Globe and Mail
MARGARET WENTE

In the prevailing narrative, people like Roy are essentially women trapped in the bodies of men. But there is another theory, one that's deeply unpopular, to say the least. It holds that they are really men with an unusual psychological quirk: a male deviation called  ->-bleeped-<-.

This theory is largely based on research studies conducted at Toronto's Clarke Institute during the 1980s and 90s. It found that some men who seek sex changes are driven mainly by an intense erotic fascination with dressing up as women. The researchers found that as they get older, these men (predominantly heterosexual) become increasingly eager to add more realism to their presentations through surgery.

I won't dignify it with a response.


Sarah L.

Quote from: LostInTime on August 25, 2007, 08:25:26 AM
Globe and Mail

This theory is largely based on research studies conducted at Toronto's Clarke Institute during the 1980s and 90s. It found that some men who seek sex changes are driven mainly by an intense erotic fascination with dressing up as women. The researchers found that as they get older, these men (predominantly heterosexual) become increasingly eager to add more realism to their presentations through surgery.

If Bailey, Blanchard and Lawrence left it at "some," I'd have no argument with the 'finding.'  But when they proclaimed that there is no gender reason for transition and that the many of us who believe gender identity to be our reason for transition are lying, I drew the line. 

I spent some time on an  ->-bleeped-<- news list to discuss the extent of applicability of AG.  The AG people always ended up resorting to "because I said so" or to ad hominem attacks.  A grain of truth, probably, but presented as the only truth for us misguided liars. 

I'm sorry to see the imbroglio starting anew.  I will not write another news article about it.

Robyn

This old theory has been gaining publicity again because of Alice Dreger's article defending J. Michael Bailey.  I finished reading her article a day or so ago and I was struck by something.

Apparently the originators of  ->-bleeped-<- as the only cause of GID in older MtF transwomen are all cisgendered.  They aren't trans at all except for Anne Lawrence and it seems she is moving away from the all or nothing approach that Blanchard and Baily espouse.

It seems to me that they have their cause and effect mixed up, something that happens now and then in scientific research.  And the reason I think they got it mixed up is because they really have no idea what the experience of being transsexual is.  They might have an intellectual understanding but it doesn't look like that to me.

If I honestly look at the theory and my own life, from the outside in, it seems that I would fall under the category of being autogynephillic.  My personal, subjective experience, however, does not agree.  In my view you get the symptom of  ->-bleeped-<- if you mix a female oriented brain with a male body's testosterone and combine it with a sexual attraction to other women.  Plus, it should be noted that orgasm seems to relieve the pressure and anxiety  of the dysphoria, if only for a short time.  At least, that was mainly my experience.  It's a symptom, not a cause.

I don't know of anyone who has investigated this possibility.  Those who support the theory seem to have circled the wagons and gone into such a defensive mode that any modification of their beliefs becomes impossible and those who are against it have raised such a hue and cry that no objective researcher will dare go into it for fear of offending one or the other camp and getting raked over the coals the way Baily has been.  I'm sorry that Dreger's article has stirred up the coals once more since the camps seem to be entrenching even deeper now and the real losers become our community because no one is willing to enter the research with an open mind anymore.

I wish and hope that changes, sooner rather than later.

hugs & smiles
Emelye

Quote from: Emelye on August 25, 2007, 11:40:20 AM
It seems to me that they have their cause and effect mixed up, something that happens now and then in scientific research.  And the reason I think they got it mixed up is because they really have no idea what the experience of being transsexual is.  They might have an intellectual understanding but it doesn't look like that to me.

Exactly my thinking on it.

I saw it mentioned somewhere that the motivation for the theory was that these people simply could not fathom the concept of a "gender identity." They figured it was all a delusion, and looked for another explanation.

But the thing is, "normal" people aren't aware of a gender identity simply because they have nothing to contrast it against. You can't see black on black.

On the other hand, GID people are painfully aware of it 24/7, because their life roles and physical traits expose it in contrast. It stands out, an inescapable incongruence that IS one's life.

QuoteIn my view you get the symptom of  ->-bleeped-<- if you mix a female oriented brain with a male body's testosterone and combine it with a sexual attraction to other women.

And/or also mistaking a vicarious experience of sex *though* women for being sexually attracted TO them. At least that's how I explain myself to me, lol...

~Kate~

Throw something else into the mix here...

There is a spectrum where at one end you have people who see systemic causality in events -- the "A butterfly farting in Asia can lead to a Class-5 hurricane 6 months later" view of causality (an extreme example of chaos theory,) and at the other end are those who can only see direct causality (an example being Fred Phelps saying that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for the Godly Nation of the United States not doing anything about the ->-bleeped-<-s that God Hates.

It seems to me that Bailey, Blanchard and whoever else from the Jurassic Clark have a view of direct causation of transsexuality -- you do it because you somehow 'learned' to get off that way (thus, you can be made to unlearn it,) rather than you are that way because many of the settings of the subsystems that make up the brain/mind are such that you are in fact a gender opposite the sex plumbing of the body your brain was equipped with.

'Course, we all know that.  The hard part is getting blissfully, ignorantly normalized cisgenders to see it that way, especially when they are defending core ideas such as we are all blank slates and are thus the sum of what our parents taught us and thus homosexuality and other deviance is only wrong upbringing + choice -- especially when 'doctors' keep putting out faulty 'studies' that are then used to defend the desired outcome.

Karen

Personally I have to wonder how they even came up with the study in the first place. Sure people have some strange kinks but... let me get this straight, a desire for a more realistic presentation though 'surgery' which... pretty much toasts the ability to like, you know, have meaningful sex and all? Now granted today we end up in decent shape, but initially it was a mess and ... not a pretty setup and we did it anyway. Um, do they just close their eyes to that perhaps? ^*shrug* I don't know it just seems... well, smelly.

But that said I find the concept of  ->-bleeped-<- very offensive, I mean seriously I am a virgin (literal in the bloody true sense of the word; I have never had sex with anything, thank you very much); Sense HRT started just shy of two years ago I have had perhaps 4 sessions of 'sexual' thoughts; That in that time frame is.. not often, and that pleases me. Previous to HRT I had sex burning in my veins very very much unwanted. So, if I am doing this because I some how get my rocks off 'being a woman' then it seems to me I am failing so badly it kind of.. you know, tilts the meeter? Like HELLO! But ^*shrug* I doubt they want that data to be honest, something like the pioneer transsexuals which had no hope of a sex life and it didn't matter enough to stop them. I.e. crackpot I suppose is the term; but, people see that don't they? Why does this goofie thought gain any attention at all? Doth no one care? I imagine that is it really, after all, who does really care... save those of us mired in it or those close to us.

^{*sighs and shrugs*}

Quote from: Kimberly on August 25, 2007, 04:45:53 PMPrevious to HRT I had sex burning in my veins very very much unwanted. So, if I am doing this because I some how get my rocks off 'being a woman' then it seems to me I am failing so badly it kind of.. you know, tilts the meeter? Like HELLO!

Yeah, seriously. Coming out trans is very much the unsexiest thing ever happened to me. I've gone from having some form of sexuality to, now, effectively zero. F***in' mad scientists don't even know the subject they're studying.