How I Learned to Love My Autogynephilia

Navigating Repression vs Integration

Me as a trans woman when I was super into makeup

I have autogynephilia. I have always had autogynephilia. It’s been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. In case you’ve been living under a sexological rock, autogynephilia is defined as the love of oneself as a woman. As a theoretical construct, it was coined by sex researcher and clinician Ray Blanchard in the late 1980s in order to explain why gynephilic (woman-attracted) mtf transsexuals transition as part of what is now called two-type Blanchardian typology.

Decades ago, Blanchard was running intake in a gender clinic in Canada and noticed that the transsexual women coming into his clinic seeking hormones and surgery generally fell into two groups: those who have always been exclusively attracted to men and naturally feminine from a young age and everyone else. The former group he called homosexual transsexuals (HSTS); the latter group, which includes asexuals, bisexuals, and heterosexuals, he called autogynephiles (AGPs).

Researchers like Harry Benjamin prior to Blanchard had categorized trans women into many more distinct subtypes but Blanchard tried to unify all previous research and his clinical experience into a simpler model that posited there are two basic types of trans women in terms of their motivation for transition: HSTS and AGP. Blaire White would be an HSTS type, and Caitlyn Jenner was would the classic AGP type. People get hung up on whether there are possible exceptions to this two-type model, but it’s better thought of as a useful working classification scheme rather than a super strict theory that hangs or falls on there being absolutely no edge cases or fuzziness between the two categories.

Why did he call them AGPs? Primarily because he noticed that in this second group of trans women they almost always shared a common narrative in their story of gender exploration: they reported a history of crossdressing fetishism and/or having a history of arousal and sexual fantasy in desiring to be a woman, whereas the homosexual types were much less likely to report such a history.

The idea was that AGPs were sexually attracted to the idea of themselves as being women or embodying womanhood and this was the root causal factor underlying their motivation to transition.

Which is not, of course, to say that there can’t be more complexity in people’s motivations given that human psychology is multifaceted, everyone is unique, and people usually have multiple reasons why they do what they do. Nevertheless, autogynephilies are different from HSTS insofar as they almost all have this uniquely erotic history of arousal in association with wanting to be a woman, which Blanchard speculated was a primary underlying motivator driving the development of gender dysphoria in this subgroup of trans women.

This was my story. For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by hosiery. Pantyhose, stockings, tights, etc. For whatever reason, my brain is deeply attracted to such things. Partly it is the specific sensation of the texture. Partly it is the feeling of “encasement” around my legs that feels good. Partly it is because it’s a strongly feminine-coded article of clothing and thus taboo for males to wear.

Why did I develop this interest? No idea. One theory of why fetishes for specific objects form is that spontaneous arousal is associated with a specific experience of an object. For example, a young boy might get a random boner while touching rubber boots and for the rest of his life he has a sexual fetish for rubber. For me, it was hosiery.

When I was a child, I also used to have these recurring dreams where I would be compelled by a gang of girls into dressing like a girl. Accordingly, I’ve had a lifelong interest in women’s clothing and fantasies wondering what it’d be like to be a woman. When I look at a feminine woman, it’s almost always a simultaneous feeling of “I am attracted to you” and also “I wish I could be you/wish I could wear what you’re wearing.”

Like many young AGPs, I would occasionally steal some of my mother’s clothing. I’m not particularly proud of that, but I’ve long since come to terms with the deep feelings of shame that have accompanied this sexual interest.

In my teens and twenties, I continued to cross dress, get aroused, and masturbate, which would often be followed up with feelings of shame. For the longest time I identified as a crossdresser. In high school, I also discovered that I was attracted to trans porn. I developed an intense attraction to the specific combination of breasts and a feminine body + a penis. I now understand this to be a sexual interest called gynoandromorphophilia (GAMP), which is defined as a sexual interest in that specific combination of male and female anatomy unique to transsexual women. Usually, GAMPs show a mostly heterosexual like pattern of sexual arousal but are more aroused by transsexual women than any other erotic stimuli. Being GAMP is also highly correlated with being AGP.

high school

Because it is not just that I was attracted to trans women; there was a part of me that wanted to be a trans woman. This was classic autosexual envy/desire. I was auto-GAMP or AGAMP.

In case you’re wondering, although I am attracted to the feminized male body I am not particularly attracted to the masculine male body. My androphilia is almost entirely reserved for feminine males. Big beards and hairy bodies just do not do it for me. Otherwise, I am a huge fan of the male body, so long as there is a bit of androgyny or femininity. Researchers like Blanchard call this pseudo-bisexuality or meta-attraction. But for me, it does not feel “pseudo.” I genuinely am attracted to the male body; I just like feminine males.

Anyway, when I was 27, my wife left me for a rich doctor she was seeing after she asked to open up our relationship after I caught her having an affair. There were probably other factors leading to the eventual demise of our marriage (such as me being a closeted crossdresser with mental health issues as well as a broke graduate student.) But I remember distinctly as I stood in the kitchen with her telling me she’s leaving that I felt incredibly sad and yet at the same time in the back of my head I knew what this newfound freedom meant: I now had the opportunity to explore my gender to my heart’s content.

before I transitioned

And explore I did! I started crossdressing more and more frequently, to the point that I wanted to basically cross dress fulltime. While yes, there was an underlying autogynephilic arousal element to this, another part manifested as simply a deep abiding desire to embody femininity that did not have an explicit arousal element. Thus, once I was crossdressing more or less all the time, there was a sense of comfort and euphoric desire for feminization rather than it simply just turning me on (which is not to say I stopped getting aroused altogether, but the nonerotic aspect grew larger than the erotic.)

This was in 2015, the trans tipping point. Caitlyn Jenner was in the news. Laverne Cox was on the cover of Time Magazine. I started talking to a therapist about my crossdressing and she planted the idea in my head that I might be trans. Prior to this, although I desired to transition and was fascinated by trans people (which I mostly understood through Jerry Springer and pornography), I was skeptical I might have been “really” trans because of my history of crossdressing fetishism. I wasn’t aware of AGP as a theory, which says that most trans women also have a sexual component to their gender fantasies.

But lo and behold, I went on reddit and found that the vast majority of trans women share similar stories of exploring their gender through the mechanism of crossdressing fetishism or through some other means of sexual fantasy. And rather than them telling me I am just a male with AGP, I was told all this was proof that I was in fact a woman inside.

me as baby trans

This is the heart of autogynephilia. The theory says that the erotic fantasy of being a woman, or embodying aspects stereotyped to womanhood, is the causal origin of gender dysphoria for trans women who are asexual, bisexual, or heterosexual. Phil Illy in his book Autoheterosexual: Attracted to Being the Other Sex has characterized autogynephilia as akin to a sexual orientation, which is like heterosexuality, but inverted inwards and applied to yourself, such that you are deeply attracted to being the other sex. You are attracted to femininity but you also want to be feminine. Envy/desire.

The theory has always been controversial because trans women don’t like to think that their desire to be a woman is ultimately rooted in sexuality. Trans women instead like to say that it is an inner repressed gender identity or “subconscious sex” that causes the fetishistic behavior as an outlet or coping mechanism until the gender identity is acknowledged and manifested. And as the ultimate cope, they say their sexual proclivities are in fact normal for women, which is really just a defense mechanism to protect the insecurity of their self-conception as women; AGP is nothing like normal female sexuality (though, of course, some minority of females manifest aspects of autosexuality.)

Personally, I favor the AGP theory simply because the theoretical construct of an “innate repressed gender identity” is pretty much impossible to measure and doesn’t explain why for many AGPs the identity side of things can emerge completely out of the blue after decades of acting like a regular heterosexual man. It seems more parsimonious to say the sexual orientation is there all along as the fundamental drive but then it gets elaborated into complex social and cognitive narratives and identities, which leads into the development of the self-conception of oneself as a woman.

Long story short, when I was 28 I took on the identity of a trans woman, started hormone replacement therapy, and got many rounds of laser hair removal on my beard. I lived as a trans woman for 8 years until I eventually detransitioned in 2023.

when I was trans I was very into taking fancy selfies

During my time living as a trans woman, I also fell in love with a woman and remarried (we are still married.)

I detransitioned partly due to from health complications from the estrogen therapy (pulmonary embolism and pancreatitis due to highly elevated triglycerides) and not wanting to be a lifelong medical patient and not wanting to castrate myself which was becoming increasingly more necessary so that I could get off the testosterone blockers. Since I didn’t want to castrate myself, I decided to come off the hormones, which then eventually led to social detransition as well.

initial detransition

A big part of the motivation was that I had grown tired of living as a trans woman and the constant self-consciousness that comes with not passing as female. Being a clocky trans woman almost inevitably leads to a low-level amount of self-consciousness, neuroticism, and social anxiety. It was mentally exhausting. I craved being “normal” and being able to blend into society as just a regular person without worrying about everyone walking on eggshells around me, nor myself walking on eggshells in my own brain. Detransition was a means to find normality and getting rid of the dualistic self-consciousness and social anxiety that had come to characterize my life as a trans woman.

For a long while after my detransition, I leaned heavily into masculinity. I wanted to just be a regular guy. I started getting engaged in the “manosphere” and trying to develop a positive conception of masculinity. In the manosphere, the solution to almost all men’s problem is hit the gym, lose weight, be masculine, and attempt to give off “alpha” vibes so that women will want to sleep with you.

me being masculine

I tried this tactic for a while. But my underlying AGP desires never fully went away. Especially now with testosterone surging in my system and my libido at full throttle, it became quite evident once again that my autosexuality is the strongest aspect of my sexuality.

I was now faced with a choice: do I repress my AGP to be a masculine man or do I learn to somehow integrate femininity into my male identity? For a brief period of time, I turned to conservative fundamentalist Christianity in order to “pray away the AGP” and attempt to be this masculine husband. It worked to some extent, but the whole ontology of sin, temptation, carnality, sexual immorality, etc., did a number on my psychology and I was constantly racked with shame, guilt, and temptation to “indulge” in my AGP.

I thought repression was needed to be the best husband I could be. I thought that religion would help me successfully repress my AGP desires. But I was wrong. Christ cannot cure AGP. For me, repression and AGP-chastity was long term psychologically impossible. I was torturing myself with guilt and shame and no amount of Bible reading and prayer was going to diminish my desire for feminization.

So, I eventually gave up the conservative Christianity, reverted to my previous esoteric/progressive spiritual inclinations that focus on mystical Christ consciousness without all the ontological trappings of sin and sexual morality, and started trying to instead integrate my AGP desires into my life as a man.

It is a delicate balance. Because I don’t want to go back to full-time crossdressing because of the social anxieties that involves. I am happy with my male body. I am happy running on testosterone. I feel much healthier with increased vigor and physical vitality. I am also happy with the gynecomastia that the years of estrogen gave me. I now try to integrate femininity into my life in little ways. Painting my nails. Shaving my body. Wearing makeup. Crossdressing around the house. Integrating bits of femininity into my masculine attire. I don’t think I’ve 100% “solved” the gender dysphoria that comes with AGP but I have come a long way in terms of coming to accept the reality of my natal sex.

There is definitely a strong element of this that still has an erotic, fetishistic element. But just as before, many years ago, the AGP does not only manifest in terms of explicit arousal, but also through simply a non-erotic desire to feminize that becomes normalized and integrated into my being in a nonsexual way. It is simply comfortable to be feminine. The root cause of this desire is ultimately sexual but it does not always manifest in an explicitly erotic way. It simply manifests as nonsexual gender nonconformity.

Except this time, I am learning to love my AGP without needing to further medicalize. Without adopting a “trans identity” and asking that everyone pretend I am a woman or asking people use she/her pronouns. I am no longer using female spaces (obviously). I am happy being male and living as just a feminine man with a penchant for crossdressing. I keep the most overtly fetishistic aspects behind closed doors in the comfort of my house. And all the nonsexual manifestations of my femininity are just integrated into my personality as a feminine man.

I am lucky my wife is as tolerant and open-minded as she is. Bless her. I have put her through a rollercoaster of change, especially with my brief foray into conservative Christianity and my attempt to repress AGP completely. That was really confusing for her, because she didn’t know whether repression was ultimately healthy or not. I told her at the time it was the healthier option, and so when I started indulging in AGP again she was concerned it was because I was indulging in an unhealthy addiction.

But now I realize that it is ultimately the total attempt at repression that is likely unhealthier long term, that some amount of integration is necessary. Furthermore, some amount of integrating femininity into my regular, daily, casual life is necessary to prevent my AGP from only manifesting in a totally fetishistic way, which is unhealthy in its own way. When it has a healthy outlet in my daily life, it becomes less fetishistic and looks more akin to simply gender nonconformity, which is probably healthier (although I still definitely have a good deal of autosexuality that manifests in an explicitly fetishistic way.)

It’s all about balance. It’s been a journey, but I feel good about where I am right now.

me integrating a bit of femininity into my male image