#blanchardism

This is probably going to be one of my more incendiary essays, all things considered, but I wanted to publish it anyways since I've been thinking about it a lot. This came from an investigation into the sources that Blanchard originally built on for the autogynephilia hypothesis back in 1989 (Blanchard 1989). All english bits from Hirschfeld's 1921 work Sexualpathologie are me shittly translating it with DeepL, I am very sorry.

“The main thing that brings him sexual satisfaction is putting on complete women's clothing. Just the thought of this makes him happy (...) [and] the stronger he fought against the urge to appear as a woman, the more violently and irresistibly the passion broke through again after a while[.] (...) That is why he cannot stand it when people talk about him ‘dressing up, which is masking, disguising himself’” (Hirschfeld, 1921, 198).

All these quotes demonstrate the central tenant of what Magnus Hirschfeld, arguably one of the most influential sexologist of the 20th century, calls transvestitic automonosexualism, a “sexual perversion” as Hirschfeld himself classified it, but what we would today understand to be a fetish or a sexual orientation, as per Anne Lawrence (2004), one of Blanchard’s most faithful disciples. Something that strikes me as interesting is that, if you think about what Ireland and Kronic say in Cute Accelerationism - that “the shaming of autophilias is literally nothing more or less than a prohibition on liking yourself” (Ireland & Kronic, 2024, 94) - this is exactly that. The case study Hirschfeld bases a lot of his conclusions about transvestitic automonosexualism on, is of someone who “cannot stand it when people talk about him ‘dressing up, which is masking, disguising himself.’” Their sexual enjoyment of crossdressing is brought into the forefront - it is, after all, called a “sexual perversion” by Hirschfeld - but there is clearly some undercurrent of wanting to be a woman, or, at the very least, womanly. Even if they derive pleasure from this, even if they are listed as an transvestitic automonosexual, they still believe this to be something more than a fetish, something more than “masking [or] disguising himself,” right? Even when Hirschfeld mentions that their main form of “sexual satisfaction is putting on complete women's clothing” he follows it up by saying that “[j]ust the thought of this makes him happy.” Their sexual attraction to their own womanly form, achieved most successfully when in full feminine dress, is also their source of happiness. Why can’t trans women enjoy their own bodies sexually, why must that be classified and pathologized? It’s literally just “liking yourself” as Ireland and Kronic rightfully point out and, furthermore, sexual interest in a female body doesn’t eschew other reasons for transition nor does it invalidate people who transition because of it. I am essentially arguing against the pathologization of transness, the different typologies Blanchard dreamed up (AGP and HSTS), but giving him the W in terms of him saying that trans women transition because they “love themselves as women” (the literal meaning of autogynephilia) because, as far back as Mr. T[1] in Hirschfeld’s 1921 chapter on automonosexualism, that’s been exactly the case, be it romantically, sexually, spiritually, societally, or for other reasons.

Thank you for reading.

[1] Mr. T is the name of the subject in the case that Hirschfeld analyzes.

Sources:

Hirschfeld, Magnus. (1921). Sexualpathologie (3. Vol).

Ireland, Amy & Kronic, B. Maya. (2024). Cute Accelerationism.

Lawrence, Anne. (2004). "Autogynephilia: A paraphilic model of gender identity disorder."

An interesting take on AGP I feel like I haven’t seen discussed before. It definitely has some merit, particularly with the “failed male“ type of AGP where they are very clearly trying to escape the aspects of societal manhood they are unable to live up to. Anyone who’s dealt with an AGP in their lives can also relate to the progression, from “it’s just on the weekends“ to “well maybe I’m nonbinary but I don’t want hormones or surgery“ to “I’m a woman now“ to “give me every possible medical intervention“. I am curious about what affects the speed of the addiction’s progression-- I’ve seen both the slow approach and the rapid “getting hormones a week after first consideration“ approach.

Often they think that little kids just don't have the wherewithal to hide their interests or desires. Some seem to even think kids don't feel shame.

But I thought of a good non-gendered example of how my shyness lead me to basically ignore my desires.

In 2nd grade there was a new kid at school. And I wanted to be friends with him. This was a fully conscious desire of mine that I thought about deliberately. Normally when children want to befriend eachother they approach. Say hi. Play a game. Guess what I did? I did none of those things. I did nothing at all. As far as I was concerned it was out of my hands. Not because I didn't know how, but because I was too shy to. I felt like it would be embarrassing to go out of my way to try and make friends with him.

Instead he eventually approached me and said "hey, wanna be friends" and I said "yes". And then we were friends for the rest of elementary school.

In fact I never approached someone else to befriend until 10th grade. I always let people come to me, which actually worked fairly well as far as having lots of friends throughout my school years. Not so well in terms of being friends with the right kind of people unfortunately. The friends I selected myself in 10th grade were definitely the best friends I ever had.

Bringing this back to gendered things, that's another bit. It's expected that if you are a naturally feminine little boy, that your friends will be girls. And I think that's true generally like for feminine boys who are not shy and have strong self-esteem, they will likely feel drawn to the discussion topics and play style of girls, and insert themselves accordingly. But for someone who does not insert themselves, you become a leaf in other people's winds. All of my friends in elementary school were either family friends, kids who approached me to befriend me, and neighborhood kids.

In the case of neighborhood kids, yeah I had friends who were girls, but with neighborhoods I think kids just all come together regardless of gender because that's who is around and available. These girls didn't even go to school with me tho.

When it comes to kids who approached me to befriend me, they were just boys. And that's probably just because at that age, girls usually prefer to befriend girls, and boys usually prefer to befriend boys.