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

[GaIadriel]

Not looking to stir things up although I do appreciate this may be a controversial question.

I've read so much about how transwomen are often motivated by sexual perversions etc, and my kneejerk reaction is that it's certainly feasible. However, when I think about transmen it becomes a little bit more ambiguous.

I'm not sure I buy the argument that it's to 'escape from the pressures of being a female' as is often claimed because male hierarchy seems much more brutal and unforgiving to my eyes and seems to punish the 'weak' to a much greater extent.

When a female presents as male and uses male facilities (as many successfully do due to passing much more easily than most TW) what is their motivation for doing this?

Esteemed professional medical health organisations globally disagree including The Cass report despite extreme political pressure not to.

Aida, you keep saying this while ignoring the organisations that acknowledge no improvements in mental health. Why?

None of the research any of these organisations has done supports the policies you are talking about - and many places are rolling them back on that basis.

Your claim that the UK has not done so is just false, as you know.

ANyway - to get back on track with this thread - to me what this question really eveals is that the use of pornography among young women is something that needs to be urgently addressed.

And I think feminists have really dropped the ball here. Partly because they have tended to focused on the harms of standard film pornography on the actors, which is a very certainly very immediate concern.

But also for less compelling reasons. One being a tendency to dismiss the idea that written content is really pornography or can have an effect on the reader. And this comes out, I think, of the sex positivity movement that seems to have at times been embraced less critically than it ought to have been by feminists. Which claims that as long as something is a fantasy, or is freeing up women's repressed sexual desires, or whatever, it is good.

The fact is that reading this stuff, be it slash fiction, or "Morning Glory Milking Farm" is being used as a sexual outlet, and that does shape women's sexual and psychological response with a reinforcement loop just as it does with men, and it escalates just as it does with men.

Especially young women with little or no real sexual experience. There are kids - my cousin's daughter being one - that form their "trans" identity around this stuff, and it seems supported by their whole group of friends, the whole internet - even the cosplay groups they belong too seem to be entwined, (including furry groups in some cases.)

That study showed “no improvement in psychological function”. Did you read it?

Oh, it’s the rolling pin dude. Yeah, I’ll stop engaging. What a waste of time.

https://x.com/prof_curiosity1/status/2058056297593864606

This gives a good explanation on how bright young women are indoctrinated

OP, I hope you don’t mind the numerous different tangents this thread has taken. I am very grateful for this opportunity to discuss this very complex issue

-Especially young women with little or no real sexual experience. There are kids - my cousin's daughter being one - that form their "trans" identity around this stuff, and it seems supported by their whole group of friends, the whole internet - even the cosplay groups they belong too seem to be entwined, (including furry groups in some cases.)

Conversely, I’ve seen girls who identify as trans with the usual vulnerabilities (ASD/anxious/socially isolated) who then start considering their sexual proclivities within that trans bubble. Probably the end point is the same? These are all girls who have never even kissed someone, mind you.

Yes, if they haven't encountered all that before, they certainly will after they start interacting with that group

This is what is so heartbreaking. Young people who have never even kissed someone being able to self refer for medical treatment that will affect their fertility and sexual function. Therapy needs to be compulsory for this cohort

I was passing by, taking a look around, found this thread, figured I might as well share my perspective.

I'm not sure I buy the argument that it's to 'escape from the pressures of being a female' as is often claimed because male hierarchy seems much more brutal and unforgiving to my eyes and seems to punish the 'weak' to a much greater extent.

I'm lucky to be in a job where this male hierarchy is not much felt, so I can't speak as to its intensity. However, I think there's a difference between pressure experienced as a result of being "other" or worse "less than" (a woman vs. a man), and pressure received from what one perceives to be one's own group (a transman among men). I know that personally, I'd react way worse to perceived misogyny than to being perceived as a weak man.

When a female presents as male and uses male facilities (as many successfully do due to passing much more easily than most TW) what is their motivation for doing this?

In my case, it's just a matter of being consistent: I don't stop feeling the need to present as male just because I need to piss, for example. Also, I don't want to potentially scare any woman or girl by using the ladies', even if only for the two seconds it would take them to figure out what's going on. Although note that I'm talking only about enclosed facilities: I've never had to be naked or even in my undies around similarly dressed men; I'm not sure what I would choose to do then in the absence of a third space.

And to answer the question in the title: I personally don't experience any kind of sexual feeling from presenting as male, nor is it in any way or shape a motivation for me.

In young women this is not autogynophilia. It is a form of rejection of their sexed female bodies, breasts in particular are an issue as are periods. The transmen of today are the same young women who previously would have eating disorders and the identity is often accompanied by an eating disorder and a diagnosis of autism.

I must admit I'm quite amused at @Aisha176 's insistence on separating "genuine" trans people from "not real" ones...

You say most of your friends have never been in a fight. It sounds like you've grown up in an environment where you've been fairly sheltered from violence. For some men and boys it's defo a daily concern. That's why youths living in dodgy inner city areas carry knifes.

When I was training Thai boxing and mma in Birmingham a lot of the guys were doing it for self defence. I'm not sure it's 'all the time' that women experience violence. I think a lot of women have probs never had a black eye but almost every man has at some point even if it was at school.

I've seen some of them admit to it, I forget the word they use, there is an AGP equivalent for women. Yes, most women have underlying reasons like sexual trauma, mental health issues and wanting to escape misogyny as why they transition but many of them are also motivated by sexual imagery as part of what made them think they were a man.

The major one being yaoi/BL. These are erotic gay comics mostly written by women, for women. They are like romance novels, where it's mostly fantasy and not much reality but there is huge, huge swath of women who say they transitioned because they were into BL and realized they were actually a man. These can be extremely explicit.

Women are absolutely being motivated to transition by sexual imagery although it functions very differently to men for sure.

I really wouldn't compare AGP and women who think they are transmen because they consume m/m fiction. Those women don't typically get erotically excited at the idea of having a penis or a flat chest on their own body; what they usually want is the relationship described in their fiction. They see themselves as "gay men", the whole package, because being just men is of no interest to them, unlike AGP where being a woman is the whole point by definition.

Which organisations and what evidence are they working from?

Have you read any of Sarah Mittermaier’s work (she used to post as Eliza Mondegreen)? She did a lot of in-depth research into heavily-online FtM communities and found a lot of what you’re describing. Her work is very interesting - and fairly accessible.

No, I haven't. Thank you for the rec!

Isn’t this referred to as ‘transing away the gay’? Their ingrained homophobia is relieved by identifying as the opposite sex.

I suspect the root of the matter with some of the girls fantasizing about being gay men is that they want a relationship with a man, but simply can't imagine a woman being equal, loved and respected, or worthy of respect. Despair, or internalised misogyny. It's heartbreaking.

This is exactly what was going on with me. I was active in the slash community from c1995 to 2020 and I would guess that 75% of the women I met there were in the same boat and about 25% were closeted lesbians.

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

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.

I’ve met loads of lesbians who got a sexual charge out of presenting in a male way, while in bed with me. Sadly some lesbians went to go further than than and then try to become men