I think this is exactly right. To extend it a little, I think there is a plausible biological explanation for why someone with male genitalia would have a feminine mind. Some women have high testosterone levels and some men have low testosterone levels, those things exist on a continuum so we should expect some outliers who genuinely feel like they should be the other sex.
It also seems rather obvious that many transgender people (at least male to female) are actually fetishists who find feminization sexy. Basically, this should be considered an extreme form of transvestism rather than actual transsexualism. For example, a pretty high percentage of male to female transsexuals identify as “lesbian”, compared to ~2% of women. To me this seems more like a particularly strong form of a fairly common fetish rather than a genuine “wrong body” situation.
Maybe it’s just that another trait, like having-a-weird-brain or accepting-queerness, causes both transitioning and identifying as lesbian.
How would one even generate the fetish hypothesis in the first place, without an history of psychanalysts attributing every quirk to sexual perversion?
I’m not making a value judgment, when I describe some (not all) forms of transsexualism as a fetish.
“Having-a-weird-brain” isn’t an explanation. Obviously. It merely restates the question. “Accepting-queerness” isn’t an explanation either, unless you think 20% to 70% of women are secret lesbians. Estimates for the percentage of male to female transsexuals who are attracted exclusively to women range from as low as 20% to as high as 70%. That isn’t something that can be explained away. If all male to female transsexuals were genuinely “women in a man’s body”, the percentage would be closer to the ~2% of women who call themselves lesbian. So, at minimum, attraction to women is an order of magnitude higher than the generic hypothesis (trapped in a man’s body) would predict.
How would one even generate the fetish hypothesis in the first place, without an history of psychanalysts (sic) attributing every quirk to sexual perversion?
I never heard a psychologist attribute transsexualism to perversion. I’m aware that they used to consider it a mental disorder, years ago, but that is unrelated to why I came to believe in a different explanation.
Dan Savage mentioned in a couple of columns that 100% of the male to female transsexuals he knows who transitioned as adults were hetero men who became lesbian women. He also mentioned that all of the ones who transitioned as adolescents or children were attracted to men. My explanation (some fraction of male to female transsexuals are genuinely female-minded and a large fraction are male-minded but pursue transsexualism because of a fetish) fits the data very well. The adolescent transitioners who generally become “hetero” women are generally the (trapped in a boy’s body) type, and the adult transitioners, who generally become “lesbians” tend to be the fetishists. Again, no value judgment is implied by describing them as fetishists.
I meant that there’s a global brain-weirdness trait that causes deviations from the norm in more than one way. So a transwoman’s attraction to women may well be caused by the normal-sexuality module (which causes both cisness and heterosexuality) breaking down, rather than by her heterosexuality module working correctly.
I never heard a psychologist attribute transsexualism to perversion.
It used to be the standard explanation, which I conjecture came from psychoanalysis’s bad habit to say “sexual perversion!” to just about everything. Young male-liking transwomen were classified as gay men, and old female-liking transwomen were classified as autogynephilic men.
Seriously though, you independently generated the autogynephilia hypothesis? If you did, that’s pretty strong evidence for it. I agree there’s a gap between young-transition and old-transition women, though I’ve seen Dan Savage spout some serious bullshit before so maybe we’re seeing a pattern that isn’t there.
A single-cluster explanation is that if you’re a transwoman who likes men, you have to accept you’re queer in the first place (a bi or gay man). This makes it easier to accept you’re trans. Whereas if you’re a lesbian (or asexual?) transwoman, you have to accept both transsexuality and homosexuality at once, which takes longer.
If there are multiple clusters, I would expect them to be similar among MTFs and FTMs, because of the other similarities (e.g. number of transpeople in each). Is there any evidence of autoandrophilia?
Also, while there seems to be evidence for the multiple-cluster hypothesis, what makes you think that old straight transwomen are motivated by a sexual fetish?
Seriously though, you independently generated the autogynephilia hypothesis? If you did, that’s pretty strong evidence for it. I agree there’s a gap between young-transition and old-transition women, though I’ve seen Dan Savage spout some serious bullshit before so maybe we’re seeing a pattern that isn’t there.
It’s consistent with my (admittedly anecdotal) observations as well.
If there are multiple clusters, I would expect them to be similar among MTFs and FTMs, because of the other similarities (e.g. number of transpeople in each). Is there any evidence of autoandrophilia?
FTMs seem to be generally attracted to women. Savage also claimed that most FTMs are attracted to women. There also seems to be fewer FTM than MTF. This seems to support the view that most FTMs are male-minded and not fetishists.
I think this is exactly right. To extend it a little, I think there is a plausible biological explanation for why someone with male genitalia would have a feminine mind. Some women have high testosterone levels and some men have low testosterone levels, those things exist on a continuum so we should expect some outliers who genuinely feel like they should be the other sex.
It also seems rather obvious that many transgender people (at least male to female) are actually fetishists who find feminization sexy. Basically, this should be considered an extreme form of transvestism rather than actual transsexualism. For example, a pretty high percentage of male to female transsexuals identify as “lesbian”, compared to ~2% of women. To me this seems more like a particularly strong form of a fairly common fetish rather than a genuine “wrong body” situation.
Maybe it’s just that another trait, like having-a-weird-brain or accepting-queerness, causes both transitioning and identifying as lesbian.
How would one even generate the fetish hypothesis in the first place, without an history of psychanalysts attributing every quirk to sexual perversion?
I’m not making a value judgment, when I describe some (not all) forms of transsexualism as a fetish.
“Having-a-weird-brain” isn’t an explanation. Obviously. It merely restates the question. “Accepting-queerness” isn’t an explanation either, unless you think 20% to 70% of women are secret lesbians.
Estimates for the percentage of male to female transsexuals who are attracted exclusively to women range from as low as 20% to as high as 70%. That isn’t something that can be explained away. If all male to female transsexuals were genuinely “women in a man’s body”, the percentage would be closer to the ~2% of women who call themselves lesbian. So, at minimum, attraction to women is an order of magnitude higher than the generic hypothesis (trapped in a man’s body) would predict.
I never heard a psychologist attribute transsexualism to perversion. I’m aware that they used to consider it a mental disorder, years ago, but that is unrelated to why I came to believe in a different explanation.
Dan Savage mentioned in a couple of columns that 100% of the male to female transsexuals he knows who transitioned as adults were hetero men who became lesbian women. He also mentioned that all of the ones who transitioned as adolescents or children were attracted to men. My explanation (some fraction of male to female transsexuals are genuinely female-minded and a large fraction are male-minded but pursue transsexualism because of a fetish) fits the data very well. The adolescent transitioners who generally become “hetero” women are generally the (trapped in a boy’s body) type, and the adult transitioners, who generally become “lesbians” tend to be the fetishists. Again, no value judgment is implied by describing them as fetishists.
ETA: minor edit for clarity
I meant that there’s a global brain-weirdness trait that causes deviations from the norm in more than one way. So a transwoman’s attraction to women may well be caused by the normal-sexuality module (which causes both cisness and heterosexuality) breaking down, rather than by her heterosexuality module working correctly.
It used to be the standard explanation, which I conjecture came from psychoanalysis’s bad habit to say “sexual perversion!” to just about everything. Young male-liking transwomen were classified as gay men, and old female-liking transwomen were classified as autogynephilic men.
Seriously though, you independently generated the autogynephilia hypothesis? If you did, that’s pretty strong evidence for it. I agree there’s a gap between young-transition and old-transition women, though I’ve seen Dan Savage spout some serious bullshit before so maybe we’re seeing a pattern that isn’t there.
A single-cluster explanation is that if you’re a transwoman who likes men, you have to accept you’re queer in the first place (a bi or gay man). This makes it easier to accept you’re trans. Whereas if you’re a lesbian (or asexual?) transwoman, you have to accept both transsexuality and homosexuality at once, which takes longer.
If there are multiple clusters, I would expect them to be similar among MTFs and FTMs, because of the other similarities (e.g. number of transpeople in each). Is there any evidence of autoandrophilia?
Also, while there seems to be evidence for the multiple-cluster hypothesis, what makes you think that old straight transwomen are motivated by a sexual fetish?
It’s consistent with my (admittedly anecdotal) observations as well.
FTMs seem to be generally attracted to women. Savage also claimed that most FTMs are attracted to women. There also seems to be fewer FTM than MTF. This seems to support the view that most FTMs are male-minded and not fetishists.
Okay, but why a fetish?