Blanchard's transsexualism typology is a controversial theory proposed by American-Canadian sexologist Ray Blanchard which classifies transgender 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 (). Blanchard proposed the typology in a series of academic papers through the 1980s and 1990s, building on the work of earlier researchers such as Kurt Freund. Blanchard and his supporters argue that the typology explains differences between the two groups in childhood gender nonconformity, sexual orientation, history of sexual fetishism, and age of transition.
Blanchard's typology has attracted significant controversy, especially following the 2003 publication of J. Michael Bailey's book The Man Who Would Be Queen, which presented the typology to a general audience. Among professionals who work with transgender patients, Blanchard's typology and related theories are often considered discredited or unscientific. Scientific criticisms commonly made against Blanchard's research include that Blanchard's typology is unfalsifiable because supporters dismiss or ignore data that challenges the theory, that it failed to properly control against cisgender women rather than against cisgender men in rating levels of autogynephilia, and that when such studies are done they demonstrate most women, cis or trans, experience some level of autogynephilia.
The American Psychiatric Association includes with autogynephilia as a specifier to a diagnosis of transvestic disorder in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (2013) and in its 2022 text revision (DSM-5-TR); however, neither edition describes or lists it as a paraphilia. This addition to the DSM-5 was objected to by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), who argued that there was a lack of scientific consensus on and empirical evidence for the concept of autogynephilia. Neither the DSM-5 nor the DSM-5-TR assert that transgender and transsexual women fall under these categories.
Background Early clinicians described and categorized trans people in a variety of ways. These were at first mainly based on sexual orientation. Later, age of onset of gender-identity disorder was considered as well. People on the transgender-spectrum who were assigned male at birth (AMAB) were put into one of two categories: transsexuals and transvestites. Transsexuals socially and/or physically transitioned, while transvestites sometimes wore clothing associated with women.
An AMAB transsexual (or trans woman) was viewed as a man with a feminized brain, and as such would be assumed to have a feminine gender expression and an attraction to men. This was called the "classical transsexual." AMAB transvestites were assumed to be heterosexual men who wore feminine clothing and experienced sexual arousal from doing so. These labels carried a social stigma of mere sexual fetishism, and contradicted trans women's self-identification as heterosexual or homosexual, respectively. In the 1970s and '80s, this view was brought into question, as some trans women's experiences did not fit into a classical transsexual model.
In 1982, Kurt Freund argued that there were two distinct types of trans women: one type associated with childhood femininity and androphilia (attraction to men), and another associated with fetishism and gynephilia (attraction to women). Freund posited that these two types had different causes, and studied sexual arousal in the latter type. His study focused on fetishistic cross-dressing, but he believed that that was only one expression of fetishism, alongside other feminine-typical behaviors, such as applying makeup or shaving the legs. Blanchard credited Freund with being the first author to distinguish between fantasizing as the opposite sex only when sexually aroused (transvestic fetishism) and erotic arousal due to fantasizing about being female (which he called cross-gender fetishism).
Theory and definitions The typology proposes a typology of transgender women where they are placed into two distinct classes based on sexual orientation: "homosexual transsexuals" (often abbreviated as HSTS) who are exclusively attracted to men, and "autogynephilic transsexuals" (often abbreviated as AGP) or "nonhomosexual transsexuals" who are not exclusively attracted to men and who experience autogynephilia, or a sexual attraction to the idea of themselves as a woman. Homosexual transsexuals Blanchard uses the term "homosexual" relative to the person's sex assignment at birth, not their current gender identity. In addition to being attracted exclusively to men, the typology asserts that homosexual transsexuals transition younger and report more femininity in childhood.
The use of the word "homosexual" to describe trans women who are attracted to men has been criticized by other researchers.Diamond M (2006). Biased-Interaction theory of psychosexual development: "how does one know if one is male or female?" Sex Roles It has been described as archaic, confusing, pejorative, offensive,James A (2006), "A defining moment in our history: Examining disease models of gender identity". Gender Medicine. 3:56 and heterosexist. Some researchers have suggested using the term androphilia (attraction to men) as a more neutral descriptor for sexual orientation.
Autogynephilia Blanchard states that "nonhomosexual" transsexuals exhibit autogynephilia, which he defines as a paraphilic tendency to be aroused by the thought of being a woman.
Autogynephilia is a term coined by Blanchard for "a male's propensity to be sexually aroused by the thought of himself as a female". The term's meaning was later expanded to refer to "the full gamut of erotically arousing cross-gender behaviors and fantasies". He asserts that this interest is a type of erotic target location error, a term he also coined. Blanchard states that he intended the term to subsume transvestism, including for sexual ideas in which feminine clothing plays only a small or no role at all.
Other terms for such cross-gender fantasies and behaviors include automonosexuality, eonism, and sexo-aesthetic inversion. It is not generally disputed that such cross-gender fantasies and behaviors exist in some transgender women. The disputed aspects of Blanchard's theory are the implications that autogynephilia is the central motivation for non-androphilic transsexuals while being absent in androphilic ones, the characterisation of autogynephilia as a paraphilia, and the refusal to believe the testimony of non-androphilic transsexuals who deny experiencing autogynephilia or androphilic transsexuals who report experiencing it.
Relationship to gender dysphoria The current mainstream explanation for a trans person's desire to transition is gender dysphoria, or mental distress due to a mismatch between their internal sense of gender (gender identity) and their external experience of a gendered body, expectations, and behavior. Supporters of the theory such as Lawrence assert that autogynephilia causes a female gender identity to develop, which causes gender dysphoria. However, opponents such as Serano assert that a pre-existing female gender identity causes gender dysphoria, and then in some cases gender dysphoria causes the cross-gender fantasies and behaviors that are described by the typology as autogynephilic.
A 2011 study by Larry Nuttbrock et al. interviewed 571 MtF transsexuals in New York City and found that 73.2% of non-androphilic interviewees reported transvestic fetishism compared to 23.0% of androphilic ones. The former also had a split between gynephilic and bisexual (81.7% and 67.7%). They concluded that the differences were "significant" but implied "strong associations" rather than a rigid division.
As a sexual orientation Blanchard and Lawrence have classified autogynephilia as a sexual orientation. Blanchard attributed to Magnus Hirschfeld the notion that some cross-dressing men are sexually aroused by the image of themselves as female.Hirschfeld, M. (1948). Sexual anomalies. New York: Emerson. (The concept of a taxonomy based on transsexual sexuality was refined by endocrinologist Harry Benjamin in the Benjamin Scale in 1966,Benjamin H (1966). The Transsexual Phenomenon. The Julian Press ASIN: B0007HXA76 who wrote that researchers of his day thought attraction to men while feeling oneself to be a woman was the factor that distinguished a transsexual from a transvestite (who "is a man [and] feels himself to be one").) Blanchard and Lawrence argue that just like more common sexual orientations such as heterosexuality and homosexuality, it is not only reflected by penile responses to erotic stimuli, but also includes the capacity for pair bond formation and romantic love.
Later studies have found little empirical support for autogynephilia as a sexual identity classification, and sexual orientation is generally understood to be distinct from gender identity. Elke Stefanie Smith and colleagues describe Blanchard's approach as "highly controversial as it could erroneously suggest an erotic background" to transsexualism.
Serano says the idea is generally disproven within the context of gender transition as trans women who are on feminizing hormone therapy, especially on anti-androgens, experience a severe drop and in some cases complete loss in libido. Despite this the vast majority of transgender women continue their transition.
Subtypes Blanchard identified four types of autogynephilic sexual fantasy, but stated that co-occurrence of types was common.
Transvestic autogynephilia: arousal to the act or fantasy of wearing typically feminine clothing Behavioral autogynephilia: arousal to the act or fantasy of doing something regarded as feminine Physiologic autogynephilia: arousal to fantasies of body functions specific to people regarded as female Anatomic autogynephilia: arousal to the fantasy of having a normative woman's body, or parts of one
Transgender men Blanchard's typology is mainly concerned with transgender women. Richard Ekins and Dave King state that trans men are absent from the typology, while Blanchard, Cantor, and Katherine Sutton distinguish between gynephilic and androphilic trans men. They state that gynephilic trans men are the counterparts of androphilic trans women, that they experience strong childhood gender nonconformity, and that they generally begin to seek sex reassignment in their mid-twenties. They describe androphilic trans men as a rare but distinct group, and, according to Blanchard, are often specifically attracted to gay men. Cantor and Sutton state that while this may seem analogous to autogynephilia, no distinct paraphilia for this has been identified. However, when other sexologists extended Blanchard's work, they coined the phrase autoandrophilia as the counterpart to autogynephilia in those assigned female at birth.
Research
Blanchard's early research Blanchard conducted a series of studies on people with gender dysphoria, analyzing the files of cases seen in the Gender Identity Clinic of the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry and comparing them on multiple characteristics. These studies have been criticized as bad science for being unfalsifiable, as observations inconsistent with the theory are assumed to be the result of a false denial and for failing to sufficiently operationalize their definitions. They have also been criticized for lacking reproducibility, and for a lack of a control group of cisgender women. Supporters of the typology deny these allegations.