…She Loves Me.

Are Autogynephiles also Gynandromorphophiles?

Are cross-dressers also tranny-chasers?  We had already seen a study that clearly demonstrated that transfans are more like straight men than like gay or bisexual men and that they are also at least somewhat autogynephilic.  But we have to ask, are all autogynephilic males also gynandromorphophilic?

In my personal experience, yes, both cross-dressers and “late transitioning” / “late onset” transwomen were in fact avid transfans.  I can’t tell you how often I saw that sexually admiring look from such transwomen, especially when I was decades younger than I am now.  There have also been a few who were hopelessly in love with me who sadly pined for what I could not return.  But that is all anecdotal; we need data.

Well, now we have that data.

In a recent paper following up on their earlier paper, Hsu, et Al., tested the sexual response of 27 known autogynephilic males, cross-dressers specifically recruited for this study, of whom 74.1% reported cross-dressing at least once a week, on average (M=5.26, SD=1.40). They also reported a high average degree of transvestic fetishism (M=4.11, SD=1.19). Consistent with their transvestic fetishism, these men reported a high average degree of autogynephilia (M=6.44, SD=2.47) on the 8-item, sum-scored Core Autogynephilia Scale, although two denied any autogynephilia on this measure despite reporting arousal from cross-dressing.

Using this same Core Autogynephilia Scale (0-8), the mean score of the gynandromorphilic (GAMP) subjects, recruited for their strong interest in transwomen (N=24), was 2.88 (SD=3.47) compared to the straight subjects (N=21) score of 0.35 (0.99) and that of the gay subjects (N=21) of only 0.06 (0.24).  Even more interesting is that when we further divide the GAMP groups into those who self-identify as “bisexual” and “heterosexual”, we see a difference between their autogynephilia scores of 5.20 (3.46) and 1.21 (2.42) respectively.  This is very much in keeping with other research that shows that autogynephilic (AGP) transwomen often exhibit “pseudo-bisexuality” (aka: pseudo-androphilia) in which their interpersonal autogynephilic sexual ideation includes fantasies of having sex with men, as women.  The data suggests that while most of the GAMP subjects were highly AGP, a few might be only mildly autogynephilic.

Again, our question is are all autogynephiles also gynandromorphophiles?  From the data we can see that, why yes, yes they are.  Note that the relative sexual response, using a ‘peter-meter’ is identical between the GAMP and Autogynephilic (cross-dresser) groups.  Both groups show higher sexual response to gynandromorphs (GAM – pre-op feminized MTF transwomen) than to females.  Interestingly, the cross-dresser group has a lower response overall.  This is very much in keeping with earlier work from Blanchard that showed that autogynephilia competes with gynephilia.  In this case, we now have data that shows that it also competes with their co-existing (greater) gynandromorphophilia.

Also, thanks to Veale, who showed that gynandromorphophilia is common in autogynephilic transwomen, we have yet more evidence that AGP transwomen are in the same etiological taxon as non-gender-dysphoric cross-dressers, further supporting the Two Type Transsexual Taxonomy.

Further Reading:

Essay on Sexual Response of Gynandromorphophiles

Previous essay on personal experiences with TrannieHawks

Commentary on the mutual gynandrophmorphophilic relationships between autogynephiles in my essay on transsexual marriages.

References:

K. J. Hsu, A. M. Rosenthal, D. I. Miller and J. M. Bailey, “Sexual Arousal Patterns of Autogynephilic Cross-dressing Men”
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308036975_Sexual_Arousal_Patterns_of_Autogynephilic_Male_Cross-Dressers

K. J. Hsu, A. M. Rosenthal, D. I. Miller and J. M. Bailey, “Who are gynandromorphophilic men? Characterizing men with sexual interest in transgender women”
http://d-miller.github.io/assets/HsuEtAl2015.pdf

Jaimie F. Veale, Dave E. Clarke and Terri C. Lomax, “Sexuality of Male-to-Female Transsexuals”
http://www.springerlink.com/content/bp2235t8261q23u3/

Anne A. Lawrence and J. Michael Bailey
Transsexual Groups in Veale et al. (2008) are “Autogynephilic” and “Even More Autogynephilic”
http://www.springerlink.com/content/u473w370g11vx758/

Jaimie F. Veale, David E. Clarke and Terri C. Lomax
Reply to Lawrence and Bailey (2008)
http://www.springerlink.com/content/cm2531l3m3148377/

 

Silly Stereotypes

When I was being evaluated by the Stanford Gender Dysphoria Clinic, they had me answer a number of questionaires.  Of course, as a naive teenager, not yet having the background in science, especially in psychology, I took them thinking that they might help me get past these evaluations such that I would be OK’ed for SRS.  Only later did I learn that these were not diagnostic but research tools.  Later, I came to recognize them and studied them.  One of them was the Bem Sex Role Inventory.  Interestingly enough, I learned the most damning things about this instrument, not in my psych studies, which I did, but from my U.S. History, Women’s Emphasis Class in 1977.  In that class, I learned about gender stereotypes, their power to shape politics… and as any feminist knows, the personal is political.  Suddenly, for me, my personal experience taking the inventory become political.

Why am I writing about this now?  Because I still see this inventory being touted as though it had any kind of scientific validity as a window into intrinsic gender meaning… that it shows any sort of truly sexually dimorphic differences in personality.  It does not.

Then what does it show?  Stereotypes.

The Bem Inventory was developed in 1974 by Sandra Bem, a feminist psychologist.  Bem did not intend it to be, and in fact later bemoaned that it had misused as, a gender identity tool.  It was a tool to explore how individuals hewed, or not, to societal gender stereotypes, period.

I recall, that as I learned about the inventory, how dismayed I was about its use… and how many of the stereotypes made no real sense.  Consider a couple of the terms that were supposed to be “feminine” and “masculine” qualities like “gullible” and “loyal”.  WTF!?!?

In 1974, these were qualities that were considered “feminine” and “masculine”… but not today.  This inventory only helps us understood sexist stereotypes of the mid’70s not who we are today… and certainly does NOT tell us if we are men, women, or transgendered.  It’s far past time to leave the Bem Inventory in the footnotes section of history books.

Further Reading:

“I Took the Bem Sex Role Inventory From 1974 and This Is What Happened”, by Lara Rutherford-Morrison