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Trans Women are not Women

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Belz... said:
Then how are they trans? How do we define it? I've asked this question before, and other than "they feel like the other gender" I've gotten nothing.
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Francesca was referring to Puppycow describing a sexual fantasy where he is female. But he is not trans and does not desire to be a woman. He is not distressed or uncomfortable with being a male and therefore not dysphoric.

My definition of trans requires dysphoria. (I'm aware there is debate among trans people as to whether dysphoria is required to be trans.) While it is likely true that they are the other sex in their sexual fantasies, their dysphoria does not revolve around intercourse. It involves pretty much everything they do and, just like cis people, not everything is sexual.

The truth is I don't understand it. I'm not really sure someone without dysphoria can really understand it. Somethings just really can't be described. What does the color blue look like?

It's very easy to view it in terms of sexual gratification of some sort. That's something we can imagine. And I think that's why so many people write trans people off as some kind of sexual perversion. Especially when there are fetishes and such that look an lot like transgender. (Rocky Horror Picture Show?) But I think that's too simplistic.

Now, if you DO classify trans-genderism as primarily revolving around sexual gratification it makes the whole argument about how trans people fit into gendered spaces very nearly black and white. But I think it's more complicated than that.
 
Rolfe said:
It's not something women can experience. That's like saying most women are homosexual because they're aroused by the thought of sex with a man (the definition of homosexuality in males). Autoandrophilia (the female equivalent) doesn't seem to exist or if it does it's not something that drives females to transition. (There is a very similar phenomenon, where a woman desires to participate in male homosexual sex as a male, which does drive transition though, and the distinction is quite fine.)
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I think it does exist. I once dated a woman who told me she fantasized about being a man for a week to see how many women she could....

But your contention is that autogynophelia drives men to transition but autoandrophilia does not drive women to transition. Yet women transition, so SOMETHING must drive them to do so. What is this something? And why is that something also not the thing that drives men to transition?
 
IsThisTheLife said:
It just occurred to me a flash of realisation that, again when I was at an age of inexperience, I occasionally had to fend off what can only be described as aggressive advances by 'older women' that were completely unexpected/unsolicited, and they too were a bit freaky to my young, naive self. Maybe that too is how women of any age can be made to feel by unwanted male advances? ****, maybe women aren't the only recipients of unwanted, aggressive advances? Surely not?
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Did they take no for an answer?

That's usually the difference I think. It's easier for a man to say "No, I'm not interested. Piss off," than for a woman to say the same thing to a man.
 
tyr_13 said:
Well, no. You don't accept the answer I've given, won't clarify with context, and experience says you'll probably just dismiss it anyway as 'all about the feeling' because self-reported feelings do factor in.
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1) You've not given me an answer.
2) There's no specific context. I'm asking you how you define the term. Do you ask someone for context if they ask you to define "table"? Surely the definition of "trans" doesn't depend on a specific context, here?
3) That's because so far all the definitions given, as I already said, amount to "they feel like a woman". How else would I describe it if not self-reported feelings and nothing else? That follows directly from the definition!

It seems like you simply know you can't come up with a definition that makes sense, so you're trying to blame your failure on someone else, namely me.

Well, no, because that was the trust of your reply. You denied (the 'no'), and turned the criticism around (the 'you!').
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I did not.

You could read on the diagnostic criteria
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But that's not what I'm looking for. Why would I read something that won't answer my question?

Stop dodging.
 
IsThisTheLife said:
I assume you're male, and by the sound of it hetero? Have you been hit on much by typical, insatiably promiscuous homos? Maybe you're not as good-looking, lithe and athletic as I was (I confess I can't really be described thus at the age I am now)? I can tell you, in my late teens and even beyond it made me very uncomfortable, but as I got older the sheer presumptuousness just pissed me off.
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By that logic, if a woman's been hit on by men they have no interest in, they could become misandrists?

You're not making any sense.

I'm not talking about finding gay men repellent but of the idea or suggestion of gay sex, which I do, being forced into my consciousness.
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So what? Plenty of things are forced into our consciousness all the time. We live in a society and that means living with people who are different, sometimes to an uncomfortable degree. Live with it.
 
Men hit on women

Men hit on men

Women hit on men

Women hit on women

One of the funniest moments of my life was going out with my wife and a couple of her gay dude work mates to a "gay bar" when I was younger.

We managed to get separated when I was trying to find a bog.

It was extremely humorous being latched on by every second bloke, but hardly traumitising
 
Puppycow said:
Did they take no for an answer?

That's usually the difference I think. It's easier for a man to say "No, I'm not interested. Piss off," than for a woman to say the same thing to a man.
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I would question this in the majority of situations.

People are atuned to a women's voice in trouble far more than a mans.

A woman yells people usually notice
 
cullennz said:
I would question this in the majority of situations.

People are atuned to a women's voice in trouble far more than a mans.

A woman yells people usually notice
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It often doesn't amount to the kind of 'trouble' that warrants a scream or even a distressed voice, just a low-grade nagging harassment. Woman in pub just wants a drink and a read of her paper before going about her business, but gets approached by some twat who assumes she's 'in the market'. Then rebuffed, he's miffed and makes snide comments about her. I've seen it a hundred times but you rarely see the reverse.

Are there many female equivalents of Harvey Weinstein, or the male rush-hour groper on the train?

Japan struggles to overcome its groping problem

'They just don’t see us as human': women speak out on France's harassment problem

and so on ...
 
GlennB said:
It often doesn't amount to the kind of 'trouble' that warrants a scream or even a distressed voice, just a low-grade nagging harassment. Woman in pub just wants a drink and a read of her paper before going about her business, but gets approached by some twat who assumes she's 'in the market'. Then rebuffed, he's miffed and makes snide comments about her. I've seen it a hundred times but you rarely see the reverse.

Are there many female equivalents of Harvey Weinstein, or the male rush-hour groper on the train?



and so on ...
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Fair point.
 
Puppycow said:
Sure, but that means that it is not a phenomenon that is unique to transexuals, as Blanchard's theory seems too imply. It's also something that biological women can experience.
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Autogynaephilia isn't something women can experience. Seems to invoke nonsensical twisting of reality to say otherwise
 
tyr_13 said:
The existence of bisexual and asexual trans women cannot simply be dismissed because the hypothesis says they're all lying and/or delusional.
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Agreed.

But I don't see the relevance. Unless these are claims that the Blanchard guy has made. If they are I think that discredits him, but not the theory, nay reality, that autogynaephilia exists, is common, and manifests in varying degrees from fun to severe sex dysphoria.
 
TomB said:
If a man were fantasizing about being a woman he does not need to be distressed to think of himself as male
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Ease of thinking oneself to be female = unease of thinking oneself male. At least at the time one is doing this.

You probably want to throw that out too. OK. But to my mind ease/comfort at imaging oneself to be of the other sex is the same thing as what is termed gender dysphoria. Just to a different degree. And I think this matters.
 
Francesca R said:
Agreed.

But I don't see the relevance. Unless these are claims that the Blanchard guy has made. If they are I think that discredits him, but not the theory, nay reality, that autogynaephilia exists, is common, and manifests in varying degrees from fun to severe sex dysphoria.
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Tyr appears to have absolutely no idea what Blanchard's typography actually says. Every time he mentions it he grossly misrepresents it. If you read the article I linked to above, which was co-authored by Blanchard, you can find out what he's actually saying. It's nothing like what Tyr is saying. He makes up a straw man and then attacks that.
 
I have read it because you've posted it before. But I can't remember all the details or exact positions of the authors.

Either way it doesn't matter, I am not defending Mr Blanchard and am not his spokesperson. I am claiming that autogynaephilia (which seems to be a term coined by this person?) does exist and is common in a variable degree of intensity. I do not know nor have any position on the extent of overlap with trans women but I suspect most males who experience autogynaephiia never approach that category.

In extreme cases, it seems both highly plausible and congruent with observation that sufferers attach hate to the sex they want to be but can not be, and this could be exaggerated in the case of gay women who "should" desire the sufferer but in fact want nothing from them.
 
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The claims Tyr has made are not "claims that Blanchard guy (Dr Ray Blanchard) has made". He doesn't seem to have a clue what Blanchard's position actually is. He reads contrived criticisms of it, jumps to erroneous conclusions about what it is, and then attacks these straw men.

As I understand it you're right about autogynaephilia, more or less. It's often relatively mild and by no means all autogynaephiles transition. It's not something that affects women at all. Blanchard coined the term because he thought the previous term was either inappropriate or a bit demeaning or something like that.
 
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