More like an addiction than an orientation or identity
Oof. An eye-opening thread that makes sense of a lot that seems baffling. Author is Lara Adams-Miller @LaraAdamsMille1.
Something you should realize about autogynephiles: They can’t stop. AGP functions more like an addiction than an orientation or identity. “Letting out the woman within” is both a high and a release. Time passes, and, without a fresh fix, they become hostile & self-destructive.
It seems like they’re putting it on a bit when they talk about how being denied their trans identity will “literally kill” them. It makes more sense, though, if you realize that they very well may believe that. If you’ve experienced addiction, you know that feeling.
Oh. Jeez. I never thought of that. It would explain many things I keep wondering about, in fury and frustration.
I haven’t experienced addiction myself but by god I have in people near me. I’ve experienced that difference, separation, frustration – why are you like this, why can’t you stop, why can’t you stop even though in other ways you’re so high quality.
I think that trans people who aren’t AGP also experience it as an addiction in some ways. You’ll hear people talk a lot about “gender euphoria.” A euphoric experience is the cornerstone of addiction. Problematically, kids are told “gender euphoria” just means they’re truly trans.
The power of addiction lies in dissociation. It’s not just about the direct pleasure offered by the behavior or substance. It’s about what you’re NOT feeling while you engage in that behavior or use that substance.
Transgenderism is elaborate, intense dissociation.
Understanding it as an addiction also gives insight into the escalating nature of the phenomenon. Men who crossdress start out doing it occasionally as a masturbatory exercise. Over time, the bliss wanes, and the AGP begins to chase the dragon.
This is where they will begin wearing women’s items under male clothing, going out “dressed” in public, buying more and more clothing/prosthetics, involving their previously unaware gf/wife in their crossdressing, getting with mtf sex workers, and/or altering their bodies.
One way gender ideology is broken is that it takes what should be a moment of clarity and turning point — an AGP realizing he isn’t in control of his compulsions — and reframes it as a healthy personal revelation: “I don’t have a problem. I’m actually a woman.”
Interesting. The reframing is one of my major objections too, but it takes a slightly different form – the reframing of a personal fantasy/game of let’s pretend/idea about the self as a political issue, when personal fantasy ought to be the least political item you could come up with. It’s different but similar and probably related.
There are extensive psychiatric comorbidities among this population because addictions, even non-substance-use ones, are regularly part of a mentally ill person’s coping strategies.
A lot of trans people are dissociating from painful psychiatric symptoms.
When you challenge a trans person’s identity – by, say, using the “wrong” pronoun – they experience intense discomfort. This may manifest as rage, anxiety/panic, or depression.
You just gave a shot of Narcan to a person high on opioids. You interrupted their dissociation.
This is why, for so many people, transgenderism never settles into a stable identity. “Gender is fluid” because a dissociation loses its power when it’s no longer new. So a trans woman may become non-binary. They may be a “lesbian,” then pansexual. The shifting is necessary.
This population has a high incidence of substance use and dissociative hobbies, such as those which involve role-playing, video games, cosplaying. They engage in these compulsively and rely on them for support the same way they rely on “gender euphoria.”
Ohhh. Again – I’ve wondered about that endlessly – the similarity to cosplay, and the weird childishness of all of it. Addiction and compulsion would explain a lot.
Some trans people will do awful things if their “fix” is threatened. Most just become unhappy. This just depends on their personal boundaries and ethics. Being trans doesn’t make someone dangerous, but an already violent person will commit violence if their gender fix is blocked.
Being trans may not make someone dangerous, but I do wonder if the violent rhetoric of so many “activists” can nudge people in that direction. I’m not confident that all those posters of axes and baseball bats are completely inert.
Dissociation is the source of the “high” for the AGP. He’d achieve that perfect bliss in embodying any role that was deeply *not him.* This is why sexism is an absolute prerequisite for AGP. He sees women as another species, not just people who happen to be female.
He would get no pleasure from dressing as women if he had substantial empathy for them. Crossdressing wouldn’t take him away from himself if he didn’t believe that women thought & felt completely different than men do. He must “other” women in order to reach that non-self place.
Ohhh. Damn. That makes so much sense.
The high is from being not-self, which equals, for them, being female – not a “trans woman,” not biologically male, not a “man who became a woman.” Accuracy = potency of euphoria. So each tiny language and situational cue is policed. Any reminder of reality can cause a collapse.
To access that gender euphoria, everyone they interact with has to speak and behave as though they’re women. Otherwise, these men are stuck with crossdressing at home or in CD/kink groups. And that really limits how much they can up their dosage, and how often they can dose.
Being misgendered once can ruin an entire evening, which AGPs will plan for weeks & spend hours grooming for. For this reason, even after they come out to their spouses, they’ll often wait a long time before CDing in front of her. They need to be sure she’ll stay in character.
No sexual orientation is fragile in this way. Tell me that I’m straight, and I don’t suddenly feel less gay.
Offensive speech doesn’t even work the way they say it does. What other group, even heavily marginalized, has such an intricate script that must be read by all?
This is because we aren’t functioning as human beings living and letting live. We are animated props for the role-play scenario that lets these people access a specific mental state. We’re set pieces, and the whole world becomes their drug.
And if you speak or act wrong (according to gender culture rules), you have now become the thing standing in between an addict and their fix.
And THAT is what you must understand if you want to understand how dangerous gender-critical activism is, and why.
A final note: The collective chasing of the dragon is the reason for the progressive erosion of women’s boundaries and rights. They can only feel *more* by eradicating any structural or behavioral elements that make them feel different than us.
This means they’ll never stop. There’s nothing they’ll leave untouched, nothing that should apply to biological women but not them. It doesn’t have to make sense or satisfy any functional purpose.
They will never NOT be chasing the dragon. The cup they hold out has no bottom.
Everything won’t be enough, because this is addiction, and nothing characterizes addiction quite so distinctly as a persistent sense of scarcity.
They will always feel dissatisfied, and that will always be women’s fault.
People need to wake up to what this is, because, right now, there’s this idea that we just need to give trans people enough of the right things, and all will be well. But… is that what seems to be happening? Could you guess, if you tried, at what would make the AGPs satisfied?
You cannot satisfy an addict. It’s not chemically possible. Trying to do so doesn’t help them and isn’t good for you.
Right now the progressives are trying to appease the trans lobby.
I read somewhere – “Appeasement” is feeding a crocodile in the hope that he’ll eat you last.
So, there it is. Not cheerful-making, but clarifying.
I wonder if the main argument against this would be more along the lines of “this doesn’t describe autogynophile transgender” or “there are no autogynophile transgender.”
That is a really good, useful explanation. I claim to be addicted to cookbooks, and I do have an enormous collection, and I get a sort of high from working with my recipes, but…I can’t imagine insisting that everyone else cater to that.
I’ve known alcoholics, and they also insist, often loudly, that they are not alcoholic, and expect their loved ones to agree. They can become violent in their search for that “buzz”, and in the reduction of their impulse control that is involved with alcohol. Drugs, too, of course.
I wonder if the trans- addiction also leads to loss of impulse control? I mean, I never feel out of control just because I put on a dress (though I do sometimes feel like I’m cross-dressing, since I almost always wear pants!), but then, putting on a dress does not give me a euphoric high, so maybe they have that same reaction from their brain as the euphoria sets in, though the symptoms manifest differently from drunkenness (I guess, anyway. I’ve never noticed a trans woman reeling, unable to walk straight, or slurring words, unless they were also drunk).
Very clear and powerful. It explains the behavior and also why being a recipient of it feels like abuse. I have little hope that the mental health community will pick up this concept, however.
Oof, this is mind-blowing. So much to chew on.
I’m reminded of pornography and how it can be used and abused now.
It’s an interesting thesis and it ticks a lot of boxes but I’m not sure it hangs together. There are a few leaps I can’t quite get behind and a lot of citations needed. But a lot to pick up and run with.
I looked at the twitter post; the main objections seemed to fall under “there are no autogynophile transgender.” It’s been debunked; it’s Victorian; it’s analogous to diagnoses of “hysteria.” Also, a lot of complaints about this being speculation and a lack of testing, which seems fair enough. It’s food for thought, but would need more to be taken seriously by academics.
I don’t count “this is hateful terf bigotry.” That’s not really an argument. It’s abuse. They have to go down the hall if they’re interested in that.
So how does this intersect with drag queens?
“We are animated props for the role-play scenario that lets these people access a specific mental state. We’re set pieces, and the whole world becomes their drug.”
This is why transgender “rights” movement is nothing at all like any true civil rights movement — the complete denial of reality and the forcing of others to participate unwillingly in a personal fantasy.
It’s a fascinating argument, and I wonder how well it holds for the kids. One of the things I find thought-provoking here is that there is no end to it. I know that ‘an end to it’ is one of the things the kids imagine, whether that be an end to their disassociation, or an end to their depression, anxiety, all the other co-morbidities they tend to have. But there is no end to it, not until every last scrap of reality is driven out of the world. This explains all the buttons and signs at the hipster coffee shops, “my pronouns are…” The slightest pinprick can puncture their bubble.
Like the poster said, there’s no other aspect of identity which is so fragile. Nobody of indeterminate race is walking around with a pin informing their genealogy, and if somebody got it wrong, it wouldn’t destroy their day.
There is definitely a loss of impulse control when overwhelmed by euphoria. You ever see someone during a manic episode? Same thing, and you can get it naturally. For instance, if you’ve been isolated for a long enough time, just interacting with other humans can put you into an altered mental state. Instead of reeling, loss of balance, or difficulty speaking, you see rapid movement, rapidly shifting attention, rapid speech, and general hyperactivity.
Well these days I work mostly from home and mostly by myself. When I can stop reeling in an uncoordinated fashion at my keyboard I….wait, what’s that shiny thing?
It’s amazing I get any work done at all.
What southwest said @ 9 – “This is why transgender “rights” movement is nothing at all like any true civil rights movement — the complete denial of reality and the forcing of others to participate unwillingly in a personal fantasy.” Exactly. It’s presented as the latest civil rights movement but it’s not at all.
If you're speaking of very young boys with gender dysphoria, it doesn't; this isn't about them.
Autogynephiles are a subpopulation of trans-identified males.
Yet of course, it hasn’t been; if you look, you will find forums devoted to it. Particulars of the theory are contested, but contested is not debunked.
Not sure how you’d test for it, but it’s based on years of work talking to trans people.
A lot of the kids transitioning seem to be girls, and this wouldn’t likely work for them. But there are other causes, and in this case, there seems to be peer group pressure, fad, doctors pushing the transitioning of lesbians, and, of course, the fact that it is so cool right now. You don’t have to be a boring old cis-gender person, you can be trans. As more people transition, that last one will likely lose its cool value.
But the desire of young girls to be young boys will likely persist as long as there are stereotyped gender expectations leaving young boys with the fun games and toys, and young girls with housework based games and toys.
southwest is winning the thread, I think.
On a different note, the OP argument is somewhat compelling (to me at least) but… glib. I don’t trust it.
My old-skool skeptic instincts are screaming at me. They…. haven’t always done me proud, though.
Having actual experience of ‘addiction’ (the screen name is a hint) I do get very leery of the pop-psych appropriation of addiction talk.
There are pretty obvious parallels among obsessive/compulsive conditions, but there are real differences too. I’m not sure that addicts, or autogynephiles are actually MORE ‘self centered’ than the general populace. But we alcoholics are certainly poster-children for the trap of subjective awareness. The rationalization and denial we’re capable of is breathtakingly obvious to absolutely everyone but us. We’re ‘self centered’ with a ghastly falsehood in the middle of the self. I’ve tired explaining this by saying that every drinking alcoholic is a cult of one.
The escalating hypersensitivity, the explosive anger, the belligerent self-certainty. Addiction language is not out of place in that sense.
John,
That is one of the reasons for my skepticism also.
That’s why parts of the analysis ring true and why some of them do not.
Post-drinking I work with people who retreat into video games and I also promote video games – playing and especially building them – as ways some kids can find their way out of horrible situations. I’m not gifted in talking or empathy but if you want to build a game world to help describe what’s going wrong in the real world, I can probably help do that.
That’s why I’m so skeptical about claims about addiction and the way it is often morphed into something that looks like addiction but might not be.
Some of the people I work with are young carers, usually girls around 13 or so who have no life at all because they spend all their time caring for parents or siblings. All of them feel as though there’s no way out and many of them struggle with addiction.
I hate it when people glibly conflate addiction with things that look like addiction but might not be. That’s why I don’t trust the OP and why the tearing feeling in my chest makes me think it is probably full of shit.
Sorry for the downer, everyone. This thing just hit me where it hurts and squeezed out the remnants of emotion I’m rumored to have, like the crispy bits at the end of someone else’s toothpaste tube.
It really is an interesting idea and I’ll be thinking about it for months to come. Super sorry for bringing it down.
It’s all right. It’s a raw subject for, I suspect, almost everyone, if the world is divided into addicts and non-addicts who have to deal with addiction in others.
The people being “liberated” by this “rights” movement demands that everyone else be shackled, blinkered and complicit. Some liberation.
latsot, as someone who suffers from OCD, I can sympathize. People continually say “Oh, it’s my OCD” every time they act from habit. Never mind that all humans will develop habits. Never mind that most of those habits increase our ability to function day to day. No, it must be OCD, a severe condition of “habit” that actually frequently impairs our functioning. Keeps me from sleeping at night. Causes me to work zillions of hours more than my colleagues, or than I have to, because I cannot accept things that don’t look just right, even though my students might not notice the small flaws.So I get outraged at the constant elevating of the smallest thing to OCD.
I think this is probably fair enough:
Stops short of actually claiming it IS an addiction. I agree Adams-Miller overstates the “addiction” parallel in a few places. Though, to be fair, a lot of people are guilty of making that word do too much work.*
* Humpty Dumpty seems to be my theme for today. Quite unintentional!
Like my semi-joking comment about a cookbook addiction? Yeah.
Iknclast:
Mrs latsot is a lawyer who specialsed in mental health work for many years, which meant she represented people with mental health problems at tribunals designed to determine whether her clients were able to remain at home or whether they should be admitted to (or to remain in) hospital against their wishes. Grueling work, which is one of the reasons she doesn’t do it any more.
Of course, some of her clients were extreme sufferers of OCD. It sounds awful and I too despise statements like “I’m a bit OCD” when the speaker means they like things to be neat. Mrs latsot told me about one client with severe OCD who couldn’t get in a car and had to travel by train. She also couldn’t manage going over bridges without a lot of preparation and someone who understood. She had a tribunal in Newcastle, which she had to go to by train, to determine whether she would be taken into hospital against her will. Newcastle is about 94.8% bridges. It must have been a terrifying experience for her. Mrs latsot went with her and it was fairly traumatic for her, let alone her client.
That story alone causes me to want to punch anyone who says they have OCD because they like their paperclips to be neat. I suspect we all know people who suffer from various degrees of autism but probably more people like me who are a bit off-kilter when it comes to social interaction but – unlike me – like to claim they’re “a bit autistic.”
Fuck them.
Ophelia:
And, of course, those who know 100% how addicts should be dealt with (it’s always about ‘dealing with’) despite having no first- or second- hand knowledge about addiction themselves. There are a lot of those buggers around. They’re the ones who say “they had a choice” or “they could just have stopped taking heroin” or “if they put [substance] above [person] or [job] they deserve everything they get.” In my experience there are about as many people in this category who have (former, in their case) loved ones with addictions as those who do not. It’s a failure in empathy rather than ignorance or inexperience.
Sort of like when I suffered from anorexia, and people would say “Oooh, I wish I had your problem!” These were people who were often slightly to not overweight, saw themselves as obese, and thought their situation was so much worse than mine. From the way I looked, it was clear I was on track toward dying, but all they could see is “Oh, I want to lose weight, so anorexia sounds like a great thing”. I often suspect my anorexia was exacerbated by my OCD.
And in the line of the way people want to “deal with” the addicts, they are the same with both anorexia and depression. “Just eat something already” or “put your vanity aside for a few minutes, okay?” It wasn’t vanity, and depression is not “self-pity”, it is a life-threatening condition that can arise for seemingly no reason at all. Anorexia is not “vanity”, it is a sense of spiraling out of control and you have to control the only thing you have in your power at that time, which is your own body (though as a biologist, I would say it’s less in our power than we think it is). I have had people tell me “Just get over it” or “hey, my life’s bad, too, and I don’t go around being depressed all the time”. Because they think we can help it. They don’t realize it’s a condition, and unfortunately, a condition we don’t even know the cause for, so it is very hard to treat, and everyone becomes an expert.
And yes, people love to say “I’m clinically depressed today” when they are having a bad hair day or something.
Yeah. I’m all for mental conditions gaining popular recognition, but their becoming trendy seems inevitable, which pisses me off no end. It’s the unthinking feeling of “yeah, I’d like me some of that, that’d make me more interesting” that leads us back to the OP. The most common form my depression takes is my mind flitting back to some random thing I said or did (and my ridiculously accurate memory is unrepentant on this) that probably hurt someone slightly. I then fixate on this for days, weeks, months…. I know that the person involved certainly forgot about the incident in about a minute but these things can stay in my head for years, swapping in and out. It’s ridiculous.
When I was a kid in North Yorkshire, depression wasn’t even a word, let alone a condition people could actually suffer from. You know the drill. These days there seems to be no effort to differentiate between low mood and bad feelings – however profound or severe they might be – and a pattern of such feelings going back decades, perhaps with partly-understood triggers and recognisable (to the sufferer, if not also loved ones) patterns of symptoms. They’re different and there are different and sometimes good sorts of treatment regimes for each, but only one of them is depression.
Now, of course, I’m wondering whether I’m a depression tourist too. Could be.