Do transmen suffer from a form of autogynephilia or do they have 'genuine' gender dysphoria?

Hmm, in not at all sure that is true .

This is so sexist and reductive: the creepy male pervs vs the wholesome, asexual females, only interested in relationships.

Asexual? Where did you get that? When I say "relationships", I mean the whole scope of them, including very much the sexual side of them. Also, calling women who are into m/m "wholesome" is kinda hilarious when you know the reputation they have...

Speaking for myself, I absolutely do/did get erotically excited at the thought of having a penis and of being the penetrator, and I've read many accounts from other women saying the same. I mean, it makes sense: the role of women in penetrative sex is limited in a way it isn't for men.

Okay. Are you and those other women members of the m/m community, and do you and they think you are transmen? If so, I'll defer to your greater experience. I've just never knowingly come across one of you.

@McSilkson do you think you are a man? There is a difference between a sexual fantasy and believing you actually are a man and insisting everyone else in the world play along with you.

If you read regularly at detransitioner forumes you will hear young women talk about this from time to time. And yes, they thought they were men, because that was the explanation they were being given.

It's also interesting to read some of the accounts from really young guys who seem to be AGP, they have been done zero favours being told they are "really" women by lobbyists and the medical establishment. Those who begin to see what the real nature of the situation is seem much more able to take some control of their behaviour and emotions and relationships.

I've come across quite a few women describing how they 'feel like' or 'identify with' gay men - including Camille Paglia. I get that in a way myself, because even though I am heterosexual in orientation there is an aspect of me that, at times, perceives my self as a gay man. Sometimes when I look at attractive young men it is as if I am looking at them through the eyes of a man. In that moment I am a gay man. I've no desire to be an actual man in everyday life though. It is purely sexual/relational - in passing moments. I can well imagine that some lesbians identify themselves with the 'male role' when it comes to romantic and sexual relationships.

And yes, they thought they were men, because that was the explanation they were being given.

That makes me so angry. "Oh, you feel Like This? Trans! You feel Like That? Trans too! All of you, get yourselves to surgeons and endocrinologists, hop hop!" No! Fuck no! There are plenty of other reasons one might feel Like This or That, and those reasons must be explored before any definitive physical measures are undertaken. How is that not obvious to everyone!?

Those who begin to see what the real nature of the situation is seem much more able to take some control of their behaviour and emotions and relationships.

Right!? It's almost like it's so much easier to deal with something when you've properly identified the problem: Who would have thought?

Yes, I know this is an old thread but this is a key point. OP is thinking about the wider implications of being male but most of these girls aren't. They're thinking in terms of romanticised tumblr etc versions of being male.

I don't think it's taboo on FWR or among many gay people, at least from what I've seen & the ones I know.

There's plenty of evidence that lesbians have brains that are somewhat closer to the average man's due to greater exposure to Testosterone in the womb. The same has been found for tomboyish straight women. Therefore it makes sense they're more likely than the average woman to gravitate to 'masculine' hobbies etc . Vice versa for gay men. There's been studies showing gay men on average have higher pitch ranges and more variation, and lesbians the opposite, again probably due to prenatal factors.

There's also the fact that the way some feminine gay men act isn't traditionally masculine but it's not traditionally feminine either. Effusive hand gestures, for one. The way drag queens act in competitions (I'm going from stuff like Paris Is Burning which is an 80s documentary, so could be inaccurate) seems more like masculine peacocking than feminine competition to me. I'd say the same for masculine lesbians, in the different ways- they're not simply acting like straight men, a lot of their behaviour is typically feminine (eg. They tend to be monogamous and less into casual sex than men, similarly to straight women). They're not simply mimicking the opposite sex, it's a mixture of sex-atypical brains and subcultural norms which mix masculine and feminine.

It's worth noting also that what's seen as camp/effeminate, and masculine can vary culturally. Oscar Wilde wasn't necessarily thought of as obviously gay in his time as 1890s dandies who talked and acted like him were often straight. That style was itself a homage to 18th century male fashion which tended to be quite flamboyant.

In my anecdotal experience there is often a close connection between fetishizing gay men, consuming Yaoi, and identifying as transmen.

Helena's story is wonderfully articulate in explaining how she fell into the cult of trans. I've not seen it explained so well before - I can now just about grasp how it happens to these girls. The passage which really jumped out at me, when she got to the detrans stage, was this:

"...in the trans community, people cope with the inherent doubts and cognitive dissonance of pretending to be someone they are not by encouraging others to do the same. This is also why so many adult trans people advocate for child transition. If an innocent, pure child can “be trans”, that validates their identity and belief system too. An enormous amount of mental energy is devoted to the crowdsourcing of validation and firefighting of anything that triggers internal conflict, which is always nagging in the back of the mind.

When a person is at peace with themselves and expressing themselves naturally, they don’t desperately micromanage everything and everyone around them."

I think there is maybe something more detached, and maybe slightly predatory/assessing in the male gaze. If it was my 'female self' I'd be admiring and assessing but in a more relational way and imagining myself as a woman/female person in relation to him.

That's as close as I can get to trying to articulate a fleeting or momentary experience. It could be that I was subliminally picking up on his homosexuality, and responding to that? Don't know!

But that was always my feeling when that would happen....that I was a gay man. There is maybe an elementv of bisexuality in me - even if it doesn't manifest in actual relationships. I tend to be physically attracted to males that have a certain grace and who are not afraid of personal adornments, but who have a simultaneously strong masculine energy about them too.The most recent embodiment of this that I can think of is Damiano David. He brings that element/quality of attraction out of me.

There's plenty of evidence that lesbians have brains that are somewhat closer to the average man's due to greater exposure to Testosterone in the womb. The same has been found for tomboyish straight women. Therefore it makes sense they're more likely than the average woman to gravitate to 'masculine' hobbies etc . Vice versa for gay men. There's been studies showing gay men on average have higher pitch ranges and more variation, and lesbians the opposite, again probably due to prenatal factors.

I’m in the tomboyish straight woman category described here. I have the longer ring finger that’s more often found in lesbians, and although it became less pronounced as I grew up and I am sometimes more feminine now, I was a full-on tomboy as a child. For me a lot of it was not about wanting to be masculine or align with boys’ interests as such, it definitely was more about rejecting feminine stereotypes/clothes/interests that didn’t feel right. I felt that I didn’t like them, but also that I was excluded from them and couldn’t “do them right” so I pushed them away (as a child often with great force and disgust).

I also think it’s a kind of signifier that relies on gender stereotypes to an extent, in that by rejecting them while still also being and appearing (at least once into puberty) female, you’re giving out a signal - either that you’re gay, or somewhat nonconforming so people (men in my case as I’m straight) know what they’re getting. That attracts people who are more likely to be compatible. (i’ve had mainly long-haired, hippyish, arty and/or “alternative” men as partners.)

What are masculine hobbies please ?
have they been described as masculine all through the centuries?

Bicycling since the invention of the bicycle, I suppose, even when it was mostly used just as a sensible means of transport. (My father remembered Men's Cycling Clubs in the 1920s.) Fishing? Model railways?

The bicycle was more important for women before cars.

https://www.victorianvoices.net/topics/women/cycling.shtml

I think they do change over time and place, and even context. As a child I was seen (by other kids and some adults) as liking “boys’” hobbies because I liked climbing trees, airfix, science experiments, woodwork, dinosaurs, space etc although even in the 70s there was pushback against that, and in our school we all did sewing and woodworking and it wasn’t divided by sex.

But even today things like sewing and craft are very heavily gendered - my DD and most of her friends customise clothes and make jewellery, I don’t know of any boys who do. Yet at a professional level, men can be leading jewellers, tailors and fashion designers and that’s not unusual.

it’s complex and always subject to multiple factors. There are/have been in the past (including in the uk) cultures where it’s normal for men to wear lots of jewellery, make up and high heels, for women to have short hair (look at any photo from the 20s), etc. a schoolgirl with short hair in the 20s wasn’t trans, she was gender-conforming.