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Hello all! This is a follow-up blog to my previous blog on sexuality statistics and surveys as they relate to trans people. The last blog was mostly overwhelmed by a massive info-dump of information, interesting though it may be. I wanted to spend this blog’s length discussing some of my thoughts and interpretations of some of the existing data. I would like to note that *I am not a Sexologist or any kind of qualified expert on this subject*, though I try to do my due-diligence whenever it comes to sources, as well as to remain rigorous, I am still very fallible (even the experts are not infallible).
I have also included my sources as well in footnotes, as well as definitions for words that those not well-familiarized with trans jargon may be unfamiliar with below.
Social-Normality & Sexual-Flexibility:
I discussed it only towards the end of the previous blog, but one very fascinating finding (its all fascinating) is that some people have more sexual-flexibility, and this affects not only their personal capacity for gender-bending and queer-experiences, but also their tendency for expression of socially abnormal sexual tastes.
(Quick Note on “Abnormal Sexual Preferences”): As the author of “Tell Me What You Want” describes; “As a scientist, saying that something is normal is basically the same as saying that something is statistically common. In other words, a normal fantasy is one that a lot of other people have.” It will be similarly defined here… normality and abnormality are not value judgements.) (1. First Paragraph of Chapter Two in “Tell Me What You Want” by Justin Lehmiller)
Learning this was rather unsurprising to me, since BDSM-positive spaces have tended to be more trans-friendly from my personal experience, and to me, just one of many autistic tgirls, part of trans-living is living authentically as yourself regardless of the external social pressures that exist. Sometimes I get the sensation that this alone, this freedom and authenticity, makes some cis people uncomfortable.
Something else that's interesting is the statistical sex-differences found between men and women in regards to sexual-flexibility in orientation. Whilst the idea that all women are bisexual is a myth, they do seem to have a higher degree of sexual-flexibility than men, since women, and more particularly cis heterosexual women, are more likely to react with arousal to any form of porn (gay, lesbian, straight) than other demographics (2). There are many theories as to *why* these differences are, though, personally, I am prone to believe its likely a culturally / socially conditioned difference… slowly but surely, many differences are shown to be just this, or largely influenced by this at least (3) (4).
Furthermore, on another spectrum of sexual-flexibility, men are more likely to enjoy gender-bending fantasies (5. “Why Men Have More Gender-Bending Fantasies Than Women” Section of Chapter Three of “Tell Me What You Want” by Justin Lehmiller). This comes in both the form of fantasies about cross-dressers / genderbending peoples, as well as fantasies about cross-dressing or autogynophilia (a). I absolutely did not and do not want to talk about autogynophilia, but here we go… it is a theory that may accurately apply to some trans people, but which does not apply to a majority of us. Most transsexuals are not autogynephiles, and many autogynephiles are actually not, nor do they desire to be, transexual. Plus, definitionally, many cis women are actually autogynephilic (6). The original theory doesn’t even have a good account of trans men, even though autoandrophilia is also a recorded phenomena, though not much research on it exists (apologies to all of the transmascs that I know are reading, the world just hates us trans-women like no other, we get their attention… but I’ll discuss that more later). As to why men seem to be more likely to be attracted to these things? Well, once again, there are many theories already existing, though I agree with Justin Lehmiller that it is most likely a result of taboo, not the least of which is because those men are often more attracted to other taboos (5).
Repression & Fetishization:
Leading neatly from the previous topic of taboo, I am going to discuss repression and fetishization as it relates to trans people. I suspect that the phenomenon of chasers (b) relates to repression and the taboo surrounding us. This part is mostly anecdotal, but a large portion of the fetishizers and chasers I’ve personally encountered have been Republican men *and women*, almost never the types of people that those unfamiliar with chasers would expect them to be… and I live in a very liberal, urban part of Missouri, for context. Based on my discussions with other trans people this is the common trend. This makes sense in context to the aforementioned evidence that a lot of those men who are in one way or another attracted to gender-bending are more generally attracted to taboos, but also because as I also mentioned in the previous blog, many homophobes are (unconsciously) attracted to homosexuality (7). I take it much the same applies here.
The question of why all of this taboo leads to fetishization and attraction is another interesting path of discussion. It has been found that suppressing thoughts actually makes one more likely to think about that thing later (8), so theoretically there may be a similar process at play here regarding suppression and attraction. My guess, based off of the previous anecdotes, is that there is.
Trans People & Cis Lesbians:
I mentioned in the last blog how the evidence provided by the Blair-Hoskin study suggests that cis lesbians are actually quite open to dating trans people relative to most other demographics, even if it was still not a majority within that study (9). Though, this has interesting connections / implications when taken in relation to another survey that was undertaken. A 2023 survey undertaken by the Just Like Us LGBT+ Youth Charity found that, besides non-binary people, the most supportive of trans people were lesbians, with 95% saying they were supportive or very supportive and only 3% saying they were not (10) (11). Whilst dating and supporting are not the same criteria, nor the same thing, it is intriguing that so many cis lesbians might support trans people, but then not be open to dating them when they assumedly would be if they were some other intersection of person. However… I think this massive discrepancy is probably mostly the result of two things; firstly, that the Positive Futures survey only targeted people aged 18-25, with more than half of those participants being 18-21, whereas the other study had a participant age range from 18-81, and younger peoples are simply known to be more likely to be supportive of trans people (11) (12); secondly, that the methods of acquiring participants for the studies may have affected the results… It was difficult for me to find out exactly what the Positive Futures survey’s methods were though, so I am admittedly unsure about this.
There are some other possible factors that may have contributed, such as the locations of the studies, but I take it the latter two reasons were defining. It's also probable that there *are* some cis lesbians who are “supportive”, but do not wish to date trans people. However, I will not get into the topic of whether you can be “supportive”, but not see those same people as possible romantic partners of your appropriate sexual-romantic orientation, since it's a pretty contentious topic, even within the trans community. Regardless, I think it's pretty clear that lesbians are overwhelmingly one of the most supportive groups for trans people no matter your thoughts and metrics, and this is my personal experience too, which very deeply contradicts a lot of TERF rhetoric out there.
Trans & or 4 Trans :
It has only been passively mentioned up until now, but before I conclude, I do want to talk about the very beautiful topic of trans attraction for other trans people, as well as the partnerships that form between trans people, also known as T4T (c). T4T has mostly evolved as a kind of support movement among us trans people, since we often find a lot of mental understanding, meaningful connection, and deep support from each other, which we don’t always get from cis people, rather than that we are (at least in the high majority of cases) only attracted to other trans people.
T4T, both the term itself and the practice, is pretty old now, with the term’s origin in Craigslist personals from the early 2000s (13). It is hard to say how long in reality that trans people have been seeking out and or participating in relationships with other trans people though, not the least of which is because one would have to get into the weeds of when exactly “trans people started”. Despite some right-wing narratives, many cultures throughout history have had third-genders, or categories for people who move from one of the predominant binary positions to the other, but whether this is the same as being “trans” in the modern sense is actually debatable, since many of those cultures didn’t have the same frameworks for looking both at queerness, as well as cisheteronormativity, that we do today (14… I know this is just a link to a wiki page, but it's worth checking it’s sources).. Either way, it is easy for modern trans people to feel a kinship with these ancients. But as things stand for the modern day? I think T4T is a very beautiful thing!
Transmisogyny & My Conclusions:
If I had to draw any ultimate conclusions from some of the data I looked at... it is actually that my own theories, paired with the pre-existing theories, about “transmisogyny” are likely correct. Transmisogyny is the unique intersection that trans-women / trans-femmes experience through being both women and trans. Transmisogyny is itself really under a larger grouping of intersectionality known as “femphobia”, that is, the oppression and xenophobia society produces towards the feminine and towards feminine individuals of all kinds. What is the intersection between misogyny, rape culture, bottomphobia, fairy-hatred, transphobia, the history of black and colored women not being seen as “real women”, etc, etc, and Patriarchy more generally? It is femphobia.
The Blair-Hoskin study suggests that there is a sizable portion of people within almost all demographics that would date trans-men, but not trans-women, even if it would be more plausible for their labelled orientation to date trans women (the study calls this an incongruency), that is, when they were not just outright totally exclusionary. Other studies (seen in the previous blog) suggest that cis-men react more negatively towards trans-women than to other groups, but also that they *do* see trans-women as women… and therefore are more likely to treat us the way men treat women, which is to say; as objects, this also being supported by a single google search for “trans porn”. And following from that logic, we also experience more violence than trans mascs do on average (15).
The whole theory of autogynephilia that I mentioned earlier is incredibly trans-misogynistic. Even if many trans-women seemingly have transitioned for those reasons, the whole experience isn’t unique to trans-women, all whilst the original theorist claims that bisexuality doesn’t even exist amongst trans women, and then proceeds to completely forget about trans-men. And similarly, TERFs will treat trans-men like they’re just “confused lesbians” who are fundamentally good-intented and “can be saved”, but that trans-women are evil, sexual predators. They imagine that trans-women are malevolent masterminds, but that trans-men are kinda just confused sidecharacters.
And I cannot be clear enough, trans men experience transphobia too… they are trans afterall. They even will often experience misogyny and femphobia, particularly whenever society deems it that they do not “pass” well enough. The fact they’re so forgotten and pushed to the side is itself a unique form of oppression. But… for most of the world, the transmasc is a side-character, and the obsession lies in the transfemme.
So yeah, thats pretty much my overarching conclusion from the data; that transmisogyny is a very real phenomenon. If I want to put a positive spin to this, I guess the other conclusion is that ***intersectionality is incredibly important!*** But with all of that out of the way….. I just wanted to apologize for this blog being so much longer than the last one 😔. And to thank you for reading!🖤🖤🖤
(a). Autogynephilia is a very loaded word. Most generally defined it is “sexual arousal to the thought or action of dressing like / being a woman”. It comes from an old theory of trans-typology that saw it that all trans femmes who were at all attracted to women were just transitioning for personal sexual arousal. This theory is pretty much debunked, though it has been evidenced that some fraction of trans-woman do have reasons akin to this, as in Justin Lehmiller’s book, but that a larger majority do not.
(b). Chasers / Trans-Chasers are cis people who fetishize and actively seek trans partners (sometimes only one of MtF or FtM, sometimes both) usually with the intention of having sex.
(c). T4T / Trans4Trans is an acronym for trans people who are seeking relationships with or currently in a relationship with other trans people. There are other variations of this like: T4NB (Trans4Non-Binary) NB4NB, MtF4FtM, etc.
Comments
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brazillian1
Very interesting, thanks for sharing
Explorer of Wonder
Detail of vital importance: my philosophy believes in the irrelevance of free will.
If I remember correctly, I read (in a study I won't be able to cite) that transsexuality could be explained by the dissonance of certain key brain structures that determine whether a person identifies as male or female in relation to their body. The "problem" can be solved in two ways: either by altering the structures or by changing the body to match, FOR OBVIOUS REASONS IT IS EASIER TO CHANGE THE REST OF THE BODY. I see no logical reasons to mistreat people who simply want to solve a disorder with which they were born (I know it sounds harsh, but technically it is a disorder because it deviates from the norm / without negative connotation). Also, although it is a different topic, it is stupid to mistreat 49% of the population for no reason.
I am skeptical of bio-explanations of transexuality. Many of them come and go. Surely there is some relationship between biology and being trans, but as with a lot of the divides of gender, I think culture and social conditioning play a lot of the characteristic and quite likely defining roles. Which is not something that contradicts with a philosophy of determinism (whether that be super / predeterminism or deterministic probability, etc)... though personally I don't really fall under Free Will or Determinism since I follow more Eastern philosophical presumptions about reality rather than Western ones.
"I see no logical reasons to mistreat people who simply want to solve a disorder with which they were born (I know it sounds harsh, but technically it is a disorder because it deviates from the norm / without negative connotation)"
I understand what you are trying to say, but disorder also implies ailment, as in, sickness or disease, rather than statistical anomaly, which is not how I would describe being trans, nor would many trans people, even if it is often painful and uncomfortable. Plus, disorder is a loaded word.
by LuciLucilia; ; Report
It is true that many neurological explanations of behavior come and go. That entire area of knowledge is still unexplored. And clearly, there is an important social factor. But despite the connotation (to clarify that I did not want it to be included in the interpretation of my argument), it still falls under the definition of disorder; I quote the second definition: "an illness or condition that disrupts normal physical or mental functions." This definition does not necessarily imply illness. Being transgender is a condition (just as being anything else is the condition of being that), and it affects the subject's mental functions, placing them outside of the norm. Therefore, it is a disorder.
I know it sounds ugly, but the same applies to ASD (I know I just made one of those seemingly random connections; if you know me, you'll get used to it). ASD is, by definition, is a neurodevelopmental condition; there's no doubt about that. But what I want to emphasize is not that, but the fact that many "autistic" behaviors are actually consequences of the society in which we live and do not directly respond to the neurological substrate. And also, to the phenomenon that many autistic people would prefer a different term than Disorder, but since it remains a sufficiently rigorous term, it continues to be used regardless of the connotation (besides, the connotation would certainly shift to the new term).
For a while, the term disorder bothered me a little because it would imply something negative about me (Although I don't have a legal diagnosis because that would complicate my career before it even starts, I am in a situation of "undiagnosed, but everyone is very sure," including my primary psychologist. And that isn't the point of the argument). But then I understood that the connotation is a problem of the people, not of the facts themselves, since it meets the definition it is, but it doesn't mean anything bad in itself; it only means something bad if one decides that it is so (and that regardless of the name of the diagnosis or the diagnosis itself, I'm not normal; people would look at me badly regardless, sometimes with reasons and sometimes without them).
by Explorer of Wonder; ; Report
Finally getting around to responding to this...
Firstly, many psych professionals *are* shifting away from using "disorder" to describe a plethora of these different conditions and instead to the general "neurodivergent", which you yourself used. You say sufficient, but the "disordered" way of looking at neurodiversity has the effect of implying that the minor is somehow unusual or anormal, whereas they only seem unusual in context to the predominance of "neurotypicals". My point here being that it doesn't analyze the various neurotypes as a whole, instead looking at them only in context to eachother. People forget that neurodiversity started as a term with very real political and social goals.
Secondly, "disorder", the word itself, has negative implications that have existed since prior to the creation of the category of "mental disorders". Mental disorder sounds negative not just because it has gained stigma, but because the word "disorder" itself carries a lot of stigma. If someone says something is "disorderly" that implies a negative. Quite literally, the word is a negative-definition of order.
Third, and what I think is most important of all, you seem to want to ignore the social factor, even though its quite important. Slurs are just words with descriptions, technically, but what makes them is their social factor. The n-word describes a black person, would you say "But then I understood that the connotation is a problem of the people, not of the facts themselves, since it meets the definition it is, but it doesn't mean anything bad in itself; it only means something bad if one decides that it is so". There are, of course, people who use this very real defense to say slurs... which I would guess you're not one of those people, but my point is that the underlying logic is the same.
Words are not merely descriptions, they are social as well.
by LuciLucilia; ; Report
You are right. I have a very pronounced tendency to forget or want to forget social factors (unless of course I am consciously studying social behavior).
"There are, of course, people who use this very real defense to say slurs... which I would guess you're not one of those people, but my point is that the underlying logic is the same."
The fundamental difference is that those who do that want to give it that connotation, they just don't want the negative consequences of that action.
It's curious, you made me appreciate more the society I live in because while in Argentina we use the N-Word instead of its less offensive alternative (clearly the equivalent in Spanish). It's not usually a problem because nobody takes it the wrong way, nor is it usually intended to be taken the wrong way. Sometimes I forget that while we tend to use ethnicity as a nickname, our 'racism' is not a real problem, as it is in the rest of the world, like in the USA, Europe, Africa, and even our neighbors. Thank you for reminding me.
If disorder is not the appropriate word, what would be a better alternative? (Ideally, a term of no more than 3 words/j)
by Explorer of Wonder; ; Report
Neurodivergent / neurodivergence / neurodiversity would be a better term I feel, as I kinda stressed in the previous reply. Either way, you're welcomee!!
by LuciLucilia; ; Report
I was already using it for autism. I meant to replace it in the bio-neurological explanation of transgenderism (I can use the same word?), don't worry, it's okay to be stressed from time to time.
by Explorer of Wonder; ; Report
I am not sure I would use the word neurodivergent for trans people until its definitively proven to be a form of neurodivergence. For now, whilst I know theories exist, I am personally very unsure that its a form of neurodivergence, but perhaps it is, who knows.
by LuciLucilia; ; Report