Talk:Blanchard's transsexualism typology

Notes From The Stone Age

Once upon a time a long time ago me and two other users, more or less, argued and fought and jousted to create these articles. I still correspond with them off WP from time to time. One was a comedian, the other a psychologist. Points they made that I recall will be attributed in that manner. You can read the talk pages of those old articles to see for yourself. That said here are some observations I hope will help in condensing and re-writing this article.

• Make sure that the first paragraph contains a summary of what Blanchard's typology is and the criticisms of it. The comedian made the point that most people won't read much beyond the first paragraph. Almost 20 years of Twitterfication of internet reading and I believe her. I wonder if people read beyond the title of an article a lot of the time.
• Make sure that you keep tightly to the peer reviewed published papers of Blanchard when describing his work and also to the similarly published works that refute or support his work. The psychologist was understandably big on that. Wikipedia may be stricter about that now. Back then a website by the right kind of person could suffice and be presented here as a refutation of such a work.
• Make sure the article is about the the subject not just the criticism and critique of the subject. This is what my mission here was, as I saw it, the comedian and the psychologist might not agree. The comedian wanted almost all of the article to be about the criticism. The psychologist would've had almost none of it. So much of the articles "Autogynephilia" and "Homosexual Transsexual" were about the criticism of the subject. They were about a controversy over a book from that time. Mention those but the article needs to be about the subject for the most part. ( By the by,It refers to sex not gender and so does not misgender. It does reduce transwomen who are into men to their sex drive)
• Last and most important keep this in mind. 'Everyone working on this is acting voluntarily and in good faith.' If I have learned anything by interacting with those people online in other forums and on other topics is that any argument over this does not matter. Just remember to relax.

Those are my points. Feel free to ignore all of it. What do us dinosaurs know?Hfarmer (talk) 16:03, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

You make a good point about the need to ensure the lead is complete. The lead is currently pretty short and contains just one sentence explaining what the typology is: "Blanchard categorized trans women into two groups: homosexual transsexuals who are attracted exclusively to men and are feminine in both behavior and appearance; and autogynephilic transsexuals who experience sexual arousal at the idea of having a female body (autogynephilia)." IMO this could be expanded to include 1) not only that he defines the first group by attraction (which the lead currently does mention), but that the second group is a collection of everyone else — those attracted to women, those attracted to "both", those attracted to "neither" (and hence alternately termed non-homosexual transsexuals). Other things the body devotes sections to which could be added to the lead: 2) why the typology and terminology have been criticized: the terminology for being confusing and misgendering, for which reason 3) alternative terminology has been proposed / is used by others for referring to the types of attraction Blanchard discusses; and the typology for reasons including e.g. that it posits autogynephilia as trans-only but 4) autogynephilia is also found in cis women. Also 5) that the typology or its terminology (homosexual, androphilic, etc) has sometimes been applied to trans men, and 6) a sentence (or two) summarizing the § Societal impact section. -sche (talk) 17:53, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Again I'm just sharing what I recall of our past perspectives and motivations. The page belongs to the present. Those all sound like reasonable things to add. I'd say given the current moment, and wanting to avoid an unending cycle of arguing about terminology.. the following.

"Blanchard's transsexualism typology states that there are two types of transsexual androphillic, and non-androphillic. Androphillic transsexuals are attracted to men, and are a 5-6 or the Kinsey scale (link to that article cite the papers for what they say). According to this typology other transexuals are non-androphillic and instead have a paraphilic attraction to the idea or image of themselves as a woman. This idea is controversial because it reduces transsexual women to their sexualities, it does not account for transmen, and has been used to further political actions against transwomen.

I'd sum it up that way. I am sure the comedian, you'll see which user that was in the archive of the talk page would not think I said enough about why its controversial. The psychologist would not like using androphillic vs non-androphillic. (I can't believe this issue has been a controversy for so long. A child born in 2007-2008 would be in high school now.)Hfarmer (talk) 16:53, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Agreed with sche here that the lead should be expanded, and basically in the way outlined. I also think that just a list of critics and supporters doesn't have a lot of encyclopedic value on its own. The article already makes it pretty clear that Blanchard, Bailey, and Lawrence support the theory, and that Serano, Moser, and others oppose it or parts of it. Loki (talk) 02:31, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

FWIW, I think it's obvious that "autogynephilia" should have its own page, and what really happened here is that Wikipedia got played by trans activists who couldn't stand the thought of someone googling "autogynephilia" and being directed to a Wikipedia page with a fair and accurate description of this subject matter. All the arguments about POV forks and everything else were just dishonest covers for this desire. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.113.130.250 (talk) 16:02, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

This is already that very page that you crave. It explains the term "autogynephilia" within its context of Blanchard's typology in a fair and accurate way. It makes strenuous effort to take the idea as seriously as it is physically possible to without straining a muscle. There is no point in a stand alone article as it would either have to refer back here for the entire conceptual framework within which the term "autogynephilia" exists or else just duplicate more than half of this article. I don't even think that there is anything more to say about it than we already say here. It would be completely redundant.

The problem is that you want to make it look like "autogynephilia" is an accepted thing, existing in the real world, separate from Blanchard's non-mainstream typology. That simply isn't something that is widely accepted. The only people who think that "autogynephilia" is real and meaningful are people who adhere to the typology. That's a very small group (dare I say fringe?) in the medical community even if the idea has caught, on to a limited extent, outside of academia.

It makes absolutely no sense to spin it out separately. It would be twice as much trouble for the editors and only make things more confusing and disjointed for the readers. DanielRigal (talk) 18:19, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

A few points in response. First, and most obviously, while you can say what you want about Ray Blanchard and his various claims. the CONCEPT of autogynephilia obviously describes a true phenomenon. Why do we know this? Well, in addition to Blanchard's and Bailey's observations, we have: (1) 100 years of data going all the way back to data collected by Magnus Hirschfeld that describe assigned males coming in to clinics and describing an erotic attraction to the notion of being a woman-- Hirschfeld, Kurt Freund, and others gave different names for this, but they all took down detailed histories (because back then, gender clinics gatekept rigorously) and there are in fact tons of documented autogynephiles; (2) clinicians have described fetishistic cross-dressing for decades (I should add, a totally different subject from transsexualism), and one of the causes of fetishistic cross-dressing is males who have an erotic attraction to being or becoming a woman; and (3) we have autogynephiles themselves, which includes not only AGP activists like Anne Lawrence but also even one of the person who led the attacks on Michael Bailey, who said herself that autogynephilia described her experience.

So when you say "I want to make it look like 'autogynephilia' is an accepted thing, existing in the real world", you are arguing from a position of unreality and proving my point. You obviously don't want this thing that exists to exist, in exactly the same way that a devout evangelical might not want Darwinian evolution to be true. And of course, coming from that position of denial of strongly evidenced reality, of course you don't want there to be a standalone Wikipedia page, for EXACTLY the reason I said-- because you don't want an authoritative encyclopedia to document this thing that you wish didn't exist even though it does.

Finally, the German Wikipedia page has a page for autogynephilia. German Wikipedia runs under the exact same rules as Engish language Wikipedia. And yet they have this page. That strongly suggests that your position is exactly what I said it is.

An encyclopedia that wants to be authoritative got played by a bunch of trans activists who really, truly, wish something isn't true and want to skew the discourse to misinform readers. That's the whole story here. (BTW the different IP address on my signature is because I am away from home while I type this.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.110.117.250 (talk) 02:31, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

One do not have to be a trans activist to say that Blanchard didn't prove that all gynephilic trans women transition because of sexual fantasies. To prove this, it would take a little more than simply finding such fantasies among a few groups of gynephilic trans women. Freud (who didn't focus on trans people and made such claims about humanity in general) also did not prove this kind of thing. This is Blanchard's point, not that some trans women have sexual fantasies related to having a female body. Neither scholars nor transgender rights activists argue with this. But autogynephilia is not a universally accepted term for this kink, there are scholars who prefer other terms. Reprarina (talk) 09:40, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

So what? There are many concepts out there where some scholars prefer some terms and some scholars prefer other terms. And it's not like Wikipedia just lists it under a different term (like Julia Serano's "Female Emobdiment Fantasy"). It doesn't list it all, instead subsuming it under a bunch of jargon ("Blanchard's Transsexualism Typology"), which is just obviously an attempt to bury the concept.

Here's the point. The CONCEPT is notable under the Wikipedia definition of that term. It's debated. It's discussed. Everyone talks about it. Indeed, even its use as a slur (which to be clear, I find deplorable) is itself evidence of notability. Everyone knows what AGP is. It has its own page in other languages on Wikipedia. So what is going on here?

Isn't it obvious? Trans activists hate this term. They have been out for blood against it ever since Michael Bailey wrote his book about it. And Wikipedia has allowed those activists to game the system here, to take a notable concept that absolutely deserves its own page and bury it, because it would hurt their feelings and perhaps harm their political project if someone googled the term and found a Wikipedia page for it. 47.145.135.156 (talk) 00:45, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I would add, that there seems to be an unfair standard implicitly being applied. To wit, that AGP must have some level of scholarly acceptance to merit its own article. It need not. It is possible that scholars of sexuality are minded to resist a standalone article because the concept is seen as fringe in academic circles. However, it can nevertheless be notable. Riposte97 (talk) 04:29, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Just because something is notable doesn't mean it is best covered in a standalone article. No one is disputing the notability of this concept, but as DanielRigal mentions, the concept is better covered in this article. Galobtter (talk) 04:49, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree - the Anglophone right have made such a fetish of this concept that it likely merits its own article. Most lay sources do not refer to it as part of a sexological typology.

However, I can see consensus is against me, so I won't press the point. Riposte97 (talk) 23:48, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Please can we not feed the trolls? Conspiratorial ranting is WP:NOTFORUM and generally gets us nowhere. We are not required to jump to attention just because a succession of IP addresses think that we are not giving their pet theory conjecture the walled garden of articles that they think it deserves. DanielRigal (talk) 12:11, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Claim all you want that wanting a separate article for AGP is just "conspiratorial ranting," but it's not and calling it that doesn't make it so. Hooky6 (talk) 01:42, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

If you think that, feel free to start a split request in a new section. I would strongly suggest that you include an array of independent and reliable sources that assert it's a notable topic in isolation from the typology however. You should also review all of the prior discussions both here and on Talk:Autogynephilia for why the article was merged into this one 14 years, and why the multiple attempts at recreating a stand-alone article have failed. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:54, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Controversy

Nowhere in the article is the explanatory status of the typology according to modern medicine indicated. Shouldn't the lead or body indicate the fringe or historical nature of the theory?

If one looks at other articles on fringe theories that have long been disproven, their academic status is clearly indicated.

The page for social degeneration does not say "controversial" for example. Adherents to that theory, and this theory, are ideological in nature, as there's no empirical data to support their validity. Many modern nazis adhere to the theory of social degeneration. The article simply refers to the theory matter-of-factly as historical, not controversial.

What is the general rule on Wikipedia for this sort of thing?

96.60.79.128 (talk) 01:04, 28 August 2024 (UTC)