparable damage to the standing of both the DSM and the APA.

For new readers who do not know the context:

Let me make one thing perfectly clear: The fact that there are men and women out there who get aroused by the idea of being the other sex, does not mean that "autogynephiliacs" or "autoandrophiliacs" exist.

The two terms, which refer to love of oneself as a woman or man, entails an implicit explanation for this phenomenon that is clearly wrong. These people are not suffering from a "erotic target location error". Their fantasies are just their psyche's way of expressing an inner sexual identity that is incompatible with their bodies and/or the cultural norms around them.

Here is a short summary of what is at stake:

Blanchard has developed a typology of transgender conditions where all male to female transgender, transsexuals included, are divided into two groups: "Homosexual transsexuals" (i.e. androphilic transwomen) who are understood as gay men and "autogynephiliacs" who are understood as heterosexual men suffering from an erotic target location error.
The theory has not been proved, it cannot be proved, and is dismissed by mosts sexologists and health professionals who know anything about transgender people.
The theory is highly stigmatizing and demeaning and completely disregards the experience of crossdreamers, crossdressers and transsexuals world wide.
It is true that there are men and women who get aroused by the idea of being the other sex. This blog is devoted to them. The fact that transgender and transsexual men and women have a sex drive does not mean that they are perverts, however. How can a transsexual woman fantasize about having sex, if not as a woman?

Click here for more information about crossdreaming and autogynephilia/autoandrophilia.

UPDATE: Autoandrophilia was not included in the DSM-5!

Crossdreamers on British TV: Moving On

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:18:00 +0000

I love American TV. The arrival of cable has let lose a wave of high quality creativity. I have found very few empathic presentations of crossdreamers, crossdressers and other transgender peope, though.

Scene from "Dressed to Impress"

The Brits, on the other hand, has produced quite a few episodes giving a more realistic view of what it means to be different, and without the sexist bigotry that often follows.

Cheryl made me aware of Moving On, a British TV series with stand alone episodes, one focusing on the life of a young male to female crossdresser living with his working class parents.

It' s a bit like Crossdreamers meets Eastenders, if you know what I mean.

The story does not give an easy solution to anything. In fact, misunderstandings caused by the boy's crossdressing creates havoc between the parents.

But the BBC has managed to depict the boy with sympathy. Besides, it is good to see a young crossdresser for once, as the actor undermines the standard stereotype of ugly old "autogynephiliacs".

For the time being the full episode is available on YouTube. You can see for yourself.

The Girlfags of Ancient Baghdad

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 13:44:00 +0000

Shereen El Feki's fascinating glimpse into the sex life of the Arab World, Sex and the Citadel, includes the amazing story about female to male crossdreamers in ninth century Baghdad.

Some of the Jasmines of ancient Baghdad
preferred the life of Aladdin (Image: Disney)

As the story has it, the wife of Sultan Harun al-Rashid, Zubayda, was starting to get worried about their son, al-Amin.

My sources are divided as regards his sexuality. Feki argues he was attracted to men, while the Wikipedia article refers to his fascination for castrated eunuchs. Regardless: There would clearly be no heir from the heir to this throne.

Al-Amin and his girlfags

But Zubayda was a resourceful woman. She dressed up some of the slave girls up as boys and cut their hair, in the hope that they would attract the attention of their son.

This seemed to have worked. Al-Amin's favorite boyish slave girl was 'Arib, famous for her beauty and her intelligence -- a singer, poet, chess player and excellent horsewoman.

The story may perfectly well be true. If al-Amin was attracted to eunuchs, he would be what we today call gender queer rather than homosexual, probably with some kind of trans-fascination. If that was indeed the case, an interest in girls taking over the role as boys would not be out of the question.

Be that as it may, to me story sound a little bit like an after-rationalization -- an attempt by non-transgender people to explain the unexplainable: the ghulamiyyat of ancient Baghdad.

There is no doubt in my mind that many of these girls were indeed what I call female to male crossdreamers, also know as girlfags.

The gulamiyyat

This is what El Feki says about them:

"In ninth-century Baghdad, the hottest girls on the streets looked like boys. These were the ghulamiyyat -- a feminine derivative of the Arabic word for a young man.

"These women were a curious combination of male and female. The ghulamiyat dressed like men, yet wore makeup. While they plucked their eyebrows and painted their lips, they also drew on mustaches in musk.

"In an age of strict segregation, they hung out with men at dogfights, hunts, horse races, and chess matches, all the while eschewing such feminine niceties as wearing jewelry and braiding their hair.

"They even took male names. Yet they made no attempt to bind their breasts and were decidedly heterosexual, often painting their male lover's names on their cheeks."

El Feki tells us that according to some accounts there were as many as four thousand ghulamiyyat at the court of al-Rashid. That might be an exaggeration, but the number tells a lot about how common they must have been. There are reports saying that they became quite fashionable.

Given the current phobias of most religious leaders of the Arab world today, it is hard to believe that muslim countries could be this tolerant of gender diversity in the ninth century. But history tells us otherwise.

Al-Tifashi's Promenade of the Hearts

The most important source of Arab trans-gressions in earlier epochs is the ninth century writer Ahmad ibn Yusuf al-Tifashi.

It pains me to say that there is no complete English translation of his most important work, A Promenade of the Hearts, in What Does Not Exist in a Book, available. El Feki says that Daniel Newman is preparing one, however, and as soon as I can get hold of it, I will come back to you with more.

Contemporary girlfags in the Arab world

Arabian boyat.
The image was found doing a Google search.

The ghulamiyyat are still around, but today you won't find them in the palaces of presidents and kings. Arab political and religious leaders now argue that girls bending the genders are an import from the decadent west.

El Feki tells the story about the boyat of the United Arab Emirates, where police squads scan malls and other public places in search of suspicious looking girls:

"Boyat have been variously accused of mental illness, defying God's creation, and sowing moral corruption through predatory homsexuality and same-sex marriage, not to mention Satan worship and jinn possession."

These are similar to the arguments heaped on homosexuals and transgender people by bigots in Europe and North America, as well.

The distinction between lesbian and man-loving boyat is not clear to me, nor to the Arabs it seems.

Most of the boyat, regardless of sexual orientation, are active cross-dressers. Most of them cross-dress in private. In conservative societies with strict gender dress codes, even gender challenging women become visible when crossdressing.

Arabian boyat found on the Web. I have
blurred the faces to protect the persons' identities.

Motivation

I am sure there are those who would like to correct me now, arguing that neither the ghulamiyyat or the boyat are really crossdreamers. Instead they are girls and women trying to express traits and abilities forbidden to women in most parts of the Arab world.

In Afghanistan there is a tradition where parents without a son let their daughter live like a boy until she is to marry. This has the benefit of allowing her to work outside the house and help the family in this way.

But this will be to miss the main point of my argument: These girls dress up as girls out of an inner need, not because their parents ask them too. Most Arab girls would not even contemplate doing this, and their parents would be appalled. The social pressure to stick to the norms is so strong, that it takes an enormous psychological drive to make a girl take on the role of a boy.

If this was a political need only, it would make much more sense for the girl to focus on getting an education and an independent job, if possible. It is easier to achieve such a goal, if you stay under the radar and pretend to be a "regular girl".

As for the sexual part, it is pretty clear that the ghulamiyyat lived an active sex life,while playing the role of boy. It is extremely hard for me to accept that this need was completely decoupled from their sexuality.

Indeed, we have a description of the sexual side to women's gender bending from an Arab serving the Normans on medieval Sicily:

Stephen O. Murray quotes Sharif al-Idrisi (1100-66) describing Arab girls who wanted to be on top:

"There are also women who are more intelligent than others. They possess many of the ways of men so that they resemble them even in their movements, the manner in which they talk, and their voice. Such women would like to be the active partner, and they would like to be the superior to the man who makes this possible for them. Such a woman does not shame herself, either, if she seduces whom she desires. If she has no inclination, he cannot force her to make love. This makes it difficult to submit to the wishes of men and brings her to lesbian love."

In other words: These women may have been heterosexual, but the power struggle of their times pushed them into the arms of submissive women.

The invisible crossdreamers

Hadn't it been for the book by El Feki, I wouldn't have found out about the ghulamiyyat. There is close to nothing about them online in English. A regular Google search yields nothing. Google Scholar brings up a few references.

As in the case of the girlfags of the Kama Sutra it is as if there is some kind of conspiracy going on, aimed at making the crossdreamers invisible -- today as well as yesterday. The current stigmatization of crossdreamers among sexologists, post-structuralist academics and radical feminist only serves to reinforce this invisibility.

It is therefore extremely important to identify examples as the ones given by El Feki. No longer is it possible to say that crossdreaming is a social construct of a "capitalist patriarchal society" or a fetish only. The girlfags of Baghdad and the FTM crossdreamers of ancient India point to an underlying condition that is there independently of the cultural context.

If there are any of my readers fluent in languages like Arabic, Persian, Mandarin, Hindi and Sanskrit who can help me track down relevant literature, I would be very grateful.

See also my post on the ancient Indian girlfags of the Kama Sutra
All blog posts mentioning girlfags.
Gulf News on the Boyat pheonomenon
Sahar Amer: Crossing Borders
Stephen Murray: "Women-women love in Islamic Societies" in Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe: Islamic Homsexualities

The love life of non-transsexual crossdreamers -- getting real

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 11:51:00 +0000

More and more crossdreamers are able to establish loving relationships with partners who accept their other side. Are we facing some kind of positive cultural shift?

I see from some of the emails I get, that some of my readers believe that I believe that all crossdreamers are transsexual. This is probably because I do write a lot about transsexual crossdreamers on this blog.

MTF crossdresser, photo: Olga Ekaterincheva

There are good reasons for this.

Firstly, transsexual crossdreamers face challenges that deserves our attention, for their own sake.

Secondly, I do not believe there is a clear cut divide between transsexual and non-transsexual crossdreamers. Non-transsexual crossdreamers can therefore learn something about themselves by listening to those that suffer from "gender dysphoria" or "gender incongruence," i.e. a complete mismatch between their inner sex identity and their bodies.

Most crossdreamers are not transsexual

That being said, it seems to me that many crossdreamers are not gender dysphoric. They are transgender (in the sense of belonging to a wide group of people challenging gender stereotypes), but not transsexual (in the sense of feeling that they are of the "opposite" sex).

Sure, quite a few of them may be deceiving themselves, using every trick in Psychiatry 101 to suppress their true identity. Still, it is also clear that many, if not most, crossdreamers are not gender dysphoric. This applies to both men and women.

Expressing the other side

These crossdreamers face different challenges than the transsexual ones. They need to find a way of including and expressing their crossdreams, while still identifying with their birth sex.

A male bodied crossdreamer who get aroused by the idea of being a woman, while still thinking of himself as a man, needs to find a way to express the other, feminine, side of his being.

This has been a huge problem for both male and female crossdreamers, simply because the surrounding culture and the medical establishment have insisted that the fantasy of having the body of the opposite sex -- or having sex as the opposite sex-- is wrong and some kind of perversion or paraphilia.

Misogynistic repression

This especially applies to male to female crossdreamers, as there is a deep undercurrent in many cultures that being woman is "less" than being male, and therefore something negative.

Indeed, this bias against women is apparent in psychiatry as well. Until recently most of the so-called "experts" would deny the existence of female to male crossdreamers, partly because they mistakenly believed only men have the kind of sex drive needed to develop such fantasies, and partly because wanting to be a man is a good thing, while wanting to be a woman isn't.

This socio-cultural bias against gender challenging dreams and desires has made it impossible for most crossdreamers to include crossdreaming in the love lives they share with others, because they had reason to believe they would risk losing everything if they revealed their inner dreams to their partner.

Many crossdreamers have therefore chosen to keep their fantasies in the closet, some to the extent that they have stayed alone. And it is this tendency to keep to themselves that has led researchers like Ray Blanchard and others to conclude that crossdreamers are autoerotic narcissists in love with themselves (autogynephilia).

In other words: Stigmatization leads to isolation, and this isolation seems to confirm the prejudices that led them into the closet in the first place. Damned if you do, and damned if you don't!

Cause for optimism

I must admit that I have been rather pessimistic as regards the possibility of crossdreamers being able to include their crossdreams in a stable relationship.

Recently, however, I have read and heard a lot that seems to indicate that I have been far too pessimistic. It is possible for both male to female and female to male crossdreamers to find partners willing to give room to their "other side".

This is not a kind of tolerance or understanding you will find everywhere, and especially not in very conservative or fundamentalist societies (whether these are countries like Afganistan or subcultures like Christian fundamentalists in the US). Still, it is becoming more common in broad circles in some Western countries.

The fact that a majority of people in countries like Norway, Sweden and the US supports gay marriage, demonstrates that deeply held prejudices may be overwon.

Moreover, the fact that the bestselling novel among women last year was a book about sado-masochistic sex, also tells me that we are finally overcoming the widely held belief that women are less "kinky" and sexually oriented than men. It seems modern women refuse to be reduced to a madonna or a whore.

I am not saying that crossdreamers and crossdressers can expect the same kind of respect as homosexuals or women enjoying a bit of spanking -- at least not yet -- but these trends show me that people are getting increasingly more open to the idea that human sexuality is diverse and should be diverse. The new tolerance says that people should be able to please each other in the ways they like, as long as no one gets hurt.

Sex with a crossdreamer

Here is a quote from a discussion over at reddit that can serve as a good illustration of this. "throwawaynutella" writes:

"My boyfriend told me a little while ago that he likes crossdressing (in a sexual setting only) and I was super excited to explore it with him! We trade panties all the time and I peg him occasionally. The thing is, lately he's been taking it farther and I don't know how I feel about it. He's been talking about role switching, him acting like a girl during sex and wearing a wig or fake breasts. This hasn't happened, and I don't know if I want it to. He also wants to get a corset for himself (...)

I really do enjoy pegging him and trading panties, but I don't know if I want my boyfriend to act like a woman during sex. Help me please, I don't know what to do."

Yes, this is a 19 year old woman who thinks her boy friend's crossdreaming is going a bit too far and who tries to put up some kind of boundaries. That is very reasonable, if you ask me.

What makes me interpret this as an amazingly positive statement, however, is the fact that she have no qualms about accommodating some of the wishes of her lover, and even find this exciting.

The discussion following this question is even more revealing. One commenter after the other give practical advice about what they can do and where to draw the line, all mixed in with humor. Most commenters find pegging (anal sex with strap on) OK, but agree that "throwawaynutella" has the right to say no to anything she is uncomfortable with.

It is the common sense approach to it all that gives me hope.

Girlfag liberation in Iran

Note also an exchange taking place on this blog:

"God I'm finally writing this! I'm a ftm [female to male] crossdreamer, 22, from Iran and it sucks! here, I have no chance to express myself and really don't know what to do. I can cross-dress just at home! so I spend all day confused, lost and invisible.

I read these posts and reverse them to ftm and they really make sense. I was always a normal girl with some weird dreams! I can continue being a girl if they let me to throw away almost all the signs of femininity! Here in Iran transgenders are allowed to fully transition if they completely feel like the other sex and homosexuality is illegal!!! So I try to continue, repeating day and night to myself that I'm a girl and end up watching gay movies or porn and dreaming of turning to a boy someday!

The man inside me has grown up more and more and wants to come out, he's driving me crazy. I tried to forget about him but...he has made strong muscles I guess! I found a gay boyfriend in internet. exactly my style: submissive, younger, feminine. He assumes me a transgender who needs to transition. I told him that I'm not sure cuz I feel the both genders in me but he says I must accept that I'm a guy. Well it really makes me happy but is that the truth???"

You may not think there is much hope to find in a comment like this one, and -- indeed -- Rayka is facing some huge challenges.

Still, one response to Rayka's prayer shows me that there is at least room for self acceptance, even when living in a country like Iran. And self acceptance is a huge step forward compared to living in fear and shame, and believing you are the only one on the planet who feels this way.

The fact that Rayka has become part of a global community of crossdreamers is also important. It may be hard for her to use this community to find love in Iran, but has, at least, become a little bit less impossible than it was before.

Be yourself!

Ariadna Azul wrote the following response to Rayka:

"Hi, I am fellow girlfag [female to male crossdreamer] from Peru. I guess being one of us in a country like yours must be hard. My heart is with you! Things in my country never were fair for women either. We are still 2nd class citizens here. Sons are still more welcome/loved than daughters. It is still expected that you are submissive and house chores are thought to be your responsibility just for the fact you are a woman. You have to 'man up' if you want respect from men and not even then. This is the story of my life. Sometimes the desperation can make you take paths that don't suit you, like transitioning or going for a lesbian relationship.

In my case, I sometimes crossdressed in public to show my disgust for the macho culture that is dominant here. I denied my feminity and i engaged in lesbian relationships trying to find release. It was a hard path but then when you find out who you really are, things are easier.

Don't deny anything that comes natural to you. Your sexuality, your masculinity and your feminity too. You'll feel at peace with yourself and you'll get to find a balance in your life. Transition ONLY if this is what YOU want, don't let other people decide for you, nobody knows you better than yourself. If you don't feel at ease with the idea, then don't even consider it. People tend to think things in black or white. We are the living proof that nature doesn't.

Being accepting with my self, with feminity and masculinity as well has helped me a lot to achieve my own identity. Don't change what you are just because you want to fit. If this gay guy can't see it, then he is not worth your time.

I have met wonderful people in this blog/forum (crossdreamers-crossdreaminglife). MTF crossdreamers are the only kind of guys that i have felt in tune with. I am able to fully understand their struggles and viceversa. It is pure understanding regarding sexuality. In fact, it is very satisfying and exciting (MTF crossdreamers are damn sexy). Finding the best match for you goes beyond sexuality although, (there are many factors, compatibility among them) but as long as you don't need to hide who you truly are, things are way easier. Being honest is the best start for any relationship. I really don't know how easy is for you to express yourself in your society, but i'd personally leave for a country that guarantee my freedom of expression.

Repression is something really painful. In my case, it led me to think I had an authentic man inside me that was taking over and over. Once i found ways to express my true self, i stared being more accepting with every single side of me, even my feminity (I know, as FTM crossdreamers we tend to deny our feminity in order to benefit our masculine side but this proved to be painful for me too). In yaoi communities you'll find girls like you and me, that share the same dreams and fantasies. Contact me whenever you want!"

There isn't much for me to add, really.

Further reading:

Finding love as a crossdreamer

Wife of an autogynephiliac asks for help
Autogynephilia and loneliness
Cosmo: The sex life of crossdreamers
Crossdreamer love, on the relationship between male to female and female to male crossdreamers
The loving wife of a crossdresser
On male to female crossdreamers and how to establish a romantic relationship

On male to female crossdreamers and how to establish a romantic relationship

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 19:58:00 +0000

How do you establish a loving relationship to a woman if you are a male to female crossdreamer dreaming of being a woman?

There has been a lot of politics on this blog lately. That is necessary, I am afraid, given what people say and think about crossdreamers. But today we are going back to the basics: to the lived lives of crossdreamers.

I will share an email I got from a reader with you and add my response. I think this is an exchange many male to female crossdreamers will find familiar as well as interesting.

Do add your own comments!

The life of Josie

Josie from over at Crossdream Life sent me following story:

"I'm thankful to finally have a name attached to this conditon and know that there are others, but I still feel sometimes so confused and conflicted. I'm sure that in this community my story and my questions are common.

When I was a little kid I don't remember being one of those that insisted that I was a girl. To my recollection I was fine being a boy, but I was always 'soft'. I've always been passive and introverted.

Iused to play with my sister and her dolls and saw nothing wrong with it but I did boys stuff too. I always liked to play sports but never excelled at it. I was always picked on by the alpha males in my school, especially in junior high, and I was never successful being a romantic interest for the girls. I was just too shy.

Dreaming of skirts

When I remember my AGP feelings starting to make themselves known was around puberty. The girls in my class started developing hips and breasts and I was thinking "That's pretty cool, I wish I had that too." By the time I was in high school I secretly wanted to be one of the girls.

I went to a Catholic school with plaid skirts and I would fantasize about being one of the girls in those skirts. God bless those skirts! lol

Anyway, 15 years later it's been that way ever since. No one knows how I really feel inside. I try to spend time with the guys but I struggle to relate to them. The more testosterone-driven the interaction becomes, the more I want to run from it. I always feel more at home interacting with the girls. It's always been that way.

Wired as a female

Ya know, in some ways I know my mind is still male. On the other hand, due to much study in gender psychology, I know in many ways that my mind is wired very much female. I can point to many examples that I've discovered that the way I am is very much in step with the way women traditionally are.

I'm not gay. I've never been sexually attracted to men. My eyes always go to the girls. While I love women so much, I also get insanely jealous of them. Sometimes I'll see a girl and I just want to go up to her and grab her and say "Do you have any idea how lucky you are? You're living my dream!"

For me this is not a fetish. Although when I masturbate I always visualize myself as a woman, it's not just about sex. I find so much comfort and pleasure just getting lost my my fantasies and just being...feminine. Just imagining what it would be like and what I would do if I somehow could magically live my life in a new female body. Walking around in a female body and feeling like I've been freed from a prison, like I'm walking on air.

Sorry if I'm boring you and going on too long. Like I said, I'm sure my story isn't unique in the least bit. But I just wonder "What the hell am I?" In some ways I'm male, other ways I'm female, but at my core my heart longs to be female. I'm attracted to women, but I want to BE one. I love women so much, yet I'm so jealous of them.

It's all so frustrating. It's almost like I'm two people stuffed in one body. One is a boy and the other is a girl and the girl is trying to get out. She's hurting and she's frustrated but there's so little I can do to help her.

We can put a fancy label on it (autogynephilia) but really where does this come from? In your opinion, what do you think causes this?"

The classic crossdreamer

Here is part of my response to Josie:

"In many ways your story is similar to mine. Indeed, the main ingrediens of a "classic male to female crossdreamer" (I hate the word "autogynephilia") is

1. An aversion to the rough and tumble play of boys as a child and a preference for girl company

2. Fantasies of being a girl in childhood

3. A mix of stereotypical female and male interests in childhood

4. Erotic fantasies of being a woman from puberty and onwards

This condition is expressed creatively through one or more of the following:

1. Crossdressing

2. Role playing ( for instance through computer games or )

3. Erotic or non-erotic storytelling (short stories, captions or comics)

The "classical" female to male crossdreamers are very much the same, although they love the rough and tumble play of boys and often appear as tomboys as children.

A tentative explanation

I have worked on the Crossdreamer blog for four years now, and started studying the phenomenon in earnest a couple of years before that. In this time I have spoken to a large number of crossdreamers, I have read nearly all the literature and I have been in touch with some of the few experts around. I know believe I have some idea about what causes crossdreaming.

You will find the main arguments on the blog, but here is the short version:

What causes crossdreaming is a very complex phenomenon including biological, environmental, psychological and cultural factors. But even if it is mind-bogglingly complex, and there is no way science will give as the comprehensive answer in our life time, the core cause isn't necessarily that complicated.

Like you, I do not think crossdreaming can be reduced to a fetish (although it can be expressed through fetishes). And even if many crossdreamers follow the template of the "classic crossdreamer" above, there is to much diversity for there to be one psychological reason (like in a specific childhood trauma).

This leads me to believe there is a biological component to this. It may be genetic or epi-genetic, but it does not have to. Many researchers today believe that both sex identity and sexual orientation is influenced by the amount of hormones the fetus is exposed to in the womb. It could simply be that crossdreamers are outliers on the curves of sexual brain development.

Shades of transgender

I guess you could say there are many shades of transgender, from those that clearly identify as the opposite sex on the one hand (transsexual), through those that refuse to identify with one sex or the other (gender queer) to crossdreamers who identify with their birth sex but nevertheless are fascinated by the idea of being the opposite sex. This variation should be expected if this is caused by the pre-natal hormonal balance.

I have found that there is a lot of repression going on. Many crossdreamers fear the idea of being transsexual so much that they are willing to construct the most outlandish theories to avoid that conclusion. This is why some crossdreamers seem to move from one end of the scale to the other throughout their lives. In short: Their defenses crumble.

This especially applies to "heterosexual" crossdreamers (i.e. woman-loving, gynephilic male bodied crossdreamers,and man-loving androphilic female bodied crossdreamers). They cannot find a home in the gay community and believe that the only way of finding love is to play the role of the heterosexual male or woman.

This often leads to a kind of "hyper-correction"; the MTF crossdreamers who join the army to toughen up comes to mind. The fact that such tactics do not work, reinforces my belief that this is something more fundamental and biological.

The crossdreamer dilemma

I have studied our FTM female bodied crossdreamer "brothers" lately, and the true dilemma of being a crossdreamers becomes clear: They dream of being a gay man with a effeminate gay man, but the gay men do not want them for the obvious reason that they do not have the right bodies and the right plumbing.

They do hook up with straight men, but they are not necessarily interested in playing the game of being a submissive gay man. In other words: It is hard for them to find a compatible counterpart.

The same applies to the MTF crossdreamer. Many MTF crossdreamers are good husband material in all ways but one. Many women love them for their sensitivity, their love for children and female interests, their stability, and their love for intimacy and cuddling. But many of these women find it hard to give them what they sexually desire: To be the receptive woman during intercourse.

And I guess most MTF crossdreamers do not even dare to ask for this type of love making, even though it is actually possible. Much of the frustration and suffering of MTF crossdreamers is therefore not complicated (even if crossdreaming is complex): They are never sexually satisfied."

Women's clothes feel right

Josie followed up with the following comment:

"I've done some crossdressing but not much. On one hand, I think my body looks ridiculous in women's clothes so that doesn't make me feel good. On the other hand, without seeing myself, being in women's clothes just feels...right. But I worry about getting caught in them so I don't do it often.

Role playing is something that I do in fact do. I present myself as a girl online often and pass easily. No one has ever suspected that I wasn't a girl that I know of. I don't have to fake anything. I can just be myself. Sometimes I actually start to forget that I am a guy. It's a great escape. I play the game The Sims as a girl too. Writing stories is something that I've thought about doing but haven't yet.

What you have been saying makes sense. I have a background in psychology. It is fascinating to try understand how much of what shapes us is environmental and how much is biological. I do think there is at least in part a biological component to crossdreamers. I really do feel like it's just the way my mind is wired, and perhaps I am deficient in testosterone. I don't know. I do know that I just have a much easier time identifying with girls than with guys.

An essential part of the self

I don't wish to be rid of this condition. I feel like to deny my femininity is to deny my core self. I'm not unhappy with who I am on the inside. I just feel like I've been dealt a bad hand in life. Is there anything more miserable than not being able to identify with the skin you're in?

You feel like you're living a lie everyday of your life, but as bad as you want to reveal your true self, no one can see the real you. Ugh! There's nothing wrong with being a guy, but it's just not...me. I have no intention of transitioning to a woman however. That's just not a challenge I feel like I'm up for.

You're absolutely right, it can cripple your sex/relationship life. It's easy for me to be friends with girls. I get hugs and love and told how awesome I am. Romance is a different story. I know that I'm a good enough guy and decent enough looking that I can be in a meaningful relationship with a quality women. The roadblocks all exist in my head.

I really struggle to take things to a romantic level. For two reasons: one, I don't feel like I can be the man she desires. I'm not really a man. Physically yes, mentally no. Two, I know deep down I really want to be the girl in the relationship. I want to be lead, and held, and well...you know. I'm in that situation now. Threre is a girl that I'm working on a relationship with, but I'm having a really hard time moving forward. I'm afraid she's just going to get fed up and move on. I want so badly to tell her the truth about everything, but I'm scared of how she will react. That could be the end of our relationship right there."

Further reading (ADDED March 7):

Finding love as a crossdreamer

How radical feminists are using the autogynephilia theory to persecute trangender

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 09:48:00 +0000

The new year started with a storm of radfem controversy. Radical feminists was again on the warpath using any weapon available to stigmatize transwomen. And now they were using the autogynephilia theory to tell the world that transsexual women are not real women.

"Contrasted Faces" in Samuel R. Wells, New Physognomy, or Signs of
Character, Manifested through Temperament and External Forms (1871)
The drawings illustrates the superiority of the English race over the Irish.
Similar tactics are now used to stigmatize gynephilic transwomen.

"Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words can never hurt you."

There are those who believe in this maxim.

There are also those who believe that any presumably "scientific" theory is objective and neutral and therefore removed from the messy and emotional thing called life.

In this context the "autogynephilia" theory of Ray Blanchard -- which argues that androphilic (men-loving) transwomen are effeminate men , and gynephilic(woman-loving) transwomen are "paraphilic" heterosexual men -- cannot hurt you either.

WHAT IS PARAPHILIA?

As many of the readers of this blog will know, Ray Blanchard believes all male bodies persons who get aroused by the idea of being the opposite sex are "autogynephiles", whether they are transsexual or not.

This means that all male to female (MTF) crossdreamers are classified as "paraphilic". If the crossdreamer is bothered by this paraphilia, he/she is considered to be suffering from a psychiatric or mental disorder.

Note that Blanchard defines paraphilia as "any intense and persistent sexual interest other than sexual interest in genital stimulation or preparatory fondling with phenotypically, consenting adult human partners."

Basically this means that anyone who do not follow his personal understanding of correct homosexual or heterosexual love making is paraphilic.

Scientific bullying

Those who know the realities of school yard bullying know better, however. As do those who have read their history books know that "neutral", "disinterested" and "objective" studies have been used to systematically to confirm stereotypes and suppress marginalized groups, being those women, black people, Romani, Jews or homosexuals.

Members of these groups have been hospitalized, sterilized, lobotomized and gassed in the name of science.

The autogynephilia out of jail card

I see that some of my fellow crossdreamers believe that this does not apply to them, or -- at least -- that it is possible, somehow, to stand outside this flow of history and establish some kind of safe haven where they can be what they are, without caring about what others think, say or do.

Since they are not transsexual they believe the autogynephilia narrative may help them stay outside the fray.

Well, the radical feminists have now thoroughly debunked that illusion.

They are now actively using the autogynephilia theory to label all gynephilic male to female crossdreamers and transsexuals (called "heterosexual men" by Blanchard and the radfems) as homophobic and misogynistic perverts.

Dirt from the Dirt

Let me quote from a recent radfem blog post from The Dirt from Dirt:

Dirt, a lesbian radfem, hates crossdreamers and
transsexuals (photo from Zagria's site).

"There is a conspicuous jealously and homophobia by the majority of trans males aka Mtfs [she is referring to male to female gynephilic transsexual women] whenever reminded of trans males who pass (perform for their own internal male gaze) better than they. Especially males requiring less drugs and surgeries with which to do so. Those males make up the few percent of trans males who are homosexual.

"Males who seek transition, unlike your 90+ percent of hetero male transitioners who transition seeking the ultimate fetishist's high, transition instead because of his pathological homophobia. These gay males, do not have to lie to their 'gender specialist' about their attractions or their feelings of believing they 'always felt like girls'. Many gaytrans males formed close relationships with females their age when young and were allowed into early female spaces, experiences your classic autogynephile wasn't at all privy to."

Dirt or Dirty White Boi is a butch activist and member of the New Radical Lesbian Feminist Front.

Dirt here repeats the myth that all gynephilic transwomen are uglier and more masculine than androphilic ("homosexual") transwomen.

The Man Who Would be Queen

This is the myth propagated through J. Michael Bailey's book The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism - a popularization of the autogynephilia theory strongly defended by Blanchard -- where Bailey says:

"There is no way to say this as sensitively as I would prefer, so I will just go ahead. Most homosexual transsexuals are much better looking than most autogynephilic transsexuals. There is the rare exception, but for the most part, autogynephilic transsexuals aspire (with some success) to be presentable, while homosexual transsexuals aspire (with equivalent success) to be objects of desire." (p. 180)

In one paragraph Bailey manages to label gynephilic transwomen as -- at best -- barely passable, while the androphilic tranwomen are sexy feminine men trying to ensnare men like himself. (Seriously! I am not making this up. Read the book!)

Baileys book is considered sexist and hateful by most
transsexuals. The cover illustration is clearly
meant to ridicule "autogynephilic" crossdressers
and transwomen.

Bailey does actually admit that the reason the gynephilic transwomen he has observed look less feminine is probably because they have transitioned later and therefore have been more severely ravaged by testosterone. They have also had less time to adapt feminine mannerisms.

Unfortunately, since Bailey elsewhere seems to argue that effeminate mannerisms and interests are an inborn part of being a gay male, this nuance is lost on most readers, including the radfems.

Dirt now uses the "scientific facts" of Bailey and Blanchard in an attempt to destroy the credibility of gynephilic transwomen, in the same way claims of promiscuity and autoeroticism were once terms used to undermine homosexual activists.

And yes, Dirt does know the autogynephilia theory.

The homophobic transwoman

Dirt adds new prejudices to the autogynephilia mix, though, arguing that all male to female gynephilic transwomen are homophobic as well.

This is an element not found in the autogynephilia theory, but fits well with the radfem understanding that all heterosexual men are homophobic bastards and then some.

She writes:

"2 b) Not unlike your typical straight male homophobe, hetero trans males [i.e. transsexual women] are equally homophobic and then some! But theirs is a homophobia coupled with extreme jealousy. That's not to say they wont use gay trans males for their own political agendas whenever one is beaten or murdered. But outside of that, these men HATE gay men, period!

"Sadly the gay trans male is usually a minority, he doesn't have the white privilege and power commanded by the white straight Trans politic. He usually has to put himself into danger if he feels compelled to transition. Dangers from prostituting himself to raise monies for transition, including frequenting life threatening Pump Parties."

The fact that many of the gynephilic transwomen identifiy as homosexual lesbians is ignored.The fact that most crossdreamers are not homophobic is ignored. The fact that there are female to male crossdreamers is ignored. These facts would, after all, undermine the theory.

Androphilic transwomen, on the other hand, are reduced to helpless male victims of white male heterosexual suppression. They prostitute themselves to get money for surgery, Dirt writes, echoing Bailey (who believes "homosexual transsexuals" are well suited to prostitution due to their male sex drive). The fact that they often are severely gender dysphoric -- i.e. that they have a clear female sex identity -- is ignored.

The oppressed becomes the oppressor

If you find the idea of a gender challenging lesbian butch persecuting lesbian transsexual women surprising, just wait til I tell you about GallusMag.

In a blog post over at GenderTrender she praises the arguments made by Dirt and goes on to use the autogynephilia theory directly to attack male to female crossdreamers as well as androphilic transwomen.

GallusMag writes:

"Homosexual male transgenders [i.e. androphilic transwomen] objectively exhibit 'feminine' characteristics from an early age and adopt female personas because they are easy for them to adopt, and increase social functionality and success in a homophobic culture, in stark contrast to the heterosexual male transgender, who exhibits no objective gender-noncompliance in childhood but begins sexualized fetishistic crossdressing at puberty and for whom transgenderism or 'autogynephillia' is a sexual orientation. See transvestic fetishism.

"This is the distinct difference between homosexual and autogynephillic male transgenders and Dirt outlines the ways privileged white heterosexual fetishists colonize and exploit the oppression of impoverished non-white homosexual transgenders to advance a heterosexual white male political agenda."

The model differing between "homosexual transsexuals" and "adrophilic transsexuals" is copied directly from Blanchard and Bailey.

"Transvestic fetishism" is a reference to the current American manual of mental illnesses. Being inlcuded in that manual comes with a high price, indeed, which is why the homosexuals fought so hard to get out of.

The fact that many, if not most, gynephilic crossdreamers report childhood transgender dreams, is ignored. After all, that would not fit the claim that MTF crossdreamers are nothing bur testosterone driven fetishists or autogynephilacs.

Misusing a crossdreamer study

In one blog post, she just reproduces a survey published by Krista444 (Kristin) over at Crossdream Life

For Kristin (who is a male to female transsexual) the results of the survey clearly shows that most MTF crossdreamers do not identify with the autogynephilia theory. In the context of GallusMag's blog, however, it is clear that the results are published in order to document that gynephilic transwomen are indeed perverts.

Again we see the autogynephilia theory used to negate the womanhood of transwomen.

Using photos to ridicule

In some blog posts GallusMag republishes photos of crossdressers and transwomen, in the same way the Nazis once published pictures of Jews with presumably big noses and greedy eyes or "feebleminded negros" to support their theory of the inferior races.(I am not linking to these posts, as I am not going to take part in this kind of harassment).

I have included a parallel historical illustration above, though, to prove my point. It is taken from the book The History of White People, written by the African American professor Nell Irvin Painter.It is a side by side comparison of a perfect specimen of British womanhood (Florence Nightingale) and a degenerated Irish woman.

To prove that the Irish people were inferior to the "Nordic Anglo-Saxons" scientists used intelligence tests and health reports to make their case. The Brits used such arguments to legitimize their occupation of Ireland, while racist Americans used it to keep the Irish out of positions of influence.

All these professors and "experts" ignored the fact that the reason poor Irish women did not display the same health and vigor as British upper class ladies, was most likely the fact that they were poor, and not race.

There is a similar lack of contextualization in the autogynephilia narrative used by GallusMag, this time to keep transwomen out of women's circles.

Science, the oppressor

The medical establishment and religious authorities for a long time argued that any woman who did not adhere to their ideas of proper womanhood was mentally ill or a pervert. They were diagnosed as hysterics or nymphomiacs and sterilized and lobotomized.

Black men and women were labelled as feeble-minded, promiscuous, brutes. And yes, homosexuals were diagnosed as autoerotic perverts in order to stop them from living the lives they deserved. And now radfems are doing the same to gynephilic transsexual women.

The following quote from Nancy Ordover's book on the science of eugenics illustrates this:

"In 1904, G. Frank Lydston, a professor at the Chicago College of Physicians and Surgeons who lectured on the dangers of 'sexual perversion' also wrote, 'Physical and moral degeneracy...with a distinct reversion to type, is evident in the Southern negro...especially in the direction of sexual proclivities.'"

Ordover continues:

"African-American lesbians and gays were declared predatory; their anatomy, gender deviation, and sexual propensities sensationalized and exaggerated by researchers seeking to substantiate their own biases." (Nancy Ordover: American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of Nationalism , 2003, p xxii).

And in the same way the Irish finally ended up persecuting African Americans on American soil, GallusMag is now persecuting transwomen.

The comments are even worse

I tried to post a comment on GallusMag's blog, pointing her to papers criticizing the Blanchard theory. It was not published.

Other comments has made it through, however, and they ooze with transphobia and contempt for crossdressers, crossdreamers and gynephilic transsexual women.

Here is one:

"Straight male 'trans' = a legion of scary, creepy, stalker-dudes with an anti-female socio-political agenda fueled by intense jealousy (rage that women as a class are 'prettier' than they will ever be), infantile rage at women’s autonomy (rage at their inability to control women) and fetid sexual fetishes (seeing sex as something one does to objects, rather than in relationships with fully autonomous human beings who have to be courted, nurtured and delighted into willing participation in an on-going sexual relationship.)"

And here is another one:

"[I] think there is a strong masochistic streak in some (many) heterosexual male 'trans women' — and possibly in some gay male 'trans women' of the autogynephillic type (those who have a sexual fetish for themselves performing 'woman'.)

"Why else would a man with a safe and secure job and income don 'woman face' and sexually revealing clothes and walk out at night in some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the world, offering himself up to other (dangerous) men as prostitutes? Or advertise on-line as 'escorts' or sexual partners to God knows what stranger?"

The latter is clearly mixing up the categories of Blanchard and Bailey, but I guess that does not make much of a difference in hate speech like this.

Note that one of the most typical ways of belittling liberated women in the late 19th century was to label them nymphomaniacs and promiscuous. By doing so, they were removed from proper womanhood and marginalized. The fact that transwomen may actually have sexual desires is now used to silence them and force them out of the feminist movement.

How can feminism become so destructive?

I have worked for equal rights for men and women my whole adult life, and plan to continue to do so. My girlfriend is a long time feminist, as are many of my female friends and colleagues.

None of them have ever expressed views like the ones of Dirt and GallusMag, though. That might be because there is an unwritten rule in most Norwegian feminist circles: You do not set one oppressed group up against another.

I am also a strong supporter of gay rights and have many friends who are homosexual. I therefore find it hard to wrap my mind around the claim that I have to be a homophobic misogynists, just because I am a male to female crossdreamer.

But this is, of course, how bigotry works. You turn prejudices into stereotypes, and stereoptypes into eternal truths that apply to all members of the oppressed group: "All Jews are greedy cannibals who eat children and have crooked noses". "All crossdreamers are homophobic perverts with a bad dress sense who colonize women's spaces!"

A long tradition of radfem transphobia

This hatred for transwomen is actually older than the autogynephilia theory. As early as in 1979 the radical feminist Janice Raymond published the book The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male , where she wrote that:

"Transsexually constructed lesbian-feminists show yet another face of patriarchy. As the male-to-constructed-female transsexual exhibits the attempt to possess women in a bodily sense while acting out the images into which men have molded women, the male-to-constructed-female who claims to be a lesbian-feminist attempts to possess women at a deeper level, this time under the guise of challenging rather than conforming to the role and behavior of stereotyped femininity”.

The American professor of women's studies, Susan Stryker, notes the following in her book Transgender History (2008):

"Transgender community members have asked since the 1970s how anyone could fail to see that Raymond's rhetoric and policy recommendations replicate arguments made by ex-gay ministries, antiabortion activists, bigots, and fearmongers of many stripes. In spite of these protestations, antitransgender discourses continued to proliferate in the 1980s, when it became common to denounce transsexuality as a 'mutilating' practice and, if anything, the level of vitriol against transgender people actually increased."

Autogynephilia is a perfect fit for bigotry

What the contemporary radfems have found is that Raymond's theories can be supported by using the Blanchard/Bailey model, as both theories deny transwomen the right to be considered real women. Moreover, both Raymond and Blanchard/Bailey sexualise tranwomen, reducing them to slaves of their own desires.This fits well with the radfem agenda.

The problem that both Blanchard and Bailey are privileged white men -- and therefore, presumably, part of the machinery of suppression -- is solved by not referring to them by name.

Note that all of these people -- Blanchard, Bailey, Raymond, Dirt and GallsMag -- deliberately use male pronouns for transsexual women. This is not a coincidence, but reflects an underlying lack of respect and understanding.

Dirt now is now actually campaigning to get feminists to stop calling transwomen women. At her blog, all comments that do not use pronouns that reflect the biological birth sex of people are removed. Those who control language, control reality, she argues. Indeed!

The same prejudices, different belief systems

Please note that GallusMag and Dirt do not share the same fundamental view of reality as Blanchard and Bailey. Like most children of post-structuralist feminism, the two radfems believe gender is a social construct.

As far as I can see, they do not share Blanchard and Bailey's simplistic view of femininity and masculinity following from an inborn sexual orientation, either.

Both Bailey and Blanchard reproduce the sexual stereotypes of the day. Dirt and GallusMag try to liberate herself from those stereotypes. It may therefore seem like a paradox that they make use of a theory that actually seem to strengthen such prejudices.

Unfortunately, the debate about sex and gender is rarely a rational one, and bigotry pops up in the most unexpected places. In this case I guess there are many reasons for the two women behaving the way they do:

In spite of their presumably radical point of view, they have inherited transphobic prejudices from friends, family and a patriarchal society.
Their basic social constructivist view point has led them into an intellectual dead end where it is impossible for them to understand gender dysphoria. Since they cannot accept any kind of inborn sex identity, sex is reduced to whatever you have between your legs.Everything else is a result of conditioning and indoctrination.
They might also have absorbed the traditional masculine value system unconsciously. The fact that a male bodied person may experience herself as a woman, is therefore considered a sign of weakness. Alternatively, it is considered an impossibility: No man would ever give up the advantages of being a man, so all transwomen must be lying.

For crossdreamers, whether they identify with their birth sex or target sex, this does not make much of a difference. The end result is the same: Their lives and their sense of self are ridiculed and suppressed.

The radfems represent a fringe movement with little traction among most sane feminists and humanists. Unfortunately, this does not mean that they cannot do harm.

I fear for the day other equally narrow minded groups start using the autogynephilia theory to persecute crossdreamers and trans people. The radfems have showed us how easily this can be done.

What can we do?

Transsexual crossdreamers can do what they already do: Fight the transphobic radfems at any opportunity, online and off-line.

Non-transsexual crossdreamers can at leas stop referring to themselves as "autogynephiles" or "AGP".

The radfems have proved that the "autogynephilia" term cannot be used as a neutral term to describe people who dream about being the other sex. It carries with it a whole narrative that unavoidably lead to crossdreamers being labelled perverts.

I urge crossdreamers to refer to themselves as anything but "autogynephiles". There are many terms that may fit: "crossdreamers", "crossdressers", "gender variants", "gender queer ", "transgender", "trans". Nearly anything but "autogynephile" will do.

Further reading:

The radfems should be classified as a hate group (reddit discussion)
The survey that is used by GallusMag to stigmatize crossdreamers.
Transphobic British Feminist Troika Crying White Women's Tears

Observer removes controversial Julie Burchill article on transsexuals from website and issues apology after Twitter storm (On the controversy surrounding British radfems Julie Burchill and Suzanne Moore)

A young transsexual speaks out

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 18:24:00 +0000

There is a new generation of transsexuals out there. Many of them are young lesbian or bisexual transwomen, exactly the kind of transwomen Ray Blanchard called "autogynephiles".

Unfortunately for Blanchard the new generation does not live up to any of the sexist stereotypes of his theory.

They report early childhood memories of gender dysphoria. They transition young. And for those of you who find this important: They also look feminine.

All of this confirms what I have said for a long time: The reason gynephilic transwomen used to transition later than androphilic transwomen, was that they could not use the gay and lesbian culture for support and as a door opener.

Instead they have desperately clung to the identity of their birth sex, as this has seem to be the only way to find someone to love in particular and respect in general.

Thanks to the Internet this is changing. They now find the support of others facing the same challenges as themselves online. There are also developing their own language and their own narratives to make sense of themselves.

This development goes hand in hand with a trend towards more tolerance in general, as reflected in the increasing number of countries and states accepting gay marriage and ending the pathologization of trans people.

Below find a video made by one of the many new transbloggers, namely Kristin, who blogs as casey4441 at YouTube, and who writes under the name of Krista444 over at Crossdream Life.

Notice how she has liberated herself from the traditional narratives of what it means to be trans. She stands firmly on her own two feet. God bless her!

You can see more of her vlog-posts over at her YouTube blog: Life of a Transgender Twin.

By the way, she is working on an ebook on transitioning. You can sign up to be notified when the book is ready here!

In Memory of Those We Lost

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 17:47:00 +0000

Suicide is the greatest threat crossdreamers face. What can we do about it?

Last summer there appeared a heart breaking post on one of the male to female transgender/crossdreamer caption blogs: Yvonne's Caption World.

The message read:

"My name is Mark. I am Yvonne's brother.

I am afraid I have to bring you the sad news that three weeks ago Yvonne decided to take her life

She left a note saying that she felt she could no longer go on living (in her words); 'in between two genders, dysfunctional in one and unable to become the other.'

She did not feel she had anyone to turn to. I wish she had given me a call."

Her site is full of captions and stories reflecting the dreams of a gender dysphoric crossdreamer. And yes, it seems obvious to me that Yvonne was a transsexual woman. In the upper right corner of her blog you will find a request for support for her transition.

Suicide among crossdreamers and transgender

We have actually no idea of how many crossdreamers take their life every year. The reason for this is that most crossdreamers are invisible, not only to health personnel but often also to their loved ones. Often those left behind do not know what really caused their family member to chose this option.

We do have statistics for registered transgender, however, and I have reason to believe that great many of those registered as such are crossdreamers (transgender is here an umbrella term including a wide variety of gender variant people).

According to one recent American study 41 percent of American transgender have attempted to commit suicide. A study from Ontario shows a similar number (43 percent), as does an Irish study.

A Californian study reports that as many as two out of three transgender people have considered taking their lives. The comparable numbers for the general population varies from 6 to 12 percent.

Cristan Williams have written an interesting post on the extreme pressures faced by trans people. She points to a study which shows that 55 percent of US trans people live with social anxiety (compared to 6.8 percent in the general population).

All of these studies cover respondents that have been in touch with social services, health services or personnel engaged in transgender care. However, data from the transgender support site Laura's Playground tells us that this is a problem that goes beyond the ones that actively seek help from health professionals. Laura's Playground handled some staggering 80,000 suicidal crises online in a five year period!

It is a fair guess that as crossdreamers go, most of the ones considering taking their life are gender dysphoric, i.e. they feel a strong dissonance between their inner selves and their bodies.

Still, I know for a fact that many who do not identify with the opposite sex also struggle with identity issues, shame and confusion. This is not a transsexual problem alone.

Causes for despair

There are many reasons for why transgender persons give up, including violence and harassment, stereotyping and discrimination .

The Ontario report concludes that respondents aren't suicidal because they're transgender; rather, it's the social shame and isolation that get to them.

The numbers form Laura's Playground ranks the following causes as the most important:

Problems coming out to homophobic friends, families and co-workers.
Body image distress or disgust, including the changes appearing in puberty
Discrimination (like in the cases of housing, employment and reactions from religious communities)
Hate crimes and/or violence

I have had quite a few crossdreamers contacting me and telling me about their despair. Their stories, as well as my own experience, tells me that there are various factors that may lead people into that dark place:

Alienation from your own self
Children try hard to adapt to the expectations of parents, peers and play mates. Society normally enforces gender expectations with fierce force, and many transgender children go to extremes to keep the love and respect of those around them. They are caught in this pattern as adults. The discrepancy between the role they are forced to play and their inner sense of self becomes jarring.

Many succeeds so well in suppressing their inner self that they make themselves believe they are not transgender. The emotional pain remains, though, and becomes even harder to handle.

Alienation from your own body
Crossdreamers suffering from gender dysphoria (or more correctly: sex dysphoria) also experience a strong misalignment between their mind and their body. It is as if their body isn't truly theirs.

Ironically, this means that any social or sexual affirmation they get as their birth sex will not strengthen their sense of self (as it will in a non-transgender person). Instead it will make the pain even more acute.

Alienation from friends, family and society at large
Many (if not most) crossdreamers keep their crossdreams to themselves, or limit their exposure to anonymous communities online. This means that they do not tell their friends and family about the one part of them that matters most. This leads to loneliness and often a feeling of duplicity. This further undermines the self esteem of the crossdreamer.

Those that do come out of the closet and reveal their true nature, risk ridicule and -- in the worst case scenario -- losing their loved ones. Many are violently attacked, verbally and physically. This even happens online, where religious fanatics, radical feminists, militant "classical transsexuals" as well as bigoted "experts" attack them for being perverts and "paraphiliacs", all of them negating the crossdreamer's and the transgender person's sense of self.

Existential angst
For some, and especially older crossdreamers who have not transtioned, crossdreaming may also lead to what we can call existential angst. This is basically situation where they fear they have lost out on life, having never become what they now believe they were supposed to be. Some find that they are truly transsexual, but fear it is too late to do something about it, age and social relationships considering.

For some this becomes all too much, and they give up.

What can we do?

Mark, Yvonne's brother, gives good advice on how to handle the darkness:

"I am sure many of her readers are going through the same mental struggles Yvonne was. If you are, please ask for help don't follow Yvonne. Those who love you will listen and help. Those who don't are not worth losing sleep over."

It is better to try to talk to your loved ones and fail, than to kill yourself without giving them a chance.

I will add that if you do not believe this is possible, do seek professional help from someone with a heart and an open mind! Your outlook changes when you are able to put your feelings into words, and there is someone there who can listen with compassion.

Talk about this in the public room

The reports I get from crossdreamers is that their online communities save lives. This applies to transgender forums like Laura's, dedicated crossdreamer forums like Crossdream Life and sites for creative crossdreaming like Rachel's Haven [explicit content]. For the most part these are arenas where they can be themselves and get acceptance and understanding.

For those who are gender dysphoric it also helps hearing transgender people talk about their struggles. One person who recently has contributed much to helping struggling transgender people coping with the darkness is Lana Wachowski (previously known as Laurence Wachowski of the "Matrix" Wachowski siblings).

She talked about her suicide plans at the gala fundraising dinner for LGBT advocacy group Human Rights Campaign in San Francisco last year.

The Huffington Post reported it this way:

"Wachowski, now 47, revealed how she was beat by a nun in Catholic school, wore a slip under her clothes and became involved with theater in high school because she fell in love with the costume collection.

"As she grew older she felt an 'intense anxious isolation' that included insomnia and depression. At one point, she went to a local Burger King and penned a four-page suicide note to her parents. She planned on jumping in front of train, stood on the platform and waited, until an older man passed her and stared at her. 'I don’t know why he wouldn’t look away. All I know is that because he didn’t, I am still here.'" (Video here)

Stop calling crossdreamers and transgender"autogynephiles"

One of the main reasons for suicide among gender dysphoric MTF crossdreamers is lack of understanding and lack of affirmation. On one level they do understand that this is so much more than a "sexual thing". If that had been all there was to it, the condition might have been difficult, but not a challenge of these proportions.

Still, given that most -- if not all -- have been brought up i strict heterosexist culture where men are men and women are weaklings, the feeling of being a woman brings up all kinds of fears. There is much internalized homophobia among male to female crossdreamers, and the fantasy of being a woman having sex with a man triggers those fears.

Many MTF crossdreamers literally join the marines in an effort to quench their feminine side.

In other words: It takes a lot of courage and a lot of time to face the insight that sex and gender is not so clear cut as the popes and mullahs of this world want us to believe.

Hearing so-called "experts" -- and even transsexual women -- reducing them to perverts is of little help to those living in the twilight zone of gender identity or those who are truly transsexual.

I suspect quite a few have been pushed over the edge bey being called an "autogynephiliac". I am not going to repeat my arguments against the factual content of that theory here. I will only stress that for transsexual women the term is emotional poison. It may, literally, kill.

Build alliances

The recent use of the autogynephilia theory by radical feminists is depressing, and shows how extremely damaging this theory can be.

But I also see reasons for hope. 2012 represented a breakthrough for gay rights in the USA, where many states finally followed in the footsteps of countries like my own and opened up for gay marriage.

This tells me that the new generations of Americans and Europeans know too many gay people to believe the stereotypes and the message that they are mentally ill. My gay friends tell me that the new generation of homosexual Norwegians face a better future than the generations that went before them.

I have also noted that younger transsexual women refuse to make use of the autogynephilia theory or take part in the hate crimes of the so-called "classic transsexuals"/Harry Benjamin Syndrome tribe. This leaves room for crossdreamers in the transgender community. In time we may get where the gay community stands today.

This is why I urge those of you who despair to stay with us. Share your feelings here or in other forums that welcome people like us. You are not perverts! And you are not alone!

I am taking the liberty of closing this blog post with one of Yvonne's final captions. I believe it speaks for many crossdreamers.

Caption by Yvonne. Click on image to read!

Suicide hotlines

For help, you may contact

Laura's Transgender Suicide Prevention Hotline Service Online (World Wide)

The Trevor Project (US)

Youthline (California)

If you know of other institutions that should be listed, add them in a comment.

"I feel pretty!" (On the Autgynephilic Woman and More)

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 13:18:00 +0000

"Oooh, I am such a sexy autogynephile!" (Photos.com)

Is the crossdreamer dream of an attractive body really that different?

One of the basic building blocks of Ray Blanchard's autogynephilia theory is that male to female crossdreamers (male bodied persons who get aroused by the idea of being a woman) are sexually attracted to their female selves.

Blanchard and his followers sometimes go as far as defining this as a separate sexuality, one that comes in addition to heterosexuality and homosexuality.

While gay men are attracted to men and heterosexual men to women, the "autogynephiles" are reduced to narcissistic autoerotic wankers.

The self-admiring crossdresser

The proof is allegedly found among male to female crossdressers who get aroused when dressing up as women, admiring themselves in the mirror. It is the erection that gives them away.

And it all sounds so believable and common sense. After all, real men and real women do not get aroused by the idea of being a man or a woman, do they? No, they only get aroused by being with another man or woman, not by being (by) themselves.

Besides, real women do not get erections. They are hardly aroused at all.

Beyond the stereotypes

As is often the case in the gender and transgender debates, this whole argument rests on ideas that become very problematic when you look a little closer.

There is, as far as I can see, no reliable research on such autoeroticisms among non-transgender men and women. That is, there is a lot of research on autoeroticism (defined as "using your own body as a sexual object"), but most of it focuses on regular masturbation, which is no longer considered a disease.

The so-called experts used to consider masturbation an unnatural perversion, of course. They love their perversions. But the sexual liberation and the general openness about sex has made it clear that masturbation is so common, that it makes no sense to consider it an aberration. Indeed, most experts now consider masturbation a normal and healthy part of a person's sex life.

Masturbation is also common among human children and among animals.

So the offensive part of crossdreaming is not the autoeroticism per se, but the idea that the crossdreamer is replacing a natural object of desire (a woman out there) with a unnatural one (the woman inside).

When a young teenage boy enjoys a quiet time with himself, his mind is still focused on that girl in Sports Illustrated, and not on the idea of he himself being sexy. He is still attracted to a woman out there. Or so it seems.

The important question here is the following: Do people who are not "autogynephilic" ever get aroused by the idea of themselves being a sexually attractive human being? If they do, the whole autogynephilia theory falls apart.

Let us find out.

Ivar, Karen and real life arousal

Let me exemplify what I have learned about auto-eroticism among straight non-transgender men and women from just being with them, talking to them and from studying relevant fiction and non-fiction.

These examples cannot be considered scientific proof (if there is such a thing in this area of human life). I am appealing to your own life experience. I am convinced you will find similar examples among your own friends and acquaintances.

Autoandrophilia (Photos.com)

Imagine Ivar, a 25 year old male, preparing to hit the town.

He is hoping Karen is going to be at the club tonight, because he fancies her tremendously and she has given signs of liking him as well. He might get lucky tonight.

What is even better, this might get even more serious. He would love to have a girl friend now. Life as a bachelor is getting stale.

He puts on his best jeans, the ones that accentuates his tight buns. He has spent one hour every day in the gym for the last year or so, building muscle, making his shoulders look broader. The girls loves that, and the way Karen touch his biceps the other day tells him that the investments is paying off.

He then puts on a simplistic but expensive shirt, a shirt that tells the world that he is sophisticated and has style, without being gay. His perfume from Hugo Boss tells the world he has some money, but also that he is not vain. If he had been North African, he might have added some gold jewellery, but an ethnic Norwegian man does not get away with that of thing.

As he prepares for his evening he gets increasingly excited. He looks at himself in the mirror and likes what he sees. He is young, he is sexy, he is attractive and the world is his.

He gets excited by the idea of Karen admiring him, and imagines what she will say when she comes up to him. And the idea of that slow dance makes him crazy. He longs after the moment she rests her head against his chest, filling his world with her silky hair and the smell of her perfume.

Are you with me so far? Is this a realistic rendering? Yeah, I know that Ivar gets aroused by the idea of attracting Karen, but bear with me, that doesn't matter as much as you may think.

Karen gets ready for a night on town

Autogynephilia in real life (Photos.com)

On the other side of town Karen is preparing for the same party. She spends more time on the grooming than Ivar does, but what she is doing is more or less the same as he is doing.

She wants to be as sexual attractive as possible, because she desperately needs sex. And since she is Norwegian, and has been raised in a fairly liberal culture, she is not afraid to admit so. As she told her good friend Anne earlier that day: "I am so horny I am going crazy!" Anne gave her a pack of condoms.

Karen puts on the most sexy dress she has. It covers enough to stop her from being arrested, but not enough to stop her from freezing her butt off in the Norwegian winter cold. She does not care. Right now she is warm enough to a cause climate change all by herself.

And the girl she sees in the mirror is smoking hot! In fact, she gets flustered just by looking at her. She touches her breasts her ass and her thighs and imagines it is Ivar caressing her.

No, she does not masturbate in front of the mirror. Why should she? She knows that Ivar will come home with her that very night.

I Feel Pretty!

But Jack! You cannot possibly know that a woman can feel this way!

I think I can. I think this description of a Norwegian girl getting excited by seeing her sexy self in the mirror is very realistic.

I am not saying this because I personally can identify with her or Ivar. I am the kind of gender dysphoric who avoids mirrors and who has never felt sexy or attractive (even though I can actually be so, according to others).

I am saying this because this is what men and women tell me. Besides, these are common themes in literature and art.

I have no doubt a lot of women identify with Maria in West Side Story, even if the lyrics were written by a man, Stephen Sondheim. (He was gay, and in the weird world of Blanchard & Co, that may actually mean something.)

"I feel pretty
Oh so pretty
I feel pretty and witty and bright
And I pity
Any girl who isn't me to night
I feel charming
Oh so charming
It's alarming how charming I feel
And so pretty
That I hardly can believe I'm real
See the pretty girl in that mirror there?
Who can that attractive girl be?
Such a pretty face
Such a pretty dress
Such a pretty smile
Such a pretty me!"

Autogynephilia among women

But by all means. Let us bring in independent proof.

Doctor Charles Moser sent out a questionnaire to a group of women and tested them for autogynephilia.

By the common definition of autogynephilia of ever having erotic arousal to the thought or image of oneself as a woman, 93% of the respondents were autogynephiles. Using a more rigorous definition of “frequent” arousal to multiple items, 28% could be classified as autogynephilic, according to Moser.

This is important, Moser notes, because:

"The hypothesized absence of autogynephilia in women is seen as supporting Blanchard's theory that autogynephilia is an unusual sexual interest of men and that the desire for SRS [sex reassignment surgery] is sexually motivated. If genetic women and MTFs both endorse the same statements and exhibit the same behaviors, then autogynephilia may not be an unusual sex interest of men, but a sex interest shared by both groups; it could be a characteristic of female sexuality. Thus, the presence or absence of autogynephilia in women is a significant finding in understanding the sexuality of both natal women and MTFs."

The women were asked if they identified with statements like:

I have been erotically aroused by contemplating myself in the nude.
I have been erotically aroused by contemplating myself wearing lingerie, underwear, or foundation garments (e.g., corsets).
I have been erotically aroused by preparing (shaving my legs, applying make-up, etc.) for a romantic evening or when hoping to meet a sex partner.
I have been erotically aroused by preparing (shaving my legs, applying make-up, etc.) for a romantic evening or when hoping to meet a sex partner.

It has been argued that Moser's research is flawed, as the women responding to his questionnaire live in a completely different social and emotional context than the "autogynephiliacs". That is: they are not really answering the same questions.

That is actually quite true, but that does not change the fact that many of them get aroused by their own attractiveness.

Realistic, not autoerotic

But wait a minute, Jack! These women are clearly aroused by the idea of being sexy and attractive to a man. The crossdreamer on the other hand is attracted to the idea of being attractive to noone!

That is what Blanchard and his friends would like you to believe.

But if you take a look at all the erotic crossdreamer literature out there (TG ficition and caps), you will see that most stories lead up to a point where the male to female crossdreamer -- as a woman -- is considered attractive by someone, in the same way Ivar and Karen fantasize about a lover.

In the crossdreamer fantasies, as in the fantasies of "normal" men and women, the final objective is to have sex with someone else.

But there is one catch: The male to female crossdreamer may believe that he (or she, if she fully identifies as a woman) has no chance of get laid as a woman. Most gynephilic (woman-loving) male to female crossdreamers look nothing like the girl in their dreams.

Given that most of them love women, they have done everything they can to present as masculine men, and may even have succeeded in this.

Moreover, finding a woman that would like to take the role of the man during intercourse is possible, but very difficult, as both male to female and female to male crossdreamers do everything they can to blend in.

Some male to female crossdreamers make love to men, but that again requires both looks and a kind of courage most MTF crossdreamers do not have.

In other words: Unlike Ivar and Karen, the MTF crossdreamer does not leave his room, as he/she has nowhere to go. That does not make him exclusively autoerotic, only realistic.

Back to the teenage wanker

Let us go back to our teenage boy and his use of erotic magazines. There may not be a living breathing woman in his life right now, so he masturbates to a model instead.

The women of Playboy and Penthouse are not real women, in the same way the imaginary lovers of a crossdreamer are not real women or men.

Moreover, the Penthouse Pet embody the teenager's ideal fantasy sex object, not a living, breathing woman with a complex personality and demands of her own. When he wanks off to this fantasy, he is enjoying a dream that has little to do with the real world.

That does not mean that he is sexually attracted to photos of cover girls (imagogynephilia?). It simply means that he is a sexual being with needs.

This is also the case with MTF crossdreamers. They fantasize about dream loving and dream lovers, because that is what men and women do.

If MTF and FTM crossdreamers, in the same way as gays and lesbians, developed a culture where they were able to find each other, I am sure they would be able to combine sex and love, in the same way "normal" cis-people do.

The autogynephilia theory is a parody of the real world

What I am saying here is simply this: The supporters of the autogynephilia theory are so locked in to their own prejudices that they fail to put the lives of MTF crossdreamers into a broader context, and you have to do that if you want to understand them.

Even so, Jack, the MTF crossdreamers who do make love to men, use them as dildos or masturbatory objects. They are not really making love to a real person.

Hm, I wonder how many men who make love to women are using those women as masturbatory objects. Quite a few, I believe. That may make these men amoral, in the eyes of many women, but hardly perverts.

In fact, modern women do the same thing. European women go to Greece or Africa to "use" men for pleasure, no love involved. This behavior is not classified as a paraphilia or perversion either. In fact, sociobiologists like Blanchard find this kind of behavior sound and normal.

There may be some gynephilic crossdreamers who make love to women, not because they are attracted to the male body per se, but because they seek the ultimate affirmation of their womanhood.

XX women also seek such affirmation. They project their ideal image of their prince and savior onto an unprepared man and expect him to play his part in their fantasy. Such relationships often crash brutally in the end, as no man can be Prince Charming all the time. She is bound to be disappointed. But she is, in fact using him as a fantasy prop.

Such relationships may become something more, however, if the two of them start exploring the real personality of the other. Infatuation may turn into real love, and I guess this may also apply to MTF crossdreamers. There are plenty of reports of MTF crossdreamers who were originally exclusively oriented towards women, who later on fall in love with men.

This violates Blanchard's theory, of course, which is why he says they are lying or deceiving themselves. But why take his word for this? The crossdreamers might just has well have been deceiving themselves before, not realizing that they were androphilic or bisexual. Or -- which I find much more likely -- sexuality and sexual orientation is much more fluid than people think.

Autoandrophilia among gay men

A very important part of the autogynephilia theory is that gynephilic (woman loving) transwomen are completely different from androphilic (man loving) transwomen and gay men. The etiology (cause) for their conditions is different.

The fact is that even Blanchard's studies show that there are quite a few androphilic transwomen who report "autogynephilic" fantasies, but let us put that aside for the moment.

If the offense of gynephilic transwomen is that they get aroused by the idea of being similar to their "love object", does that mean that gay men who find themselves sexy as men are perverts too?

Apparently so, according to Anne Lawrence, one of the main proponents of the autogynephilia theory. She has written a whole paper on "anatomic autoandrophilia in a adult males", where such gay men are suffering from "a target location error."

I guess that this means that Richard Fairbrass of Right Said Fred is a pervert too, not because he is gay, but because he finds himself sexy.

Seriously, Jack, Richard Fairbrass is in a long term relationship. The song "I am to sexy for my shirt" is ironic, for God's sake!

My point exactly. What this video explores is one natural part of human sexuality. If self-admiration is taken out into the extreme, it becomes narcissistic and damaging. But finding yourself sexually attractive is a good and healthy thing, and getting excited by the idea that someone else fancies you is only natural.

It is only people like Blanchard and Lawrence who insists on turning that which is natural and beautiful into a perversion.

Contextualize!

What's missing in the autogynephilia theory is a serious attempt at contextualizing. By this I mean discussions of other possible explanations for the observed behavior that take the socioultural context and the personal life trajectory into consideration.

Could it be that androphilic transwomen (insultingly mislabeled as "homosexual men" by Blanchard) are less likely to report crossdreaming, because they already have an active sex life where they are at least partly accepted for whom they are?

Feminine boys and men are stigmatized in gay culture as well, but there is room for fairies and drag queens and some amount of feminine expressions and interests. In other words: They can get laid playing the role of the effeminate gay man, even if this is not who they truly are.

Indeed, androphilic MTF crossdreamers often seek out the gay communities in the big towns in order to explore their sexuality. In today's Western world they are less likely to try to adapt to the heterosexual norm and marry.

The gynephilic crossdreamer on the other hand, willl find little or no help in the gay community. He (she is she is transsexual) is therefore more likely to try to adapt to the norm. The female side is suppressed and is turned into crossdreamer fantasies.

Play and real life

Have you noticed how little kids often try out their gender roles? The little boy try to copy the talk and mannerisms of real or fictional men, looking tough and manly, and no one can mistake the joy he feels when he -- in his own eyes -- succeeds.

Little girls love to dress up as pink princesses not because they have a pink princess gene, but simply because doing so will lead to all those much coveted phrases: "Ooooh, you are so pretty!" "What a sweet girl you are!"

This praise may be sexist, but it does affirm the girl's inner sense of being a girl, and it makes her extremely excited and flustered. I am not able to draw the line between this kind of arousal and the sexual one, simply because I think they exist on the same scale.

The commercial world knows this need well, which is why US women spend 7 billion dollars on cosmetics every year, and why toy manufacturers sell stuff like this:

Being excited and aroused from the feeling of being a beautiful and attractive person is natural and healthy. People like Blanchard poison that well of happiness, by turning normal human behavior into perversions. Now, that is truly a perversion!

Revised Reddit Crossdreamer Discussion Forum

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 16:04:00 +0000

Reddit logo

There was a time when digg was the hottest thing in social media. Not anymore. But one of the copycats, reddit, is thriving. It has become a very useful tool for sharing and exploring online information.

Users may add links for information and discussion or general comments. The entries are organized into areas of interest called "reddits." The front page is the main reddit, and other areas are "subreddits."

There has also been a very active forum or subreddit for crossdreamers, called the Autogynephilia sub, for sharing of crossdreamer resources and the discussion of crossdreamer and transgender topics.

This sub has now been divided in two:

Crossdreaming, which will focus on questions, discussions, support, and community for those with crossdreaming tendencies
Genderotica, which will contain captions, images, stories, movie recommendations, etc. with a focus on transgender elements

The moderator "Porktower" says this about the reorganization:

"This has come about for several different reasons, but the foremost is that most of us dislike the word autogynephilia. It doesn't convey the kind of respect that the subject deserves. Jack Molay has graciously allowed us the use of 'crossdreamer' and it fits very well to this community. Anyone is welcome and it is intended to be a place of support and discussion, without the pressure towards passing and transitioning."

There are also several other relevant reddit forums:

Transgender
Crossdressing
LGTB Rainbow
Ask Transgender

A typology for understanding sexual variation

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 14:23:00 +0000

Photos.com

When I started writing this blog, I was struck by all the linguistic complexities I had to face. The standard model of sex and gender is extremely simple:

Any person who has a female body is a woman. But that is not all:

She feels that she is a woman
She thinks like a woman (whatever that is supposed to mean)
She is attracted to men

The only complexity most people try to handle these days is item number 3: Sexual orientation. More and more seem to agree that same-sex sex is OK, and therefore add sexual orientation as a second dimension to the model.

Sexual orientation is by most considered binary, as well. There are those that are heterosexual and those that are homosexual. Bisexuals are often left out in the cold, in the same way many people find it hard to cope with people who do not clearly respect the sex divide. Children soon learn to search for subtle signs that can help them classify a person as a girl or a boy.

The everyday model conflates the biological sex and the cultural gender. I my language, Norwegian, we actually use the same word for both concepts: kjønn. That is: Language itself forces Norwegians to think of the two as one.

I use a very essayistic style in this blog, but sometimes it is useful to take a completely logical approach to typology and classifications. David/Davida, my fellow crossdreamer and author of Some Thoughts on Crossdressing, has developed a systematic classification of the various dimensions of sex, gender and sexuality, which I find very useful. He/she has given me permission to publish it here.

A Proposed Classification System for Sexual Variation

By Guest Writer David/Davida

The proposed classification scheme below is based upon the assumption that there are at least four variable dimensions to human sexuality that can and do vary independently of one another.

Bodily sex

Beginning with the first dimension, bodily sex in its physical expression is a biological phenomenon. When considering bodily sex there are at least three considerations.

The first consideration is the external morphology [form and structure of the organisms] that determines what physical characteristics associated with sex are evident. This in most cases will be clearly male or female but will in a small minority of instances be ambiguous as in cases of partial androgen insensitivity syndrome.

The second consideration is internal morphology that determines the physiological characteristics associated with sex and that will determine functionality. For example, one can have the external characteristics of the female morphology but lack the internal morphology necessary for reproduction as in cases of complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (see "Speculation on Transgender Conditions" ).

The third consideration is the sexing of the nervous system, especially brain structures, or neurological sex. Evidence for neurological sex is not conclusive but a considerable amount of evidence suggests that the nervous system is shaped by the degree of hormone exposure and the timing of that exposure See Male, Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences by David C. Geary).

In some cases, the hormonal exposure may directly influence the development of various brain structures or in other cases the hormonal exposure may have an indirect effect by activating or deactivating genes related to sexing of the nervous system. Gene effects controlled by triggers such as hormones have only recently begun to receive attention in the new field of epigenetics.

Sex identity

The second dimension, sex identity, is the subjective sense of one's sex. The proposal in this classification system is that sexual identity is dependent upon the neurological aspect of physical sex making it too, at root, a biological phenomenon.

Sexual identity is usually male or female and is generally congruent with external morphology but can vary.

At the extreme there can be a complete disconnect between one's sense of sexual identity and both external and internal morphology. This is most likely a product of a neurological sex that is the complete inverse of bodily sex.

In other instances, the neurological sex can be ambiguous. Ambiguity in most cases is represented by a mixed sexual identity which often presents as a primary and secondary identity rather than a seamless integration.

Sex orientation

The third dimension, sex orientation, is the focus of one's sexual interest. The proposal implicit in the classification system offered below is that sex orientation, like sex identity, is dependent upon the neurological aspect of physical sex making it too, at root, a biological phenomenon.

However, sex identity and sex orientation can and do vary independently such that sex identity does not necessarily indicate anything about sex orientation.

Generally, sex orientation will be reflected by orientation to external stimuli associated with bodily sex. However, it is conceivable that sex orientation could be influenced by "personality" characteristics associated with neurological sex. Commonly, sex orientation will have a single focus but it is not limited to a single focus.

Gender identity

The final dimension is gender identity. Gender is usually either masculine or feminine and its content is socio-cultural in nature.

Gender identity is congruent with one's configuration on the other three biological dimensions. Gender identity, however, is biological only in the sense that it is motivated by the biological dimensions described above, especially neurological sex, but is otherwise socio-cultural.

By way of analogy think of hunger. Hunger is a biologically based sense of a bodily status. Hunger motivates you to seek ways of satisfying that bodily status. How the status is satisfied is almost entirely socio-culturally determined. What one eats, when one eats, where one eats, how one eats to satisfy a sense of hunger is largely socio-culturally determined while, at root, having a biological source or motivation.

Expressing a sense of self

One's biologically based sense of sexuality, which includes bodily sex, sex identity and sex orientation, motivates one to find avenues of expression for that biologically based sense of self. How gender identity is expressed, however, is largely determined by socio-cultural learning.

Probably in the vast majority of cases there is sufficient congruence between the independent variation of the four dimensions to call the outcome "normal" or typical. Even in a typical outcome, there is some range of variation but the range of variation is within limits considered "normal."

There are clearly many instances where there is a lack of congruence between the independent variation of the four dimensions that results in outcomes that are not considered "normal" or typical.

The term normal herein is being used in a statistical sense, not in a evaluative sense. Anything that occurs is a natural outcome and should not be evaluated negatively simply because it is outside the boundaries of what is considered a typical outcome.

Of the four dimensions, gender identity is the most complex because of the many potential permutations contributed by the other three dimensions. The four subcategories used for transgender in the gender classification are adapted from The Transgender Phenomenon by Richard Ekins and Dave King.

Suppression

Because gender is socio-cultural, learned and subject to many social contingencies governing its expression, individuals with atypical gender identities are more susceptible to suppression of their motivation to acquire and express their gender identity or identities.

Suppression of the social expression of a biologically based sense of self can contribute to the development of various psychological problems such as depression and in extreme cases can lead to suicide.

The classification system

The classification system that follows is color coded, The coding of each dimension can be sequenced with the other dimensions in a chain while retaining the distinction between dimensions through a distinctive color.

By way of analogy, one might think of a human sexuality code like a gene sequence. The chain of codes is analogous to a genotype consisting of four unique genes that describe different phenotypical outcomes.

Two examples of dimensional codes are given at the end of each coded dimension and an example of a four dimension coded sequence with a verbal description is provided at the end.

I. Bodily Sex
A. Male (congruent morphology, physiology and neurological sex)
B. Female (congruent morphology, physiology and neurological sex)
C. Cross-sexed
1. External characteristics
a. Male external characteristics
b. Female external characteristics
c. Ambiguous external characteristics
2. Internal physiology
a. Male internal characteristics
b. Female internal characteristics
c. Ambiguous internal characteristics
3. Neurological sexual explication
a. Male neurological sexual characteristics
b. Female neurological sexual characteristics
c. Ambiguous neurological sexual characteristics

For example: IA or IC1c2a3b describe two different possible configurations

II. Sex Identity (subjective sense of sexual self)
A. Male (congruent with sex)
B. Female (congruent with sex)
C. Cross-sexed (full congruence absent)
1. Male primary and female secondary
2. Female primary and male secondary
3. Male/Female balance

For example: IIB or IIC2 describe two different possible configurations

III. Sex Orientation
A. Male
B. Female
C. Male primary and female secondary
D. Female primary and male secondary
E. Cross-sexed
a. Ambiguous external characteristics
b. Mixed neurological sex

For example: IIIA or IIIC describe two different possible configurations

IV. Gender Identity
A. Masculine
1. Hyper-masculine
2. Assertive masculine
3. Typical masculine
4. Subdued masculine
5. Hypo-masculine
B. Feminine
1. Hyper-feminine
2. Assertive feminine
3. Typical feminine
4. Subdued feminine
5. Hypo-feminine
C. Transgender
1. Oscillating (IVA1-5 alternating with IVB1-5 where one is the primary and the other is the secondary gender identity. A true balance would probably be classified as IVC3)
a. Imaginal
b. Practicing (subsumes imaginal)
2. Migrating (transitioning from (a) to (b) or (b) to (a) below)
a. IVA1-5
1. Role
2. Body (subsumes role)
b. IVB1-5
1. Role
2. Body (subsumes role)
3. Transcending (blending IVA and IVB)
4. Negating (neutralizing IVA and IVB)

For example: IVA3 or IVC2

An example

Thus a complete classification of an individual might be: IC1a2a3c IIC1 IIID IVC1

The above classification code describes and individual who is cross-sexed with external male characteristics, male internal physiology and mixed neurological sexual development. This individual has a mixed sexual identity where the male identity is primary and the female identity is secondary. The individual's sexual orientation is mixed with orientation to females being primary and to males being secondary. This individual's gender identity is transgender of the oscillating type in which there is an alternation between a masculine identity and a feminine identity. The secondary sex orientation toward males is most evident during oscillation from the male primary to the female secondary gender identity, which in turn is controlled by the male primary and female secondary mixed sexual identity.

"Is there a cure for autogynephilia?"

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 10:45:00 +0000

A cure for autogynephilia.
(Photos.com)

My site statistics cannot tell me who my readers are, but the numbers do tell me what search terms they used when finding the site. The most popular search phrase is variations of "Is there a cure for autogynephilia?" (or "Is there a treatment for autoandrophilia?" as might be).

I will, to the best of my ability, try to answer that question in this blog post.

An important disclaimer

Before I do, however, there are a few points that have to be made:

1. "Autogynephilia" is a term made by the researcher Ray Blanchard meaning "the love of one self as a woman". The idea is that autogynephiles are men sexually attracted to the image of themselves as women (as opposed to "normal" men who are attracted to real women "out there").

This explanation is definitely wrong. Male to female do fall in love with real women "out there" all the time, and are often very loyal partners and husbands. Nor can crossdreaming be reduced to a sexual condition only.

I have coined the term "crossdreaming" as a neutral alternative. It simply refers to men and women who get aroused by imagining themselves as the opposite sex. As I understand it crossdreamers is a subcategory of the umbrella term transgender (referring to all people who diverge from the normative gender roles allotted to their original biological sex).

2. There is in fact no scientific consensus on what causes crossdreaming. I belong to those that believe that it has a biological core that is expressed through culturally determined symbols, but you should not take my word for it. All crossdreamers have to determine for themselves what makes sense to them.

3. I am not a certified doctor, psychologist or sexologist. I probably know more about crossdreaming than most professionals, but you should always seek professional guidance before you do something drastic. If you find a therapist with and open and emphatic heart, that may compensate for their lack of crossdreamer competences.

Is there a cure for crossdreaming?

The short answer to this question is no. Sorry about that.

I have been in touch with a large number of crossdreamers and crossdressers, and I have read most of the literature. I have so far not found one reliable story about a crossdreamer who has been cured of this condition.

But do not despair yet. There are ways of coping.

In the following I will discuss what strategies seem to work and what clearly does not work. I am not going to burden you with a lot of academic references in this post. If you want to explore the literature, explore this blog. Many posts contain extensive discussions of research in the area.

Conditioning

One of the most popular ways of handling crossdreaming is through conditioning. All the way up to the 1980's it was not uncommon for doctors trained in so-called behavior therapy or aversion therapy to give a crossdresser -- or "transvestite" as they used to be called -- electroshock while he was dressed up as a woman. Some also gave them nausea inducing drugs to eliminate what was considered an undesired behavior. This treatment was also given to children.

This type of treatment is the same as the so-called conversion therapy or "reparative therapy" given to homosexuals.

The basic idea is that transgender conditions as well as homosexuality are personality traits or obsessions acquired through some kind of conditioning, childhood trauma or bad influences.

In other words: The premise is that these conditions are not inborn --- they are unnatural perversions and can be cured by "reprogramming" the mind of the crossdreamer. This is done by forcing him (or her) to associate sexual arousal from crossdreaming with pain.

This form of therapy is now generally considered very harmful and inhumane by health professionals in most civilized countries. It is condemned by, for instance, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association.

There is also broad agreement among professionals that these therapies do not work, not on homosexuals and not on transgender people.

In fact, they will make patients suffer more. The ideology that underpins these therapies consider both homosexuals and transgender people mentally ill deviants.They therefore reinforce homophobic and transphobic attitudes found in our cultures, and instill even more guilt and shame in the crossdreamers.

Self-conditioning

The fact that these therapies do not work is a clear indication that these conditions are not caused by conditioning, and that there is more to them than psychological trauma.

This doesn't stop crossdreamers from trying to condition themselves, though. Again and again crossdreamers try to discipline themselves by burning their alternative wardrobe, by punishing themselves for reading transgender stories and for just thinking about being the opposite sex.

Many male to female crossdreamers try to purge their mind of transgender thoughts by taking part in "manly" activities, including joining the military. Parents and family members also do their best to "toughen them up", while female to male crossdreamers are force fed Barbie dolls and pink dresses.

Others crossdreamers try to ignore the problem, hoping that it will disappear by itself. This is not a stupid assumption. After all, there are other psychological problems that will go away by themselves as a person's life situation changes. Getting a new job may cure depression.

Some crossdreamers hope that a normal married life will extinguish the crossdreamer longings. For a while this may even seem to work, as busy days taking care of children and life in general keep the thoughts at bay. In the end, however, the feelings will reappear, and if the crossdreamer continue to suppress this side of him- or herself, they will only get stronger.

In other words: These types of "self-conditioning" do not work either, for the same reasons "reparative therapies" do not work.

Psychotherapy

In the early 20th century researchers like Magnus Hirschfeld developed a very open minded and tolerant view of crossdreamers, recommending acceptance and respect. Sigmund Freud's theories should in principle lead to the same kind of tolerance, given that his basic premise was that all men and women are bisexual fetishists.

Instead psychoanalysis became increasingly oppressive. It became, in fact, one of the major tools for cultural discipline, in the US in particular, but also in other parts of the world.

Some of the most extreme psychoanalyst used the same conditioning techniques as the behaviorists. Others went for a slightly more humane talking cure where the patient was to find and accept the childhood trauma that presumably led to their "unnatural" desire to be the other sex.

Even now you will find a lot of psychotherapists who claim they can cure transgender people.

I have found absolutely no proof of such a cure being possible. This means that the same applies here as for behavioral therapy: The "cure" becomes part of the problem.

That does not mean that psychotherapy cannot be of use to transgender people. Far from it! It might actually be essential in a journey towards self-discovery and self-understanding. Moreover, the very act of finding an emphatic soul that is willing to listen to your problems and help you carry your pain may make an intolerable situation tolerable.

And if you do believe, like I do (and many -- if not most -- modern psychotherapists do as well) that being transgender is a natural inborn phenomenon, talk therapy may bring the reconciliation and self-respect transgender people need.

Pharmaceuticals

Most scientists within the biological disciplines now believe that crossdreaming has a biological component that could be caused by pre-natal hormonal influences. As far as I know, however, none of them believes that it is possible to rewire the brain by the use of hormones.

The most popular theory right now is that the wiring is developed in the womb, and that you cannot change the basic sex identity or the sexual orientation at a later stage.

Pumping a male to female crossdreamer full of testosterone will make him sick and aggressive, but it will not make him more manly.

There are, however, doctors who try to alleviate the pressure of crossdreaming fantasies by giving crossdreamers antiandrogens (AKA "anti-T", a medicine that blocks the reception of androgens in the body).

Androgens like testosterone are hormones that -- among a lot of other things -- leads to development of male sexual characteristics in men. Women have them too, although in smaller quantities.

Given that many crossdreamers find no normal outlet for their dream of having sex as a woman, they can develop what is called obsessive compulsive disorders. The antiandrogens are supposed to diminish the sexual urge that fuels this obsession.

From what I hear in male to female crossdreamer circles, this might work for some, but it does not remove the crossdreamer fantasies completely. In other words: This therapy does not constitute a cure, and the negative effects are many, including possible impotence.

Other therapists believe giving a male to female crossdreamer antiandrogens may lead to a hormonal balance that is more in harmony with his feminized brain. The hormones therefore have a calming effect on the crossdreamer, and many male to female crossdreamers do report that taking antiandrogens give them a sense of peace. Others, though, report that antiandrogens make them depressed and even suicidal.

A more radical step for male to female crossdreamers is to take estrogen and so-called female sex hormones. Both men and women produce estrogen naturally, but men has much less of it than women.

Some doctors give estrogen to male bodied persons who do not plan to transition, as it may give them a sense of emotional calm. Again the effect is that a possible obsessive part of erotic crossdreaming becomes less prominent, even if the general dream of becoming a woman does not disappear.

Indeed, the male to crossdreamer may feel that taking estrogen represents an affirmation of an inborn femininity, and the fact that someone -- i.e. the doctor -- accepts this femininity is helpful in itself. It is therefore hard to know to what extent the hormones really change the psyche of the crossdreamer or whether we are facing some kind of placebo-effect.

The side effects may be dramatic. The hormones may change the body of the crossdreamer and make it more feminine. Male to female crossdreamers may enjoy growing breasts, but their female partners may find it disconcerting. Some of these changes will be irreversible.

My impression is that many (but not all) of the MTF crossdreamers who accept -- or ask for -- estrogen pills are truly transsexual.

My knowledge of female to male crossdreamers ("girfags" and "transfags") is more rudimentary, but I know that some of them may experiment with testosterone to realign their psyche with their inner self. To what extent doctors help them with this if they are not going to transition is unclear to me.

I would strongly urge any crossdreamer who contemplate taking hormones to contact a doctor.The negative health effects may be severe if you do this the wrong way. Given the emotional roller coaster effect such hormones may have, crossdreamers would also benefit greatly from having a therapist to consult while using them.

I would love to have some input from crossdreamers who have tried hormones regarding their effects. Please add a comment to this post!

Creative crossdreaming

Uli Meyer came up with the term "creative transvestism" in her study of female to male crossdreamers or girlfags. I have adopted the term as "creative crossdreaming".

Regardless of whether you consider crossdreaming a biological or psychological phenomenon, it is clear that it nearly always lead to some kind of psychological repression. Crossdreaming is considered a taboo in most communities, and the social stigma attached to it is significant..

The tolerance of homosexuals is increasing. Transsexuals are more accepted than ever before, at least in "industrialized" countries. Unfortunately non-transsexual transgender people fall between the cracks. This especially applies to male to female crossdressers and crossdreamers. While our societies may sometimes forgive a woman who behaves like a man, the opposite remains unacceptable in most circles (including many gay communities).

Crossdreamers must therefore find other ways of expressing their "inner man" or "inner woman" to let off steam and in order to explore their own psyche and identity. Many do this through creative crossdreaming.

Uli Meyer tells the story of female to male crossdreamers writing slash and yaoi comics and stories, where they can explore the possibility of being a gay man. Male to female crossdreamers may write and read so-called "TG fiction", short stories and novels about men being transformed into women. There is also a thriving captioning culture, where crossdreamers create "TG caps" consisting of photos accompanied by short texts.

These stories, captions and comics may be erotic or non-erotic, but they all help the crossdreamer stay sane. This is in many ways another variation of the corollary that emotional suffering may lead to artistic creativity. It certainly does in transgender circles.

Crossdressing

I know that most of the people finding this post via Google are looking for a way to stop crossdressing. The fact is, however, that crossdressing is one of the most efficient way of coping with crossdreaming, and to stay mentally healthy.

Through crossdressing both male and female bodied crossdreamers get a release from an oppressive society that does not normally allow for such violations of gender roles. Through crossdressing crossdreamers may explore the dream of being of the opposite sex (or -- as a transsexual will tell you -- his or her real sex).

The problem with crossdressing as well as creative crossdreaming is that these activities may become compulsive and obsessive. This is why some therapists recommend controlled crossdressing.

These therapists argue that the transgender condition is real and normal. Acceptance removes much of the guilt and shame associated with crossdressing. But for some crossdreamers this tolerance comes too late, and the person has already established behavioral patterns that can diminish his or her life quality severely and which can cause him or her to neglect the needs of loved ones. Establishing a kind of well defined, fixed, and accepted space for crossdressing may therefore be of help.

Crossliving

I have been in touch with many crossdreamers who live out their dreams without transitioning. They go beyond crossdreaming and crossdressing. Alice Novic is one such male to female crossdreamer. She dresses up as her female sex and explore her sexuality with men.

If you have the body and the looks to get away with it, this may work. I also know of female to male crossdreamers who put on their strap-on and dominate their male lover, in the same way a lesbian may enjoy the company of a female "femme" lover.

Crossdreamers with a non-transgender partners may also include crossdreaming in their sexual games. It is amazing what you can do as soon as you get the idea that crossdreaming is something sinful out of your mind. Through compromises, love and understanding a lot of couples make this work.

Transitioning

But if you define having dreams about being the opposite sex a problem, moral failure or a sexual perversion, there is actually only one way of "curing" it, and that is transitioning. It seems that for most post-op transsexuals the crossdreaming disappear or is transformed into the "normal" sexual desires of a regular heterosexual or homosexual men or women..

That will come as no surprise to those of us who believe that crossdreaming is caused by some kind of misalignment between the brain and the body. The sexual arousal that follows from crossdreamer fantasies is just an expression of a desire that it is hard to express in a "normal" relationship. As soon as you can express this sexuality as your target sex, the very idea of becoming the other sex stops being erotic.

Or, at least, this applies to most post-op transsexuals. There are those to continue to enjoy creative crossdreaming, and as regards fetishes, these are as common among crossdreamers and transsexuals as among non-transgender house wives reading "Fifty Shades of Grey".

This does not mean that hormone therapy and sex realignment surgery is the solution for all crossdreamers. I believe -- in fact -- that it is only the solution for a few. There are at least two reasons for this:

The first is that the transgender condition is not a simple binary where all transgender people are women or men trapped in the wrong body.

For some this metaphor makes sense. These are the gender dysphoric, i.e. the ones that are completely alienated from their own birth bodies and who suffer daily from the discrepancy between their inner and outer selves.

But many crossdreamers do not suffer from gender dysphoria. Some of them identify fully with their birth sex and crossdream only for the thrill of it. Others belong in the twilight zone between the sexes and find it impossible to identify fully with one sex or the other. For these people transitioning makes little sense.

It is not given that all gender dysphoric crossdreamers can or should transition either. There may be health reasons, professional reasons, family reasons for not going down that road. No one can truly know the life situation of another human being, so who are we to judge? I am gender dysphoric myself and I am not going to transition.

But for some transitioning is the only way of staying sane or staying alive. They need all the support we can give them.

Click here for essential blog posts on crossdreaming, autogynephilia and autoandrophilia

The American Medical Network has an extensive article on the treatment of transvestism

The Yaoi Culture and the Female to Male Crossdreamers

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 19:25:00 +0000

Typical yuoi manga cover.
From Houyou Hikken.
Note the German title: Your Heart! Yaoi is a
global culture.

What makes women, world wide, write and read comics about men having sex? Crossdreaming, of course!

There are scientists who deny the existence of female to male crossdreamers, that is female bodied persons who get turned on by the idea of being a man. As far as these scientists are concerned only men can be what they consider "paraphiliacs" or "perverts".

Ray Blanchard, who came up with the "autogynephilia" theory, belongs to these researchers.

I have through several blog posts documented that not only are there female to male crossdreamers among us now; we find them in a wide variety of cultures and they have most likely always been here.

In other words: This is not a purely cultural or psychological phenomenon.

The reason the researchers do not see the FTM crossdreamers, is that they do not look for them.

Today I am going to present to you the fascinating world of female to male crossdreaming, and prove to you that there are large numbers of girls who dream about being boys out there.

They have their own thriving crossdreamer and crossdresser culture, in which we find a lot of parallels to their male to female counterparts.

Welcome to the world of Boy's Love and yaoi!

Thanks to Uli Meyer

I am very grateful to the German researcher Uli Meyer. In her article "Hidden in straight sight: Trans'gressing gender and sexuality via BL" in the anthology Boys' Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-Cultural Fandom of the Genre she has managed to make the female bodied crossdreamer visible for themselves and for the rest of us.

She has put them within a framework that makes sense, not only for the people involved, but also for people like me. I am using that article actively in this post. Do read the original! Her work is going to change our understanding of what it means to be transgender.

Some words about words

When you try to write about female and male bodied crossdreamers at the same time, it is easy to get lost in the terminology, as the inter-gender dynamics are a bit unusual.

Rutta to Kodama, yaoi comic presenting
a male same sex relationship. Note that
both look quite feminine, but the
uke to the left more so than the
dominant seme to the right. In manga
large eyes might signify both
child like innocence and femininity.

In this post MTF refers to male to female, i.e. male bodied persons who dream about being women or -- in the case of transsexuals -- transsexual women who have realigned their female mind with their hormonally and/or surgically altered female body.

FTM means female to male, meaning people with two X chromosomes who fantasize about being men, male being their target sex. FTM crossdreamers might call themselves "girlfags" online, a word most of them do not find offensive.

Some crossdreamers may identify with their target sex, living at the transsexual end of the transgender scale. Unless they have transitioned, these often experience gender dysphoria, a deep unease from not having a body that fits their "inner woman" or "inner man".

Other crossdreamers identify with their biological birth sex, arguing that their fantasies do not entail another sex or gender identity. Most of these do not report dysphoria. Note, however, that there is a lot of denial and repression going around. The crossdreamer's journey may be a trip from one end of the scale to another.

I consider all of these people transgender, in the umbrella term sense of the word.

The terms "inner man" and "inner woman" are metaphors referring to whatever it is that seeks expression through crossdressing and/or crossdreaming. I truly believe there is a biological core to crossdreaming as well as the transsexual condition, but the terms are helpful even if there isn't one.

To avoid confusion as to what the terms "heterosexual" and "homosexual" refer to (birth sex or target sex), I refer to people who are predominantly attracted to women as "gynephilic" and people oriented towards men as "androphilic". Believe me, it is easier this way!

I refer to FTM crossdreamers as women if it is clear that they publicly identify as such, and as men if they tell us that they are men. Transmen are men in my book. End of story!

What is BL and yaoi?

An uke is the submissive receptive partner in a yaoi gay
male relationship.
From the blog Manga Freak.

Male bodied male to female crossdreamers have different ways of expressing their "inner woman".

Some crossdress. Some explore their female avatar in online gaming. Others write stories or TG captions (illustrations accompanied by ultra short TG transgender stories).

They are all trying to express a side of their own self that the society around them does not accept. These are men who not only dream about being women, but who even would like to have sex as women.

The FTM crossdreamer culture has had a different cultural trajectory and history. At this moment in history their main way of expressing their "inner man" is through Boy's Love and yaoi, which at its core is a genre of Japanese style comics.

Boy's Love, BL or yaoi comics contain stories about gay male relationships. They are written by women, though, and the readership is mainly female. Boy's Love female readers identify with one or both of the male characters in these stories.

Hiding in plain sight

The FTM crossdreamers are hiding in plain sight. Even in Norway I have found science fiction and comics shops with separate shelves devoted to yaoi. No one seems to notice and no one seems to care, but the fact that this store find it profitable to sell yaoi comic books to Norwegian girls and women, says a lot about how common the yaoi fans are.

It is interesting to see how this predominantly Japanese cultural expression is adopted and absorbed by women in countries as diverse as Norway, Germany, Austria, Brazil, Indonesia, and the US. Korea has its own comics tradition, manhwa, out of which yaoi is the best selling sub-genre.

The diversity of cultures also tells me that the enthusiasm for yaoi cannot be understood as a cultural reaction to the oppression of women alone. Such an explanation may make sense in Japan or Korea, but not in the same way for liberated young teenagers in present day Norway, Sweden or Denmark.

Yaoi is an acronym that stands for yama-nashi, ochi-mashi, imi-mashi (no climax, no point, no meaning), meaning episodes lacking any overreaching structure. It is sometimes understood as sub-gendre under Boy's Love. In this post I will use terms BL and yaoi as synonyms.

Slash fan art depicting Harry Potter and Severus Snape.
Artist: Yukipon. Taken from Wikipedia.

Slash

Note that there is another genre associated with yaoi called slash. The word slash refers to the forward slash on the keyboard.

Most slash comics and stories are made by fans of existing entertainment franchises. However, they will rewrite characters from popular culture as a homosexual couple, like in Kirk/Spock.

You find female writers writing stories about gay love for a female audience in the slash tradition, as well.

Yaoicon cosplayers dressing up as the comic book
characters Roxas and Soras. Photo: Agius. I have inserted
an image I believe is a fan drawing of the original characters.

Cosplay

Fans of yaoi and slash will also crossdress. This is called cosplay.

Cosplay involves dressing up as a fictional character, in this context characters from manga or anime (Japanese style animated movies).

You may find such crossdressers at regular comic and manga/anime conventions, but lately there have also been separate yaoi-cons where the female fans dress up as bishonen, the beautiful, androgynous boys of the Boy's Love genre.

It seems to me that the fans may also express their sexuality at these conventions, as they make out with both boys as well as girls dressed up as their favorite male yaoi characters.

The myth that there are no FTM crossdressers is clearly wrong. Again: The FTM crossdreamers are hiding in plain sight. Everyday crossdressing for them would include jeans and a shirt, hardly noticeable even in transphobic communities (Saudi Arabia and the like excluded).

Bars and meeting places

In Japan you will also find BL bars where female customers are served by beautiful feminine or androgynous men.

"Butler cafés such as Café Edelstein actively try to recreate the atmosphere of a BL manga in that it pretends to be a boy's school and its uniformed hosts play the roles of school boys, "
Meyer explains.

There are also bars where "straight" women may rent female to male crossdressing bishonen. As Meyer says: "If the customers wear male costumes themselves, they can engage with the hosts in a male/male constellation bringing BL to life."

Butlers at Café Edelstein personify BL manga characters.
Photo Tonu Hanai, taken from the Guardian

The love of gay male sex

But is this truly crossdreaming?

Some researchers (like some of the other authors in the anthology linked to above) have argued that yaoi is really about female empowerment and liberation. The female readers explore the idea of being men to strengthen their own independence, and counter-balance a repressive, paternalistic, culture.

Many of these researchers are schooled in post-structuralist gender theory and women studies, and in their universe everything human is a game of words and symbols, which makes it hard for them to accept any natural or instinctual basis for what is going on here. Because of this they often miss the transgender and sexual dimensions of yaoi.

There may be something to their observations, but theirs cannot be the whole explanation. The focus of most of these stories is on seduction and sex -- explicit sex and even rough sex. So this is definitely about arousal.

It might be that some yaoi readers get aroused by reading such stories in the same way heterosexual non-transgender men get aroused by lesbian porn -- meaning that there is nothing transgender about it.

However, it is also clear that many female bodied yaoi readers get aroused by identifying themselves with the male characters in the story, and that makes this crossdreaming in my book.

Note also that these women dream about being men with men. To the extent the word "sexual orientation" means anything to me anymore, I must say that their sexual orientation is mainly towards men. As women they are heterosexual. As men they are gay.

Again the parallel to male to female crossdreamers is clear, as a majority of male to female crossdreamers consider themselves heterosexual as men, and lesbian as women.

What the yaoi creators say about sex

Meyer refers to Takemiya Keiko, author of Kaze to ki no uta, the first shojo manga that contained gay male sex. She argued that through boy's love it is possible "to express dual personality (feminine and masculine) that is involved in human beings".

Her basic premise therefore seems to be that we are all -- in a sense -- transgender and that the yaoi genre explores this. Meyer, however, interprets this in a different way, arguing that yaoi readers are often girlfags (FTM crossdreamers):

Meyer says:

"BL fans' preoccupation with gay men can be understood better in context of the practice of girlfags and transfags, i.e. female-born persons who eroticize and identify with gay men.

"Semes [the proactive sex partner] don't eat cake. Ever."
From Junjou Romantica

"By identifying with one or more of the gay male characters in manga, the fans/artists cannot just take on a traditionally male gender role, but a traditionally male sexual position, which allows them to experience themselves, among other things, as penetrator (seme) and a male counterpart (uke) as penetrated.

"Thus, the transgression of sexuality and gender in BL can be quite literal, enabling its readers/creators to identify or feel with the male characters on a physical level, in a process I call 'creative transvestism'"

The strong focus on sex and intercourse makes it clear that this is more than an exploration of gender roles. Yaoi let its female readers explore the idea of being a sexual male in a man's body.

The "creative transvestism"/"creative crossdreaming" phenomenon reflects the strong psychological need to explore a cross-sexual identity in art and fantasy.

Violating the stereotypes

Much of the current harassment and stigmatization of male to female crossdreamers from the medical establishment (Blanchard & Co) and the extremist separatist HBS transwomen is based on the idea that MTF crossdreamer sexuality is a misdirected masculine form of desire. The same idea is found among totalitarian radical feminists who believe that all transsexual women are men who try to rule women completely by taking over their bodies.

The underpinning notion is that women are less sexually driven than men, and that women therefore would never get as obsessed with sexual fantasies as some MTF crossdreamers do. This argument disregards the fact that many crossdreamers and crossdressers do not focus that much on the sexual aspect of being transgender, but let us leave that for the moment.

Historically speaking the idea of the asexual woman appeared in Victorian Britain. Before the women were considered lascivious and emotionally unstable, while men where considered less sexual and more rational. Anyone who lives in places where there have been true female liberation (like in Norway) knows that the idea of the weaker female libido is wrong, but this misunderstanding has been so deeply ingrained in Western culture that it creates prejudices anyway.

The fact that female yaoi fans love what can be described as gay male porn, effectively undermines this notion of the asexual woman Many of the yaoi fangirls may be transsexual men at heart, for sure, but that does not change the importance of their existence. The cultural prejudice is based on the idea that the sexual drive follows the sex of the body, not the sex of the mind. The yaoi culture tells us that female bodied persons can be as sexually motivated as male bodied persons.

Meyer puts it this way:

"The fact that they [BL fans] are eroticizing gay men and acts is often ignored by commentators. By a similar logic, until recently, female-to-gay-male transsexuals (and male-to-lesbian transsexuals) were denied hormones and treatment."

"Girls are brought up with the expectation that they are somehow less sexual than boys. The 'innocent' artwork and design of most shojo manga (girl's manga) reflects this. In comparison, many shonen manga (boy's manga) are full of openly sexual, very physical imagery, while girl's manga frame references to sexuality in symbols and 'emotions'. Boys' manga would never get away with the degree of über-'innocence' that girls' manga display. It would look suspicious because 'everybody knows' that boys are sexually active, but 'everybody' still pretends that girls aren't"

Boy's Love/Yaoi retains some of the "innocent" aesthetics of of regular girl's manga, but the sex is explicit and far from innocent. BL and yaoi proves once and for all that female sexuality may be as aggressive and intense as stereotypical male sexuality.

Sexual domination is a common theme in yaoi.
From Father Complex.

Study support

Meyer argues that there is yaoi research beyond her own that confirms the sexual nature of yaoi enthusiasm:

"[Björn-Ove] Kamm has shown that yaoi has an explicit sexual function for some German and Japanese fans. [Mikuki] Hashimoto found that about thirty percent of the Austrian and Japanese cosplayers she interviewed (who were also yaoi fans) had sexual fantasies related to yaoi."

Research also shows that there is a considerable overlap between yaoi fans and yaoi creators. That is: The readers will often make their own stories.

As for the motivation of those that do not get aroused by reading and writing yaoi, we will just have to keep an open mind. Personally I find it hard to believe that there is not some kind of repressed or unrecognized sexual component to their fascination, but you never know.

There are male to female readers of TG fiction who will not admit to be sexually excited by reading such stories, and given that such fiction may express wish fulfillment that goes far beyond the sexual, they may be right. I am just having some difficulty clearly distinguishing the sexual from the non-sexual in this respect.

Note that I have selected non-explicit illustrations for this blog posts. Yaoi is often veeeery explicit, to the point that some series have been banned from Amazon.com for being pornographic. They often are.

Domination and submission

As in male to female transgender erotica one theme that reoccurs is domination and submission. Some MTF TG stories are tales of dominant men becoming meek and demure women. The fantasies allow the MTF crossdreamer to explore the idea of an existence where he/she does not have to live up to the cultural ideal of the aggressive and dominant male.

In FTM yaoi you will find beautiful submissive men being dominated by gay men. This has led some observers to believe that the female reader automatically will identify with the submissive feminine uke (the "bottom"), but that is not necessarily the case according to Meyer. Many yaoi fans identify with the dominant seme, or they may shift their identification from one to the other:

"BL idealization and fetishization of male beauty is most extreme in the uke characters. In the sexual scenes of BL, it is mainly the body of the uke that is displayed. He is shown as passive, penetrated, and in the throes of passion, a passion that is derived from receptivity. His arousal and sexual reactions are the focus of the sex scene, in much the same way that women's reactions are the focus of straight pornography. In plots that contain violence or rape, the uke's pain and agony are sadomasochistically fetishized."

Note the comparison with straight cis-male porn. When non-transgender gynephilic men watch porn movies, they focus on the woman. The male character is uninteresting to them, even though they imagine themselves in the role of the male actor. In yaoi the focus is in the submissive uke. If we accept the parallel that would mean that the female reader identify with the proactive and dominant seme.

Meyer again:

"It is often assumed that straight female readers of yaoi generally identify with the uke, the 'passive' character in the sex scene, meaning that the seme/uke relationships reflect hetero-sexual dynamics. This is clearly not always the case. I have talked to several fans and done som informal surveys at yaoi forums and groups in Germany and the United States, and many (at least one-third) said that they identify with the seme. In yaoi online and computer games, seme characters are often played by women. The point of view in sex scenes are either voyeuristic or from the seme to the uke, allowing the readers an easy identification with the seme."

Bend over Boyfriend

"In explaining yaoi's success," yaoi creator Takemiya said, "Yaoi's great because you can adopt both roles."

As Meyer points out it seems doubtful that she meant this is a purely metaphoric sense. Meyer sees a parallel to this in the BOB culture. BOB is another interesting acronym meaning "bend over boyfriend" and refers to pegging, where the female use a strap-on dildo to penetrate the male lover anally.

Meyer doubts that BL is about social and emotional equality, or at least not exclusively:

"It is about the availability of both sexual roles for both women and men, not just about ephemistically 'active' and 'passive' roles, but about who penetrates and who gets penetrated."

When it comes to the portrayal of
boys turned into girls, the yaoi (FTM) and gender
bender genres (mostly MTF) have a lot in common.
From gender bender manga Nyotai-ka

Meyer quotes the sex expert Susie Bright, who gives voice to the feelings of the penetrating female to male crossdreamer:

"I would like more women with male lovers to know the pleasure of ravishing their husbands and boyfriends (...) because it's a deep emotional pleasure to be the one who holds the world in her hand, so to speak -- to be on top and going inside. When a man is vulnerable to you in that way, he's not only having physical pleasure from his prostate, he's also giving himself to you in such a completely open way that can't help but be intensely -- dare I use the word -- romantic, in an ultimate, far-out, upside down kind of way."

The most common fantasy among male to female crossdreamers is the exact opposite. They dream of being ravished, of giving in, of letting go, and for them this may also be intensely romantic.

I found the following clip from an anime expo. Note that the male bodied person is here playing the role of the uke (the receptive one), while the female bodied person is the aggressive seme. This is definitely yaoi cosplay.

(The scene is public, and the participants have apparently agree to have this posted on YouTube, which allows me to embed the clip here. This is not office material!)

Feminine aesthetics

One of the aspects of yaoi that confused me at first was the very feminine aesthetics found in the comics. The male bishonen have all rather feminine features, which also rhymes with the general preference of girlfags for effeminate gay boys.

Mayer puts it this way:

"BL is a medium that fetishizes and objectifies male characters as bishonen, beautiful boys. Their slender bodies are displayed, often in erotic or sex scenes, for the pleasure of the mostly female voyeurs. BL artwork emphasizes the 'feminine' qualities, such as expressive eyes, harmonious features, hairless skin, and sometimes beautiful outfits of the bishonen."

If the girlsfag were the mirror image of the MTF crossdreamer you should -- perhaps -- expect them to idealize the very masculine and muscular alpha guy with the square jaw. After all: The MTF crossdreamers also worship feminine beauty, and they cannot both be looking for the same thing, or...?

There are two possible explanation for this discrepancy. The first is that FTM crossdreamers who identify with the masculine seke would search for his/her counterpart: the effeminate uke. This would mean that the uke's mirror character in the MTF universe would be the emotionally cold and hard dominatrix: the brutal violator of men.

Spot the girl! Feminine traits are considered more
beautiful by both men and women. (From The Twilight Saga).
Note the similarity with yaoi aesthetics.

However, there may be another explanation for this, and that is that everyone considers feminine traits to be more beautiful in both men and women.

All the idols of teenage girls look like girls, if you ask me. The boy band members, Justin Bieber, the Twilight stars - they have all delicate feminine features. It would seem the brutalizing effects of testosterone are more aimed at intimidating other men than attracting women.

Ambiguous gender roles

Meyer argues that BL constantly challenge traditional gender role, and that the genre therefore go beyond a mere presentation of male to male to sex:

Ribon no Kishi or Princess Knight is the
story of an unborn girl who swallows
a male soul and becomes a male
trapped in a female body. The female
knight is the one on the left.
By Tezuka Osamu 1954

"Inversion or 'Third Sex' is ever-present in the forms of sissified boys, male-to-female transsexuals, female-to-male transvestites, 'intersexuals,' and characters who change sex or gender for diverse reasons."

As she points out, in a Japanese context transgender is often interpreted as a kind of "reincarnation accident", where a male soul may indeed be trapped in a woman's body.

Meyer argues, however, that this is not always a matter of being the opposite sex by nature. Sometimes BL tells stories of people who are both genders at the same time, and these fantasies let female bodied persons express a dual personality, being both male and female.

Although I would guess the majority of male to female TG erotica has a complete sex shift as the ultimate goal, there is also a rather big sub genre of stories and captions where the main character may oscillate between being male or female, or where he is transformed into a kind of sexual hybrid: a "shemale".

From Le Chevalier D'Eon

In Boy's Love this gender blending goes even further. Some comics may combine lesbian, heterosexual and transsexual narratives, while the gay male plot is in the subtext:

"Set in pre-revolutionary France, Chevalier (Le Chevalier D'Eon) features an effeminate young hero being transformed into his sister, who used to dress up in male clothes, and was masculine: the man dresses up as a woman who dresses up as a man."

(The real Chevalier D'Eon, who lived in the 17th century, was a male to female crossdresser).

BDSM

Some male to female transgender erotica has strong BDSM aspects of forced sex. This is also the case in BL. Stories may be set in all male environments like schools or the Japanese mafia, and may include depictions of rape and abuse.

As always, it is important to note that these are fantasies, not something these readers would like to practice in real life. A parallel is found in the erotic fantasies of non-transgender women. Research indicates that more than 50 percent of women have had erotic fantasies of being taken by force.

In the case of MTF crossdreamers the rape fantasy has been explained a way of relieving guilt associated with the desire of taking the typical female role during sex. This argument clearly does not work for the FTM crossdreamer fantasizing about taking a submissive male by force.

I suspect we are facing the extreme expression of a basic natural inclination towards being receptive or being the penetrator. These roles does not per se imply that one sex partner has to be aggressive and the other submissive, but it may be that repressed longings generate more extreme expressions when they are given room in sexual fantasies and fiction.

Sissification of men

Among MTF crossdreamers you will find a separate fiction sub-genre called forced sissyficiation stories. These stories explores the humiliation of a man becoming a woman. As I have noted elsewhere, for the MTF this is the psyches way of reconciling the desire for the forbidden with the taboos of society. "It is not my fault. They forced me to do it!"

Yaoi may also contain stories about turning boys into sissy girl, but here it is clear that the female readers identify with the males dominating them, not the feminized sissy boys.

Meyer says:

A common theme in FTM crossdreaming manga

is boys dressed up as girls.

From Josou Shounen Anthology Comic 4v 01

"Voluntary or forced sissification, that is, dressing up male characters in women's clothes, is a staple cliché of BL manga....It seems that many BL fans/creators enjoy and fetishize the sissification, or male-to-female transgendering, of BL characters and real life persons such as pop stars, in a technique that resembles that of drag queens who call straight men 'girl', in BL boys and men get simultaneousyly subverted and appropriated as sexual objects."

Please note that most of TG erotica, being that MTF or FTM, is not sadomasochistic in nature. Crossdreaming often have fetishistic aspects, but cannot be reduced to a sado-masochistic fetish.

Are yaoi-fans basically transsexual?

Meyer believes that many female bodied BL readers and writers are "female-to-male gay" transsexuals.

She refers to the Japanese yaoi-style novelist Sakaibara Shihomi, who suggests that the condition may be quite common among fans of this genre and may in fact be the reason for its existence.

The anthropologis Matt Horn puts it this way.

"Although traditional, essentialist notions of gender were debunked by feminism, feminist formulations of radical constructionism have themselves come under serious scrutiny. Nature and nurture may condition one another in complex ways, and it may be that notions like a 'gay man in woman's body' (or 'lesbian in man's body'), and indeed the concept of 'transsexuality' are awkward attempts to describe manifestations for which we still lack adequate analysis. My own conviction from a decade of researching shôjo manga and yaoi is that such is the case with these fans, although it will require much more to substantiate these claims."

Magnus Hirschfeld

Meyer comes very close to my understanding of crossdreamers when she refers to the German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) and his concept of "transvestites".

Hirschfield documented the existence of women who love feminine men and masculine women, who have homosexual relationships with men and who felt they were homosexual men. Hirschfeld used the term "transvestite" for a wide spectrum of gender challenging expressions, crossdreamers included.

Meyer says:

"Hirschfeld's 'Transvestismus' is pretty close to today's umbrella term 'transgender', but as opposed to 'transgender', it emphasizes the 'act' of changing gender, not the internatl 'identity', making the change available for everyone."

The Canadian biologist and linguist Bruce Bagemihl quotes a FTM crossdreamer saying:

"A straight man can look good to me but ... when I know a man is gay, when he's picked up some of the gay male cultural tricks and mannerisms, I don't know, it just turns me on... Since I was 19 or so I've fantasized about being a beautiful boy in a loving relationship with a man." (Quoted after Meyer)

Meyer argues that the difference between a transfag (a female to male transsexual) an a girlfag seems to be one of degree rather than quality:

"A person might strongly identify with and even as a gay man, while still maintaining a female identity."

Lou Sullivan

She refers to transman and transactivist Lou Sullivan, who -- before he transitioned -- considered himself a "heterosexual female transvestite, who was sexually attracted to gay men."

Personally I find it impossible to draw a clear line between transsexual and non-transsexual MTF crossdreamers, in the sense that they are to belong to two completely different species. Far too many transwomen have been both crossdreamers and crossdressers for that to make any sense.

This argument is strengthened when we look at the dynamics in the overall manga and anime culture. There is a huge Japanese entertainment industry targeting MTF crossdreamers, including commercial manga, anime and pornographic movies.

Some MTF crossdreamers come to the yaoi-cons as fans of lesbian manga heroines. Matt Thorn argues that female bodied yaoi fans and male bodied Beautiful Girls fans are two sides of the same coin:

"If, as Sakakibara argues, yaoi fans are gay men in women's bodies, then it might be fair to suggest that many fans of amateur 'Beautiful Girls' manga are, as it were, lesbians in men's bodies, and not simply run-of-the-mill misogynists... In a sense, the two genres mirror each other, and speak to the desires of those who, by choice or circumstance, do not fit neatly into society's prescribed norms of gender and sexuality."

Unfortunately many BL fans look upon "Beautiful Girls" cosplayers and male to female crossdreamers (guydykes and transdykes) as perverts. In the social pecking order of manga fans the MTFs are below the FTMs, apparently.

Creative crossdreaming

Another parallell between female to male and male to female crossdreamers can be found in the creative process of writing erotica as a way of expressing both sexuality and alternative identity.

Meyer quotes Sakakibara who says that her creative work is the only possibility of fulfilling her libido. Writing BL manga may therefore be considered a parallel to TG story writing and captioning on the male bodied side.

Meyer argues, like me, that this urge to express sex and gender in creative works is also found in role playing games:

"In 'virtual reality', a process similar to creative transvestism can be observed in the form of people cruising the Internet or engaging in online role-playing games with a gender identity that differs from their everyday gender. Another example would be female-assigned persons who write gay male pornography under a male pseudonym before transitioning from female to male."

In the comic and movie Tonari no 801(Yaoi) Chan,
the main character Yaoi-Chan has her
crossdreaming desire expressed by a green monster.

801-chan

In Japan yaoi culture is well know and part of mainstream media. The manga
Tonari no 801-chan (=Tonari no yaoi-chan) tells the story about a boy and his yaoi obsessed girl friend, Yaoi-Chan.

Yaoi's crossdreaming is actually symbolically manifested as a green monster in the series.

There is a movie version as well. Take the time to watch the following clip, In a humorous way it tells the story of a yaoi-fan called Yaoi-Chan and her boy friend.

Yaoi-Chan's urge to draw and read yaoi is symbolized by a green moster who sometimes come between our heroine and her boy friend. There is a close parallell here to the dynamics between MTF crossdreamers and crossdressers and their wives and girl friends. (Again, this is not office material!)

Meyer does not find many Western equivalents to this movie, but argues convincingly that the British science fiction series Torchwood has clear slash and yaoi elements. (Proof here!)

To conclude. The male to female crossdreamers have female bodied brothers who find similar ways of acting out their inner nature, through stories, comics, movies and fantasies. I strongly suspect that both FTM and MTF crossdreamers are victims of some untraditional wiring which finds its expression through the cultural symbols of the day. This is the reason we appear to be mirror images of each other.

I guess there should be room for both learning, co-operation and love here. As it is now, the two groups barely know each other. We should do something about that.

Litterature

Meyer, Uli. "Hidden in Straight Sight – Trans*gressing Gender and Sexuality via BL." In Levi, Antonia, McHarry, Mark and Pagliassotti, Dru: Boys' Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-Cultural Fandom of the Genre, 2010

Dru Pagliasotti: Are women who draw/read yaoi girlfags?

Matt Thorn: "Girls And Women Getting Out Of Hand: The Pleasure And Politics Of Japan's Amateur Comics Community", in Fanning the Flames: Fans and Consumer Culture in Contemporary Japan (Suny Series in Japan in Transition) (full text found at Thorn's web site)

Click here for more blogposts about girlfags!

See also:

The blog Yaoi Research!
The Yaoi-com site
Wikipedia on Yaoi fandom
The blog Tomboy Revolution on being a yaoi fan and/or transgender

There are a lot of sites that host BL manga, yaoi or shonen-ai translated into English. They do not always respect copyright regulations, though:

Other posts about female to male crossdreamers (girlfags):

On how American psychiatry persecutes transgender crossdreamers and crossdressers

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 14:14:00 +0000

MTF autoerotic crossdreaming flasher
Photo: Photos.com

I know there are pragmatic souls out there that do not worry to much about crossdreaming, crossdressing and other transgender conditions being in the American Psychiatric Manual.

"What is the big deal?" they ask.

"Fetishistic transvestism, autogynephilia and autoandropphilia are just terms used by specialists. Sticks and stones may break your bones but words will never hurt you."

I recently came over a new paper on the paraphilias (perversions) listed in the DSM-IV (the current version of the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). The text is a clear illustration for why it is so important to get crossdressers and crossdreamers out of the manual.

Being included in this section of the manual is much, much worse than being hit by sticks and stones, believe me!

Judged by your company

Here are some paragraphs from the abstract::

"An overview and demographic description of each of the current DSM-IV-TR paraphilias (i.e., Pedophilia, Transvestic Fetishism, Exhibitionism, Fetishism, Voyeurism, Sexual Masochism, Frotteurism, Paraphilia Not Otherwise Specified) are provided. Most of these are medical descriptions of sexual offenses..."

It doesn't say that crossdressers are sex offenders -- not explicitly . But, seriously, by grouping crossdressing together with practicing pedophiles, it is extremely hard not to make the association.

In other words: Here are some presumably well educated scientists who read this section as a list of sexual offenses. How can anyone think that this will not be read this way by non-experts?

No treatment

The authors then go on to describe the next part of their paper:

"...Discussion is provided regarding a paraphilic description of rape (i.e., Paraphilic Coercive Disorder) that may appear in DSM-5. The effectiveness of current treatments (behavioral, cognitive–behavioral therapy, chemical/physical castration; and the use of selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors) for each of these paraphilias is examined."

Wow! In the next incarnation of the manual, the DSM-5, crossdreamers may be grouped together with rapists. Property prices are definitely bound to go down in this neighborhood!

As regards the treatment of all these paraphilias, the writers admit they have found none.

"It was found that there are too few well-designed studies to provide support for evidence-based practice with any of the paraphilias, based on Chambless and Hollon (1998) criteria (i.e., evidence should be based on: two + well conducted studies/two + independent researchers, three + small experiments reporting data from at least nine participants). It is suggested that more high quality research studies need to be conducted into the treatment of paraphilias."

So there you have it: Transgender people are grouped with child molesters and rapists, and there seems to be no hope for any of them.

Transvestic Disorder

The paper itself does not actually say much about crossdreamers (the "transvestic fetishists"). The researchers are publishing in a journal on violent behavior, and it is a little hard to picture your closeted crossdreamer as a violent predator.

When describing and discussing the various paraphilias, the authors therefore spend a lot of time on pedophilia, exhibitionism etc, but only one paragraph on transvestic fetishism:

"Transvestic Fetishism typically describes heterosexual men being aroused by the thought of self as a female, and hence cross-dressing (autogynephilia), or more rarely by women cross-dressing as men (autoandrophilia)..."

Autogynephilia is actually not synonymous with crossdressing, as these scientists seem to believe, but that does not change the gist of my argument. Crossdreaming does not belong to this family.

As for a treatment of the crossdreamer "disorder" they have nothing constructive to say:

"We could ﬁnd little evidence for the psychological treatment of this paraphilia, as it rarely comes to the formal attention of authorities/treatment providers. The nature of this interest can typically be seen as a social, rather than a legal, transgression."

In other words: The authors accept that crossdreamers and crossdressers are included in a list of "sex offenders", even though they find it hard to define what the offense is.

Naming and shaming

To me all of this can mean only one thing: The so-called "experts" writing these diagnoses are not out to help, but to label and control.

Crossdreamers are the kind of fascinating insects some scientists love to put under their microscopes. They dehumanize us.And they do so in a completely nontransparent matter where there is no democratic way of stopping their violent abuse of people who often need help, not more harassment.

The Celestial Emporium of Sexual Deviations

But what is it they want to control, exactly? At first glance the various conditions listed under paraphilic disorders have little in common.

Actually, the DSM section on paraphilias reminds me of Jorges Luis Borge's amazing text on the Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge's Taxonomy, where an imagined ancient Chinese classification system of the animal kingdom forces the reader to rethink his or hers own way of seeing the world.

The list divides all animals into one of 14 categories:

Those that belong to the emperor
Embalmed ones
Those that are trained
Suckling pigs
Mermaids (or Sirens)
Fabulous ones
Stray dogs
Those that are included in this classification
Those that tremble as if they were mad
Innumerable ones
Those drawn with a very fine camel hair brush
Et cetera
Those that have just broken the flower vase
Those that, at a distance, resemble flies

The imagined Chinese Emporium tells us of the development of subcategories that seem both random and incomparable.It is often used as an example of how haphazard people's attempts at ordering the world may be.

Scientists are expected to be more stringent and more logical than this, of course. Still, the DSM classification of paraphilias is similarly meaningless to me.

A peaceful crossdresser dreaming of being a woman has nothing in common with a rapist or a child molester, or at least no more so than a soccer player, a Tibetan bell maker, a F16 piliot, a colorblind man with a mole on his right cheek, a Catholic priest or a winner of the Nobel's Prize in theoretical physics.

In fact, the DSM definition is only understandable in the context of the scientists' own cultural prejudices: Unusual sexual practices are apparently bad in their opinion, and ultimately associated with that which is dark and dirty -- in this case rape and pedophilia.

Red tinted glasses

The scientists make an unscientific jump from superficial similarities to causality.

In their eyes these conditions are all in violation of a proper kind of sexuality. Therefore what causes them must be sexual in nature. And since what causes them is sexual in nature, they belong to the same category. This is a circular argument that ultimately rests on the cultural prejudices of the scientists only.

Another way of sorting the world

It is actually very easy to make an argument that these different conditions may not be sexual in origin. For the sake of argument, consider the following hypotheses (and these are hypotheses only, used to exemplify an alternative categorization. I have no idea what really drives a voyeur).

Is rape really the result of a sexual deviation? Maybe rapists are people who express their anger and hatred by sexual means. Maybe the cause is an inborn or psychologically generated resentment towards women, or -- for that matter -- all people. The fact that rape is more common in war and violent environments tells us that the driving force might just as well be fear and aggression, not sex.

Do child molesters really share a sexual orientation towards children? Or are they for some other reason unable to establish adult emotional ties with people their own age and therefore regress to an age more innocent? Could the main driving force is emotional isolation and loneliness, and not sex?

Exhibitionist, "rubbers" and peeping toms may be driven by sexual excitement, but the cause of the behavior does not have to be sexual desire alone. Much sexual game playing between people is signified by exposure and genital contact. Maybe the cause of the deviation from normal behavior is a lack an adequate social inhibition, and not the sexual desire in itself?

Many experts in the field argue that crossdreaming and crossdressing are not fetishes, but an inborn transgender condition that seeks to express itself by a wide variety of behaviors, sexual arousal being just one of many. Therefore they do not belong to the same box as the fetishists.

In other words: You may put up another set of causes that makes the reason for having a separate category for sexual paraphilias dissolve like toxic smoke in the air.

Paraphilia defined

Blanchard has suggested the following definition of paraphilia:

"The term paraphilia denotes any intense and persistent sexual interest other than sexual interest in genital stimulation or preparatory fondling with phenotypically, consenting adult human partners. "

Note that the definition is not based on the cause or origin of the "mental disease" but on the cultural more's of Blanchard's own upbringing.

And Blanchard is completely obsessed with deviations from his own norm of proper sexuality. He has given the English language an endless list of names of new perversions, from hebephiliacs (people who lust after young teenagers) to gynandromorphophiliacs (men who love transwomen).

If we read his definition as is it stands, even masturbation becomes a paraphilia. The rush you get from being sexy and attractive will also fall outside the norms.

Learning from the treatment of homosexuals

Homosexuality, however, is excluded. Blanchard's definition clearly considers same sex sex OK as long as it includes sexual interest in "gential stimulation" and "preparatory fondling".

Homosexuality was removed from the DSM in 1973. Why?

Well, the real reason is partly political and partly medical. The sexual liberation of the late 1960's and the increasing number of faculty and students coming out as gay made it hard to uphold the idea that gay men and women were perverts. Most of them functioned well mentally and socially.

Homosexuality was removed from the manual because they were clearly not mentally ill. Indeed, it was new studies of well functioning homosexuals that finally made the medical establishment give in and accept this.

Now, if we go back to the suggested DSM-5 definition of paraphilia, we see that Blanchard & Co recognize that most crossdreamers (autogynephiliacs and autoandrophiliacs) are not mentally ill. They therefore argue that you should include only those that are.

The authors of the paraphilia paper puts it this way:

"Blanchard (2010) suggests that erotic cross-dressing can be labeled transvestism only if the practitioner is distressed or impaired by it and that this problem can be solved in the DSM-5 nomenclature by changing the name of the diagnosis from Transvestic Fetishism to Transvestic Disorder."

What they are referring to here is Ray Blanchard's "get out of the sexist jail card":

Only the crossdressers and crossdreamers who are distressed or impaired are to be considered perverts, meaning that I, who suffer from gender dysphoria, is a pervert, but the casual crossdresser is not.

If you are listed in the book, you must be a pervert

Sounds great, doesn't it?

Well, not really. Again because most people, doctors included, are -- for good reason -- unable to understand the difference between a undistressed non-pervert and a distressed pervert, especially if they are called by the same name.

The lesbian and gay movement understood this, which is why they fought so hard to get homosexuality out of the paraphilia category altogether

A division between distressed and undistressed gay and lesbians, would not stop the stigmatization of homosexuals. As long as some homosexuals were labelled mentally ill because they were homosexual, all homosexuals would be associated with this "perversion".

Today, homosexuals may still be diagnosed with a mental illness, like depression or obsessive compulsive disorder. But these illnesses are not considered aspects of homosexuality.

Indeed, if the doctors associate the mental suffering of some homosexuals with their sexual orientation, it is because the social ostracism has made them ill, and not that the are essentially perverts.

So the same experts who now consider the suffering of homosexuals an effect of social bigotry, continue to stigmatize transgender people, causing the same kind of suffering they used to inflict on homosexuals.

Gender Madness in American Psychiatry

Trans activist and researcher Kelley Winters explains it in this way in her book Gender Madness in American Psychiatry: Essays From the Struggle for Dignity:

"A well intended clinical significance criterion was added to GID [gender identity disorder], TF [transvestic fetishism] and most diagnoses in the DSM-IV, to require clinically significant distress or impairment to meet the accepted definition of mental disorder.

"Unfortunately, it failed to distinguish intrinsic distress of gender dysphoria from that caused by external societal prejudice and intolerance: what Dr. Evelyn Hooker termed 'ego defensive' response. Therefore, the clinical significance criterion failed to counter the stereotype that all gender variance is disordered.

"The criterion was brushed aside by Drs. Kenneth Zucker and Ray Blanchard (members of the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders teams for the DSM-IV and DSM-5 editions) as 'muddled' and having 'little import'. However this position contradicted APA's [the American Psychiatric Association's] definition of mental disorder..."

This definition says that whatever its original cause, the condition must currently be considered a manifestation of a behavioral, psychological or biological dysfunction in the individual and not be caused by social, environmental or cultural factors.

Winters continue:

"The shift in focus from gender dysphoria to gender nonconformity in recent DSM editions has implicated a growing number of gender-variant people with mental disorder and sexual deviance who meet no standard of 'dysfunction in the individual'".

Winters clearly sees the parallel to the persecution of homosexuals:

"The diagnostic category of Transvestic Fetishism (TF) labels cross-dressing by heterosexual males as a paraphilia or sexual deviance, devaluing expression of femininity. These labels reinforce social stigma of madness and perversion for all gender-variant people with consequences very similar to those described by Dr. Kameny and Barbara Gittings for lesbian and gay people in the 1970s:

'(1) To support and buttress the prejudices of society and to assist the bigots in the perpetration and perpetuation of their bigotry; and, at least equally important (2) To destroy the homosexual's self-confidence and self-esteem, impair his or her self-image. degrade his or her basic human dignity.'"

Winters argues that the reason the trans-community opposes the transvestic-fetishism diagnosis is very much the same as the reason the psychiatric diagnosis of homosexuality was deemed inappropriate.

Indeed, as Andrew Hinderliter has pointed out many of the ones involved in removing homosexuality from the manual, believed that the removal would logically lead to the removal of all "deviations". Instead the experts made desperate attempts at finding new definitions that would help them exclude homosexuality while at the same time keep the other "paraphilias" in the manual. These tactics were motivated by gut feelings, and not any proper scientific logic or findings.

Pride and Prejudice

It turns out the only thing that brings the paraphilias together is the fact that the so-called experts who write the text have their own sexual hang-ups. They use their positions of power to give these hang-ups a scientific status. Science is then used as a weapon to control and discipline those that do not share their ideas.

We have been here before. Psychiatrist used to lobotomize and sterilize "hysteric" women who showed the guts to claim that women were equal to men. Psychiatrist used electroshock and torture to force homosexuals in line.

As society changes around them, the bigots are forced into retreat. In the Scandinavian countries sadomasochism, transvestism, and fetishism have been removed from the psychiatric manuals, as their inclusion is considered offensive and stigmatizing. In the US, however, it seems that the crossdreamers and the transgender still haven't got the traction needed to unmask this misuse of power.

I am amazed to see that there are women on an American committee that persecutes crossdreamers. They should know better. And if Andrea James is right, there are also gay people in the committee, which may be the reason why "homosexual transsexuals" (i.e. male to female transsexuals who are attracted to men, and female to male transseuxals who are attracted to women) are not included under the paraphilia heading.

If this is true, we are facing one of the worst betrayals in the history of the oppression of minorities.

So what about the rest?

Some of you might wonder if I feel the rest of the paraphilias should be in the manual. I neither can nor will answer for all of them, for the simple reason that I find it hard enough to keep track of transgender issues.

Still, in a day and age where one of the most popular books among mothers and house wives is Fifty Shades of Grey, a pornographic tale about bondage, I must say that I find it hard to explain why sadism or masochism should be included.

And if someone gets turned on by silk stockings, rubber or latex, that is nobody's business as far as I am concerned. Ray Blanchard should get his kicks elsewhere, and not from categorizing fetishists.

Note that a lot of women report erotic rape fantasies, and I am sure you might find similar numbers for men. But fantasizing about forced sex, whether you imagine yourself the active or passive part, does not make you a pervert. Couples make up role playing games in their own homes acting out these fantasies in a safe setting. That is all right with me, as long as the fantasy remains a fantasy.

In my view rapists, child molesters and other abusers are criminals. They violate the rights of defenseless people. What they do is therefore primarily a matter for the courts. To the extent they need psychiatric help, the doctors should help them handle their obsession, and not drag decent people down the drain with them.

See also Blanchard and the DSM-V, redefining paraphilia

DSM-V: What about autogynephilia?

Andrew C. Hinderliter: DSM-5 Paraphilias Bibliography

Anthony R. Beech , Leigh Harkins: "DSM-IV paraphilia: Descriptions, demographics and treatment interventions" in Aggression and Violent Behavior Volume 17, Issue 6, November–December 2012, Pages 527–539.

Ray Blanchard: "The DSM Diagnostic Criteria for Transvestic Fetishism" Arch Sex Behav
DOI 10.1007/s10508-009-9541-3

Finding love as a crossdreamer

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 06:35:00 +0000

Photo from Photos.com

My post on my life as a crossdreamer has generated several very interesting comments, both online and in emails.

Joanna sent me the text included at the end of this post as a response to my discussion of the crossdreamer and/or crossdresser's dilemma when it comes to establishing steady love relationships.

Sexual orientation

It seems to me a majority male to female (MTF) crossdreamers, whether they are crossdressers or not, fall in love with women. In the same way, female to male crossdreamers seem to be primarily attracted to men. Like most human beings they long for love and someone with whom to share their lives.

But many MTF crossdreamers feel like they are wired like women sexually, which is one reason for why they often fantasize about being women when having sex. Needless to say, on the long term it may be hard to "play" the role of the man in bed, when what you desire is another role entirely.

It may be slightly easier to be a female to male (FTM) crossdreamer taking the proactive role in bed. In the dark undercurrents of our cultures being an aggressive man is still considered more admirable than being female. Still, for a female bodied person not to live up to the gender stereotypes of the day is definitely not a walk in the park. There will be feelings of confusion, shame and guilt.

Establishing a relationship

Normally this has not stopped crossdreamers from going steady or getting married. One of the reasons for this is that many crossdreamers truly believe that a regular heterosexual relationship will cure them of their crossdreaming.

Moreover, until recently there has not been much information available on crossdreaming. Many crossdreamers have noted their attraction to the opposite sex and have therefore concluded that they are just regular guys and gals -- although with a somewhat unusual inner life.

Indeed, for some crossdreamers this works out well. For some the crossdreaming is weak and unobtrusive.

Others, however, clearly experience what has been called gender dysphoria:

"A persistent unease with having the physical characteristics of one's gender, accompanied by strong identification with the opposite gender and a desire to live as or to become a member of the opposite gender."

The further out you are on the dysphoria scale, the harder it is to play role of your birth sex in a relationship. Even you do not have the desire to "become a member of the opposite sex" full time, your temperament and your longings may make it hard to fulfill the expectations of someone who are looking for the archetypal male or female.

Information helps but also makes it harder

And I wonder if the growth of the internet has made this even harder. Online forums and sites for transgender people has made it much easier to find information on what it means to be gender variant and/or transsexual, but at the same time this makes it harder to live in denial and to pretend that nothing is out of the ordinary.

This again may make it harder for crossdreamers to go into relationships with the hope that everything will turn out "normal".

And when and how are you supposed to tell someone of your crossdreaming fantasies?

There are probably as many female to male crossdreamers out there as there are male to female, and we are talking about millions and millions of people here. Moreover, there are also many flexible tolerant and open minded people out there who do not worry to much about their partner breaking the unspoken laws of their culture. But how do you find them?

The story of a male to female crossdresser

This is Joanna's story:

"My story begins at age 3 or 4 with my mother catching me playing with my sisters wearing her shoes. It was innocent enough and yet her strong negative reaction as remained engrained in my memory to this day.

I have no explanation as to why I enjoy wearing women’s clothes and presenting myself as female but after reflecting on this for many decades I have come to the conclusion that there must be a biological component to it.

I was too young to find it sexually arousing and only when puberty hit and the erotic reactions began to surface did it somehow become dirty and undesirable. My subsequent years of buying and purging women’s clothes had begun in earnest.

I married and had 2 children. Interestingly in order to achieve orgasm and help conceive them I needed to imagine myself as a woman. So even if I am attracted to women I have to imagine myself as being one in order to become sexually potent. That is an interesting aspect whose explanation eludes me to this day.

I divorced after I divulged my secret to my wife who, although initially receptive and understanding, chose to divorce me instead. As it turned out, the marriage had not been a good match so the split was actually necessary but the depression I went through and stress over being separated from my children was almost unbearable. It all worked for the best and my children and I have adapted to the change.

Less than a year after my divorce I met someone else. We lasted for 3 years and although we did not break up over Joanna, it was clearly not a welcome addition to the relationship and my apparent lack of sexual appetite (at least for her desired frequency) became an issue for her. However, she did accept that I was trans and tried her best to be understanding and tolerant even if it wasn’t something that appealed to her. I am still healing from that breakup.

So now I am at a crossroads in my life. I am an advanced crossdresser who has accepted myself for what I am and is tired to feeling like I have a disease. On the other hand, I understand that this will limit my chances to be in a loving relationship with a woman for whom this is an unwelcome aspect to a healthy normal relationship between a man and a woman.

I don’t have any answers for now, but my disphoria is thus far not severe enough for me to feel pressured to transition and I don’t hate my male body. I have a duality that I do not understand and feel tired of hiding, feeling ashamed and purging.

Being myself is something I have no choice in at this point in my life but I also realize that it will oblige me to be alone for the rest of my life. I am slowly coming to terms with this reality and I suspect that it will sink in eventually. How unfortunate that the gender stereotypes are so prevalent in our society and there is so little fluidity to express who we truly are"

Joanna har her own blog called Musings from my everyday life.

Her story was originally published over at Pink Essence

See also:
Wife of an autogynephiliac asks for help
Autogynephilia and loneliness
Cosmo: The sex life of crossdreamers
Crossdreamer love, on the relationship between male to female and female to male crossdreamers
The loving wife of a crossdresser

The Trans “Sense of Community” Survey

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 07:07:00 +0000

Cristan Williams has put up a trans community survey to study the way gender variant and transsexual people understand the notion of a trans community.

Those who have followed this blog know that this is not a simple questions. There are, for instance, crossdreamers and crossdressers who are clearly transsexual at heart, while others argue strongly that they are not even transgender.

They are all invited to take this survey, however.

Like Cristan, I mostly think of the trans community of a community of interest. The members of this community is a diverse bunch, but they have one thing in common: They violate the cultural mores of their own society by overstepping the borders between male and female in one way or the other.

This applies to crossdreamers and crossdressers, who commit the cardinal sin of dreaming or fantasizing of being the other sex, and it applies to transsexuals whose sex identity is clearly and indisputably misaligned with their birth sex. They therefore have an common interest in making society more tolerant towards those who find themselves on the outside.

Besides: The border between crossdreamers and crossdressers on the one hand and transsexuals on the other is blurred. Some transsexuals start out as crossdreamers, which tells me that there is much to gain and learn from interaction and collaboration.

UPDATE: Note that the survey seems to be targeting US citizens. I guess non-Americans may enter the name of their country instead of the ZIP-code. The survey also seems to be oriented towards "off-line communities", i.e. organized meetings of people in the local community. Again, I suppose you may add "online" as a location, if your main interaction with the trans community is online.

UPDATE 2: The survey is for Americans and is not anonymous. See comments below.

Cristan has more about the survey here.
You can take the survey here.

The Other Side of your Transgender Soul -- Body and Mind

noreply@blogger.com (Jack Molay) — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 12:57:00 +0000

Here is my final post on Jung and a transgender psychology.

The starting point for this series is the idea that the subconscious psyche compensates for what the conscious ego considers taboo and therefore denies.

For instance: All male bodied persons have psychological traits associated with culturally defined feminine values, but they find it hard to admit to these feelings and therefore suppress them.

Among many transgender people these suppressed feelings find a way to the surface through crossdreaming and crossdressing.

The anima and animus becomes one

As I noted in my post on the anima and animus archetypes, the anima and arnimus archetypes may be understood in at least two ways.

The traditional way is to think of the anima as the underdeveloped feminine side of man and the animus as the primitive man in the woman.

The second explanation is to think of the anima and the animus as the gateway to the unconscious. In this sense they are parallels to the persona, the "mask" we show the people around us. The persona helps us interact with the world outside. The anima/animus helps us to interact with the world inside.

In order to function as a gateway to "the other side" the anima/animus compensates for what is lacking in the persona and the ego. If the persona is hypermasculine the anima appears as hyperfeminine in dreams, fantasies and projections. If the persona of a woman is emotional, her animus becomes quasi-intellectual.

I add the term "quasi" to signify that this intellectual side is underdeveloped, for the simple reason that this particular woman has never been encouraged to develop that side of her psyche.

The anima of a male bodied person does not have to express culturally defined feminine traits only. Nor does the animus of a female bodied person have to be symbolized as a man in dreams and fantasies. It all depends on to what extent "the other side" has been integrated into the ego and the persona.

If the cultural ideas of what it means to be a man or a woman changes, the anima and animus are also likely to generate different content. If a woman is allowed to explore her aggressive and dominant side, her animus is less likely to express this part of her psyche in dreams and fantasies.

Murray Stein's interpretation

There are Jungians who have reinterpreted Jung for a the contemporary age, somewhat in the same vein as I have done here.

Murray Stein asks the same question in the highly recommended book Jung's Map of the Soul: An Introduction:

"But what about women who are not very feminine and men who are not very masculine in their personas? Does a not-very-feminine woman have a nonmasculine animus, and a not-very-masculine man have a nonfeminine anima? Jung would be obliged to follow this line of thought, given his premises."

Murray argues that as the predominant collective image for correct male and female dress and behavior change, the inner images of anima and animus would also shift accordingly (p. 136).

"As the predominant collective images for correct male and female dress and behavior changes, the inner images of anima and animus also shift accordingly... For an extremely effeminate man the inner attitude (anima) will be masculine in personality because this is what has been left out of the persona adaptation."

The transgender approach to the anima and the animus

At the moment the anima/animus is released from the gender stereotypes of the 20th century, the archetype becomes meaningful for transgender people as well.

If we focus on Jung's idea that the anima and the animus compensates for the traits suppressed from the conscious persona and the ego, we see that the anima/animus of a male bodied person does not have to be feminine, if she identifies completely with the female sex.

A transwoman that has identified and presented as a woman for a long time is therefore more likely to have a "masculine" anima. You could in effect say she has an animus. In other persons the traits are mixed and the anima/animus may appear as both male and female.

Furthermore, transgender people who personality represents an even mix of traditional male and female traits may find that their anima/animus appear as male, female or androgynous figures in dreams and fantasies.

Some MTF transgender copies the

extreme gender stereotypes when trying to

express themselves. Like children they

are trying out the relevant gender

expressions without having the

social training needed to get it quite right.
Image: Barbie doll.

Finally, male bodied transgender persons who have succumbed to social pressure and developed a gender typical masculine pesona, will find that their anima/animus finds a female form, in accordance with Jung's theory. The opposite will be the case for male to female transgender.

Note that Jung's understanding of the anima and the animus makes it easier to understand why some transwomen go over board when they try to express their inner woman.

Their inner woman is real, but she has never been allowed to express herself in a social setting, with all the feedback girls get when they grow up.

They may therefore easily make use of the more extreme symbols found in their surrounding culture when trying to express themselves.

I guess this observation is also relevant for the reported "second puberty" that many transmen and transwomen go through when transitioning. They need to catch up with their lack of personal, social and cultural training in acting out their real sex.

Female to male transgender seem to be less likely to go for extreme gender expressions of this kind, mainly because society accept some masculine expressions in women. A woman wearing jeans, boots and a T shirt is normally not considered a crossdresser, even if she secretly is one.

The biological core

Please note that the Jungian interpreteation does not necessarily mean that there is no such thing as a basic sex male or female identity. That is: Jung cannot be used to support some kind of postmodernist theory that claims that eveything sex and gender is culturally determined.

In Jung's model there is always a biological core of the personality that is sex specific. The archetype is biological, but the way it express itself is influenced by the symbols in the surrounding culture.

Murray puts it this way:

"Jung seems to avoid dividing the human race into two clearly different gender groups with little in common. In his theory, both men and women are both masculine and feminine. However, these qualities are distributed differently. And this difference is archetypal, not societal or cultural." (p.134)

What is developed through the psychological process are cultural and psychological personality traits that are present in both men and women in varying degrees. Culture will often push the development of the psyche in one direction -- hence the repressions. But the inner biologically based personality may often push the development in a different direction. This conflict may cause mental illness.

Jung adapted to the traditional crossdreamer. He or she develops

a persona and ego that is congruent with his or her birth sex.

A suppressed alternative identity is expressed through

a parallell personality-complex, the ponyo.The ponyo is given a voice
through crossdressing, an online avatar, a pen name etc.

Click on image to enlarge!

In other words: We may postulate a deeper biological factor that causes a person to feel like a man or a woman, i.e. his or her sex identity.

(And no, I am not going to repeat my arguments against the various fetish-theories here. This blog post is already long enough.)

Does the anima/animus equal sex identity?

I suspect both Jung and Murray believe this sexual identity factor to be the anima and the animus archetypes (i.e. the instinctual basis of the archetype -- i.e. without its culturally defined expression). This makes little sense to me, and I will tell you why.

Imagine a male bodied person born with female sex identity. As this person actually is a woman, she has an animus. But if this person has managed to repress her female identity, her animus would contain very much of the same repressed material as the anima of a non-transgender man.

In other words: Since the anima and the animus always represent the psychological traits that have been repressed, being those traditional "masculine or "feminine" traits, these traits cannot be the cause of male or female identification.

There must therefore be something else that causes the transgender mismatch. This could be an inborn body image, an inborn (or acquired) sense of female self, or something else that leads to the development of a specific sex identity (as opposed to a gender identity, which is clearly a product of culture).

Anima and animus as cause of sex identity

The only way of defending the idea the anima and the animus are the sources of sex identity is -- as far as I can see -- to focus on the fact that these archetypes have no symbolic content or value in themselves. The symbols of the feminine and masculine (like Barbie and Batman) are generated in the interface between the archetype and the surrounding culture, it is not found in the archetype.

That is: Our sex identity often drives us towards reaffirming culturally defined symbols of masculinity and femininity, mostly because we want to be accepted and loved as men and women. The acceptance, admiration and sexual desire of others strengthens this tendency.

This is an important point that is often misunderstood, especially by those who think that there is no inborn sex identity, arguing that everything gender is defined by culture. Everything (or at least most of) gender is defined by culture. Whether long hair is considered feminine or masculine varies from culture to culture and over time. But that does not mean that there is no instinctual basis for the feeling of being a man or a woman.

An interesting parallel is found in the instinct that generates the feeling of disgust.The feeling of disgust is clearly an evolutionary trait that is to protect us from contamination and dangerous phenomena in our environment. And yes, it is genetic. We can see this from the fact that disgust is expressed with the same facial expression in all cultures, unlike -- for instance -- signals for agreement, which may vary.

The feeling of disgust is inborn. Still, whatever causes disgust is culturally defined. Small kids will gladly play with spiders, eat dung or ask embarrassing questions. It is the constant reminders from their fellow human beings that makes them associate manure with the feeling of disgust. In the end this association is so strong that even the word "shit" will make them react negatively.

This makes perfect sense, evolutionary speaking. Since human beings live in all kinds of environments, hard wiring of what causes disgust would be less efficient. Fear of African spiders and lions is of little use on Greenland.

It is therefore possible to argue that the anima generates a male sex identity and the animus a female sex identity, but that the archetypes do not determine how this identity is to be expressed.

I am still not convinced that this is correct. In any case, it makes sense to postulate an instinctual basis for sex identity, an instinct that drives people to define themselves to make use of the symbols of gender found in their culture, so that they will be understood and accepted as men or women in their social context.

This also makes sense, evolutionary speaking. Even if nature love diversity and variation, there still is a need for procreation. A majority of people still has a sex identity aligned with their body's sex. Moreover, a majority of people are hetero- or bisexual, and they will have to be if you are to produce 7 billion people.

You will find other blog posts here that cover the possible causes of transgender conditions in more detail.

A Jungian model for transwomen and men where the

conscious gender identity is congruent with the inner sex identity from

an early age. Here the the anima/animus will normally
be of the gender of the opposite sex. The persona may

still present as the birth sex publicly, though, as the person is forced to

give in to cultural and social pressure.

Click on image to enlarge!

An imagine example

Let me give you an example of how this psychological drama may play out in real life. The following narrative is based on the life stories of many male to female crossdreamers who have contributed to this blog and to the Crossdream Life forum. That is: This is a made up case, but the basis for the case is real enough.

Similar cases have been presented by others. See for instance Milton Diamond's article on self-testing transsexuals or Anne Vitale's The Gendered Self. My own life history, as presented in the previous post, also shares elements with this imagined case.

I am going to use a male to female transsexual woman as an example, simply because it makes the argument clearer and easier to understand. Please note that not all crossdreamers and transgender people are transsexual or gender dysphoric. Only a minority is transsexual, and as the jury is out on how many are gender dysphoric (i.e. alienated from the sex of their own bodies).

A mash-up of traits

If transgender conditions are caused by the combination of atypical genetic combinations or pre-natal hormonal development combined with environmental factors (as I believe), variation is to be expected. (Ref. David/Davida's guest post on causes of transgender conditions).

The production or reception of hormones is not digital and binary, but analog and gradual. This means that the intensity of the feeling of misalignment between body and soul will vary, as will a person's sense of being male or female.

(This does not mean that most crossdreamers are gender queer, androgynous or beyond the gender binary. Even those who identify with their birth sex, embrace their target sex in fantasies and role playing. Most male to female crossdreamers dream of being full blooded women -- not something in between.)

Let us imagine young male bodied person who is born with a relatively strong female sex identity. Children have no clear idea about what gender (i.e. the cultural expression of sex) is in their first years. They look at what grown ups and playmates say and do in order to make sense of them selves and their place in society. Gradually, however, this kid becomes aware of gender roles and gender expectations. This kid is told that she is a "he", and is expected to behave accordingly.

Some transkids will protest vehemently at this point, insisting on their real sex, and refuse to play the role allotted to them. Our transkid might also have done so, at first, but she soon realize that resistance is futile. Or -- more likely -- she has never been able to develop a story that makes sense for her, and she has therefore tried to suppress her inner self. She becomes "he", not only in the eyes of the world, but also in her own mind.

The reason for this is simple: Children have a limited capacity for handling too complex a reality. Above all, they need to keep their parents and their friends on their side. They need their love and respect to survive, and if amputating an arm and a leg is what it takes, that is what they will do. They will then deny there was an arm and a leg there in the first place, because that would make the loss and the lies real, and they cannot handle that.

Their parents, friends, family and teachers play along and reinforce this belief. "You are not a girl, honey. Look: You have a little willy!"

Puberty

The female side has now been suppressed deep down into the unconscious, where she lies simmering, waiting for the next phase of life, the phase where both sex and gender becomes paramount. A couple of years before puberty children start exploring sex and gender roles in a new way. There is puppy love, which -- in fact -- is a very serious kind of love. There may also be sexual experimentation.Our kid starts dreaming about being a girl in earnest. "He" is still able to handle this, keeping the dreams secret.

So far the kid has gotten away with "his" charade, but that won't last. Fueled by the sexual desire of puberty, the inner sex identity demands to be heard. The internal sex identity forces her way up to the surface of the mind, using images from the anima to express herself.

"She" is wired for sex as a woman. "He" is expected to behave like a man. But regardless how much he tries to repress it, the fantasy of having a female body becomes strong and eroticized.

Again, the psyche makes use of anima images, all depending on the life situation of this person. If femininity is associated with filth and sexuality, his "ponyo" or female self takes the shape of a bimbo or a slut. If femininity is associated with weakness and stupidity, "she" may take the shape of a debutante, a cheer leader, a school girl.

"She" will nearly always take over the "negative" aspects found in the subconscious first, for the simple reason that the "positive" aspects are already taken by the masculine ego and persona. After all, the ego holds on to that which is considered positive by the surrounding culture.

Homosexual?

Some of the disturbing fantasies leads our case to fear that "he" is homosexual. Basic, feminine, sexual instincts often include a desire for penetration, and male to female crossdreamer fantasies therefore often include imagery of being taken by a man.

The fact is, however, that our case is attracted to women, as is many --if not most -- MTF crossdreamers. "His" dream of penetration is not that different from the one found among many lesbian women. In other words: "He" is actually homosexual, but not in the way "he" thinks. "He" is homosexual as a woman, but not as a man.

Catch 22

But even if our friend come to terms with the idea that he is not gay, a life as a lesbian is no solution either. His girl friend will definitely object, and lesbians rarely go for male bodied crossdreamers. He is caught in a Catch 22 situation. He is damned whatever he does. He needs a cure to live a normal life and he now starts desperately looking for one.

Our friend now makes new attempts at forcing "the inner woman" down into the subconscious, and he does so in many ways. He gets himself a girl friend, hoping that she will cure him. He might try out extreme masculine activities in order to toughen himself up. A lot of MTF crossdreamers end up in the military. And for a while, it may seem to work. But it does not really. As soon as there is a lull in his life, she pops up again and demands to be heard.

Now he may try to compromise with "her". Many crossdreamers do so by crossdressing. Others by exploring their fantasies in fiction or online role playing. In fact, there are therapists who argue that the best way of handling some transgender conditions is through "controlled crossdressing", meaning allowing for crossdressing in secret and at certain times.

The good thing with all of this is that the unconscious self now gradually realigns with the conscious ego. The female sex identity is no longer hidden. She is able to express herself through crossdressing, as an online avatar or through role playing.

Through acceptance comes some kind of peace. "He" still has to uphold "his" masculine persona, however, and there are limits to what "he" can let his girl friend and family go through. There will always be a residue of longing and emotional pain.

For some the gender dysphoria -- i.e. the mismatch between the female sex identity and the masculine persona -- is so strong, that the acceptance of crossdreaming and/or crossdressing is not enough.Their need to express themselves as women, fully and unconditionally, is so strong that they are driven towards deep depression, drug abuse, self abuse or -- in the worst case scenario -- suicide.

The research I have read seems to indicate that transitioning is of great help for them. Becoming women in the flesh does not mean that their troubles are over, but most of them report that they are much happier in their new lives.

Again: Not all crossdreamers are transsexual. Many find that expressing "the other side" through crossdressing, role playing and/or fantasies is enough. I find it very hard to believe that their crossdreaming is caused by something entirely different from the transsexuals, though.

Conclusion

If your crossdreaming is very weak, and your sex identity is clearly congruent with the bodily sex, it should be possible to live a good life without facing your inner woman.

However, if your sex identity is misaligned with your body, and your crossdreaming fantasies are strong and persistent, the only way of coping is by integrating her into your conscious self.

For some this means transitioning, but for the majority this means letting her express herself through crossdressing, role playing or fantasies -- without the guilt and shame. That is not an easy task, and in future post I would like to discuss the practical sides to surviving as a crossdreamer.

Here are the other posts in the transgender psychology series:

1: The Role of the Unconscious
2: The Ego and the Complexes
3: The Shadow
4: The Animus and the Anima
Ponyo for Crossdreamers
Transgender and the mind and body conundrum
Spellbound transgender
Falling in love with your own anima
The other side of your transgender soul - from Dostoyevski to Buffy the Vampire Slayer
The Transgender Jung

Jung's Map of the Soul: Kindle edition