Back in the annals of history, or October 2022 to be exact, I penned a post called ‘The Woman in the Mirror’. In it, I tried to figure out what was driving me to transform myself into the best possible version of womanhood; was it attraction to the woman in the mirror or was it the inner feelings that come from the realisation that my external presentation matched my inner psyche? In the end, I decided that it didn’t matter.
But over the nearly four years since that post first saw the light of day, I’ve got my presentation to a level that if Amanda was a separate person to me, I’d date her in a heartbeat (or at least I’d try to date her but the truth is that she’s so far out of my league that it’d really be pointless asking). But I’ve also broken free from the shackles of the closet and experienced the euphoria of walking amongst the general population in the outside world and being treated as the woman I’ve always wished I was. That feeling of euphoria is a feeling that, if you‘ve experienced it yourself, no further explanation is necessary and if you haven’t, no amount of explanation can ever fully describe. So it’s fair to say that the attraction I have for both Amanda’s looks and her life have grown over the past few years.
Deep down, I’ve always felt that those two states were mutually exclusive. If Amanda was indeed my ‘true self’, then I should not feel any attraction to her. Or if she’s just a woman who, for want of a better expression, I’ve got the hots for, then I can’t really then go on to assert that I’m a woman at heart in the next breath. In the ‘Mirror’ post, I attempted to square the circle by deciding that it depends on the situation – sometimes my need is to feel complete as a person and to resolve my anxieties surrounding my identity. Other times, I’m just happy to look admiringly at her and the warm feeling inside is purely and simply because I’ve found a woman that doesn’t run away when I approach her and smiles back when I smile at her (sadly, a rarity in my normal life!). But now, four years on, I’m starting to think that instead of being mutually exclusive, those two states can coexist.
Of course, I’m supposed to declare not only that I am really a woman but also that I always have been (despite my chromosomes, 65 years of testosterone and my lived experience begging to differ). I’m supposed to attribute my transgender leanings to my DNA or being overdosed with oestrogen in the womb, possibly as a result of my mother almost certainly taking DES early in pregnancy, not somehow driven by attraction to my feminised self, even if I declare that it’s only part of the story.
Ever since I first learned of the possible connection between DES and transgenderism in the mid-2010s, it’s been my go-to explanation for why I feel the need to cross the gender divide, both emotionally and physically, from time to time. It’s an ideal explanation which for me was to all intents and purposes provable; my mother always talked about being prescribed medication early in her pregnancy although she couldn’t remember what it was. To me DES seemed a logical identification of the mystery drug and, as it seemed to tick all the right boxes, I felt comfortable that I’d at last been able to get a plausible reason for being the way that I am. And when, backed into a corner, I had no option other than to confess to Mrs A for a second time in early 2023, I included this explanation in my prepared script. Whether it was a contributory factor in Mrs A giving her blessing for DADT or whether her mind was already made up, I know not but it certainly didn’t harm things.
But I have to confess to more than a little scepticism about DES and other similar explanations. The evidence is largely anecdotal and the theories don’t explain why I seemingly have a burning desire to present in a feminine way but have displayed no other feminine traits in my life. Also, there’s no absolute correlation between mothers taking DES and sons displaying transgenderism – DES is neither necessary nor sufficient in this regard. We can perhaps explain that away, at least in part, by asserting that DES is only one of the several ways that a male foetus can be overdosed with oestrogen in utero and that’s a valid assertion to make. But even if we overlook a lack of feminine traits, we have the problem of twins where one is transgender and the other isn’t and yet their foetuses developed in the same environment at the same time (and whilst this holds true for fraternal twins, the situation with identical twins also brings into question any DNA-related explanations given that their DNA is identical).
So whilst I have doggedly stuck to this explanation, my increasing scepticism has prompted me to resume my search for answers.
As I suggested above, the question of my attraction to Amanda continued to trouble me. It’s almost inevitable that male me would feel some attraction to Amanda; I’m heterosexual and my inspiration is drawn from those feminine looks that I find attractive. And in a wider context, ‘passing’ has really come to mean being indistinguishable from not only a natal woman but an attractive one with the evidence to support that assertion there for all to see in places like Flickr and Reddit. But what I found perplexing is that once the transformation is complete, there are far deeper feelings at play than just attraction and there’s absolutely no sense of eroticism . I experience profound feelings that everything is exactly as it should be, not only in the way that I look but also, since I’ve been confident in the outside world, the way I interact with the environment in general and with other people in particular. In short, it all just feels completely natural. So how come male me feels a strong attraction while female me just feels at one with the feminine world? What was I missing here? In the end, I turned to AI in the hope that it would provide some desperately needed insight. And it did in a surprising way.
The ‘conversation’ soon focussed on autogynephilia or AGP and the AI suggested I consult the writings of Dr Anne Lawrence.
Straight away, I was apprehensive. I’m well aware of the general attitudes to AGP within the wider trans community, not least because when I was a regular at susans.com, any discussion of it either by name or just in general terms, was immediately shut down by the moderators. Even a ‘newbie’ to the site who posted what I felt was a reasonable question – something along the lines of ‘is attraction at the root of why I feel this way?’ – was immediately told in no uncertain terms that the terms of services of Susan’s Place expressly forbade any discussion of that particular topic and the thread was locked. And for that reason alone, there was always a question in my mind – if the idea of AGP is so flawed, why ban any mention of it rather than just calmly dismantle the theory? What were they so scared of?
Moreover, didn’t the fact that I get no physical ‘pleasure’ from being Amanda effectively discount AGP as a possibility? And what about those feelings that everything is as it should be when I’m out and about? They’re not driven by any attraction to my feminine form, just a warm feeling that comes from being treated exactly as I want to be treated by others.
And with all of those questions in my mind, I took the plunge and downloaded Lawrence’s book ‘ Men Trapped in Men’s Bodies’ from her website (annelawrence.com). The title itself is intriguing; it’s obviously a play on the old ‘woman trapped in a man’s body’ cliché but the twist is that it’s apparently normal men who feel trapped, their male bodies effectively making feminine expression taboo. And the more I thought about that, the more I realised how much I identified with that idea. I’ve never felt that nature somehow made a mistake saddling a female psyche with a male body and even now that I’m completely comfortable in Amanda’s persona I still emotionally feel that I’m part spectator, part guest in the feminine world. But the trapping comes from society; a society which says that it’s OK for women to wear what they like, regardless of which side of the aisle it was originally produced for, but men have to be men. In most respects, I’m quite happy being a female presenting male – the best of both worlds you could say – but I’m only at liberty to fully enjoy one of those worlds.
As for the book itself, Lawrence is, as she states, transsexual and a self-identified autogynephile. The book is a review of research conducted with 249 ‘non-homosexual transsexuals’ at various stages on the transition continuum from non-transitioning to post operative, all of whom additionally self-identify as autogynephiles. On opening the downloaded file, I quickly realised that the book was not going to be the entertaining read I’d hoped for but a fairly heavy academic work full of references to other academic works. On that basis, I decided that the index was a good place to start since that would enable me to home in on topics of interest.
It would be impossible to summarise the book here so I’m not going to attempt it. What’s important is that the basic definition of AGP is centred on erotic arousal from the idea of being female. Four categories of AGP are listed – transvestic (arousal from the idea of dressing like a woman), behavioural (acting like a woman), physiologic (having the physiological functions of a woman) and anatomic (having the body of a woman). What then follows is a deep dive into the research which includes many quotes from the subjects of the research, a high proportion of which go into areas way beyond what would be acceptable to reproduce here.
That should have been enough to stop me going any further down this particular rabbit hole but the truth is that as Amanda has evolved as a facet of my personality, I’ve felt a high degree of arousal both at the thought of being her and, as I’ve become comfortable and confident in her persona, from actually living life in her shoes, albeit fleetingly. But to be clear, it’s not erotic arousal but emotional arousal – what is often referred to as gender euphoria. Or to put it more simply, I feel good when I can present as Amanda. And when I mentally stripped away the more NFSW quotes from her research subjects, I found a high degree of correlation between their experiences and mine. Buried in and amongst all of the inappropriate stuff, I started to find a compelling possible explanation for why I’m the way that I am. Or to spell it out, I started to wonder whether some form of attraction was at the root of all of this rather than just being a by-product of it?
It’s an interesting thought. As humans, we’re programmed to find other humans attractive but within that, we each have unique preferences. Straight v gay is the obvious example but we may be attracted to a certain skin colour, clothing style, personality, or any of a myriad other traits and possibilities and my particular preferences will almost certainly not be the same as yours. And just because we may be attracted to someone we encounter, it doesn’t mean that we’ll get an overt sexual response; often, it’s just an emotional response that we experience – perhaps a smile or a gentle brush of the arm that makes us feel an emotional connection and good inside. And, as a theory, it also overcomes the flaws inherent in other theories. It doesn’t rely on prenatal oestrogen exposure, DNA or exhibition of feminine traits. It just relies on the same mechanisms of the mind that determine our preference for women or men, brunettes or blondes, caucasians or Asians and so on.
But the critical point here, and it’s a point that comes out in Lawrence’s writings, is that it doesn’t matter at all and a proportion of her subjects had transitioned to some degree and were far happier as a result. And why should it matter? We don’t try to analyse gay people and worry about why they have a particular attraction to others of the same sex and I’m sure that they don’t either. We all just accept that’s the way they are.
Needless to say, there’s a big problem here. Explanations based on birth conditions tend to legitimise us in the eyes of others, particularly if gender dysphoria is added to the mix. But an explanation based on self-attraction, particularly if it seen to have an erotic or fetishistic basis, gives us no such protection. I may declare that I do not experience any such responses but does society at large have the ability to understand the nuances at play here? Would those wonderful women who’ve been so welcoming and complimentary in their interactions with me have been quite so enthusiastic if they thought they were just being expected to participate in my fantasy? And are any of us ever going to admit to our wives that, to all intents and purposes, they’re in a competition for our affections even if that competition exists only in our subconscious?
And that’s my dilemma. I’m completely comfortable with the idea that Amanda is the embodiment of my preferences even though she happens to be me. I’m happy that I’ve found a viable explanation that seems to fit far better than anything else I’ve ever heard. I’m particularly proud that Amanda seems to be the sort of person that others warm to, something I can’t say is always a feature of my normal life. But at the time when we seek unconditional acceptance in society, I can well understand why this is a subject not to be discussed. That prenatal oestrogen bath, flawed though it is as a theory, is what gives us legitimacy; it tells the world that we’re this way through no fault of our own and we’re just trying to navigate life along the best path.
And as I bring this post to a close, I’m fully aware that I’ve got this far without identifying the ‘He’ in the title to this post by name. I was, of course, referring to Ray Blanchard, who developed the AGP theory and coined the term, and in the process became, alongside John Money, one of the most vilified people in the field of gender research. The omission of his name was deliberate as I wanted to give this whole subject a fair hearing without making what I’ve written any more controversial than some will feel it already is. But rather than going in completely the wrong direction, was his mistake to extrapolate his theory to eroticism (and by association fetishism) but, as I ask in the title to this post, was his thinking otherwise on the right lines? Think about it – we may encounter a woman who, for one reason or another we feel a deep attraction to. But that doesn’t imply an immediate physical response or we start, for want of a better expression, mentally undressing her. Our response is an emotional involuntary ‘feelgood’ one and, to my mind, had he stopped there he’d have far more people onside.
So am I declaring that we’re all autogynephiles? Absolutely not because the truth is that I can no more prove that it’s the right answer than I can disprove any of the other theories. But I can declare that it comes closer to explaining my situation than any other explanation I’ve ever come across. I started this post by replaying my question as to which side of the mirror I’m focussed on – the attraction of seeing Amanda or being her? But AGP theory unifies those with the transvestic & anatomic elements correlating to seeing her and the behavioural & physiological elements driving the sense of self – different branches of the same tree so to speak. So if you’re looking for answers and, like me, found other explanations flawed or somewhat lacking, it’s worth at least giving it a fair hearing. In the end, we’re dealing with the complexities of the human mind and we can only ever explain its workings and consequences with opinions and theories.
But that said, do we really need to know why we are the way we are? It certainly doesn’t cross my mind when I look in the mirror or step into the outside world. If I feel good about myself, something that eluded me for so long, I want to enjoy the moment, not try to psychoanalyse myself. I want the satisfaction of knowing that I am worthy of stepping into the feminine world, not the uncertainty of wondering whether it’s acceptable to look at myself with an approving eye. I want people to look at me with a degree of approval at the effort I have made, not disapproval for something that’s outside my control. But I have to confess that just a small part of me has a sense of relief that I seem to have stumbled on a compelling answer to the question that has plagued me for half a century.
