Ray Blanchard’s “autogynephilia” theory states that lesbian trans women are men who are sexually attracted to their own inner female. The hypothesis is used actively by transphobes to invalidate trans women as “paraphiliacs” or sexual perverts. The fact is, however, that the theory has been thoroughly debunked by both trans people and science.
On this page, we give you a selection of articles and papers that gives you the history of Blanchard’s model of “transsexuality”, documentation on why it is misleading, information on how it hurts trans women and how it is used by transphobes today.
We also presents links to articles that covers J. Michael Bailey’s book on the topic: The Man who would be Queen.
We hope this resource page may be of help to trans and nonbinary people who reach for this theory when trying to explain their own sexuality and gender variance. The theory is based on 19th century concepts of sexuality and gender, so it feeds easily into internalized transphobia and homophobia among those who have been raised in a traditionalist culture.
From our network
All you need to know about “autogynephilia”
Trans woman: Am I a woman or is it just “autogynephilia”?
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