Talk:Blanchard, Bailey, and Lawrence theory/Archive1

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents 1 Four major edits 2 NPOV 3 hmm. 4 Article name 5 Article title redux 6 Tempest In Teapot 7 Something Might Be Getting Missed

Four major edits

Hi Everyone,

I made 4 major edits to the autogynephilia page and felt I should open them up for discussion here.

(1) I noted an excessive number of citations within the body of the article to a few sites which do not fully represent the range of perspectives. Instead, I moved the citations to the external links at the bottom. I did this to be fair to all sides. An alternative would be to add lots of citations into the body of the article to "anti-autogynephilia" sites. However, I feel that's just adding even more clutter.

(2) I added the substantive scientific criticisms that were in the previous version of this article back into it. Seeing them omitted is pretty disconcerting since wikipedia is suppose to be neutral.

(3) I moved links about the Bailey controversy to the page about Michael's book. That way links are on the most specific wikipedia page.

(4) I removed the "controversy" section since it was redundant with things said previously in the article. I also tried to tighten, remove other redundance, and make the language neutral.

Can we discuss returning this page to its original title, "autogynephilia?" I appreciate the objection that this may down-play "homosexual" transsexuals. But that's actually part of the reality of Ray's theory; he doesn't give that "type" nearly the same amount of attention in his research. When people are looking for information about this topic, they are probably far more likely to search for "autogynephilia" than "Blanchard, Bailey, and Lawrence Theory."

I didn't rewrite anything in the sections about the types of transsexuals because I don't have time today.

--Katie (June 30, 2006)

NPOV

You have altered this article so that is is not npov any more. As it was before it was Npov. I achived that with some help from one of Bailey's principal critics. Katie would you please cite your source in a web checkable way.

Further the article title autogynephillia is also pure POV. Because the last article was from the POV of those would would be labeld as such and said nothing of the concerns of the other kind. Did not even ackowledge the existence of the other kind. It was unacceptable, so it was redirected to this new article.

In 24 hours I will revert these changes if no response is recorded. --Smartgirl62 00:00, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, this article, from the title down, needs major improvement. The new stuff needs to be in there and can be sourced thus:

• Wyndzen, M. H. (2002). The Banality of Insensitivity: Portrayals of Transgenderism in Psychopathology [URL: www.genderpsychology.org/psychology/mental_illness_model.html] from Psychology of Gender Identity & Transgenderism [URL: www.genderpsychology.org]
• Wyndzen, M. H. (2004). A Personal & Scientific look at a Mental Illness Model of Transgenderism [URL: www.apa.org/divisions/div44/2004Spring.pdf] Division 44 Newsletter, v.20(1), 3, American Psychological Association Division 44.
• Wyndzen, M. H. (2003). Autogynephilia & Ray Blanchard’s Mis-Directed Sex-Drive Model of Transsexuality [URL: www.genderpsychology.org/autogynephilia/ray_blanchard/], from Psychology of Gender Identity & Transgenderism [URL: www.genderpsychology.org]
• Wyndzen, M. H. (2004). The World according to J. Michael Bailey inside The Man who would be Queen: The Science of Gender Bending and Transsexualism [URL: www.genderpsychology.org/autogynephilia/j_michael_bailey/], from Psychology of Gender Identity & Transgenderism [URL: www.genderpsychology.org]

The second one appeared in an APA publication and contains all the criticisms. This topic needs to be carefully sourced. I added a tag of my own. Jokestress 01:30, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I was about to start editing this, but I believe we need to iron out the problem with the title first. As I have said before, it is not a theory but a model, and BBL is not really accurate. It would be better to describe as a psychosexual pathology model or the "homosexual/non-homosexual model," or somethign like that. I will get back to this next week. Jokestress 01:46, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Sure sure. As long as we both agree the old title "autogynephielia" was unacceptable. As was the focus of the old article on one and only one part of the theory and only one set of concerns with the theory. Jokestress I will hold off to see what you do. What you think should be done. Exactly. Have a good 4th of July. --66.92.130.180 12:03, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi "SmartGirl", "Jokestress", and Everyone,

As I understand wikipedia, we are suppose to expose readers to different perspectives and let them decide what weight they give each perspective. As I see it, there are at least 3 major perspectives articulated about autogynephilia. First, there is a mental illness model or psyhopathology approach. This is the view articulated by Blanchard, Lawrence, and Bailey. After SmartGirl replaced the old article, this was the only perspective articulated in depth. Second, there is an objective science approach, which I felt was particularly important to add back in. This is the idea that as long as we begin from the perspective that there is something wrong with transgendered persons, we will end up making methodological errors and misinterpretations of results (e.g., Wyndzen). Third, there is a socio-political or post-modern approach that is especially well articulated by Andrea James in an essay entitled "a defining moment in our history." Lynn Conway and several others also articulate variations on this perspective. Unlike the other two perspectives, the socio-political perspective does not claim to be scientific. Nevertheless, it is a third important perspective and it still needs to be written about in this article with some depth. Just saying some transsexuals don't like the Blanchard's theory is trivializing several well articulated alternatives. Just because SmartGirl and I value scientific reasoning, doesn't mean everybody else will share our values. We should expose readers to all of these perspectives and leave it to them to decide what they believe. If we restrict ourselves to only revealing one viewpoint, then we are no longer giving a NPOV.

"SmartGirl" seems to be trying to privilege a mental illness model perspective by appealing to peer-reviewed journals. Normally I place a lot of value in peer-reviewed journals too. In this case, some forms of transgenderism (GID & TF) are currently thought of as mental illnesses so this means peer-reviewed journals are dominated by small group of advocates for the "pro-autogynephilia" side (i.e., those who want to maintain the diagnosis). It means articles get through that support the theory when they are weak (e.g., lack control groups, make claims beyond the evidence, etc.) It also means skeptical viewpoints have a major hurdle to overcome. Because of this, I wouldn't give disproportionate weight to publication in a peer-reviewed journal. You may disagree with me. That's fine. So might other readers. That's fine too. But if we don't acknowledge the different perspectives, we're leaving readers new to the topic without an opportunity to see the range of perspectives they can consider. Let's remove that "NPOV" tag from the page and instead work on making sure each perspective gets a fair, well articulated, place.

Katie

I am a scientist by trade and training so I place value in peer reviewed research. Furthermore this theory is about psychopathology so naturally the theories perspective will be reported. That's all I tried to do was report what the theory says with a neutral voice.

Then I through the section on controversey reported on the other parts. Instead of removing it it should have been expanded upon. I will resurect it. -- Smartgirl62 01:09, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

hmm.

http://www.alicedreger.com/in_fear_follow-up

"I have also learned that some of the transgender women who disagree with Ms. James accept the theories set forth by Bailey, Blanchard, and Lawrence and see themselves as “homosexual transsexuals” or “autogynephilic transsexuals.” They find that these theories and labels fit their experiences and self-identities. But Andrea James doesn’t want to hear about their experiences or self-identities. This is strange at best and ironic at worst, since in 1998 Ms. James sent Anne Lawrence an email in which she praised Lawrence’s paper on autogynephilia as “excellent” and said she “found many of [Blanchard’s] observations to be quite valid, even brilliant.” Further, while she said she didn’t agree with all of Blanchard’s theories, she agreed enough with the idea of autogynephilia to tell Lawrence “your paper backs up my own experiences….I readily admit to my own autogynephilia.”"

Andrea James is also known as Jokestress. 69.196.227.59 23:21, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi, There are quite a large number of transsexuals who acknowledge having cross-gender fantasies. They did so in Ray Blanchard's original research and they continue to do so in studies by Anne Lawrence and others. You may have thought that was shocking because Michael Bailey presents it in his book as though transsexuals conceal it. They're not really, otherwise there never would have been that evidence in all the studies that relied on self-report. Most transgendered persons probably aren't that interested in debating theoretical models like we're doing, so they might just hear Blanchard, Bailey, or Lawrence define "autogynephilia" as cross-gender fantasies and say "that's me." That doesn't necessarily mean they would agree with the theory. But anyway, most gay men and lesbian women thought they were mentally ill before it was removed for the DSM. I wouldn't be very surprised if most transgendered people feel that way about themselves now. -- Katie

Well I dont know about all of that. I will just say that to me Mrs. James has been civil if not friendly while discussing this inspite of or regardless of my ID'ing myself earlier as a homosexual transsexual. I know she has not been so to others like me in the past in particular those at transkids.us. No need to rehash the past. (we could all do well to read one of the things written by someon e jokestress cited Why are Trassexuals so mean to each other?.) Through her not attacking me Ms. James is disproving one of Baileys asstertions. That there are two types of transsexuals and they cannot get along or even coexist.

Note that if you personally attack me for ID'ing as I do you are basically proving Bailey partially right.

I also have to come clean on not being 100% neutral on this matter. I live in chicago as does Bailey. I have seen what he has seen in the same places he has seen it in. When I first heard these Ideas I thought they made some sense. At least as far as the younger transsexuals experience was concerned. While I do not agree with his theory or many of the impressions in his book I can understand why someone who is not transsexual would think what he does. Like he says How can we know what it means to "feel like women"? Likewise how can he know (or any other cisgender person) what it is like to feel transsexual? I hate metaphysical questions.

Personally I take no more offence to being categorized by science on this variable than I do being categorized as in the animal kingdom and not the plant kingdom. My point, categorizeation is something all scientist do. Why would psychologist be any different. Plus I notice that seems to be the biggest sticking point for many. Identity. I do not want a person who is 55 retired truck driver of 25 years with 2.5 kids who has never done more than wear some pantyhose and get turned on saying she is identical to me in terms of her experience of transsexuality. I for one pass no judgement on such a person. However I recognize that such people exist and are not like me. Somehow some people take offence to that. They seem to want to be like the classic (or homosexual) transsexual for some reason I cannot fathom. (edited for a spelling error --Smartgirl62 01:12, 2 July 2006 (UTC)) --Smartgirl62 00:56, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I personally don't think I have any problem at all accepting that there are other transsexuals out there with behaviors, opinions and histories that would not make sense to me. Transvestic Fetishism doesn't make sense to me, neither do Cross-Dressers, nor even people who would not "complete" the process, and get surgery. I have to remark though that I first read about autogynephilia from Anne Lawrence's page, and taking the crude test on her page, I fall into the autogynephilic category within one or two questions, yet my experience and history are very much more inline with the homosexual transsexual listed on the primary page. (Specifically, I spent 2 months in the Army at a male-only training facility and was eventually released because I was simply crying uncontrollably.) I generally find that people are so hot to categorize people as one or the other, that they will immediately grab which ever term fits their preconceived criteria and drop them in that bin, even if it doesn't seem like it's the right choice.

While I may not care on a fundamental level whether one categorizes me, I'm concerned about one very immediately and without sufficient attention classifying me incorrectly. I can't say particularly that I am a good "counter-example" to this whole idea of a binary system, but rather I see it as a continuum. I have traits of me that are autogynephilic (have you ever had an erection in female clothes? Um... yes.) and there are traits of me that are homosexual (I am intensely attracted to males for a relationship) and there are traits that don't fall anywhere in the binary expectation of answers (given a hot naked man, and a gorgeously clothed woman, who would you stare at? Um... I don't know, I honestly don't know... depends on how attractive both of them are I suppose... if the guy was just right... yeah, but if the woman was also... I don't know.)

The point of this is that the methods used to classify someone cannot be clumsy, and should—especially in this area—not be binary. TSs are already breaking out of a binary division of gender, why would one want to drop them into a binary collection within that group? The only way I can see is that those who are cisgender males, being confidently masculine, and genuinely autogynephilic transsexuals, being a confident male making the choice to be female, they cannot understand outside of their box that some people could have no choice in this matter for differing reasons. To them, they can only see it as an "us vs. them", those who can tolerate being male, and those who reject being male. Though they choose to classify this in terms of sexual identity, and fix sex as always congruent with gender. I would happily assert that I'm a bisexual homosexual transsexual, and thus a counter-example to their classification system. Have I lost all attraction to women just because I want to be with a guy? No. What a ridiculous notion that would be!

The point is that people are too diverse as to classify into a binary digital system. And I think most TSs expect people who are supposed to be understanding of their situation to be able to see the ignorance in lumping people into a binary system like this. (For the record, I have been treated by Anne Lawrence, and she has given me every indication that she would classify me as a homosexual transsexual, and a "woman trapped in a male's body." Although at our last session, she was quite clear that she herself had been a "man trapped in a man's body." Which I can completely accept, understand, and tolerate.) --Puellanivis 02:07, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Article name

OK, I'm back and ready to start discussing possible names for this article. What I suggest is that we start with a larger article on taxonomies and differential diagnoses. That article would be done in summary style and would list all of the taxonomic schemes and disease models devised over the years. From there, we can expand each section with a separate article like this one. I believe the main article's title will probably give guidance to the sub-article titles, so I suggest we start there. Thoughts? Jokestress 12:32, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a plan to me. The article on taxonomies should not be a huge problem.

As far as the name of this article is concerned we could use the standards set by other wikipedia articles on other sciences. We have theories which the scientist who came up with them gave them a name. Theories like "The Special theory of Relativity", "The General theory of Relativity", "Thermodynamics", "String Theory", "Plate tectonics", "Evolution by natural selection" etc. Usually these theories are named by the scientist in a way that describes what is being theorized about. Then we have theories that are named after the scientist who found them. Newtons laws of motion, Hamiltonian mechanics, etc. A third option would be some combination of these general conventions. Such as using the term. "Einstein's General Theory of Relativity", or "Darwin's theory of Evolution by natural selection".

So how about a name like "Blanchard's theory of transsexual taxonomy"? Here is why I say that. Its a known scientific convention. It describes what the theory is about compleately. Such an article should attempt to take into account both of the categories Blanchard came up with. It should simply and neutrally describe the theory. Then describe the crticism then discuss the controversey.

I hope others get involved in this along the way. This subject is quite touchy, as you know. This is but one place where many battles in a running flame war have been fought. You are a known self acknowledged critic of this theory. I don't object to being categorized in any way, which in the eyes of some makes me an advocate of this theory. (Especially since being a TS in anycase makes us all perverts in so many eyes. Regardless of what psychological or physiological science will say about it.). I hope we may be able to make peace in one little area of this matter. Specifically defining what the argeuments are all about.

I have gotten in arguements with people who are totally unfamilliar with BBL's theories. It would be nice to direct them here for some truly unbaised education. Then not have to be accused of bias based on where I provide links to. (edited for structure)--Smartgirl62 15:47, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree on needing this to be closely sourced and clear, hence my interest in starting with the title. Taking your examples, General relativity and Special relativity suggest that "Blanchard's theory" in the title doesn't have precedent. Laws associated with their originators (e.g. Boyle's law and Godwin's Law) sometimes use a name like that, but it doesn't seem to have a precedent for a theory or model. Further, this is not a transsexual taxonomy, but a male-to-female transsexual taxonomy. FTMs don't matter/count/apply here, according to the proponents. Scientific pursuits regarding these topics reflect society's greater concern about male sexual orientation.

As a side note, Smartgirl62, you clearly to object to some kinds of categorization; namely being lumped in as identical to those you consider distinct (your truck driver example above). This is the issue with all these taxonomies: they rarely match up with categories of identity, and some people consider themselves part of a different category than they are assigned by this kind of "science." Another problem in this case is that many people think this is pseudoscience, pathological science or cargo cult science. Though you and others accept it as science, many critics do not think it is science at all, but rather a use of scientific terminology and techniques to describe an unscientific idea.

Based on your suggestion, I am going to make a counter-suggestion based on another controversial topic that critics claim is unscientific: Wikipedia's series on race and intelligence. I suggest we name this article transsexualism and sexual orientation or transsexualism and sexuality. The "gay/straight" binary has been overlaid onto gender variance since Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis. All Blanchard did was change the binary to "gay/non-gay" and suggest that male-to-female transsexual people undergo body modification as part of a strategy to have more of a desired kind of sexual activity (gays with others, non-gays with selves). Placing the BBL concepts in this context will help to explain how this is a continuation/refinement of a century-old idea.

This is very complicated and will take a lot of time to organize properly. The great thing about Wikipedia is that is requires civility, so we won't have to deal with the distractions that often derail discussions of this topic. You are bringing up some excellent points, and I hope many others will join us in shaping this article and related topics.

Also, to help others follow the discussion, please indent your replies with colons, as I did above. Jokestress 16:46, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

why I consider this theory to be science? It makes testable falseifiable predicticions. Does that mean I agree with it? No. Please realize that in conversations with people on the other side I have been accused just as much of being an opponent of this theory. I would say I more enjoy the question than the answer. I like to ask those who favor it why. I like to ask those who oppose it why. Both sides take that to mean you are on the other side. I like to think this means I must be truly objective on the matter. But unless a actual transkids.us type shows up and has the fortitude to stick around. I will have to be their lawyer in a sense. I could just as readily criticize this theory. Just as a defense attourney can be a prosecutor. I hope I have learned enough about being a scientist to be able to be objective inspite of my personal leanings.

Those are good names. Lets go with. Transsexualism and Sexuality An article on Homosexuality and transgender already exist. It could be altered a bit to accomplish some of what we want.

As for civility I personally never saw a reason for anyone to fight over this. The passions it arouses mystify me.

--Smartgirl62 20:10, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

If this concept is falsifiable, we need to explain that in the article. One of the criticisms is that it is not. Bailey especially is fond of claiming that those who do not conform to the taxonomies he proposes are "lying." That's unfalsifiable. Dr. Wyndzen has pointed out that the data Blanchard presented in his original article could be interpreted and divided in other ways. Taking another bogus "scientific" concept, nymphomania, I could create a series of questions or physiological tests and claim that I could predict who has this iatrogenic artifact, but the fundamental question of the taxonomy itself is where the pseudoscience originates.

In addition, there is a very unscientific and unfalsifiable set of definitions being used. Bailey claims that a transsexual person is anyone who has "serious thoughts" about transition. That's pretty hard to measure. Lawrence claims that for a transsexual, genital surgery is the sine qua non of the "condition." That characterizes it as a medical procedure and explains Lawrence's assertion that transsexualism can be a type of amputation fetish. That's why I was saying earlier that we need to clarify how the term is being used by proponents of the model.

So, if you have a citation, we should include the hypothesis and the data supporting its falsifiability. We will also need to point out that Blanchard's work has not been repeated in the ensuing two decades.

Before we move what's here to transsexualism and sexuality or merge this with homosexuality and transgender, let's think about what is the general article, and what is the sub-article. I would propose gender variance and sexuality or transgender and sexuality as the main topic, with a sub-article on transsexualism and sexuality. I'd also like to hear from a few other editors before making such drastic changes to these articles. There's a lot of good work here that needs to be preserved in any reorganization, including your recent work. Jokestress 00:35, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok. Let me break this down for you. I hope I can explain this right. When a scientist investigates a natural system and tries to understand that system first thing they do is make observations. Then based on those observations they define what they see. They try to figure out what the underlying unifying principles at work are. Then they make predictions based on those principles. If latter experiments contradict any one of those predictions the the theory is falseified.

In the case of Blanchards theory he says that sexual desire either for theself as a woman or for other men is the main driver behind transsexuality. He pridicts that the AGP will not fit in as well as a female as the HSTS. A way of testing this theory would be to use Blanchards own definitions to cateogirize a random group of transsexuals. Then observe the rate of post op regret among them. IF the AGP group has a higher rate of regert that would validate this theory.

In this theory there also seem to be a prediction about the interactions between th AGP and the HSTS. Blanchard and especially Bailey would claim that members of these groups would not be able to get along. The AGP would get on the nerves of the HSTS or vice versa. Either the AGP 's trying to be like the HSTS for some reason or the HSTS seeming to brag of their passability. For whatever reason a random group of transsexuals would be expected to break along that line by itself if Blanchard is like. I don't know how this could be ethically observed. Perhaps locking 10 or 20 random Ts's of various ages and walks of life in a house and seeing what groups form? If there is a demonstrable difference between their behavior and a random group of random people then we have a confirmation . If not then the test will have falsified the theory.

Thankyou for the kind words. It seems to me that most people who visit wikipedia are only interested in editing swear words in to articles not really doing much of worth.  :-) Come on people where ar the rest of you. I'm sure more than two people have viewed this artcle today. --Smartgirl62 05:29, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

All I can say is: have you ever gotten an AGP really, really angry? All of that "voice training" and reserved or notably affected gesturing goes out the window. It's easy to tell the difference. 69.196.227.59 06:37, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

(outdenting) Actually, Blanchard and Lawrence report contradictory findings:

• Blanchard R, Steiner BW, Clemmensen L, Dickey R. (1989). Prediction of regrets in postoperative transsexuals. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. (this says all 4 of 111 respondents expressing regret were "nonhomosexual males," meaning MTFs)
• Lawrence AA (2003). Factors Associated With Satisfaction or Regret Following Male-to-Female Sex Reassignment Surgery. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 32, 299-315. (this says that of 232 respondents, typology was not significantly associated with satisfaction or regret.)

The real problem here isn't the findings, but the terminology and methodology on which they are based. I'm not aware of any published studies on social interactions that validate predictive hypotheses about a homosexual/paraphilic taxonomy. So if that is the central hypothesis, that "nonhomosexual" transsexuals are more likely to have regrets, the data do not always support the hypothesis, thus casting doubts on the predictive value of the taxonomy. Jokestress 06:54, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

To Jokestress. Well then I would have to read those articles for myself. But it would seem that the very people who support this theory have falsified it. Since it has been flasified, that means it was falsifiable. Therefore the crticism that it was not falsifiable was unwarranted. Q.E.D. A failed and falsified theory that we only need to report the existence of.

Like Dr. Wyndzen mentioned on her website. Some of the things this theory does explain and the obervations of Bailey Blanchard and Lawrence have to be accounted for in any new theory. For example. Some TS's need help with voice, mannerisms, walk, even coughing and sneezing. Others need help with none of that. Why? Why do those who need that help seem to hate those that do not? :_( If someone can explain those things then they deserve a gold medal.

to the Annon 69.196.227.59. First we do not know anything about you. Please register then refrain from being insulting of anyone.

If by an AGP you mean someone who does need to work on their mannerisms and work at their speech and whatnot then agree with you. It can be hard to know what will set such a person off. What usually does it is if you point out that they would not be what I call "classic transsexual". If they were they would need only to stop attempting to act male to seem to be acting female. If they were their man act would be so pitifully riddiculous that nobody would buy it in the first place. They would not get and keep wives even if they wanted them. It would have been obvious "that boy aint right". -- Smartgirl62 16:46, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

The thing is, if a behaviour is affectation, does it reflect at all who the person is? One could refer to the overvalued ideals of masculine and feminine in defense of what they do, but it is really the AGPs overvaluing sexist concepts by making warped appropriations of behaviours that obviously never came naturally to them. It's obvious they want to become something they are not simply by observing their behaviour. This is why they tend to present with lies about their past: some big, some small, some by omission, some now never again repeated due to needing to seem "different" from the others. This is why they train to "become" (read: appear) natural. With even the many in the long run becoming successful and fooling people in superficial day-to-day life, does it really reflect who they really are, or in fact, who they are pretending to be? 69.196.227.59 17:55, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

If you have a citation to back up this speculation, please provide it. Otherwise it's just original research and not really relevant to improving the article. If you are looking for a discussion forum, this is not the place. Please try to limit comments to those which will improve this article. Jokestress 18:16, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

To the Anon 69.196.227.59. If you want to be taken seriously you need to register a user name talk like this could be carried out on your user talk page. As a matter of fact if you want to discuss this matter further see your talk page (69.196.227.59's talk) we can discuss this there. No need to take this page off track. I will reply to you there. Exposing your IP address is more personal than any name you would come up with. Especailly if you have static IP internet access.

To Jokestress. What I spoke of can be found here I believe [1]. Aside from that I was not looking to work that "classic TS" idea into the article. Just opining. -- Smartgirl62 19:50, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, this IS for discussion. This is the discussion tab of the article. Being the discussion page on a subject, people's experience do count for discussion. Note that I am not making edits to the page yet, something I WOULD want to back up with citations. It is worth discussing certain opinions and experiences, as hopefully, someone reading will have relevant material supporting or refuting what is said. My experiences though, are that there is little plain, "no-spin" (heh), info to refute it. So thoughtful, unflowery challenge, I would welcome, and we can branch what seems to be interpreted as tangential into another part of this page, if necessary. I think, what I am discussing is clearly highly related to the subject matter, more so than the simple debate over what the phenonemon should be even called. WHAT I AM DISCUSSING IS THE SUBJECT MATTER. And well as you said, my IP is donated along with my edits. Yes, highly personal info. I don't think that's a basis for not taking anyone seriously. Wikipedia has explored the option of taking away the ability to make "anonymous" posts, but they haven't, so please cope. It's still here for a reason. 69.196.227.59 23:07, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok I will just say my beliefes on this matter are rooted in my faith as a Muslim. Which is based on Muhammads reactions to people would would be called TS if they lived right now. The so called Mukhannathun. Note that this way of thinking notes two types. One to whom the mannerisms and such come naturally and ones who have to work at them. (Then it makes a moral judgement but hey it's a religious ruling) I agree with this simple observation because it seems true. You and I could reel off a long list of known transsexuals who needed no help what so ever with walking or deportment or anything. It just came to them. For others not, so what.

I will never understand how pointing out this fact is an insult to some people. In many ways the AGP is the more normal person of the two. He gets to grow up and live 50 years (on average) of normal male life with the approval of society. Where as the HSTS/primary TS is obvious from the day they can talk. Which leads to being treated like garbage most of the time. Why anyone would covet this I do not understand.

--Smartgirl62 01:23, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, because a TS can be a very good actor, and I have been such a TS. I'm far closer to HSTS than to being an AGP, without any coaching I was able to take up the mannerisms of female speech such that after 4 years, it's just the way I talk and think. At first it required a concious effort to act female, but I needed no direction in what female was. I've always had an intense disgust of my male genitalia, and by all accounts sexually I would relate best to an HSTS right now (I would like a boyfriend, and if we were to have sexual encounters, I wouldn't want him to touch my genitalia, same as it was when I had girlfriends.) But easily all my friends will swear up and down that I was 100% man, and one female friend told me straight up when I came out to her, that she would be entirely surprised if I transitioned, because I don't pay attention to style, I don't do this, I don't do that, and everything I do is masculine.

Right, but now that I'm actually here, and I've started shedding my masculine behavior, it's clear that I'm significantly closer to being an HSTS. There are just a few things in the way of me matching the typical HSTS archetype: it wasn't immediately obvious to everyone else, and I'm not exclusively attracted to men. (I can't figure out why I'm still attracted to women, but then it's presumed that near 90% of females in American culture are partially bi-sexual, and so I don't see why such a distinction should be made here.) I also have a number of traits that suggest a more feminine than masculine biology, low upper body strength (in High School, I never one a single arm wrestling contest, and I matched up against many very petite, and delicate girls!) I have little masculine body hair, I can actually touch my palm to my shoulder (I learned that this was a "female-only" trait on the show Brainiac, whereas before I thought it was an entirely unique property of my body, as I had never met anyone capable of doing it, but afterwards, I've seen many girls do it, imagine my surprise when I learned that when I was young I was just asking the wrong people about it!) In High School gym class, in order to "pass" the physical fitness exam, I had to use the female criterium for bench pressing, same at the age of 26 at a health club... literally incapable of exerting sufficient upper body strength to do even a single rep with a weight for men.

I don't particularly object to the statement that there exists two types of TSs, ones that need a lot of help, to a significant part of help, and those that need little or no help (one must certainly admit that very few TSs could possibly generate a feminine voice without coaching, unless they're lucky enough to have an androgynous voice in the first place, or they realize their situation early enough that they can avoid the voice masculinization.) If such a division were asked, I definitely fit into the later group. I have a best female friend, and those girls that I have met here and there have commented that I seem particularly feminine, despite my entire lack of coaching. Style and makeup come almost second nature to me, like I've been paying attention to it my whole life, just that I was refusing to admit it. And while I am primarily attracted to men, I don't see why someone could not be in the same situation that I am, without being an HSTS, and describing those TSs that do not require really any coaching to be feminine as "homosexual transsexual" somehow demeans the term to me, like I'm transsexual because I'm strongly homosexual... wait did we just walk into a time machine back to the days of Kinsey who labeled all TSs as just an extreme form of homosexuality?

I give no objection to the term "autogynephilia", or AGP, as it accurately describes what that person's motivations are for transition, and very adequately covers those TSs that need a lot of help being feminine (after all, they are not innately feminine, they just wish they were.) But to describe all those to whom femininity comes naturally to as homosexual is—I think—just the wrong approach to be taking. To attribute this femininity to their homosexuality, is like putting the cart before the horse in my opinion. I think rather that the homosexuality of us HSTSs can be better explained as a result of our innate femininity, but is certainly not a guarentee. So, I object to the mode-switching being used here, whereas AGP describes the reason why they are transsexual; HSTS uses a non-causal property of their transsexuality to describe the group as a whole. What? That doesn't seem entirely intelligent to me, and if you want to split people up into a binary continuum, it makes more sense to use a division that is consistent on both sides.

Now, have I ever met at truely lesbian true HSTS? Who would be unquestionably an HSTS if only they were attracted to men. Also, with the allowance, that their natural behavior is allowed to match any accepted normalized lesbian behavior, without coaching? No, I can't say that I have, but then I've not researched this a whole lot, but it certainly boggles my mind to think that there couldn't be a lesbian version of me out there... that just seems ignorant to me. But until it's proven emphatically to me that an innately transsexual person must be homosexual with regards to their assigned gender... I will continue to object to the use of HSTS as a catch all for transsexuals who do not have autogynephilia, even labeling it as TS /w AGP, and TS /wo AGP would be better than labelling two group inconsistently. --Puellanivis 00:51, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

FYI I am the same user as smartgirl. If you scroll down the page you will see where I put what bailey was talking about in terms of mathematics. Baileywas a mathematician and did statistics and such. What one needs to realize those statements in those test are based on probability. You with your being thrown out for crying would not get a +1 for that. If you read Baileys own writings he mentions Ts's who would say "I was in the army as an elite gree beret commando (or a navy seal) for 20 years to hide my true inner feminity....". A person who would say this probably does crossdress to get a sexual kick. Wheras a Ts who was a hairdresser for 20 years who was an efeminate flowery man who then makes a normal 100% passing woman would probably not cross dress for kicks. Getting s sexual kick out of the very fact you are wearing womens clohtes is what makes one a fetishist. Getting horny as a goregeous person is about to pleasure you does not make you a fetishist. Anne lawrence just seems to want everyone to be like her.

Realize subtle nuances like that would not make it into a book like this. I would suggest that people should look at the science in "The Man who Would Be Queen" as being as dumbed down as the physics in "A Brief History of Time". Oversimplifications and generaizeations to the Nth degree. The actual theory due to Blanchard is much more substantive that what is found in that book. Blanchards theory has lots of truth and some flasehood in it. --Hfarmer 01:08, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

User:69, I suggest you read this, which explains why your personal experiences and observations aren't really relevant or productive on discussion pages. If you want to express them on your user or talk pages, great. We are trying to reach consensus on this article's title here. In fact, to get this back on track, I'm going to start a new section. Jokestress 23:47, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Umm, no, experiences are relevant, especially when they are what we have now of what's most revealing of how AGPs' mind's operate. There is nothing but paucity of actual reseach when it relates to transpeople, in fact so much that there are only 3 citations on what is a pretty f-ing elaborate article emcompassing a lot. Should we erase it? 69.196.227.59 01:48, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Personal experience is what's called anecdotal evidence. At best all it does it proves something could possibly happen. Such evidence is no where near strong enough to draw general conclusions from unless you have thousands and thousands of simmilar stories. But if you gather such stories together you have a major study of transsexuals. That's just the way science works. At least that's the way sciences like psychology work. --Smartgirl62 02:10, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Article title redux

I propose the following titles for the main article on this topic:

• gender and sexuality
• gender identity and sexuality
• gender variance and sexuality
• transgender and sexuality
• transgenderism and sexuality

Under that would be a section on BBL and their taxonomic scheme, as well as previous and subsequent taxonomies. Thoughts? Additions? Jokestress 23:47, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Those articles sound appropriately descriptive of what this is about really. We can all even the annon agree this is about the sexuality of transsexuals. Specifically the discomfort of people with our sexuality whatever it may be. I would not use the word transgender though. It has taken on meaning CD's and DQ's as well. I prefere to let those parties write about themselves. I would suggest transexual sexuality. It has become popular to reclaim the transsexual word with only giving it one s. We would of course have to redirect related topics without articles to this new page. --Smartgirl62 01:40, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with transsexual sexuality. This is consistent with terms on Anne Lawrence's site, which offers much reading material on this subject. 69.196.227.59 01:50, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

That's not why I thought it would be a good idea for a name.

I would suggest that you read Lynn Conway's site. She is an example of someone who is definately not an autogynephile who thinks this theory is garbage. But then in psychology it seems so much easier to publish garbage than in many other sciences. --Smartgirl62 02:19, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

The "transsexual" vs. "transexual" issue has been discussed at length on that article. If you wish to lobby for one S, you should do that there, but please note that there is currently consensus on two Ss. The issue with naming this transsexual sexuality is that some of the people described in some taxonomies as "transsexual" are described as "pseudotranssexual" or "transvestic" in other differential diagnoses. That's why a broader term seems better to me. I am going to put a note on the existing article to solicit comments on all this, too. Jokestress 23:56, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

The trouble with the term Transgender though is it includes many who are by no means transsexual and would not be convered in the theory which is the subject of the article. "pseudotranssexual" what a way to be addressed. :-( Glad that was never a problem for me. --Smartgirl62 16:59, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Proposed title is for the main article, not the "BBL" article. We need to figure that out first. Jokestress 21:22, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Well in that case lets go ahead and use the term "Transgender Sexuality". --Smartgirl62 00:17, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay Idea. Helps show the connection between transsexualism and transvestic fetishism. Could work pretty well. 69.196.227.59 13:09, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

That's a good one. AGP and TvF seem to be two different names for the same thing. Especially when you see where TvF is listed in the DSM. --Smartgirl62 19:53, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

If you really feel a need to write about this topic, may I suggest enlarging transman and transwoman repectively? Beecause there is hardly enough common ground between the two for an article, and as was already suggested on the talk page of Homosexuality and transgender, I fear that this would once again be a transwoman-only party. Which would mean that the porposed title is utterly inappropriate. Oh, and for a change stick to the facts when writing this one, and I can tell you one thing already: There are not exactly many quotable facts to begin with, see Talk:Transwoman. -- John Smythe 15:53, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

First things first...Be it known that Hfarmer and smartgirl62 are the same person and I intend to post as Hfarmer from here on out. I have been devoting my heaviest thinking on decindin when to go full time and fess up to being TS. Now seems like the time, as hormones have done all they will and I now pass again without needing any heroic measures.

The transwoman and transman articles are about transgendered in general. We are transsexuals who want to write about things peculiar to transsexuals. In particular there is the fact that transsexuals f2m and m2f are this way 24/7/365. Such is why transsexuals feel transsexualism should be treated separately from CD, DG, DK, and TV in most situations. The others change clothes and go on to a "normal" life. The TS is always the way they are. Regardless of any typology.

As for my thoughts on the article proposed by jokestress. This article would be specifically about the sexuality of transsexuals in all it's gorey complexity. Or more productively. An article linking to other articles which is about the sexuality of transsexuals. Perhaps latter today I will create this article using the title transsexual sexuality. That article will link to this article, As well as the article about transvestetic fetishism, and a few others. I will try to tie them all together. Hopefully such an article will show the complexity of the sexuality of real live transsexual people. --Hfarmer 11:31, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Tempest In Teapot

First, I resent that the articles have been deleted, renamed, shuffled, etc. the way they have. I'd also like to remind people of the entire point of NPOV. The solution in Wikipedia land to "I don't like that!" is writing articles that contain information supporting an argument that the idea is a bad one. It isn't to engage in endless back and forth about why you hate the subject of the article. If "we don't like being called sex-crazed gay-boys" is the issue, argue that "homosexual transsexuals" more readily adapt to the non-hypersexualized aspects of social life than "autogynephilic transsexuals".

Next, if this article is correct there are a lot of transsexual women who are neither kind, and that's precisely one of the complaints with Blanchard's theory: that it fails to capture all the kinds of transsexuals. Most likely Blanchard is guilty of the logical fallacy of False Dilemma. The average age of transition is still the early to mid 30's and with the assertion that "homosexual transsexuals" transition before 25 and "autogynephilic transsexuals" transition after 45, that leaves the mean age completely out. That's a sure sign that some seriously defective thinking is going on.

Lastly, the entire "reversion to type" issue that was raised tangentially above is straight-up classic stupidity. It assumes that women never get angry when manipulated by the kinds of petty games that are played in these discussions. It's not a secret that there are violent women and passive men and if we're going to judge people's true sex based on how someone reactions when provoked, we're going to have to start sex reassigning many female inmates because they must secretly be men. Tall Girl 03:21, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

You are about to find out that I think about this way to much.

But I have brain capacity to spare so this is no big deal. :-)

Tall girl, you do realize that Andrea James who is no friend of this theory was involved in this process right? The way the article was written was to be an NPOV presentation of what BBL's ideas were. That's what a scientific theory is. The model due to certain scientist of how something works. The point and purpose of the article to informpeople of what those ideas were. Not to argue for or against them.

More weak defense of this theory

You bring up the mean age of transition interestingly if you add 25 to 45 and divide by two what do you get? 35. Such is how BBL theory accounts for the observed mean age of transition for all transsexuals regardless of any typology.:-|

Much confusion comes from the fact that what BBL wrote is a theory of science. The way the general lay public and scientist use that word are very different. I will try my best to explain it to you. Scientific theories and laws are statistical statements. They are correct most of the time but the acknowledge that there will be limits to their validity.

Here is the thing you have to consider when critiquing a scientific theory. Generally such theories are statistical statements. When Blanchard coined these terms he would say MOST transsexuals fall into one of those two types. Not all. Furthermore most of those transsexuals will have many traits of belonging to one type or the other with some overlap. Read "The man who would be queen" on page 192 Bailey writes of how to tell HSTS from AGP. Careful study of that simplistic little test will reveal that one can have two traits of both the AGP and HSTS at the same time. Few people will have traits that are strictly of one or the other. For example I am a scientist. Such is a one trait of the autogynephille. But I have many many of the traits of the HSTS. Having that one trait does not make me AGP. One can similarly take a classic autogynephille and find a trait or two which is more typical of the HSTS. That does not make them HSTS. To me neither is better. If there were shots I could take every 10 minutes and be a normal hetero guy I would take them. That only exist in the future on "the Simpsons".

In Mathematical terms

I have tried explaining this concept in words to no avail. Let me lay some mathematical science on you.

| BBLtype > = λ | AGP > + (1 − λ) | HSTS > where

| AGP > stands for the ideal autogynephile no HSTS traits.

| HSTS > stands for the ideal HSTS no AGP traits.

This is what's called a convex linear vector space with two extremal points (think of a line of one unit in length). The type of addition described above is called Convex combination. Basically nobody will have the eigenvalue λ = 0or λ = 1. In English nobody will fit either category perfectly. But there seems to be little doubt that most fit either one or the other better. The way Bailey writes of the matter in his book. Weather one is AGP or HSTS would be determined by asking questions he gives until the sum gets to three. In the convex structure I have described above change that to the sum being to one and each question being worth +/- 1/3. The way Bailey writes of the theory λ will give a result that puts one clearly on one side or the other. This may not be how Blanchard would have intended. Let us not forget Blanchard originated this theory not bailey.

I suspect something like this may have been in the back of Bailey's mind as the major of his B.A. was in mathematics.

λ would be determined by a psychologist during the course of treatment and before diagnosis with either GID alone (thus labeling you as HSTS) or GID plus transvestetic fetishism (thus labeling you as an autogynephile). Those are the terms found in the DSM IV-TR. Transsexuals or people who think they may be transsexuals of any age or type who may read this article after googeling this topic need to be aware of those facts.

Statistical aspects like this are not mentioned in "The Man who would be Queen" because that book is for public consumption and the general public is not able to deal with such concepts. However those statistical ideas are critical to any real understanding of the theory.

I know that putting this theory in mathematical terms as I have done above will seem like over kill. My goal in doing so was to explain how the application of this theory should look.

(Hey I just invented a new field, mathematical psychology.)

I have had to revise some of the mathematics. Don't worry if you don't get it. It took me two tries to pass the course I learned it in. --Hfarmer 18:25, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Since my name was invoked... For the record, I am extremely dissatisfied with what has happened to this article. This thing is an unreadable mess at the moment and has devolved from a fairly readable article when it was called "autogynephilia." For a while I tried to fix it, but I don't feel like dealing with the massive amount of work it would take to get this back on track and organized within a larger framework. It's a real mess at the moment, though, from the article title to the last word. I've tried to be diplomatic in making suggestions, but this and several other related articles are watched closely by editors who resist any modifications.

Once y'all have the title of this and the larger umbrella article figured out, I'll jump back in. The current title and description of the model are completely unacceptable, in my opinion. Jokestress 18:31, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Hfarmer, respecfully, I've seen that you've put a lot of work into these articles, but to be as blunt as I think I need to be, you're starting to tread heavily on the principle of "No Original Research". That principle exists so that someone can read a Wikipedia article and know that it isn't just opinions. You're also at a point where you seem to be just making things up. For example, the average age of transition is in the mid 30's. That's been well established by research. So too has a standard deviation that doesn't support a kind of bimodal distribution.

Autogynephilia is correct to the extent that there are men who are sexuall aroused by the thought of themselves as women, and who act on that. Lawrenence has an entire web page dedicated to testimonials. But it is wrong to the extent that Bailey makes assertions which aren't supported by valid research.

Please, stop the endless edits and let someone write a NPOV article which doesn't include all the defensiveness and diversions of this one. Tall Girl 19:33, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Something Might Be Getting Missed

My comment mirrors the prior poster's, I believe. Please note, I'm an indpendent writer/researcher and not transgendered in any way. There has been much passionate and brilliant discussion by people here who are very close to the topic and something important may be getting obscured. Respectfully...

First, male sexual arousal in response to imagining oneself as female is not a "theory." Indeed it appears to be an established part of the human experience for some people. At least it is arguably applicable to transvestic fetishists. Autogynephilia is simply a term (and, IMO, a well-constructed, neutral one) coined as a label for that experience. As I understand it, BBL Theory is an attempt to explain and categorize transgender behavior based partly on the the confirmed existence of autogynephilic sexual response in biological males.

Second, while there are serious issues with their controversial theory, that does not force the aforementioned sexual response concept into non-existence, nothwithstanding the fact that the theorists coined the term themselves.

Without the word "autogynephilia," we seem to have a definiton in search of a descriptor. I submit that "autogynephilia" is an efficient one-word descriptor for the type of sexual response described and, as such, should be afforded a dictionary style definition of the paraphilia WITH sufficient links to explain its etymology and the related debate concerning the BBL theory.

This is just my "relatively" uninformed point of view. And, while I suppose I cared enough to voice it, I won't be debating it as I'm scrapping the writing project that brought me here yesterday and moving on to something else entirely. Best of luck to all of you working to iron out this very complex topic for the rest of us.

How about chooseing a name for yourself or at least anon signing your comments. This will help keep track of who said what.

The article that will cover your concerns exist it is called Transvestic fetishism. Said article covers all that you think is being missed here. I actually suggested the merger of autogynephillia with that article a while back (under the name Smartgirl62). This merger proposal was defeated in a vote. The stewards of that article feel that it refers to something separate and distinct from Autogynephillia. The thrust of their post was that TvF refers to men who get aroused by wearing womens clothes. While AGP refers to men who get off on having womens bodies. However, as I have pointed out here before, TvF seems to be used as a synonym for AGP in the DSM IV-TR. The DSM is like the bible of psychology.

Jokestress. I am sorry if I have made you feel shut out of this process in any way. I have actually been waiting to see what you would do with the article for a long while. I attempted to create the article you described as an umbrella for other articles on Transsexual sexuality. I just could not bring myself to put the word transgender in the title as that takes CD's, TV's, DQ's and lots of people who are not TS into the picture. There was a time when transgender was a synonym for transsexual. Used on webpages that were about transsexuals that did not contain porno. (Remember the results of say a Yahoo search of "transsexual" in say 1996. Nothing but Porno. Same search of "transgender" would get useful information on transsexuality) Now a days it does not carry that meaning. Anyway my point it I am open to help from anyone of any persuasion but you have to be here to do it.

--Hfarmer 19:26, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I will post just once more here since I did err in not signing my post properly. For that I apologize. Hfarmer, thank you for your suggestion, but the redirect for autogynephilia took me to the BBL theory, not transvestic fetishism. My understanding is that, while closely related, they are two separate paraphilias. And my point, as stated before, was that I went looking for the definition of a specific paraphilia (autogynephilia) and got redirected to a page that essentially critiques the theory (BBL) that did invent, but more importantly *applies* the paraphilic term to certain transsexuals. Should the need arise in the future, I will check out the article you mention. But for now, I'm done and again wish you all luck in eventually coming up with an accurate and readable article on the topic. It's certainly not there yet or reflective of a true encyclopedia entry. FYI, I was writing a piece on Wikipedia versus traditional encyclopedias. This article was one of several I chose to demonstrate where Wikipedia falls short for not having the final decision-making hand of a strong and competent editor. Respectfully, Spinfreeframe on July 28 2006. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Spinfreeframer (talk • contribs).

This is one of the most terrible articles I've read on Wikipedia. The writing is awful, the information scant, and the vehement opinions insulting to the reader. Keep it to facts. 71.194.162.220 10:13, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Hey dont look at me about the "vehement opinions" thing. When I wrote the article originally there was just a section about the fact the article was controversial. Which simply outlined the controversey. Since then others have been altering this page without discussion. (as opposed to anyone who has bothered to read/comment on the talk page). I am only going to have so much more time to write about this before the semester starts then my focus must shift. However I will be watching.

For now I think I will revert this to an earlier version with out as much opinonating peppered thoughtout the article. --Hfarmer 12:59, 30 July 2006 (UTC)