Ray Blanchard
@BlanchardPhD
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Researcher in sexual orientation, paraphilias, & gender identity disorders
Toronto
Joined October 2011
Because the majority of my papers are behind paywalls, I have written this post for the benefit of followers who might be interested in my work. Excellent summaries of my studies on autogynephilia and gender identity disorders can be found in Chapters 1 and 2 (pp. 1-35) of Anne.
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How wrong I was. “My early writings on autogynephilia were published in specialty journals with limited circulations. They were intended for a small readership of clinicians who specialized in the assessment and management of gender dysphoric patients. The general availability.
I cannot believe that autogynephilia was just discussed in an interview with a vice presidential candidate. This video was released an hour ago and is already close to 1 million views. @BlanchardPhD @profjmb @BenjaminABoyce
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@markadams44 Pleased and surprised, because prominent and powerful trans influencers and their “allies” have done everything they could to prevent the concept of autogynephilia from entering public awareness.
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Twitter has unlocked my account and graciously apologized for their error. My sincere thanks to the people who expressed their concern during the past 24 hours.
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Trans rights activists have tried to label the word ‘autogynephilia’ as a slur in hopes of preventing people from using the word and spreading knowledge of the phenomenon. I invented the word as a neutral, clinical descriptor, not as a slur, as shown here:
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It has been a disappointment to me that colleagues whom I generally like and respect have adopted the “sex assigned at birth” locution, either because they are afraid of their own students, or because they believe that implicitly endorsing this falsehood is essentially harmless.
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In the gender identity clinic where I worked from 1980 to 1995, we endeavored to make sure that patients understood the limitations of surgical and hormonal treatments, and we would have considered it a contraindication for surgery if a patient thought they were literally going.
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I once ran a support group for nonhomosexual (autogynephilic) gender-dysphoric males. It is probably true that many or most autogynephilic males are poor judges of how well they “pass” as women. They can be quite astute, however, in judging how well other autogynephiles pass, and.
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It is widely accepted that gay men are much more interested in casual sex than lesbian women, not because they are gay, but because they are men. The high “body count” of gay men is what the “body count” of straight men would look like, if straight men did not have straight women.
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I and other clinicians have noted an element of exhibitionism in many (although not all) cases of autogynephilia. I think this is one reason why some natal male gender dysphorics insist on participating in women's competitive sports.
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I hope that more and more ordinary trans people will speak out against the worst excesses of trans activism as more and more trans people realize that extremist activism is increasing resentment and decreasing acceptance of trans people.
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Trans rights activists have claimed that natal women commonly experience sexual excitement from the simple thought of being women as a way of “normalizing” this phenomenon in AGP men. Research shows autogynephilia is actually rare/nonexistent in women:
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Pronouns used to tell you a person’s sex. Now they tell you a person’s politics.
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My view: Transsexuals have a mental disorder whose discomfort is ameliorated when society and individuals indulge them with reasonable compromises. This is a traditional psychiatric view although it is rarely stated that bluntly.
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Nineteen out of 20 times one can tell, after a brief interaction with a male-to-female transsexual, if the individual is of the homosexual or autogynephilic type. They retain, as it were, the accent of their birthplace.
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Earlier today I wrote this thread in response to a follower who asked me, “What is your actual position on transgender people?” It looks like my reply has not been delivered to a single person besides the original inquirer, so I am reposting it here.
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In my view, trans activism changed in character when it affiliated with the social justice movement, re-framed transsexualism as a political problem rather than a clinical problem, and adopted SJW tactics such as no-platforming and getting people fired for their opinions.
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There is one big difference between being the target of trans activists’ ire and being the target of gender-critical feminists’ ire: The latter will not try to get you fired from your job or otherwise deprive you of your livelihood. I don’t know if this distinction arises.
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THINGS I MISS:.1. The ideals of self-control and self-restraint. 2. Social disapproval of hyperbole and exaggeration. 3. The concept of good taste. 4. Dry understatement. 5. Social disapproval of mawkishness and sentimentality. 6. Precision in language.
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When I was a young man, a "safe space" was "not Vietnam.".
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Here’s an irony. The Child and Adolescent Gender Identity Clinic of Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health was closed for essentially the opposite reason that London’s Tavistock Clinic is being closed: The CAMH clinic wasn’t affirming enough.
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I'm not going to argue, on Twitter or anywhere else, with people so naïve that they think giving an interview to a conservative publication must mean that one holds conservative views in private life, or that giving an interview to a liberal publication means the opposite.
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Clinical sexologists who endorse “You are who you say you are” have probably never worked outside the gender identity bubble. In sex offender assessment clinics, patients routinely deny having a paraphilic preference, often despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
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(6) The sex of a postoperative transsexual should be analogous to a legal fiction. This legal fiction would apply to some things (e.g., sex designation on a driver’s license) but not to others (entering a sports competition as one’s adopted sex).
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I now understand that the locution, “Robin *identifies as* [gay, Jewish, aboriginal]” instead of “Robin *is* [gay, Jewish, aboriginal]” is not merely an affected, pretentious way of speaking. It’s about denying the possibility of objective, stable, external reality.
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The “debunking” of autogynephilia is in good company with the debunking of biological sex and the debunking of natal males’ physical advantage in competitive sport.
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“You’re on the wrong side of history” is the contemporary equivalent of “You’ll burn in hell for this.”.
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When I worked at a Gender Identity Clinic (1980-1995), clinicians considered transition an option only for patients with severe gender dysphoria. Our clinicians believed that patients with mild or fluctuating degrees of gender dysphoria would probably maximize their overall.
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The strategy of re-framing trans as a civil rights issue rather than a clinical issue changed the main question from “How to lessen the emotional distress of persons with a rare psychiatric disorder” to “How to reconcile the conflicting rights of natal women and trans women.”.
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Many or most extremist trans rights activists are autogynephiles, natal males sexually attracted to women and desirous of becoming women. They direct their ire at women because it is women who frustrate their desires. Men are largely irrelevant. 1/3.
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I am writing in response to a reader’s question, “If you had to guess, what most accounts for the steep rise in the prevalence of opposite-sex identification in the last decade?”. I think there are multiple reasons for the increasing prevalence of cross-gender identity (and.
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Four books about gender identity, gender dysphoria, and transsexualism in a year, all written by women: @Docstockk, @AbigailShrier, @DrDebraSoh, and @HJoyceGender.
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Are people who end their tweets with “No debate,” “End of story,” “Sit down and shut up” accustomed to others actually obeying such commands? Or is this fantasy of control just another fantasy that makes on-line preferable to real life?.
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(3) Sex change surgery should not be considered for any patient until that patient has reached the age of 21 years and has lived for at least two years in the desired gender role.
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The terms “male-to-female transsexual” and “female-to-male transsexual” were instantly comprehensible. A native English-speaker who never saw either term before could tell immediately who had started where and was going where. This is not true of “trans woman” or “trans man.”.
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Journal editors take note: The “assigned at birth“ locution is claptrap.
You may find it interesting to know that as a radiologist, I can confidently determine the sex of a baby as early as the 15th week of pregnancy. This baby is a GIRL. I'm not assigning I'm describing. All the talk of "assigning" sex is unscientific, obscurantist claptrap.
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Transgenderism is a socio-political movement whose goal is the erasure of distinctions between biological males and females in law and in social custom. It comprises a set of loosely associated tenets, which are reflected in slogans such as “Trans women are women” and “Trans.
Feminism didn’t “create” transgenderism any more than Nietzsche “created” National Socialism. But to say that feminist ideas and (self-proclaimed) feminist activists had no part in creating the contemporary trans movement is simply ahistorical—unless, of course, one retroactively.
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Capture of DSM5: “The term ‘desired gender’ is now ‘experienced gender,’ the term ‘cross-sex medical procedure’ is now ‘gender-affirming medical procedure,’ and the term ‘natal male’/’natal female’ is now ‘individual assigned male/female at birth.’”
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I have learned a lot on Twitter. For example, how enormously people differ in the amount of evidence they require for making an assertion. I honestly didn’t realize so many people would just make stuff up.
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Acceptance of homosexuals does not require heterosexuals to participate in homosexual acts. In contrast, acceptance of transsexuals always requires the active participation of others – at a minimum, using trans’ preferred pronouns. This sets a higher bar for acceptance.
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I am afraid that the public's perception of all transsexuals - including decent, intelligent, reasonable people - will be soured by the obnoxious behaviour of "activists" they never asked to speak for them.
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I'm not bothered when transsexuals say things like "sex assigned at birth," because that arises from their emotional needs. I'm grossed out when academics parrot that lingo for the purpose of virtue-signalling and maintaining status among their tribe.
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Some cases of autogynephilia have an exhibitionistic element. Therefore I am skeptical of male-to-female trans who want to use a women’s gym because they have an overwhelming need to swim or work out. Some are there to show off, although it's not always clear what.
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Clinicians who describe themselves as “allies” of trans and who support transition in every case are actually allies of the disorder and not allies of the patient.
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You are a little late, Dr. Deakins. I let my membership in the American Psychological Association lapse many years ago. As recently as last month I was still getting emails from them inviting me to re-subscribe. I also quite publicly resigned from WPATH many years ago. However, I.
Dr Blanchard endorsing a pseudoscientific theory. @X @APA @APApsychiatric. He needs to be kicked out of the APA for this. I will be calling for it. #WeDoMoredednesdays.#Pseudoscience #LGBTQIA #trans.
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It’s self-defeating for trans activists to assert that people who are sexually uninterested in trans are therefore transphobic. This will simply lead people to say, “OK, then, I’m transphobic.”.
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What strikes me the most about this tableau is how puerile it is. It is a pubescent’s idea of what is “edgy” and subversive.
I'm not a religious person. But why is it okay for the Olympics opening ceremony to mock Christianity, when other religions are treated with respect? If this was a mockery of Islam/Judaism/Hinduism or any other religion people would be incensed.
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In most areas, I would automatically take the opinion of an expert over that of a lay person. In the field of gender/trans, however, many “experts” are ideologues and activists, and they cannot be relied on for objective opinions.
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Autogynephiles hate me for pointing out that they exist as much as they hate gender-criticals for wishing that they didn’t.
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For some autogynephiles, the prospect of being “slut-shamed” is aspirational.
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Gender dysphoria (including its severe form, transsexualism) is not the same as gender ideology. Many patients — nearly all before the internet — developed gender dysphoria in isolation from other trans and yet presented with similar symptoms.
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“Trans Women Are Trans” will never become a counter-slogan for gender-critical feminists because it has an unfortunate acronym.
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In the 1970-80s, clinicians tried to help gender-dysphoric patients lead happier lives. They weren’t trying to help them impose their subjective view of reality on the rest of the population, much less do so by force of law.
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I never imagined, when I joined the Clarke Gender Clinic in 1980, that someday debates concerning trans would concern, not clinical management, but fundamental perceptions of reality, with many “normal” people supporting the trans view because of fashions in moral superiority.
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My beliefs include the following 6 elements: (1) Transsexualism and milder forms of gender dysphoria are types of mental disorder, which may leave the individual with average or even above-average functioning in unrelated areas of life.
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Why do people keep writing “lmao,” when it is unlikely they are experiencing any such level of convulsive hilarity?.
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I’m so old I can remember when controlling one’s emotions was thought to be a good idea.
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Biological sex is immutable, but hormones and surgery can help simulate the opposite-sex phenotype, and this usually alleviates intractable gender dysphoria. Postoperative sex is essentially a legal fiction, which most people will accept in some but not all situations.
Biological sex is immutable. If you don't believe in biological sex than you don't believe in transsexuals. You can not medically transition UNLESS you acknowledge your biology. There, I said it. #IStandWithMaya .#JKRowling.
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This webpage includes a searchable list of my publications through 2018. Open a search box using Control+F on PC or Command+F on Mac. Enter a keyword or string, e.g., gender, birth order, homosex, autogyne.
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Subtweet to many tweets: Nobody believes that humans can change sex. The questions are whether imitating the phenotype and behavior of the opposite sex ameliorates gender dysphorics’ mental suffering, and whether, how, or how much ordinary citizens should support such transition.
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@Glenda1770220 Some autogynephiles believe that they have “passed” perfectly if they complete an expedition into a public place without anyone obviously “clocking” them. In some cases, it is clear that they are not passable and that they have simply misinterpreted the politeness/indifference of.
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“Trans women are women” is a political slogan sold as the product of science. I say this as someone who believes that it is humane and appropriate to treat trans women as women in most everyday situations (not including, for example, competitive sports).
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Critics of transgenderism who focus exclusively on its sociopolitical aspects and ignore its origins in individual psychopathology are unwittingly playing by the rules set by trans rights activists. They'd rather discuss definitions of women than their desires to become them. 3/3.
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My sin, in creating the term ‘autogynephilia,’ was in providing the word needed to make a thought thinkable. Trans activists have tried their best since then to extirpate that word from the English language.
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@GiselleHenwood It was more like men being competitive, aggressive men, like the time the session devolved into a heated argument about hockey teams.
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I “believe in” gender identity in the sense that I believe some individuals have a complex of emotions and cognitions centred on the idea that they are, or should have been, the opposite sex, and I believe that preoccupation with these ideas causes considerable distress.
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So-called “gender ideology” arose around the same time that trans activists reframed transsexualism as a political problem rather than a clinical problem.
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I’m debating a new policy: No tweeting links to any paper that uses the phrase “sex assigned at birth.” Unfortunately, some of my friends have taken up this locution, thinking it’s a harmless sop to SJW-leaning readers or a way to avoid conflict with their younger co-authors.
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(5) There are two main types of gender dysphoria in males, one associated with homosexuality and one associated with autogynephilia. Traditionally, the great bulk of female-to-male transsexuals has been homosexual in erotic object choice.
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(2) Sex change surgery is still the best treatment for carefully screened, adult patients, whose gender dysphoria has proven resistant to other forms of treatment.
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My holiday message: Autogynephilia per se does not make men obnoxious, nor does autogynephilic gender dysphoria. Autogynephilia in combination with other paraphilias or with personality disorders makes autogynephiles obnoxious.
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(4) Gender dysphoria is not a sexual orientation, but it is virtually always preceded or accompanied by an atypical sexual orientation – in males, either homosexuality (sexual arousal by members of one’s own biological sex) . .
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In my perception, LGB Alliances have been springing up around the world, not because LGB’s reject T’s, but because many LGB’s reject the extremist policies being pushed by T activists.
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If you have notable accomplishments, you can use social media to call attention your accomplishments. If you have no accomplishments, no intellectual gifts, no striking beauty, and no charm or charisma, you can call attention to your endlessly fascinating (to you) gender identity.
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It was natural and inevitable that autogynephilic trans activists would come to resent lesbians. Lesbians are the ego-ideal, the synthesis of the desire to be women and to have women, and their rejection is “the most unkindest cut of all.”.
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Who gets to decide what is information or misinformation about gender identity disorders and related conditions? Would Admiral Rachel Levine regard any statement asserting or implying the existence of autogynephilia as misinformation?.
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Idaho Legislature Passes Bill Blocking Transgender Athletes from Girls Sports
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Twitter reminds me that I'm old. I would never send an insulting, condescending, or scolding message to a complete stranger. It's not that I'm so nice. I'm not. It's just that this behaviour would seem so far beyond the pale to my age cohort.
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or autogynephilia (sexual arousal at the thought or image of oneself as a female).
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If you have no personal accomplishments to list in your Twitter profile, you can always present your pronouns, demographic characteristics, and tribal affiliations. Those under 16 can also list edgy personality descriptors (e.g., bitchy, snarky).
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Research on the origins of sexual orientation is enormously technical and difficult. I’ve worked in one small corner for 30 years and I’m still not sure of all the relevant findings. It blows my mind to go on Twitter and find people making dogmatic assertions about the causes.
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The moment I see the word “violence” used to mean anything other than one person physically striking, stabbing, shooting, sexually penetrating, bludgeoning, or otherwise injuring another person I stop reading.
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There may be no such thing as gender identity, except in the trivial sense that one knows what sex one is. There is, however, such a thing as cross-gender identity. That is the ideational aspect of a psychiatric syndrome whose emotional aspect is called gender dysphoria.
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This is a concise and very interesting statement from a group of trans men.
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I am writing in response to @profjmb’s question about my clinical experience (1980-1995) with autogynephiles’ hostility toward woman. The short answer is that I never saw any evidence of hostility toward women as a sex-class. I did see evidence of hostility toward specific women.
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You can start reading a tweet at the end. If it concludes with “Get over it” or “Get used to it,” it is likely that the author has a weak argument or no argument and also likely that he or she is angrily asserting a tenet of some dogma.
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I think that some people spread the falsehood that cross-gender identity is no longer a mental disorder in DSM5 because they hope that this disinformation will help to bring about its removal from the DSM.
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New research by @profjmb and @kevinjhsu debunks the notion that autogynephilia (sexual excitement at the thought or imagery of being a woman) occurs in normal women just as it does in paraphilic men. Open-access link to follow in a few days.
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The constant re-cycling of the words “sex” and “gender” to mean completely different things has been one of the most foolish economies of language ever seen.
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Transactivists have been trying to outlaw therapy to help gender-dysphoric children accept their anatomic sex by appropriating the term "conversion therapy" to refer to it. It should have been labeled, eg, "sex-acceptance therapy.".
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I am beginning to think that many or most ideologies represent emotional commitments as much as they represent intellectual ones.
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In my view it’s irrelevant whether a man can become a woman or vice versa. What’s relevant is whether individuals tormented by the desire to be the opposite sex are happier when they present that way, and whether or how much the majority of society is willing to accommodate this.
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If you accept the evidence that actuarial prediction is superior to clinical prediction, and if you accept the evidence that most gender-dysphoric children will eventually normalize in gender identity, how do you defend the notion of case-by-case decisions to transition children?.
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Old-time clinicians recommended sex reassignment because they thought it offered the best chance of alleviating a patient's distress, not because they thought the patient had a neurological intersex condition that rendered them "essentially" the opposite sex.
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Someone in Germany tried to report me to Twitter for posting about the new research on autogynephilia in women, but Twitter did the right thing.
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"As the trans community grew the goth/Emo population died." Hmm.
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