A quick note before we start: this blog post focuses on transphobia (specifically transmisogyny and the rhetoric of trans-exclusionary so-called radical feminists) and is likely to be triggering, especially to trans women and transfeminine people more broadly. It will also contain quoted transphobic language and discussions of violence and discrimination. If you’d like to read something a bit more light, maybe you can check out my piece on words for genitals or cuckolding. If you’d like a more in-depth look at the topic at hand I recommend “Autogynephilia”, a YouTube video by Natalie Wynn, which acted as a primary source for this piece as well as Jessie Gender’s “The Continually Escalating Anti-LGBT Rhetoric” which, in part, explores the connection between sex negativity and anti-queerness more generally.
Trans people have arguably been a bigger part of the public consciousness than ever in the past decade and, although that’s broadly speaking a very good thing, the backlash has been horrific. I came of age during the early days of this current culture war – surrounded by cringe compilations and the one joke about attack helicopters copy-pasted to the point of absurdity. On the one hand, I’ve seen acceptance for and education around trans people flourish. There are (not enough) gender-neutral bathrooms at my school, I see progress flags around my neighborhood all the time, and even my grandparents have started to remember to call my nonbinary friends “they.” At the same time, I’ve watched anti-trans rhetoric become dangerously prevalent and extreme. The author of some of my favorite stories as a child has become a figurehead of anti-trans “feminism,” a disturbingly large selection of books have emerged blaming trans people for everything from “conquering the lesbian body” to “destroying sport,” and, most horrifically, a deluge of anti-trans bills have been proposed and passed all over the USA, often targeting transgender children and their parents.
Throughout all of this, as in so many situations, women have especially been targeted. While transgender men are often portrayed as dumb little girls being tricked into mutilating themselves (if they’re not ignored altogether), transgender women are made to seem dangerous, especially sexually – they’re painted out to be bathroom-invading perverts and fetishistic crossdressers. This is horrendous for many reasons, but one problematic aspect of this rhetoric is its condemnation of kink, primarily cross-dressing. To put it simply: trans women are not fetishistic crossdressers…but what’s wrong with having a fetish for cross-dressing again?
The connection between transmisogyny and kink-negativity is too complicated to fully explore here, but a good place to start is sexologist Ray Blanchard’s disturbingly influential psychological typology. To dramatically simplify, Blanchard proposed that all transgender women can be separated into two distinct categories, both defined by sexuality: “homosexual transexuals” who transition in order to seduce men better and “autogynephilic transexuals” who transition because, in short, they think it’s hot. Autogynephilia, new Greek for “to love of oneself as a woman,” is a term Blanchard came up with to describe “a male's propensity to be sexually aroused by the thought of himself as a female.” Now, Blanchard’s theory about why trans women transition is quite self-evidently incorrect to basically anyone who spends time around trans women and isn’t inherently suspicious of them. Ask 1,000 trans women why they transitioned and you’ll probably get 1,000 different answers, but if any of them say “oh, just because I thought it would be hot” they’re probably just making fun of Ray Blanchard.
There are a staggering number of severe issues with his theory and the studies that supposedly back it up, many of which are pointed out by Natalie Wynn’s insightful video on the subject and Julia Sarano’s 2010 journal article “The Case Against Autogynephilia.” To name a few: Blanchard’s typology inherently invalidates trans women’s identity, academically framing them as types of men (rather than a subsect of women) without bothering to study the way their sexualities correlate with the sexualities of women more broadly. This framework also imagines transness as a deviant anomaly that needs explaining, rather than a natural part of human existence that’s present throughout history and only made unnatural by the culturally imposed gender and sex binary. His theory claims that any trans woman not exclusively into men must actually be primarily attracted to herself, an idea which is clearly rooted in heteronormativity and lesbiphobia even if Blanchard doesn’t realize it himself.
Possibly the most invalidating aspect of Blanchard’s beliefs is that they assume that trans women make some of their most personal and life-changing choices (like whether or not to pursue medical transition or change their names) entirely based on how to be more sexually desirable, either to themselves or to men, which is pretty sexist on the face of it. Yet, unfortunately, this absurd theory has become quite influential, especially after transphobic books like The Man Who Would Be Queen (2003) and Men Trapped In Men’s Bodies (2012) brought the concept into the mainstream.
The idea of fetishism as an explanation for the existence of trans women has been latched onto by transphobes of all stripes. It’s extremely common for conservative pundits to lump trans women in with drag queens and crossdressers before calling them all perverts grooming kids by existing in their vicinity, for example. So-called “gender critical feminists,” also known as TERFs, employ this concept frequently, both in the context of formally presented pseudo-academic anti-kink musings on topics like “Sissy Hypno Porn & Transgenderism” and indirect harassment of trans women by accusing them of being crossdressing fetishists among other things. Blanchard’s theory is blatantly transmisogynistic and ignorant of the true experiences of trans women even when it’s not being used to directly bully trans women, so, obviously, it and its proponents have received massive backlash from the trans community. Transfeminine people and their allies rightfully insist that Blanchard’s autogynephilia does not exist, that transness is not at all the same thing as cross-dressing, and that it’s not a fetish act to socially and/or medically transition. While all of this is very true and reasonable, by framing defenses against transphobia around the fact trans women aren’t inherently fetishists, trans people and their allies may accidentally affirm a core component of conservatism and anti-queerness: sex negativity.
Defending against the accusation of being a fetishistic pervert is very understandable and even necessary (especially when that very accusation is lending force to discriminatory laws and violent rhetoric) but true liberation for LGBTQ+ people requires acknowledging that sexual deviance, in itself, is not harmful and should not be seen as inherently suspect. As Gayle Rubin outlined in her seminal work Thinking Sex, our culture defines a wide range of sexual practices as “deviant” and “bad,” which makes practically anything sexual seem inherently suspect and frightening. This sex negativity does more than make people ashamed of their bodies and desires; it’s a cultural tool that forces us all to choose between conforming to absurdly rigid expectations around sexuality and being demonized and marginalized for our sexual desires and practices. Sex can be used as a form of violence and some sexual practices, like sexual abuse of children, are inherently harmful and must be protected against. At the same time, the fact that “fetishistic crossdresser” is being used as an insult or accusation at all is a problem, and denying anyone assigned male at birth is turned on by the concept of becoming more feminine is sex-negative and easily disprovable by anyone with the ability to google sissification. Some people really are fetishists, some people really are turned on by wearing clothes typically associated with a different gender than theirs, and those people’s presence in public spaces is not inherently predatory.
This is where we get to an even more muggy and complicated part of this conversation. Trans people are not inherently fetishists and gender transition is not inherently sexual, but the messy truth is that experiences of sexuality and gender can and do intersect. While many trans people’s transitions have no relation to sexuality at all, some people do find themselves initially through sexual gender experimentation. Especially for people assigned male at birth, there aren’t many socially acceptable avenues for gendered self-exploration. People assigned female at birth are often allowed a “tomboy phase” they’re expected to grow out of and can usually get away with wearing pants at least some of the time. On the other hand, even playing dress-up or painting your nails when you’re perceived as a little boy can be taboo to the point of provoking anger or possibly even violence from parents. It’s no wonder that that sort of stigma and policing of people’s bodies would result, for some, in an erotic thrill being related to that sort of gender transgression.
This social stigma might also mean that it’s more likely for people assigned male at birth might have their first experiences wearing typically feminine clothes in erotic situations. If the first time you get to wear something is when you’re locked in your bedroom alone late at night or with a partner who wants to dress you up for roleplay, the context itself might be arousing even if one day you realize feminine clothes are something you’d like to incorporate into your everyday life. It’s also worth noting that, well, a lot of feminine clothes are hot. Things like hosiery, short skirts, and lingerie have an ingrained cultural association with the erotic that not many typically masculine pieces of apparel share. So, especially for people who are primarily attracted to women, even just the idea of dressing up and looking like the people you’re attracted to could be a sexy experience. Plenty of cisgender women like dressing up in lingerie or revealing clothes to feel hot as any experience with popular music and media will tell you; is it any surprise that people of other gendered positionalities would have the same experience?
At the end of the day no one, including and especially trans people, needs an excuse to be turned on by wearing a cute outfit or feeling like a hot girl. By linking trans women to fetishism, transphobes invoke our cultural distrust and negativity towards sex in order to stoke fear of trans people. Existing as a trans person and wearing your clothes is very obviously not a sex act let alone an act of predation. Even when gender and gender expression are played within a sexual context, however, that is entirely neutral or positive (assuming everything is consensual) and nothing to be ashamed of. Instead of simply defending transfeminine people against the accusation of perverthood, we should also call out and interrogate the underlying assumptions that allow this to be an accusation to begin with.
By Aiden/Estelle Garrett
Made with consultation from Sophie R Galarneau