Winds of Change

In a very recently published paper (not behind a paywall, thankfully) the issue of changes in self-reported sexual orientation in transsexuals over their lifetime is explored.   The paper has some interesting data… and some very, very problematic data.  One of the problematic data points was the surprising number of self-reported, putatively, originally exclusively androphilic MTF transwomen whose sexual orientation changed to something else.  But… there seems be something… well… fishy about the data.  Take a look at this table:

Initial sexual orientation and history of transition in MtF: N= 70
Orientation               androphilic        gynephilic        bisexual        analloerotic (asexual)
N =                               18 (25.7%)           36 (51.4%)       7 (10%)         9 (12.9%)
age  (SD)                     41.6 (16.4)          51 (9.6)             36(10.8)        47.9 (15.9)
Age of onset              7.2 (3.9)             11.6 (9.9)         11.7 (7.3)       14 (5.8)
first  counseling      32 (13.8)            42.6 (11.5)        31.3(8.7)       39(17)
Transition                 36.4 (10.8)        45.2 (9.6)          33 (7.7)          40.7 (12.1)
HRT                              31.1 (13.8)        42.8 (11.8)        31.9 (9.5)       41.1 (17)
SRS                               35.3 (14.1)        47.5 (10.3)        36.2 (9.3)      34 (12.7)

Do you see it?  Hint:  Compare the ages and ages of transition for the “androphilic” and “bisexual” groups.  Ummmm… sorry guys, that data disagrees with EVERY other study ever done.  The mean age of transition for transkids is closer to age 20.  This was seen in the Nuttbrock and Tsoi studies, in which half of the androphilic MTFs who had started HRT had done so as teenagers… here the average age is 31 years old???  How is it that the “bisexual” group had begun transition, on average, three and half years before the “androphilic” group?  And somehow the “androphilic” group had SRS before beginning transition???  WTF!?  NOT!  Something appears to be very wrong with the data.  The so called “androphilic” group in this study is essentially identical with the “bisexual” group.  So what’s going on?  Can we say, “Social Desirability Bias“?  It looks like there are no actual, genuinely, exclusively androphilic transwomen in this study sample… not even one.

The study suggests that five of the eighteen putatively originally androphilic transwomen had changed their sexual orientation to bisexual, gynephilic, or “unknown”.  I have another interpretation… these five individuals simply admitted to actually having always been non-exclusively-androphilic, finally acknowledge it, as they realized they didn’t have to keep up the pretense.

The rest of the study makes more sense, as six of the 36 of the originally gynephilic identified transwomen reported a shift to bisexuality and androphilia.  This sort of shift has been widely reported before.  Of course, these shifts are generally recognized to be a result of interpersonal autogynephilia,

“Autogynephilic MtF transsexual persons often report the fantasy of sexual intercourse as a woman with a man, that was repeatedly described as faceless and abstract. Yet this pseudoandrophilia has to be distinguished from genuine androphilia or homosexuality in MtF, or as Blanchard points it: ‘‘the effective erotic stimulus, however, is not the male physique per se, as it is in true homosexual attraction, but rather the thought of being a female, which is symbolized in the fantasy of being penetrated by a male. For these persons, the imagined – occasionally real – male sexual partner serves the same function as women’s apparel or makeup, namely, to aid and intensify the fantasy of being a woman’’. Similarly, one of our participants that formally reported a change of sexual orientation from gynephilia towards androphilia stressed that ‘‘I always wanted to experience sexual intercourse as a woman but I did not know what to do with my male body before the hormone treatment. I hated male bodies in general before’’. In this case a reported change in sexual orientation from gynephilic to androphilic can be attributed to autogynephilic fantasies.”

The more interesting data in this study is all about the FtM transmen, about which we have far fewer studies.  Of six originally androphilic FtMs, four of them experience a shift to being gynephilic during transition… and of the 33 originally gynephilic six experience a shift to being androphilic or bisexual.

“In gynephilic FtM a reported change of sexual orientation was less frequent. Six gynephilic FtM reported a change of sexual orientation towards bisexuality and androphilia in the present study. This may in part be explained by the fact that androphilic sexual behavior is complicated for FtM. Sex with male partners can induce intense gender dysphoria by being penetrated as a woman although feeling as a man. One participant in the study of Rowniak and Chesla stated that he didn’t like being ‘‘feminized in bed’’ and others used the description that they were unable to have sex with men ‘‘until they were a man’’. Thus in these 6 participants androphilia may have been the original sexual orientation that became possible only after transitioning. In this case we wouldn’t expect a genuine change of sexual orientation in these gynephilic FtM transsexual persons.”

I was friends with an FtM who stated exactly the same thing… that he ‘identified’ as and participated in the lesbian community because lesbians would let him be butch, but straight men wouldn’t.  As a gay identified FtM, he could finally be both butch and express his native androphilia.  He was in fact, autoandrophilic.  (See my essay on autoandrophilila in FtMs.)

It is gratifying that the authors recognize the weaknesses of their current study and make some recommendations for future studies,

“Self-reported sexual orientation studies have further been reported to be interfered by the fact that some persons do not answer the question truthfully. Some transsexual people for example may want to present themselves as particular feminine (MtF) or masculine (FtM) and thus ‘‘classical’’ transsexual persons.  Participants in the present study might have biased their reports on purpose or unwittingly towards a more gender-typical presentation. This may also involve worries on denial of sex reassignment surgery. We feel that attempts to minimize such worries are important in future studies. We also suggest that researchers should explicitly ask for autogynephilic and autoandrophilic sexual orientation.”

Further Reading:

Essay on Pseudo-Androphilia in Autogynephilic MTF transsexuals

Reference:

Matthias K. Auer, Johannes Fuss, Nina Hohne, Gunter K. Stalla, Caroline Sievers, “Transgender Transitioning and Change of Self-Reported Sexual Orientation”
http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0110016&representation=PDF