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 give 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.
Some highlights (documentation below):
- Trans people, like cis people, are sexual beings with sexual fantasies, and for some trans people, especially those who have not transitioned, dreams about becoming their target sex may be eroticized. Such transformations open up for scenarios where they can have a sex life in harmony with their true selves.
- Such fantasies are not limited to lesbian trans women. Many straight trans women and trans men have them too. Such fantasies have also been found among people who consider themselves cis.
- The idea that there are two completely separate categories of trans women have been debunked by science.
- Feeling sexy is not a sexual perversion, neither among cis people nor among trans people.
- Lesbian trans women are perfectly capable of being attracted to other women.
- Ray Blanchard, the man who came up with the autogynephilia hypothesis has never published any proof of his theory. Indeed, his own data debunks that there are two completely distinct categories of trans women. He is now actively helping “gender critical” transphobic “feminists” and white supremacists in their attacks on trans women.
From our network
All you need to know about “autogynephilia”
Autogynephilia defined
Trans woman: Am I a woman or is it just “autogynephilia”?
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