[note added November, 2016: This essay (with additional material!) now appears as a chapter in my third book Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism. If you want to read that updated chapter, it can be downloaded here]
Note added 7-14-15: a follow up post (of sorts) detailing all of the recent scientific papers demonstrating that Blanchard's theory is incorrect can be found in The Real "Autogynephilia" Deniers.
Note added 7-14-15: a follow up post (of sorts) detailing all of the recent scientific papers demonstrating that Blanchard's theory is incorrect can be found in The Real "Autogynephilia" Deniers.
In 2010, two review articles appeared in the peer-review literature: My article The Case Against Autogynephilia was published in The International Journal of Transgenderism, and Charles Moser's article Blanchard's Autogynephilia Theory: A Critique appeared in the Journal of Homosexuality. Both of our papers presented numerous lines of evidence
that disprove the main underpinnings of autogynephilia theory, namely, the
assertions that trans female/feminine-spectrum people can be readily divided
into two clear-cut categories based upon sexual orientation and the presence or
absence of “autogynephilia,” and that “autogynephilia” is the primary
underlying cause of gender dysphoria and desire to transition in trans women
who experience it. (Note: subsequent analyses by Talia Bettcher and Jaimie Veale have further demonstrated that autogynephilia theory is incorrect.)
Where our papers differ is that, while Moser continues to use
the term “autogynephilia” to refer to sexual fantasies and patterns of arousal in
which the “thought or image of oneself as a woman” plays a contributing role, I
instead argue that we should no longer use this term for the following reasons: