Why the Autogynephilia and Drag Panics are a War on Gay Sexuality
If we are committed to everyone's equal right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, we need to resist this
Today, I want to talk about the autogynephilia problem again. I really don't want to do this, but the world out there is kind of forcing me to. Countless trans people and experts have pointed out the flaws in the so-called Blanchard typology, but it just won't go away. In fact, it's now being weaponized by the culture war right and gender critical feminists to discredit trans people and gender identity altogether. In the most extreme cases, some gender critical feminists are now promoting the idea that a trans woman might be sexually aroused just by presenting as female in public. What utter rubbish!
Let's be clear: trans women, as a general rule, do not experience autogynephilia. I personally do not know any trans woman who has experienced autogynephilia. Out there in the wider world, only a few trans women (e.g. Debbie Hayton, Anne Lawrence) have said they have experienced autogynephilia, with the rest mostly finding the concept alien and offensive. Given the overwhelming evidence that the vast majority of trans women are not autogynephilic, the insistence that many trans women transition because of autogynephilia is basically no better than a conspiracy theory at this point. Autogynephilia exists, but it doesn't seem to have much to do with gender transition, and the Venn diagram between autogynephilics and trans women show at most a small amount of overlap.
Recently, I decided to think about the autogynephilia panic in another way: where do you find autogynephilia in real life, if not in trans women? I mean, it has to exist somewhere, if it is so well described. Surprisingly, the answer seems to be gay men! Gay men, at least some of them, are known to 'worship' a certain kind of female pop star, like Madonna, Britney Spears and Lady Gaga. While some people think that gay men love these pop stars because of their support for the gay community and LGBT rights, the reality isn't so simple. Taylor Swift, for example, has been very openly supportive of LGBT rights too, but many gay men still don't think she qualifies as a 'gay icon'. Also, given that Swift is very feminine, I think this also shows that gay men worshiping female 'gay icons' isn't just about identifying with femininity.
It has been said that some gay men live vicariously through the sexuality of female pop stars. An article on 'diva worship' once stated that 'gay men live vicariously through divas who snare the handsome heterosexual men, and that we like to imagine ourselves in their place'. One thing that has been noticed about typical 'gay icons' is that they are almost always highly sexualized. Gay men themselves have said things like 'Britney's appeal for gay men rests in the way she brings together this sense of empowered sexuality with an essential vulnerability' and 'I could listen to [Britney's] music or watch her video and for a few minutes become a self-possessed, sexy, and sweet young woman with perfect makeup and a toned tummy, who gets all the cutest guys'. In other words, gay men like Britney because they fantasize about being Britney! And it seems that they mostly don't fantasize about being Taylor Swift, for example. All this fits the idea that at least some gay men who 'worship' female pop divas don't just want to be the average woman, or even an attractive woman, but rather, they want to be a highly sexualized version of a woman. It's not just the femininity, but the sexualized aspects, that fuels their fantasy. Sounds like autogynephilia? It surely does to me.
Which brings me to drag. I have long thought that there is a link between drag and 'diva worship'. Indeed, one of the articles quoted above went on to say that 'Britney is a drag queen'. While Britney certainly doesn't look like a drag queen, she is probably close to what drag queens want to portray themselves as, within the limitations of a male body. The exaggeratedness of drag is a way to express this essentially feminine sexuality within a masculine body. Thus, drag could arguably be said to be an expression of autogynephilia, at least in some cases. I think this is why drag appears to be sexualized sometimes, which is the excuse right-wing culture warriors have used to try to ban all drag performances in public areas (something which I have vehemently argued against, given that not all drag is sexualized). The connection between drag and 'diva worship' is even clearer in the case of Lady Gaga, whose style has often been compared to a drag queen. As one article discussing Lady Gaga's queer influences put it, 'during times when gay men couldn’t express ourselves the way we wanted, we sent these women out as our stand-ins, and they, in turn, paid homage to queer people who didn’t have the privilege of such visibility'. Thus, both drag queens and pop divas are manifestations of what some gay men fantasize themselves to be. Therefore, far from being a perverted sexuality found in some trans women, autogynephilia appears to actually be a normal aspect of gay male sexuality, and essential to express for the wellbeing of at least some gay men.
There are still some questions to resolve at this point. Firstly, Blanchard claims to have found autogynephilia in his trans research subjects. This is actually unsurprising. Anecdotally, the majority of trans women are attracted to men. Given that, especially before the 2010s, trans women tend to have transitioned later in life, many of them would have lived as gay men for many years. It is unsurprising that they would have shared in gay culture, and gay expressions of sexuality. Secondly, Blanchard claims to have found autogynephilia among his research subjects who were married to women. This is also not surprising. The late 20th century, when that research was conducted, was a very homophobic time. The AIDS crisis fueled the homophobic sentiment, and gay hate crimes were common. Most gay men probably felt the need to stay in the closet, get married and live a 'conventional' life. We all know that sexuality, when forcibly suppressed, often expresses itself in alternative ways. Therefore, it would make sense that the suppression of same-sex attraction would enhance autogynephilia, and make it sexually charged. A study has provided evidence that the kind of sexually charged autogynephilia described by Blanchard is associated with the cohort who lived through the homophobic late 20th century as adults, which points to it being the product of societal suppression of same-sex attraction and its expression.
It appears then, autogynephilia is a normal aspect of gay male sexuality, and is present in a substantial number of gay men. It also appears that, for those gay men, not allowing the expression of autogynephilia would amount to a forced suppression of their sexuality. Autogynephilia can be healthily and harmlessly expressed in a variety of ways, including drag. That reactionary culture warriors are concurrently targeting autogynephilia (although falsely locating it in trans women, they also often think of trans as a version of gay anyway) and drag actually makes sense, then. These things are both expressions of the idea that a man would want to be somehow like a woman in sexual way. This, in turn, is basically the basis of a long-standing war by homophobes on the sexuality of gay men. What we need to remember here is that, reactionary culture warriors have long had a problem with gay men and their sexuality. Homosexuality was not decriminalized across America and the West until I was in college, and still only against the protests of reactionaries everywhere, including then-President Bush. The next year the reactionaries promptly came up with a scare campaign against gay marriage, which some argue helped Bush get re-elected, but also scarred a whole generation of young gay men around my age. Throughout the next decade, the reactionaries tried everything to stop gay marriage from becoming legal, and some of those attempts eventually morphed into the 'groomer' libel we see today. As you can see, the reactionaries have never stopped targeting the gays, nor do they seem likely to. In this context, the current moral panic over autogynephilia and drag is just the latest phase of the war on gay sexuality, with trans women being somehow roped into it.
As a trans woman, I will not entirely understand gay men. As someone without autogynephilia, I will never understand how that feels. As an 'assimilationist' trans woman, drag is certainly not my thing. Finally, as a generally sex-negative person, I am not really comfortable talking too much about sexuality in general. Nevertheless, I have always been supportive of the idea that everyone deserves happiness in life, and realistically that would have to include adequate outlets to express one's sexuality, as long as it is within society's standards of decency. I have also long believed that these standards of decency must not be applied in a discriminatory way, or unproportionately burden gay people. This is why I have long staunchly supported marriage equality, for example. The expression of autogynephilia as drag is both harmless in most cases, and essential to the sexuality and self-expression of at least some gay men, and therefore their wellbeing and sense of liberation. As liberals, we should fight for their right to live happy lives like everyone else.
While some drag is indeed sexual, and should be restricted to adult audiences only, existing decency laws should already address that. On the other hand, we need to recognize that not all drag is too sexual for public consumption, and blanket bans are blatantly homophobic. Remember, not everything that has its roots in sexuality is inherently indecent or offensive. Holding hands with one's partner or sharing a kiss in public are inherently linked to sexuality at their root, but they are not considered indecent. If drag is inherently considered indecent, it would basically lead to different standards of repression for straight people and gay people, which would be discriminatory. It would be like if we reverted to being a society that banned gay men from holding hands in public. In a society that has legalized gay marriage and largely accepted gay people, those promoting moral panics over drag and autogynephilia are basically trying to turn the clock back to much darker times, and we must resist that.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who is the author of the Moral Libertarian Manifesto and the Moral Libertarian book series, which argue that liberalism is still the most moral and effective value system for the West.
She is also the author of The Trans Case Against Queer Theory and The TaraElla Story (her autobiography).
I admire that you speak candidly about your experiences as a trans person. But I disagree with your take on AGP.
Gay men who "live vicariously through divas who snare the handsome men" are expressing gay sexuality: they want to attract handsome men. It seems you're failing to understand what autogynephilia is, because it's not that.
Autogynephilia is sexual attraction to the female form, not the male form: breasts, vagina, curvy hips, etc. Gay males only want to possess those characteristics in order to make themselves desirable to straight men, because it's the MALE form that turns them on. Autogynephiles by contrast want to possess those characteristics because those characteristics directly turn them on: they want to make themselves desirable to THEMSELVES, because THEY are straight men — attracted to the female form.
"Anecdotally, most trans women are attracted to men." That's not true. It may be the case that your social network is majority homosexual males, but overall, the majority of males who adopt trans identities are heterosexual: exclusively, near-exclusively, or primarily attracted to females.
"Given the overwhelming evidence that the vast majority of trans women are not autogynephilic..." On the contrary, the evidence shows that the overwhelming majority of males who adopt trans identities are autogynephilic. Sexologists agree on this, and it's also self-evident from the content of online trans social networks, which are filled with porn that's clearly heterosexual, fetishistic role-reversal. It's plainly undeniable, the sexual — and heterosexual — flavour of so many men's ideas about themselves "as women."
In the past, homosexual transsexuals and autogynephilic transsexuals tended to keep apart. Perhaps you're not noticing how many autogynephiles there are because you're in a predominantly homosexual-transsexual social scene?