Thoughts on the whole "Blanchard" discussion.
First, by coincidence, I stumbled on an interview with him at National Review. It seems his Twitter account was temporarily suspended for "hateful" speech, though it was quickly reinstated and Twitter said it was an error to suspend it. That, apparently, triggered NR to seek an interview. There isn't anything truly earth shaking in the interview. I wouldn't call it a "must read", but I'm sure some would find it interesting, if they find this thread interesting.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/ray-blanchard-transgender-orthodoxy/
Now, back to my thoughts.
I have concluded that Blanchard's work is limited, and that not all 40 year old men who now identify as transwomen are described as autogynephilics. This is based on subsequent studies that found plenty of examples that didn't fit the mold. An awful lot of people have jumped on those studies and said, "See, we can ignore Blanchard, and since we can ignore Blanchard, we can completely discard any reference to autogynephilia."
Not so fast.
Serano acknowledged the presence of cross gender arousal, and noted that no one would deny it. So, for our purposes, i.e. as laymen not trying to publish academic papers, the name isn't all that important. What is significant is that there are guys in the world who are heterosexuals, but who are turned on by the idea of themselves as women. That isn't even a controversial statement. (See Serano, and others, and any number of erotic novels for sale on Amazon.)
We've known about these sorts for a long time. The most familiar manifestation would be transvestites. They get off on wearing women's clothing. I suppose for some, the articles themselves might become a fetishistic item, so just the proximity to women's clothes might be a sexual trigger. However, I would assume that for some of them, the appeal of wearing women's clothing is that it is the most explicit way in which one might act out the fantasy of being a woman.
The other ways in which a man might act out that fantasy are left to your imaginations.
The most controversial and widely attacked element of Blanchard's work is the idea that autogynephilic fantasies actually cause transsexualism. In my opinion, "cause" is a difficult word when dealing with human behavior. "Why" questions, or "causes" are just hard to evaluate. What isn't all that hard to evaluate, though, is a simple observation that people who have sexual fantasies will often desire to act out those fantasies, sometimes going to great lengths to do so. For example, a man might have sexual fantasies about a specific woman, and he will become so obsessed with the idea that he will enter into a state known in clinical settings as "marriage". This irrational behavior has been observed many times by professionals, and is well documented in the literature.
Well, other sorts of fantasies also drive people to attempt to act them out. The common ones are well known, but if you need some education on the subject, you can find them in Cosmopolitan. (Number 7 will blow your mind!) Now, if someone did enjoy the thought of being the opposite sex, how far would they be willing to go to enact that fantasy?
It seems to me that it would be absurd to suggest that no one would ever imagine themselves as the opposite sex, and almost as absurd to suggest that, having imagined it, no one would ever try to make it reality, or as close to reality as it could be. However, if you are skeptical of this point, we can observe what has actually happened. This gets to a point that Rolfe has brought up repeatedly. We can observe the behavior of some transwomen, and note that these people aren't acting like typical women. They might just be people living out a sexual fantasy.
Blanchard may have overestimated the role of autogynephilia as a cause of desire to transition to the opposite sex, but I don't think anyone could question the reality of the phenomenon, or reasonably deny that it plays a role in some transgenderism.
