Another WHY thread, with references!

[Elizabeth Ann]

I found this peer reviewed journal article on Autogynephilia discomfortingly persuasive, and would appreciate your thoughts on it. The author, by the way, has both academic and "street" cred, being an MD, psychologist, and a transexual.

http://www.annelawrence.com/becoming_what_we_love.pdf

This came up recently in a local trans group. The basic thesis will be somewhat controversial, and I am sure she will be accused of sweeping generalizations. I do not know how universal her argument really is, but I do know that many points of the article resonate with me.

Can we dispense with the "don't worry, be happy" posts? I do not believe that curiosity is pathological.

Liz

[Beverley Sims]

This looks like it is a thesis so the writer has covered all avenues of thought.
It would appear to have more credibility as she is transsexual and I assume has experienced what she is writing about.
It does need reading carefully and referencing to other texts.
I have not read it in depth yet but if the thread develops into a long discussion I will certainly revisit it.
I am interested in what others have to say also.
Their views most likely will be different to mine.

[traci_k]

At the risk of incurring wrath, the thesis and explanations do resonate.

[Lorileah]

Sweeping generalizations? And made up statistics, and a perspective that is not objective. I don't know who the peers are but the whole article is a grind it out and get it published mishmash.

First the number s have only increased due to the internet and the fact that men (and women who don't seem to be even thought of here) now have the ability to see that they are not a singular person in a huge ocean. The numbers? They are pure speculation.

This is nothing but a publish or perish (or even worse a graduate thesis) paper.

[PaulaQ]

So I read the paper, and my biggest takeway was - "and?"

So - some of us are in love with our images as women. And so clinicians should do what exactly?

Oh right, "understand our motivations better", and...?

edit: btw, the article is an extremely good description of many things about me. That doesn't make it right - but it was a little unnerving. But still "and?"

[Elizabeth Ann]

I am not ready to argue the merits or the paper quite yet, but I do wish to correct the assertions here about some graduate thesis or publish or perish grist.

This person got her MD in 1974. Since 2000, she has been in private practice in transgender medicine. Her resume, which can be seen at:

http://www.annelawrence.com/lawrence_cv.pdf

includes a long list of papers in respected journals. I know you do not intend ad hominem attacks, but I really want to focus on the substance of the paper.

Sure, it is no unified theory of transgenderism, but try to look at it with an open mind. To reveal something of my own bias, I think it legitimizes those of us who admit to a fetish component to our crossdressing. There is an air around here (and sometimes downright assertion) that if we don't think of ourselves as female, that we are some sort of second class crossdressers.

So yes, I am predisposed to like the paper. Please give it some thought.

Liz

[PaulaQ]

So yes, I am predisposed to like the paper. Please give it some thought.

Well, the paper describes some things about me exceedingly well. However, I don't really see how it proves that we're in love with some idealized image, and that it's a paraphilia, except not really a paraphilia - it's a romantic self image issue. (Whatever she called that.)

1. Hey, this is the 21st century. Give me some biology or something.
2. Hey, any century - give me some conclusions! What should someone do about this? This is well described in the paper as a life-long condition, often starting in childhood. What, if anything do we do differently about it from a "homosexual trassexual"?

If the point is to distinguish between two populations of patients, so the physician doesn't do the wrong thing, great. But what should they do differently?

I don't have a problem with the idea, per se - but what's it mean, exactly, and how would one test this? It is an idea with a very accurate description attached to it.

[DonnaT]

The increasing prevalence of male-to-female (MtF) transsexualism in Western countries is largely due to the growing number of MtF transsexuals who have a
history of sexual arousal with cross-dressing or cross-gender fantasy.

Starts off wrong, and has the gall to reference Blanchard. Well, she is a backer of his work, which is the reason she's written such papers and books. I won't even take the time to read it all, as it's old and I've read her stuff before.

There is no evidence what so ever that the prevalence of male-to-female (MtF) transsexualism is increasing. I doubt there is an increase, and it likely seems that way because of it being kept hidden.

It may seem to be increasing only because transsexuals may be out in the open more, which could be due to the Internet.

As for having a history of sexual arousal with cross-dressing or cross-gender fantasy, that seems more of an example for crossdressers, not transsexuals.

Although there are some exceptions, seems to me that most transsexuals have some inkling about there gender well before sexual arousal comes into the picture.

And since we are, by nature (for a great many), sexual beings, sexual arousal can come from any number of paraphilias. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Can anyone say that a lot of women do not find clothes erotic? If that were true, then the various fashions available to women would be more like those available to men. Few and plain. Even if it is mostly men who design the clothes. If women can find the clothes erotic then why can't someone who is transgender?

Yet there are some exception. CDs who believed themselves to not be TS, yet find themselves transitioning. But the reality is, gender for most is set at birth. For some it takes a long time for their gender identity to surface, for others it can surface even before they learn to speak well.

Another problem in trying to equate paraphilias with transsexualism is that they are saying sexual orientation is not separate and distinct from gender identity. IMO, and in many others as well, they are separate.

[sometimes_miss]

This is nothing but a publish or perish (or even worse a graduate thesis) paper.

^this. Anyone can write something and have it published somewhere, and the louder and longer you proclaim your ideas to be correct, the more likelihood that it will get heard/read by more people. That doesn't make it correct. He even states the most incorrect, mass believed quote, Mahatma Gandhi’s famous description of reactions to his nonviolence movement: “First they ignore
you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” Which people like to believe, because it sounds nice. But the world doesn't work that way. Blanchard, and Lawrence, need to find acceptance to this theory because it affirms their own experience, so they want it to be proclaimed the only correct reason why some men feel female instead of male. And I believe that Elizabeth Anne (original poster on this thread) needs that same reassurance to accept his own condition, so it is posted here as a thread declaring it's validity simply because it has references, whether those references have any validity or not, is of course, the eternal question.

Elizabeth, you're preaching to the choir. Everyone here is perfectly o.k. with you crossdressing, for whatever your reasons, and we will support your feelings even if at a later date you discover a different reason. If Blanchard's theory fits you today, well then, great. Be happy with that. But please try to understand that one person's cause for crossdressing is not more valid than anyone else's.

Blanchard and Lawrence's works have been circulating the net for many years. They have no more validity now than when they were first written. However, we will continue to see these threads as more of us 'discover' them as 'new to us', and believe we have found something enlightening which we must share with everyone else. So I guess, for those of us for which Blanchard's ideas 'resonate' with, it's a nice thing to keep it to kick around once in a while.

But me, I kicked it out the door a long time ago.

[ReineD]

Elizabeth, you're preaching to the choir. Everyone here is perfectly o.k. with you crossdressing, for whatever your reasons, and we will support your feelings even if at a later date you discover a different reason. If Blanchard's theory fits you today, well then, great. Be happy with that. But please try to understand that one person's cause for crossdressing is not more valid than anyone else's.

This is deteriorating into how many fetish CDers there are compared to TSs or TGs, as if "fetish" is a dirty word. Lawrence is saying that sexual beginnings can lead to a need to express femininity for life.

Admittedly, the TSs and the TGs who knew they were TS as children (like AlmostALady) will not see themselves in Lawrence's conjecture.

BUT, many of the crossdressers will and no one can deny there are/have been countless posts in this forum from CDers who say they become aroused when they dress, who fantasize about wanting breasts and vaginas, who say they would transition in a flash if they could, who fantasize about having sex with men while dressed or who are sure to say they see themselves as lesbian when dressed, some of whom even want to take "a little bit" of hormones just to grow their breasts. Come to think of it, the "fantasy of being a woman threads" count among the threads with the most hits here. And all of these threads are in the MtF CD section ... not in the TS section!

To continue with a general count of erotically motivated crossdressers, there is also a multitude of sexually-oriented T-websites when we leave this forum, from dating sites, to chat rooms, to cam sites, to fetish clothes for sale, to huge boobs sites with extra large nipples, to places where CDers can post pics of themselves in sexually appealing clothes and stances ... to all the Yahoo private discussion sites. (I joined one once just to see what it was about. It was an eye opener).

So no one can deny there are significant numbers of CDers who DID NOT start at age 5 but who began at puberty for sexual reasons, and for whom the dressing was sexual for many years.

Lawrence in her paper takes it one step further and she suggests that CDers who previously dressed for erotic reasons may come to a point where it is no longer sexual, because the crossdresser has form bonds with her feminine self over the years resulting in a deep attachment, not unlike the deeply affectionate and loyal bonds that married couples form into old age. I don't think this is out of left field and it may in fact, account for so many late onset TGs, people who had no clue when they were younger that they had anything other than a male identity.

Realizing that one is TG in middle age from an erotic beginning during the teenage years is not a less valid way to have arrived at being TG, than having known since childhood. In my opinion.

So I don't understand why the TGs and the TSs who have known since childhood, would say that Lawrence's theory is not valid? Are you saying that when a crossdresser begins dressing for erotic reasons at age 12, she should always be considered fetishistic and it is not possible for her to develop deeper attachments to her femme self in time?


... unless I've read this all wrong.


========================
Elizabeth, you might also be interested in reading this study. I haven't het, but it is new .. 2012: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2894986/

[Sandra1746]

Although others seem to disagree I think AL and Blanchard too have many valid observations. Some of the AL observations fit me extremely well.

The thing with the social sciences VS the "hard" sciences (eg engineering, physics, etc) is that for the latter you can construct an experiment to test an hypothesis and either falsify the original hypothesis, or get more evidence it is true. In the end however, absolute proof of truth is always elusive, just out of reach. The social sciences can make no similar tests, all they can do is hypothesize and cite case studies that support their idea. There are always alternate hypotheses and case studies that don't conform. The fact that there are "different ideas" don't automatically make them wrong, only different.

Arguing who is a "real TS" serves no purpose in our community; society in general is opposed to us and infighting helps nobody. Sort of like blacks arguing who of them is "blacker". Humanity is a study in diversity and each one of us is unique in many respects. How some other person chooses to define their life or transition has NO impact on your life or transition. Feeling that their position "diminishes" your life displays more insecurity than objective perspective.

Just my $0.02,
Sandra1746

[Chickhe]

...many things they mention could be true....that's the problem with it. People read it and think...wow that's it! Problem is, people once thought the world was flat because what they knew seemed to fit. One major issue with the data is, how did they get it in a time when men were men and anyone else was gay. If you believe something you can always make the data match even if you are aware or not). There may be something to it, but then again people believe in fortune teller's because sometimes what they say are true (they ignore what's not true though).

[Rebecca Watson]

I think you're asking the wrong group of people for a response to a science paper. Take a look at the response you've received thus far. In a matter of hours it has been massively criticised (including accusations of academic dishonesty, which is a massive claim in academia).

This paper likely took the author many months if not years to write. Then it was peer-reviewed (again, a process which usually takes months, if not years), and published in a B-level journal (not the best possible, but you certainly cannot publish rubbish in a B-level journal).

It's probably safe to say that no criticism that could be thought of in a matter of hours by random people on the internet would stand up to proper scrutiny; obvious errors simply do not accidentally slip past the author's many revisions, discussions with colleagues, presentations at conferences, and critical review by experts in the field.

- Becky

[Lorileah]

Sorry Rebecca, I missed the science part of the paper (is there a large section studies, how many?: How were they chosen? Is there another control group? Blind, double blind study? Did you study non-surgical TS's? Did you study TS's who have no thought of ever having surgery? were there people in the study who considered themselves nothing more than cross dressers?). If you check I think at least two people who have responded negatively are scientists and know how to read a research paper (and some of us even know how to critique one). This is an opinion paper, nothing more. And in science 5 years post publishing without someone supporting (or refuting) your findings is extremely rare.

And where was the claim to academic malfeasance? A publish or perish paper or a graduate thesis would not be considered dishonesty. It would be...well normal.

All we are saying is that the paper has very large questionable holes in it. And some of us don't buy the concept, in fact I would suspect that a large portion of the TS community would refute it and that in itself would bring into question the conclusions the author makes or poses.

With that, I am out of this. I think several of us have voiced our opinions (which is what the OP asked) and they are now "published" here. Bring me stats and proof and support in the last 5 years of that paper and I will consider it (Classic example is the vaccine and autism report several years ago that was accepted and then refuted)

[StarrOfDelite]

Not to single out any person or viewpoint, but this thread is hitting a raw nerve with a lot of the residents from the great State of Denial.