‘I agree with Stock that it is simplistic (and untrue) to label all trans women as AGP. It comes across to me as quite bigoted.’
’The transgender experience is much more complex than getting a thrill out of wearing women's clothes.’
No one has said all males who identify as women are AGP, though according to the psychologist who coined the term AGP Dr Ray Blanchard, when asked in an interview about the numbers of AGP males he said: ‘The proportion had reached 75 percent by 2010, and it might be even higher now.’
quillette.com/2019/11/06/what-is-autogynephilia-an-interview-with-dr-ray-blanchard/
No radical feminist analysis labels all males who claim to be women as AGP. For example, if one has read Sheila Jeffreys’ books such as Gender Hurts, Unpacking Queer Politics or Beauty and Misogyny they would see that she is well aware there are different groups of males who identify as women, and that her books also provide an analysis of why women identify as men. Sheila’s analysis clearly states why the idea one can change sex is harmful to women, children and homosexuals (particularly lesbians) and it is nothing to do with ‘bigotry’. Many feminists including Julia Long, have also provided radical feminist analysis of why including males in the definition of woman is a violation of female boundaries and is harmful to women, again it is nothing to do with ‘bigotry’. In short radical feminist’s analysis of gender ideology is focused on how it harms females, it is nothing to do with ‘bigotry’. The problem is radical feminist analysis is not addressed by people who wish to discredit it, instead it is either misrepresented by people saying ‘you are saying all are AGP’ etc., or it is dismissed as ‘simplistic’, ‘man-hating’ or ‘unkind’. No actual rebuttal to the analysis is ever provided.
It's like when people used to claim all lesbians has been abused or had bad experiences with men which had caused them to become lesbians.
It is nothing like this at all, I am a lesbian, in the early to mid 2010’s I become aware of the fact that males were saying they were lesbians, when I was looking to join various groups for lesbians. I was shocked that instead of giving males who claim to be lesbians short shrift, as we had always done, some people were actually taking them seriously. This has led to lesbian women like me having no lesbian groups/spaces to join that can be guaranteed to be free of men. These are precisely the reasons I become involved in this issue. Therefore, I consider it manipulative to compare male’s behaviour to the lesbophobia lesbians ourselves experience, as many of us consider what these males are doing to be a continuation of the same lesbophobia we have always experienced, as lesbians who say no to men.
I view both your argument comparing the lesbophobia lesbians have experienced to AGP men, and Stock’s comparing women internalising their own oppression to AGP men, as being highly manipulative. Both arguments use false equivalencies, that function to elicit sympathy from lesbians and women in general, for men who are harming us. That is not to say I believe all people who make these false equivalencies are being deliberately manipulative, I think some people do genuinely believe what they are saying, but the results are the same regardless. I do find it very disappointing though to say the least, to see some lesbian women using these kinds of false equivalency arguments, regardless of if they are aware of their manipulative effect or not. The point is lesbians and women in general should never be manipulated into feeling sympathy for males whose behaviour is harming us, such sympathy once invoked is then used to benefit males to our own detriment, it is completely unethical imo.