Is Autogynephilia a Paraphilia or an Orientation?

Understanding AGP's marketing problem

Photo by Tem Rysh on Unsplash

Autogynephilia (“AGP”) has a bit of a reputation problem. On the one hand, the term has become synonymous with every creepy, fetishistic, socially and sexually deviant trans woman or transvestite that goes viral on social media or otherwise ends up on the crime page of the local newspaper. On the other hand, there is a movement from folks like Phil Illy in his book Autoheterosexual to “destigmatize” AGP such that it’s understood simply as an inverted sexual orientation.

This move to destigmatize sexual behavior is often seen as something nefarious or socially deviant in its own right. I don’t buy this. Illy’s purpose isn’t necessarily to destigmatize AGP for any particular social or political purpose. It would be a mistake I think to characterize Phil Illy’s goal as destigmatization in and of itself. Rather, his goal is simply to understand the nature of the phenomenon scientifically and objectively. Destigmatization is often just a natural consequence of objectively understanding a phenomenon better, but the primary goal is just more objective knowledge of the phenomenon.

Why does this matter? Well, there’s been a move lately to identify a “third type” of male-to-female transsexualism, “ROGD boys,” who are young, autistic, nerdy, shy, introspective, sexually stunted in development, late bloomers, largely asexual, and don’t seem to fit the AGP stereotype of the 40-year-old married secret crossdressing sissy fetishist.

But how can we make sense of a phenomenon that is so varied in its presentation that it can give rise to such distinct forms? Are we really dealing with the same thing? How can it be both a paraphilia and a neutral orientation that gives rise to mild mannered autistic asexuality? How can it be something that gives rise to addictive and compulsive sexual behavior of the most extreme fetishistic variety while also giving rise to a cohort of young males that is completely repulsed by sex yet psychologically compelled by a deep desire to be the opposite sex?

In my opinion, the only way to understand AGP as something that can lead to both fetishistic, socially harmful behavior AND mostly asexual, mild-mannered, integrated transsexualism is to recognize it as a generalized disposition for sexual inversion, which may or may not lead to either explicit paraphilias, autoandrophobia, body dysmorphia, social role dysphoria, identity crises, attachment to a cross-sex narrative self, and a number of different psychological consequences of AGP that are quite diverse in presentation.

In other words, AGP itself as an underlying disposition of inversion should not necessarily be pathologized; it's only when that disposition manifests in ways that are harmful to self or others that we ought to moralize it.

Otherwise, it seems more helpful to first understand it as a psychological mechanism rather than immediately jump to its practical and social consequences, as both GCs and TRAs are tempted to do. GCs only want to focus on the negatives of AGP and TRAs only want to protect the reputation of their community by denying the dark side of AGP.

However, it is important to recognize that there are potentially negative social and practical consequences to this phenomenon depending on how the AGP manifests. The trans community ignores that at its peril and the GC movement has every right to point out these very real harms and potential dangers. The trans community will also not be served by attempting to say the "good" trans women have absolutely nothing in common with the "bad apples." It's important to recognize both the commonalities and the dissimilarities.

The commonality is the underlying disposition of sexual inversion. The dissimilarities would be the bad apples have a degree of social pathology in the personality that causes them to act out their sexuality in harmful ways that you just don’t see in AGPs with normal, well-adjusted personalities.

One difficulty here is teasing out the degree to which AGP being correlated with autism explains a lot of the social difficulties in AGPs integrating or adjusting into society well vs a genuine maladaptive personality structure such as sociopathy or narcissism.

Given the connection between autism and AGP and self-processing, as well as many anecdotal reports from trans widows about narcissistic behavior in AGPs, it would not be surprising if there were some mechanistic connection between AGP and maladaptive personality traits such as narcissism, though it does not seem clinical levels of pathology are intrinsic to the phenomenon of AGP itself.

Nevertheless, my contention is that the more we think of AGP as a disposition of inversion instead of thinking of it purely in terms of it being a "fetish," then the more people will be able to understand themselves as falling under the AGP etiology, which will lead to greater self-understanding, which leads to more socially adaptive behavior as well as better clinical management of AGP as a pathology.

The key to understanding the reality of autogynephilia is to see how it can be both a paraphilia and an orientation. Why? Because its nature as an “orientation” is just that heterosexuality becomes inverted upon itself. But that inversion process can lead to the development of paraphilias. A paraphilic orientation, if you will.

But not necessarily. That’s the key. That’s why AGP is not synonymous with fetish. In the asexual phenotype, the underlying orientation does not necessarily always develop into explicitly fetishistic paraphilias such as transvestism but nevertheless a strong emotional attachment to the idea of oneself as a woman can develop as a result of the orientation as well as strong repulsion by one’s male characteristics. This emotional attachment to the constructed narrative cross-sex identity can drive transition and sustain transition even in the absence of explicitly erotic libidinal energy.

The problem with the “AGP is just a misogynistic fetish” theory is that (1) it doesn’t fully explain the phenomenon and (2) it paints a caricature such that nobody is going to want, in polite society, identify with a concept that is explicitly synonymous with being a fetishist and nasty person, which creates a barrier to self-understanding, and therefore a barrier to positive behavior-change.

If we want to increase self-knowledge amongst the AGP population and drive positive behavior change that results from increased self-knowledge, it’s important to frame AGP in a purely objective, scientific manner that is neutral and descriptive, so that people can recognize themselves in the description of the mechanism of inverted sexuality without immediately fearing that this automatically makes them a bad, deviant person. To this end, I can’t recommend enough Phil Illy’s book Autoheterosexual.

In reality, you need both AGP as a disposition and a socially pathological personality in order to be a bad person and risk to society, not merely because one’s sexuality happens to be inverted.

Nevertheless, it is precisely by understanding the nature of what’s driving the development of the gender dysphoria that allows an AGP male to make a more informed and ethically-constrained decision about how to best manage his sexuality while respecting the rights of others (e.g. the rights of women to single-sex spaces.)