Autogynophilia

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Autogynophilia (also autogynaecophilia and wrongly autogynaphilia ) (from gr .: auto- "self", gynaiko- "woman", philia "love": "love one's own femininity") describes the " paraphilic tendency of a man, sexual arousal through the idea of oneself as a woman ”. The term is part of an explanatory model for transsexuality and transvestitism proposed by Ray Blanchard in 1989 , which, in contrast to the theory of gender identity disorder , posits this deviant sexual preference as one of two possible causes of the desire for gender reassignment measures . In the DSM-5 , autogynophilia is classified as a subtype of the diagnosis "transvestite disorder".

Accordingly, autogynophilia would be part of the motivation of some transsexuals or transgender people to change their bodies, and an expression of the presumed "fact" that those who are so predisposed are emotionally not exclusively male or female, but a mixture of both: while the female personality component of a male to-woman transsexuals wish for a female body in order to be able to act (presumably also sexually) as a female subject, at the same time the male part of the personality perceives the female body features presented in themselves as a sexually stimulating fantasy.

Explanatory model

The model describes trans women (man-to-woman transsexuals ) who are not sexually attracted or not exclusively attracted to men, including lesbian (gynophile), bisexual and asexual trans women. It states that trans women whose sexual desires are not centered on men instead gain sexual arousal from imagining themselves as a woman.

Blanchard focuses his research on gender identity disorders on so-called "autogynophile transsexuals". He describes male-to-woman transsexuals as "men with a gender identity disorder". A trans woman with sex reassignment surgery is, in his opinion, a “man without a penis ” (Armstrong 2004).

In his terminology, trans women who are sexually oriented exclusively towards men are androphilic or homosexual transsexuals. For the advocates of this theory, this is the only other possible cause of the desire to change sex.

Blanchard only marginally considers trans men (woman-to-man transsexuals ). He assigns all those affected to a homosexual type, i.e. uniformly assumes a sexual orientation related to women . This contradicts experience reports, according to which at least a third of all trans men are sexually oriented exclusively towards men and many classified themselves as bisexual.

controversy

The model is controversial and contradicts the most widely accepted model of gender identity disorder today . It does not adequately describe the behavior or self-perception of many trans women.

Because the correlations examined by Blanchard can not prove causality , it is occasionally argued that Blanchard confused a symptom of gender identity disorder with its actual cause. In addition, the lack of control groups in Blanchard's work leads to the question of the differences between bisexual, lesbian and asexual trans and cisgender women. According to a later study, more than 95% of cis women are autogynophile according to Blanchard's definition.

Another point of criticism of the theory is that it describes gender identity disorder as an exclusively sexually determined phenomenon, namely that trans women feminized their bodies as a sexual fetish . Since in the course of the treatment of transsexuals the male libido is suppressed by hormone substitution, possibly supported by testosterone blockers or castration , the sexual goal of this fetishism would not be achieved.

Autogynophilia advocates, however, argue that transsexuals like to fake behaviors that contradict the model. For his part, also controversial J. Michael Bailey is a well-known proponent of the model. For example, he quotes Maxine Peterson as saying that "most gender identity patients lie" (Bailey, 2003, p. 172) and conceal the sexual background of their disposition. This claim, however, makes the theory unfalsifiable and thus unscientific, because the only ones who are not accused of lying are those whose history the theory seems to confirm.

However, some trans women accept autogynophilia as an appropriate description of their feelings, which motivated the following explanations, among others:

  • Before the model of gender identity disorder that is widespread today , the diagnosis of transsexuality and thus treatment was in fact excluded if sexual satisfaction played a role (e.g. in cross-dressing ). The model of autogynophilia, on the other hand, broadly groups men with gender identity disorder and fetishists who are eligible for the diagnosis of transsexuality due to an “incorrect assignment of the sexual goal” (Freund, 1993).
  • Blanchard's model does not distinguish between transsexuality and transvestism . This allows those affected to “move up” from the diagnosis of transvestism to transsexuality and thus to be able to obtain treatment.

The current model of gender identity disorder as a mental disorder, on the other hand, allows for sexual arousal during cross-dressing. In addition, it differentiates much less rigidly between transsexuals and transvestites than earlier approaches based on the so-called Benjamin scale, but rather groups all people with gender identity disorder into one category, whereby the GID can be individually pronounced (see also transgender ).

Accordingly, critics of the autogynophilia model assert that those who consider this to be true for themselves are pursuing their own pathologization in the sense of a paraphilia and see the erotic component as the primary driving force for transition . However, there is no evidence that a differential diagnosis based on sexual history leads to greater patient satisfaction.

The pathologization of socially unacceptable sexual predispositions has a long history. Other more recent clinical pictures such as ego-dystonic homosexuality and “ nymphomania ” have already fallen into disrepute. According to his critics, this is to be expected for the autogynophile model.

It is often reported in both scientific and popular literature that people in sexual fantasies want to be of the opposite sex, even though they are not always transsexual. In terms of a psychosexual pathology, these fantasies are viewed as paraphilias . In a Czech study from 2020 with 5,000 male and female participants each, 26.6 percent of men stated that they perceived autogynophile fantasies to a certain extent as arousing; 2.2 percent of those surveyed said this arousal was very pronounced. For so-called autoandrophilia - that is, a woman's tendency to acquire sexual arousal through the idea of ​​being a man - the corresponding values ​​were 19.8 and 0.9 percent.

literature

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b Peter Falkai, Hans-Ulrich Wittchen (ed.): Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders DSM-5 . 1st edition. Hogrefe, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8017-2599-0 .
  2. ^ Ray Blanchard, sex researcher , head of the gender program at the Gender Identity Clinic, Center for Addiction and Mental Health, Clarke Division, Toronto .
  3. ↑ Charles Moser: autogynephilia in Women . In: Journal of Homosexuality . tape 56 , no. 5 , July 8, 2009, p. 539-547 , doi : 10.1080 / 00918360903005212 (English, in Pubmed , full text as PDF [accessed December 28, 2019]).
  4. ^ Maxine Petersen, MA, C.Psych.Assoc., Coordinator, Gender Identity Clinic, Center for Addiction and Mental Health, Clarke Division, Toronto , Canada.
  5. ↑ Klára Bártová, Renáta Androvičová, Lucie Krejčová, Petr Weiss & Kateřina Klapilová (2020) The Prevalence of Paraphilic Interests in the Czech Population: Preference, Arousal, the Use of Pornography, Fantasy, and Behavior, The Journal of Sex Research, doi : 10.1080 / 00224499.2019.1707468 .