Thread by @BlanchardPhD

In 1989, I published a paper that introduced the word “autogynephilia,” which I defined as a male’s paraphilic tendency to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman. I have therefore often been described, especially online, as the inventor of autogynephilia. Of course, I did not “invent” autogynephilia, any more than Richard von Krafft-Ebing invented pedophilia, Alfred Binet invented fetishism, or Joseph Guislain invented necrophilia. I simply named a phenomenon that previous writers had observed but had not named or else had named in a way that I considered improvable.

In this post, I will present a sample of clinical observations that prefigured my concept of autogynephilia. (1/5)

The closest equivalent to my term “autogynephilia” is Magnus Hirschfeld’s 1910 term “transvestism.” I gradually became dissatisfied with the term “transvestism” and especially with the way that this word was defined by psychiatrists after Hirschfeld (e.g., in the DSM). That was because “transvestism” does not merely fail to capture the wide range of erotically arousing cross-gender behaviors and fantasies in which women’s garments per se play a small role or none at all; it actually directs attention away from them. Perhaps worse, it ignores the mental contents of heterosexual men who engage in cross-gender behavior — mental contents that are important in understanding the connection between masturbating in women’s panties at one stage of life and pursuing vaginoplasty at another.

It is important to note that my dissatisfactions about the label “transvestism” were first voiced by Hirschfeld himself. This can be seen in one of the quotes in the attachment. (2/5)

The next writer, Havelock Ellis, was clearly concerned with mental contents. He also expresses something like my notion that autogynephilia is essentially misdirected heterosexuality. (3/5)

The quote from Otto Fenichel in the next attachment is eerily reminiscent of the autogynephilic aria delivered by Sam Rockwell’s character in the fifth episode of the third season of the hit TV drama White Lotus. In his now-famous monologue, Rockwell’s character “Frank” talks about fantasies of being an Asian girl and being penetrated by his male self. (4/5)

In the last attachment, H. Taylor Buckner reports an observation similar to my conception of what happens in autogynephilic transsexualism:

“Any viable theory relating the etiologies of autogynephilia and transsexualism must explain the following well-established observation: Gender dysphoria, in young nonhomosexual males, usually appears along with, or subsequent to, autogynephilia; in later years, however, autogynephilic sexual arousal may diminish or disappear, while the transsexual wish remains or grows even stronger. . . . Many men, after years of marriage, are less excited by their wives than they were initially but continue to be deeply attached to them; in other words, pair-bonding, once established, is not necessarily dependent on the continuation of high levels of sexual attraction. It is therefore feasible that the continuing desire to have a female body, after the disappearance of sexual response to that thought, has some analog in the permanent love-bond that may remain between two people after their initial strong sexual attraction has largely disappeared.” (Blanchard, 1991, p. 248) (5/5)