Talk:Blanchard's transsexualism typology/Archive 10

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Homosexual, heterosexual

This article appears to at least partly use an outdated and confusing terminology where "homosexual" trans women are those attracted to men, and "heterosexuals" are lesbians. I don't have the time to research and fix the whole article, but if nobody else gets to it, I might try at some point. ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me ; 07:49, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Before we do this we should settle on replacement terms, because I think using "homosexual" to refer to trans women attracted to women and "heterosexual" to refer to trans women attracted to men will be confusing in an article where many of the sources and also the underlying typology itself use the opposite terminology. (I also don't think we should change the term "homosexual transsexual" in the sense of the typological category, because it's a core part of the theory.)

How about "androphilic" and "gynephilic"? Non-stigmatizing but also unambiguous, and some of the more recent sources do use those terms. Loki (talk) 18:20, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Sure, why not. ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me ; 18:26, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

+1. I believe that they're the most unambiguous terms to use. Antiok 1pie (talk) 22:39, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

The other option, instead of using replacement terms, we use modern terminology (ie describe trans women attracted to women as lesbian/homosexual, and those attracted to men as heterosexual) but with footnotes that explain that the theory uses the terms backwards (ie describes trans women attracted to women as heterosexual...because reasons).

I'm not sure if androphilic and gynephilic are wholly appropriate here. It reduces sexual attraction to genital preference, leaving if not begging open questions like "is a trans woman, attracted to a trans man who has not had bottom surgery, androphilic or gynephilic?" and its logical reverse "is a trans man, attracted to a trans womoman who has not had bottom surgery, androphilic or gynephilic?" Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:28, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Re your second paragraph, are andro- and gynephilia specifically associated with genitals? ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me ; 18:32, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

In this context, kinda yes.

While the etymology of andro- and gynephilia is attraction to men or women, in the context of Blanchard's typology an autogynephile or autoandrophile is not someone who is attracted to the idea of one's self as a woman or man, but someone who is attracted to the idea of one's self with a vagina or penis. Even if we're writing androphile or gynephile, and not autoandrophile or autogynephile, I think there is the potential for readers to take away that we're referring to genital preference, because when we're summarising the terminology, we'll be summarising the idiosyncrasies of Blanchard's and Lawrence's definition of the terms. And even if we're to wikilink to the article on androphilia and gynephilia, that still requires the readers to read that other article for the context that Blanchard and the theory's proponents use the terms in an unusual manner. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:45, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Blanchard has actually been very vague and inconsistent about whether his theory is about being attracted to one's self as a woman or one's self as a vagina or one's self in women's clothes (etc etc) and this inconsistency with definitions is in fact one of the major criticisms of the theory.

Which is to say, I don't think this is actually a concern because I don't think the premise on which the concern is based is true. Loki (talk) 02:06, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Just to pop my two cents in - I feel like Blanchard is so fringe and outdated that any approach to his work probably needs to be discussed in the way that Scientific Racism is discussed - emphasizing that it's fringe, and not giving legitimacy to the language it uses. If you google Blanchard's work these days, all of the people who cite him are hardline conservatives, deeply anti-trans people. I think this article needs to be approached from the mainstream scientific consensus, which is that trans women are real women, that they are straight or queer just like cisgender women are, and that Blanchard has chosen to continue to interpret their existence outside of the scientific consensus, despite that consensus being long established. We should use the language of the scientific consensus.

I'm sure someone could argue that this is not WP:NPOV but I feel that person would be coming from a perspective of the trans "debate" that is not actually what legitimate scientists and doctors care about. Neutrality also involves recognizing a consensus has been reached, and acknowledging some things were never good science to begin with.

Computer-ergonomics (talk) 18:45, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Not one reader in a thousand will have ever heard of the terms androphilia or gynephilia before, and they won't take anything away from use of those words (and most certainly not any genital implications) unless we define their meaning, and since we're an encyclopedia, it would be perfectly appropriate for us to do so, and that's what we should do, and give them the right impression, and then that's what they'll take away from it. Mathglot (talk) 08:19, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

It's wordy, but in this case the clearest approach might be to spell out "trans women who are attracted to women" etc (or yes, as suggested above, use "lesbian" in that case), since Blanchard's old redefinition is indeed so different from what people usually understand the term to mean that we shouldn't be using it in wikivoice. -sche (talk) 20:23, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

If it is not too repetitive and cumbersome, that might be the cleanest solution. Hist9600 (talk) 21:21, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

It is better to be wordy than to risk even a small proportion of the readers misunderstanding the article. DanielRigal (talk) 21:38, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

I still prefer "androphilic" and "gynephilic" since they are used for this in actual papers, much less wordy, and mean the exact same thing (to the point that the longer version would not help with the edge cases mentioned above). The only argument I could see for spelling out the full phrase every time is if those terms are deemed to be too jargony. But we should be able to fix that by spelling their meanings out once, so I don't see that as a good reason to forgo using them as the primary term in most of the article. Loki (talk) 02:03, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Where, exactly, is this done in wikivoice or otherwise confusingly? Those instances should be fixed. On other hand, attributing the term and showing that they use it to Blanchard and others should not be whitewashed. Due to the desirability of not confusing readers, we also shouldn't outright replace it with "lesbian" and "straight" or anything like that. I do not agree that "androphilic" and "gynephilic" have any particular implied emphasis on genitals, any more than any other sexual orientation term. Crossroads ^-talk- 15:20, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

It caught my eye in the first four paragraphs of the "Research" section, but the problem might be present elsewhere, too. I don't think it's unduly confusing to our readers to use lesbian for women attracted to other women and straight or heterosexual to refer to women attracted to men. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 15:27, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Ah I see. In such cases "androphilic" and "gynephilic" can be used to eliminate ambiguity (in fact "androphilic" is already used once). However, "lesbian" and "heterosexual" use those terms basically opposite to how Blanchard used them despite the fact we are describing his research there, plus the way he used the term "homosexual transsexual" which we would be remiss not to cover. Additionally, many of the people with autogynephilia (at least, who self-describe and also have been described as such) do not identify as trans women and are not appropriately described as lesbian. Therefore, in contexts where either "homosexual" or "heterosexual" are unclear, andro- or gynephilic are the way to go. Crossroads ^-talk- 15:35, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

This entire conversation seems to erase the idea that trans women who identify as straight or lesbians will not be reading this article for research or out of personal interest and be extremely alienated being referred to as androphilic, gynephilic, or indeed homosexual or heterosexual. For cisgender people, these terms are often seen as dehumanizing or strange, so it seems to me that the lens of "understanding" being framed here is presuming a "neutral" cisgender audience. But a cisgender audience is not neutral. Unless you can point to individuals that you know of who personally identify as androphilic or gynephilic, then it seems to me that using this language is just presuming that transgender women are not allowed to have sexual orientations that cisgender people view as normal. Which goes against science, as well as decades of observation of transgender women having relationships that are straight or gay just like anyone else. Computer-ergonomics (talk) 18:36, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

We only get into it briefly on our page for the terms, but it's not that uncommon for non-bisexual nonbinary people to identify as androphilic or gynephilic. (Or "androsexual" or "gynosexual", but those ones don't really appear in the literature AFAICT)

That being said, like I mentioned below, actually editing the article has brought me around to using the full phrase "trans women who are attracted to men" and equivalents sometimes. It often flows better and it sounds less jargon-y. I'd still be opposed to "straight", "gay", etc on this specific page: everywhere else they work but in the specific context of a theory that uses opposite terminology they're too confusing, even though the theory has been heavily criticized for its use of that terminology.

I do favor putting Blanchard's terminology in quotes when we have to use it, to make it clear they're his words and not ours. Loki (talk) 20:40, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

I have to be honest that I've known a lot of non-binary people in my life and I have never met anyone who identified as androphilic or gynephilic in the long term but perhaps we run in different social circles. Nevertheless yes I think we are on a similar page. Computer-ergonomics (talk) 21:11, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Ah! I just realized you meant like old old research, like Magnus Hirschfeld! Sorry for the misunderstanding. Computer-ergonomics (talk) 21:15, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Oh, uh, no I don't. I mean modern research. For instance, the terms are all over Moser 2010, one of the most cited single sources in the entire article. Loki (talk) 02:43, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

For cisgender people, these terms are often seen as dehumanizing or strange - says who? I have never once seen this complaint anywhere. Crossroads ^-talk- 23:08, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Transgender sexuality labels - what does the data say?

FYI

 – Subsectionified to keep discussion in one place. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 20:43, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

The Human Rights Campaign, American Psychological Association, World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and more all advocate the theory that transgender people have sexualities that use the same labels as cisgender people.

From a 2017 paper on language and trans health from the International Journal of Transgenderism:

"Employ references to gender and sexual orientation that respect the gender identity of persons to whom they refer. The references should be based on the self-description of the person, without assuming a concrete gender identity or sexual orientation, and include nonbinary and fluid gender expressions and gender identities, as well as non-heterosexual, queer and non-binary sexualities. For example, a person identifying as female should be referred to by way of words such as girl, woman, female, she, and her, etc., according to the term she prefers. If she is attracted to women, she should be referred to as lesbian, gay, queer, etcetera, in line with her self-description."

Much of Wikipedia already uses this language. There is no evidence-based need to stray from it here, and the fact that Blanchard makes it overly confusing is simply more proof about how anti-scientific his theories are.Computer-ergonomics (talk) 18:58, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

I mean, I agree with this on most articles, but the fact that we're talking about a theory that uses the opposite terminology (no matter how bad its decision to do that is) is reason enough to avoid words like "gay" and "straight" entirely for clarity.

After editing the page a bunch, I'm sorta coming around to using the phrase "trans women attracted to men" and its equivalents at least sometimes. It genuinely does flow better and sound less jargon-y in some instances. Loki (talk) 20:25, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

I think going without labels is certainly okay - the only thing is making sure that at one point you say "trans women exclusively attracted to men" and "all trans women attracted to women" as Blanchard believes all lesbian, gay, bi, and otherwise queer trans women have transitioned because they find themselves hot, I guess.

This article could take the approach that epidemiologists have taken for clinically defining human sexual behavior - see "HIV and men who have sex with men." I believe many contemporary papers use the language "transgender women who have sex with men" and abbreviate it to "TGWSM" though it's been a few years since I was neck deep in the literature on HIV. I don't mean to suggest we necessarily use the abbreviation, rather that this is how scientists talk about orientation when less specific language is needed. I'll be plain - the only time I've ever encountered androphilic and gynephilic in an academic setting was in Sam Killerman's A Guide to Gender in an LGBTQ studies class in 2014, and it was considered weird even then.Computer-ergonomics (talk) 21:09, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Following the merger of Homosexual transsexual into this article, we need to go through and clean up sentences moved from that article which use the terms confusingly/in wikivoice. -sche (talk) 02:04, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Weasel words are *unsupported* attributions

Just to clarify a recent edit: MOS:WEASEL is quite clear that the phrases it mentions as potentially weasel words are not automatically so, and the by whom template used to mark weasel words is very clear that it should not be used to mark sourced statements: if a reader wants to know who says a sourced statement, that is what the source is for.

We do not need to attribute every statement in the article to a named researcher, and in fact I would argue that is bad practice, because it creates an air of WP:FALSEBALANCE. We would never say "According to Charles Darwin, animals evolved by... but according to Ken Ham...". Loki (talk) 19:59, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

The exceptions mentioned at MOS:WEASEL are when such terms are used in the lead section of an article or in a topic sentence of a paragraph, and the article body or the rest of the paragraph can supply attribution. But attribution is not always supplied here. Charles Darwin vs. Ken Ham is a poor analogue; there are countless disinterested third-party sources affirming Darwin's basic theory. Where are the independent sources affirming e.g. that Blanchard's studies have been "criticized as unscientific for failing to properly operationalize their definitions"? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 11:13, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

The source linked at the end of the clause, which criticizes Blanchard's studies as unscientific for failing to properly operationalize their definitions? To quote it directly: From the wide variety of definitions, it is clear that the concept of auto-gynephilia is not well defined and cannot be easily operationalized. For this reason alone, it does not constitute a scientific theory. Loki (talk) 19:09, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

That statement of opinion should be attributed to the specific author. That's more or less what I did when I added the source back in 2019. To say in Wikipedia's voice that Blanchard was "criticized" requires a source specifically about the criticism. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:15, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

So, a few things:

1. The statement being sourced is not an opinion in the sense meant by that guideline and therefore WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV does not apply, for the same reason that a source saying that acupuncture is pseudoscientific would not need to be attributed.

2. To say that the source itself is critical of Blanchard's studies is WP:BLUESKY. It's not exactly likely to be challenged that a source calling them unscientific is critical of them.

3. If you want, I'm fine with saying Blanchard's studies are unscientific because they fail to properly operationalize their definitions. That's normally how we'd use that source. "Been criticized as" is already a form of attribution. Loki (talk) 23:46, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

WP:WIKIVOICE says avoid stating seriously contested assertions as facts and prefer nonudgmental language. It's generally accepted that acupuncture is pseudoscientific. If Blanchard's theory is likewise generally seen as unscientific, non-operationalizable, etc., then it should be easy to find more than a single source stating as much. Otherwise it's an exceptional claim that should be attributed to the specific author.

There are innumerable reliable sources affirming that the sky is blue. Where are the comparable sources discussing Bevan's (2015) & others' criticism of Blanchard from a disinterested viewpoint?

"These studies have been criticized" is exactly the kind of vague attribution that MOS:WEASEL cautions against. It's no different than the examples "many are of the opinion, most feel, experts declare, ... it is widely thought" in that it does not tell the reader who is doing the criticizing, declaring, thinking, etc.

Attribution and non-judgmental language are not the same as false balance, especially if we stick to the most reliable, independent sources. We would never say "according to Ken Ham", because Ken Ham is not a reliable source on evolution or anything else for that matter. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:56, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

1. We have at least two sources by name (Bevan and Serano, more if you count Serano's papers separately) saying that Blanchard's theory is unscientific. We have even more, significantly more, saying it's false or unproven, including WPATH, which as an international WP:MEDORG is pretty clearly WP:BESTSOURCES here.

2. Okay then, do you dispute that that source is a critical source? Because if even you don't, then it's WP:BLUESKY that the source is critical (as the definition of a claim that needs to be cited is "challenged or likely to be challenged"), and if you do, then that means you think that Bevan is neutral or supportive and yet is saying that Blanchard's theory is unscientific, meaning we should report those claims as simply "Blanchard's theory is unscientific". There's no path here to saying "Bevan said X".

3. But none of those attributions are always weasel words, which is what I'm trying to tell you. "Weasel words" isn't about the exact words themselves. There is no particular phrasing that is always weasel words. Words are only weasel-y if they imply something we haven't sourced, and we're not doing that here.

4. The most reliable independent sources like WPATH say that Blanchard's theory is false. So do, frankly, a majority of the other sources we cite, many of which we barely cite in favor of citing Lawrence 2013 alone 10 times. So yes, in this situation simply attributing researchers saying it's true versus researchers saying it's false is WP:FALSEBALANCE. Loki (talk) 04:34, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Revising merged content

I merged the contents of Homosexual transsexual into this article per Talk:Homosexual_transsexual#Should_this_article_be_merged_with_Blanchard's_transsexualism_typology?. I trimmed only the things that were most obviously unimportant/undue or off-topic; further trimming is needed. For example, I am sceptical that 'are androphilic trans women are shorter?' merits a whole paragraph. -sche (talk) 02:21, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

The work looks good so far. The original reason for the article "Homosexual Transsexual" was to document that part of Blanchard's model. At the time it was created, almost 20 years ago, all the talk was about Autogynephilia. To the extent HSTS was mentioned at all it was about a paragraph in that article. This idea is older than Blanchard though. That said what you have here so far looks fine. Please don't just "trim" it back to being an article about autogynephilia and how awful of a term it is etc etc. It is a subject that deserves either it's own section of this article or to be woven smoothly through it. Blanchard's writings tended to compare and contrast his two types a lot. Also, be sure to keep a healthy place for the criticisms of this model but don't let those overtake the article either. Try to be fair. That really is all I ever did. Hfarmer (talk) 15:36, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Splitting off "Autogynephilia" into its own page

I have added a template tag to this article to highlight that this article has a section ("Autogynephilia") that would seem to warrant being split off into its own article. Splitting this section off into its own article would make the article more focused on its primary topic.

Reasons why "Autogynephilia" should be split off:

• Per WP:Splitting: "In some cases, refactoring an article into child or sister articles can allow subtopics to be discussed more fully elsewhere without dominating a general overview article to which they are non-central (but only if the new articles are themselves sufficiently notable to be included in the encyclopedia)."
• The term "Autogynephilia" is the most commonly-used term to describe this paraphilia, and is regularly used independently (in other words, many who use the term do not necessarily agree with all of Blanchard's findings, but are aware that the paraphilia exists).
• There is a sufficient volume of reliable secondary sources available (per Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline) on this subject from many researchers apart from Blanchard himself (including Bettcher, Nuttbrock, Veale, Hsu, and Lawrence). Blanchard is frequently cited in the literature, regardless of whether the authors citing him agree or disagree with his conclusions.

Proposed Solution:

In this article, we could move the "Autogynephilia" section to be a subheading under the "Terminology" section (as Autogynephilia is one of the main terms arising from Blanchard's typology), and include a summary of the Autogynephilia article that includes the "Main Article: see here" treatment). (Sorry, I'm fairly new here, not sure what this treatment is officially referred to as). Hooky6 (talk) 05:37, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Would like to update this - according to @Sideswipe9th, it looks like I may have mismeasured the article length based on overall content size, rather than pure text size. My apologies.

But my proposal still otherwise stands - I would like to see "Autogynephilia" split out into a separate article. I have updated my original comment accordingly. Hooky6 (talk) 05:50, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

On resurrecting the autogynephilia article, in the twelve years since the merge discussion, there have been at least four discussions on bringing back that article: February 2015, April 2018, June 2018, September 2020. Also of relevance would be the May 2013 AfD for autoandrophilia. Across all of those discussions there was a pretty strong consensus that there should not be an autogynephilia article. I would suggest in the first instance reading the past discussions for why a separate article for autogynephilia is inappropriate. Sideswipe9th (talk) 06:00, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

I HAVE read most of those discussions. It seems like the outcome of the discussions boils down to some editors' opinions that the term "Autogynephilia" is a neologism (which is a point that is highly debatable) and that Autogynephilia is not sufficiently "notable" to merit its own article (a point which really shouldn't be debatable).

I am in agreement with the former editor James Cantor that this subject merits its own article. It certainly has enough notability to warrant it (Cantor provided plenty of additional citations), and there are many books and articles (both critical and supportive of Blanchard) by other authors that use the term. Clearly it's a notable topic in its body of knowledge.

The reason why people keep resurrecting the proposal to split this into its own article is because the original decision to merge them was a mistake. The (flawed) reasoning is that the weaknesses of Blanchard's theory justify the concept of Autogynephilia not being a real paraphilia. Therefore, "Autogynephilia" ought to be treated as "fringe" per WP:Fringe.

But Autogynephilia IS a real paraphilia. And it is common enough to warrant its own article, separate from the article about Blanchard's theories. Just because Blanchard coined the term for it doesn't mean that it has all the same problems that his other theories may or may not have.

I'm resurrecting this discussion because, at a bare minimum, this bad decision should be revisited at least every few years, to see if a new consensus can be reached. Hooky6 (talk) 15:37, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

I would be very hesitant to take Cantor's support for the recreation of an autogynephilia article with any real weight. As a proponent of the theory he has an obvious conflict of interest with the subject material. Something he admitted to on his user page back in 2013.

The problem as I see it, is that autogynephilia is inherently and almost inextricably linked to Blanchard's typology. Per Moser's 2010 critique, Blanchard first proposed this theory as a way to describe trans women within his typology, based on his interpretation of self-reporting data from trans women who attended his Toronto clinic in the 1980s. Even when Blanchard proposed it for inclusion in the DSM-5 he did so based on patient reporting from his clinic. The questions asked to that patient cohort, and the analysis of that data was preformed solely within the realm of Blanchard's typology.

With regards to WP:FRINGE, as Serano stated in 2020 Blanchard and other proponents of the theory frequently dismiss any and all exceptions to the theory as either due to the individuals giving the self-reports as lying, or otherwise misreporting their own experiences. This renders the theory as unfalsifiable. An unfalsifiable theory is one that cannot be contradicted by empirical evidence, and so inherently unscientific. And that's before you also touch on the other issues that both Serano and Moser raise on the flaws in almost all of Blanchard's study designs and findings. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:32, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

This is a legitimate point of contention to make. However, should WP be giving greater weight to Serano and Moser than to Blanchard and Lawrence? In my mind, all researchers in this field should be given equal weight.

Yet here in Wikipedia land, it seems you give much more credence to a self-proclaimed activist like Serano than a researcher like Blanchard who went into this without any real agenda. Hooky6 (talk) 21:07, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

On whether Serano and Moser should be given greater weight, on a theory proposed and defined by Blanchard, yes they absolutely should be given more weight. The No Original Research policy tells us that Wikipedia articles should be primarily based on reliable, secondary sources. Any research produced by Blanchard, or those directly connected to him would be a primary source.

Whether or not all of Lawrence's papers on autogynephilia have been written independently of Blanchard I don't know. Any papers that she has written with Blanchard as another author would be primary source. And for any research she's conducted, she would also be the primary source.

Serano and Moser however are secondary sources, at least for the papers I have cited, as both are summarising the works of others on this topic. While Serano may consider herself to be an activist, she is also a biologist and academic, and so perfectly qualified to author papers on this topic. Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:23, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm not able to see a meaningful difference between Serano's review and Lawrence's review - in my assessment, both are "secondary reviews" of Blanchard. Can you help me understand why you're labeling Lawrence's as "primary" (and therefore apparently unusable for ciatation purposes) and Serano's as "secondary?" I don't see a meaningful difference between them. I see them both being "not Blanchard," and therefore both are qualified to offer their own summaries as "secondary" sources.

Being a "comtemporary" or "associate" of another researcher doesn't necessarily mean that one's summary of their research is going to be biased. Even if it is biased, Wikipedia's policies state that a secondary source doesn't have to be "unbiased" to be citable as a secondary source. Hooky6 (talk) 22:21, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

@Sideswipe9th, your assertion is not technically correct, because Wikipedia:Secondary does not mean independent. Blanchard can never be independent of his own work, but it is possible for anyone to produce a secondary source from a group of prior publications (including prior publications written by themselves). Moser and Serano are independent of Blanchard, but they can also write both primary and secondary sources.

As with any disputed idea in any small field, it can be difficult to find people who are both obviously qualified and also interested enough. Serano is a biologist, but not a psychologist, and a PhD in fruitfly mRNA might actually make you better qualified to comment on COVID-19 vaccines than on psychology. Moser, who does have a background in psychotherapy, worked for years at an unaccredited for-profit school (the same one that his PhD came from), which is not exactly the sort of circumstance that makes one feel like he's accepted by his peers, or even that he'd be recognized as having a PhD.

NB that I don't claim they aren't good sources, or even the best sources; I only say that they're independent rather than secondary, and that finding any source that everyone agrees is ideal may prove to be impossible. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:39, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

You're absolutely right WhatamIdoing! Normally I add a quick link to WP:INDY when stating this, but I completely forgot to earlier! Sideswipe9th (talk) 06:02, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

On Lawrence, all I've said is that I don't know whether or not all of her papers have been written independently of Blanchard, and that any research she's published would be a primary source. I've not made any other commentary about her or her work, and certainly not about any review papers she might have written. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:34, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

• New research studies are primary sources.
• Reviews of previously published research are secondary sources.

You do not need to know the authors' names to figure out whether papers are primary or secondary. You only need to know whether it's new information or a paper about previously published information.

I believe (but you could ask the folks who hang out at WT:PROF if you want a more certain answer) that academic papers, whether primary or secondary, in this century are generally good about naming all the people who were involved, so if Blanchard's name isn't listed, then Blanchard wasn't involved and that particular paper is WP:Independent of Blanchard.

However, in terms of getting general agreement on wiki, I don't think the facts will matter. Wikipedia editors have a surprisingly Victorian attitude around this, and if you've ever co-authored a paper with someone whose viewpoint we despise, then you are hopelessly ruined forever. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:46, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

I don't disagree with what you've said, I've written and published my own papers in the past and I know how author name attribution works, but none of that's a response to what I've said.

Hooky's comment at 22:21, 18 March 2023 (UTC) is replying to something I've not said, which might be why this conversation tangent is so weird. I've not said that Lawrence's work is primary. What I have said is "I don't know whether or not all of her papers have been written independently of Blanchard". That's because I've not had the opportunity to check if she has collaborated with Blanchard as a named author on any of her own work. That's important because if Lawrence and Blanchard have collaborated together on a research paper on either Blanchard's typology or autogynephilia, then that specific paper that they have worked together on would not be an independent source. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:59, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Blanchard's Google Scholar profile lists a single, undated interaction, which is about multi-authored something about what it calls a "trade group". It didn't list any actual papers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:24, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Note, I've notified WikiProject Psychology, WikiProject Sexology, WikiProject LGBT Studies, and WikiProject Medicine about this discussion, as this proposed split is of relevance to all of those projects. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:39, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. Hooky6 (talk) 21:13, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose split. This proposal has been rejected before for good reasons. Has the status of "autogynephilia" moved on since then in a significant way that would justify re-evaluation? I don't think so. It remains a fringe theory supported by Blanchard and a very few others in academia, mostly people associated with Blanchard. Of course there has been some coverage since we last looked at it but still it has gained very little traction in medicine outside of this small group. We focus on its few proponents and its slightly more detractors, who have debunked it in great detail, but the overall academic response has been to shrug shoulders and walk away from yet another fringe medical theory that doesn't seem to be going anywhere. It has been taken up loudly by many anti-trans campaigners but they do not engage with the idea seriously. They just added the term to their lexicon of abuse. For them it functions as an accusation or a conspiracy theory, not as a proposed medical condition. Building on what Sideswipe9th says above, this is a concept that can only be understood within the framework of Blanchard's non-mainstream typology. As such, I think that this article is the only possible place to cover it. If it were split out then any new reader would only have to come back here to read about the typology as a prerequisite for making head or tail of it so it serves the readers best to keep it all in one place. --DanielRigal (talk) 20:33, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per DanielRigal. No indication that "Autogynephilia IS a real paraphilia" as so claimed above, to justify a separate article. Galobtter (pingó mió) 20:50, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

  It IS a real paraphilia. I experience it myself. You can't simply tell someone who experiences something that what they are experiencing doesn't exist. That's like telling a gay person that homosexuality doesn't exist.

  Do you think all those people that were studied by Blanchard, Lawrence, et al were just making it all up?

  Regardless, your personal opinion on whether it exists or not isn't a valid justification for not splitting out the article. Your comment is purely speculative opinion, and nothing more.

  Care to provide some reasoning that is actually in keeping with Wikipedia's standards, such as WP:Neutral Point of View? Hooky6 (talk) 21:03, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

  Unfortunately personal experience, such as your own, is not verifiable in reliable sources. For content to be included in any article, or to form the basis of its own article, it must be verifiable to reliable sources. Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:07, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

  I realize that, thanks. I'm not saying I have it in order to justify splitting the article - I'm merely responding to this particular editor's comment because his claim is merely a personal opinion. Hooky6 (talk) 21:22, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

  No, what the other author said is accurate. No evidence that "Autogynephilia IS a real paraphilia" has been provided by yourself. In all of your comments thus far, you've cited some policies and guidelines for what you want to do, but you have not provided any citations to reliable sources that assert that it is a paraphilia in and of its own right. Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:26, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

  Lawrence: Autogynephilia and the Typology of Male-to-Female Transsexualism: Concepts and Controversies

  Hsu: The Psychometric Structure of Items Assessing Autogynephilia

  Lawrence: Men Trapped in Men's Bodies

  Cantor: New MRI Studies Support the Blanchard Typology of Male-to-Female Transsexualism Hooky6 (talk) 22:13, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

  Hooky6 I removed the google drive link for "Lawrence: Men Trapped in Men's Bodies" per WP:LINKVIO. Galobtter (pingó mió) 21:36, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

• I also oppose a split. While I'm not 1000% against it, I agree with Sideswipe that it doesn't make a lot of sense to talk about it other than in the context of Blanchard's typology, and the fact that the person who suggested it thinks it's "a real paraphilia" gives me a lot of pause about this particular proposal.

Honestly, I've half a mind to merge in even more Blanchard-and-Bailey-isms that have WP:POVFORK-y articles. Feminine essence theory of transsexuality comes to mind. Loki (talk) 21:02, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

I have no conflicts of interest besides knowing it's real because I have this paraphilia myself. Hooky6 (talk) 21:04, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

This is getting into the edge of WP:NOTFORUM territory, but: do you realize that the dispute here is not really about whether some trans women experience attraction to their female selves, but whether that should be considered pathological (instead of just a normal part of gender dysphoria or being a woman or both)? Loki (talk) 21:38, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

No, it's not clear to me at all that that's what we're debating here. I thought we were merely debating about whether we should split this into its own article, and got a bit derailed by someone claiming Autogynephilia doesn't even exist at all.

Are you trying to move the goalposts? Hooky6 (talk) 22:15, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

This typology doesnt have any traction or notability within academic or professionals circles outside Blanchard and a couple of his orbiters. Its been adopted by people with political motivations and zero expertise. but since its notability is specifically tied to him, it belongs here. Filiforme1312 (talk) 22:00, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

So you consider Bailey, Lawrence, Hsu, and Cantor to be Blanchard's "orbiters?" Thus, they are not reliable sources in their own right? Is this your claim? Hooky6 (talk) 22:16, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Im not commenting on if those people's publications are RS. Though there are some concerns with Bailey that would warrant looking into.

But generally I'd hope for a psychological theory like this wed look for notability outside the creator and a small handful of people. Since it originated in academia, if it had merit as an idea in its own right you'd see some level of significant engagement. It appears more niche pseudoscience. Not everything needs an article. Until this theory escapes it's creator and their small circle, I dont feel its warranted. Filiforme1312 (talk) 00:08, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Well, it's complicated, because it seems that every time someone agrees with it (or, really, fails to reject it), then they're labeled part of the clique, and disqualified. This is a small field. It's difficult to find people in it who haven't interacted in some way (co-authored papers, cited each others' papers, worked together for conferences or journals, etc.) even if they don't have the same employer. For our purposes, it's probably better to take all the equivalent papers at face value (e.g., one recent peer-reviewed article on this subject in a high-quality journal is equal to any other recent peer-reviewed article on the same subject in similarly high-quality), and not try to decide who has the Right™ viewpoint and whose sources should be ignored.

And, to the extent that we can, if we can source any of this to popular university textbooks, that really would be better. Textbooks tend to have less of the back-and-forth that is characteristic of scientific discourse and more of a "here's what we (mostly) agree on" approach. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:49, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Apart from Sims' Symptoms in the Mind: Textbook of Descriptive Psychopathology, which has only a very brief mention of autogynephila which reads Blanchard in a series of papers (1989, 1991, 1993) proposed that individuals presenting with male-to-female transsexualism and were characterized as having autogynephilia (sexually aroused by the thought or image of themselves as women) were distinct from others who were homosexual in orientation. This classification is controversial and not widely accepted (Moser, 2010), are there any university textbooks that mention either Blanchard's typology, or autogynephilia within them? I'm not able to find any others from a quick Google search, but if you or any other editors are familiar with some linking them would be ideal. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:45, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

I guess the reason I use the term orbiters is its a very limited group of people who support the theory. In academia if this were accepted you'd see talks at conferences about it and wider favorable citation. Its just not there, and not there to a level that raises some red flags. Filiforme1312 (talk) 23:10, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for at least having a reasonable point of view, unlike most of the others in this discussion. It seems like there's a heavy bias against Blanchard and his typology here in this group, and in favor of the likes of Serrano. Not sure why that's the case, but it certainly implies that (Personal attack removed). Hooky6 (talk) 20:11, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

In my mind, the most egregious offender is homosexual transsexual (originally created along with the autogynephilia article). The article misgenders trans people by its very title, and has little to no applicability outside Blanchard's typology. The article itself just info-dumps outdated research from the 20th century while giving the reader very little context. Hist9600 (talk) 14:08, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

I was a bit shocked to see that we have a stand-alone article there. The one sticking point for a merge is that the term does pre-date Blanchard although it is only really used within his orbit these days. I think a merge here is justified. Whether the pre-Blanchard stuff could remain as its own small article is arguable but I think it is probably best if it doesn't. --DanielRigal (talk) 14:45, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Oh eww. That really is even worse somehow. I'd absolutely support a merge. Loki (talk) 17:17, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Feminine essence concept of transsexuality is basically just a more formal name for Woman trapped in a man's body, which existed before Blanchard was born. It still persists as a concept in both popular culture and in academia; Talia Mae Bettcher, a trans woman cited in this article,[1] calls it the "wrong body" model.

The HT article could use a better name, because it's rather shocking to modern sensibilities but also because it's confusing: HT in this context was always about a subset of trans women, specifically the particular group of androphilic trans women who were validated and supported by the medical establishment during the 1970s and 1980s, when getting treatment required telling a very specific story to win a label as a "true" trans woman, as opposed to all of the other trans women, who weren't supported and who were even told that they weren't real trans women.

[1] It appears, from what I see in this article, that Bettcher's view of autogynephilia is that it exists and is a perfectly normal, natural, commonplace thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:13, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

My assertion is that it's not in fact a more formal name for that. That would be a subsection of Causes of gender incongruence (which is also a suboptimal name for that page but that's besides the point).

As you can pretty clearly see on the page, it almost exclusively cites proponents of Blanchard's typology. This is because the term itself comes from Blanchard, as we say in the page. It's not just the "female soul" or "woman trapped in a man's body" tropes (and those are different tropes), it's mashing together a bunch of different ideas trans people have about themselves, of various degrees of seriousness and also of various degrees of scientific plausibility, into a single strawman Blanchard and his supporters can dismiss to assert their theory is the only scientific one. Loki (talk) 22:56, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

The article has a lot of sourced content but it's weird well beyond it's name. I never really got a clear framework until I left the page to go read from different angles. That article as it is now uses a kind of structure like "This is how things are, but everybody says it's wrong." I would imagine it's profoundly confusing to some people with no background. I would support a merge here. If it stays separate, it would benefit from a knowledgeable editor contextualizing the article. Rjjiii (talk) 03:16, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

The HT article is partly weird because it feels like the first half of the article focuses on why the name is wrong instead of what it is. It's all "People like Christine Jorgensen got called an unfair name by cissexist medicine" instead of "Back in the day, people thought that stereotypically effeminate, androphilic trans women were significantly different from gynephilic trans women who had a harder time passing". WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:18, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

This is true it was. Here is the reason why. The one who argued for this structure wanted it to be clear how wrong and rejected the term was and felt that that had to go first. The reasoning being that a lot of people won't read the whole article. I'd argue that any wikipedia article should be about the thing. Then controversy or criticism of a thing should come second. Both of these should get a mention in the introductory paragraph because it is true most people don't read much beyond that. Hfarmer (talk) 15:42, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

I would support a merge with the Blanchard article as well as improvements based on your concerns and FRINGE Filiforme1312 (talk) 23:07, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

"Egregious," eh? This article seems fairly neutral to me and is a good summary of the historical research.

This article is completely separate from Blanchard's typology - wasn't even a term coined by him. Hooky6 (talk) 20:15, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose split. The use of the concept of autogynephilia is limited to Blanchard's typology, and the article for Blanchard's typology gives important context the theory itself. Instead, I would prefer if homosexual transsexual was merged into this article, and the contents were succinctly summarized and connected with the typology in a way that is more comprehensible to the average reader. Hist9600 (talk) 22:43, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
• oppose split per Hist9600--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:40, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose split. This article is a poor candidate for splitting. Building on concerns enumerated above, I think we need to particularly note that as a fringe theory making a claim about human medicine, it is vital to avoid isolating the theory from the theory's context in the the scientific literature. To preserve this context while splitting the article we'd have to duplicate a lot of content, which is to be avoided. I would additionally support merging homosexual transsexual into this article for the same reason, though I expect we'll have to have a separate discussion about that. Srey Sros^talk 15:27, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose split for the reasons DanielRigal and SreySros have outlined; as they and others have said, we should in fact be looking at merging some other Blandchardisms back into this article. -sche (talk) 17:41, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

I strongly agree with this. There are decades of legitimate scholarly work published on this topic & only a tiny fraction of it relates to Blanchard's work. The subject matter here is more relevant than ever given the statistics - according to Pew Research, 5% of young adults identify as T in 2022, up from 0.3-0.4% prior to 2017. Dlobr (talk) 02:05, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

I don't see how the proportion of people who are transgender affects the encyclopedicity of a fringe theory about trans women. ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me ; 09:12, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose split; insufficient coverage (especially insufficient secondary coverage) outside of the context of Blanchard to support a separate article. Additionally, as others have said, due to the lack of academic acceptance, it is primarily notable in relation to Blanchard and not as a theory or topic in its own right. --Aquillion (talk) 10:37, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Merge proposal

I've started a discussion on the merge proposal here. Loki (talk) 00:18, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Oh boy, here we go again. Hooky6 (talk) 20:15, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Merge ETLE to here and rename?

Inspired by the consensus above that Autogynephilia is best handled in this article, and at Talk:Homosexual transsexual that that article should be merged with this one (and by discussions on Talk:ETLE going back a decade), I wonder if we should also situate Blanchard's Erotic target location error idea (a short 618-word article we also go over at Blanchard's transsexualism_typology#Erotic_target_location_errors) within the context of his general model(s). This would allow a more holistic overview of both ETLE and the other facets of the Blanchardian model, and of the issues with them, but we might want to rename the merged article (*"Blanchard's psychological concepts" or something), as while much of discussion of ETLE is in relation to transness, it can theoretically apply to other things. Thoughts? -sche (talk) 19:11, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

At a glance that article seems to have the same problems as Homosexual transsexual, yeah - the sources that actually talk about the topic are the same tiny group of non-WP:INDEPENDENT researchers who work with Blanchard; the other sources are largely things that don't even talk about the topic and are used in a potentially WP:OR / WP:SYNTHy way. I don't think we need to rename the article to preserve that name for some other use - a quick search suggests that actual academic use of the term, in any context, is minimal to the point of almost being nonexistent. --Aquillion (talk) 21:36, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

A researcher simply agreeing with another researcher or supporting their hypothesis does not constitute a lack of WP:Independence. Crossroads ^-talk- 23:27, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

While this is related to the typology to some extent it is not clear to me that it is actually part of it. It appears to be much broader, and far more vague, than the "transexualism typology" so I don't think it belongs here. I'd suggest merging it to Blanchard's article but it sounds like maybe Anne Lawrence has an equal part in it so maybe that's not right either. DanielRigal (talk) 22:04, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree that that article should also be merged in. It appears to be used basically exclusively to Blanchard and collaborators, and has a criticism section that links only Moser. It also appears to be most commonly used as part of this typology: just at a glance, Lawrence's article that's heavily cited over there is over half about Blanchard's typology of trans people. There doesn't appear to be a separate theoretical motivation or a large group of outside researchers pursuing it, it's just another Blanchard-ism that has its own article for arbitrary wiki-history reasons.

In addition, I'd like to repeat that that's just one of the many Blanchard-isms that oughta be merged back into this page. My personal pet peeve remains feminine essence concept of transsexuality, another Blanchard-ism that's a little more subtle about being a Blanchard-ism. It looks like it's a separate thing but in fact it's just the term Blanchard and Bailey use to set up a false dichotomy between their typology and what they portray as a single folk belief, but which is actually a mish-mash of several different real beliefs of various levels of scientific support, terminology that is not meant literally, and research that contradicts Blanchard. Loki (talk) 04:51, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Well, if it doesn't seem controversial (and the previous discussions for similar articles suggests it is not), you can always just try a merge and see if anyone objects. If they do then we can have a RM. That article seems to have the same problems as the others where there's not really much actual academic usage of the term outside of Blanchard (and in that case there's the added problem that the usages, as the article acknowledges, don't really seem to share a common definition - there's no there there.) In particular, the source that seems to be the main focus of the article only has 32 citations to it that I can see, which would be fine if we were just using it as a cite for a few sentences but not particularly great when we have an entire article to it as if it was a hugely impactful concept. Honestly that one seems a lot worse than Autogynephilia. Also consider Analloeroticism. --Aquillion (talk) 01:45, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

"Also consider Analloeroticism." Ugh! How many of these damn things are there? DanielRigal (talk) 16:25, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Quite a few. Blame James Cantor, who was a prolific contributor to this topic area (despite the COI) until he got banned for socking a few years ago. Loki (talk) 16:56, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

It may be useful to review sources mentioning Blanchard to consider whether he's being given undue weight in them. --Aquillion (talk) 17:43, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Indeed (likewise for Cantor, frankly). -sche (talk) 18:20, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

On a quick search, there doesn't seem to be too much else, but there is causes of gender incongruence which has many of the same problems that this article has, mainly that it's a sort of ramble-y walk through a bunch of WP:PRIMARY research without much attempt to summarize. It also has a section on Blanchard's typology which seems large to me. Loki (talk) 20:39, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Honestly reviewing Cantor's article creations might be in order here. I was taking a look at Feminine essence concept of transsexuality, and it's pretty much the Bailey-Blanchard-Dredger show in terms of citations and content.

The Blanchard's typology summary at causes of gender incongruence is also one that we should re-write once we're finished cleaning up this article. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:43, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Loki (talk) 01:58, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

That would be another great one to look at. It would be good to have an article like that better following WP:DUE and focusing on the best mainstream research and findings. Hist9600 (talk) 03:32, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

A friend on the Wikimedia Discord also directed me at the typology summary in Classification of transsexual and transgender people. That article might also be in need of a trim, like do we really need the DSM-III to IV-TR and ICD-10 subsections? Especially as those subsections don't really summarise how those older versions of those documents actually classified trans individuals within their respective frameworks.

Maybe we should start a subpage somewhere like WT:LGBT where we can compile a list and summary of all of the relevant articles that need attention for trims and rewrites, before having article specific discussions as needed on the relevant article talk pages? Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:11, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

I think that ETLE was discussed by Stoller before Blanchard was on the scene, so would make it awkward to merge here if the current title is kept. Mathglot (talk) 01:56, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Seems to be too different of a situation. I get it with "homosexual transsexual" since that is a subtype in the typology, but that isn't the case with this. Crossroads ^-talk- 23:29, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Why is it controversial?

Nothing to see here. What initially seemed like a genuine question turned out to be a sockpuppet sealioning.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I’ve been reading this article as well as other articles relating to transgender identities and I’m having trouble understanding why the concept of autogynephilia is considered controversial. I was hoping someone could explain it to me? Torrimiller (talk) 17:48, 8 June 2023 (UTC) Scientifically, or among trans people? It's scientifically controversial because Blanchard's research is frankly kinda shoddy. He does studies on trans women comparing them to cis men but never to cis women. This means that he cannot ever come to the conclusion that trans women are like cis women, only that trans women are like or are not like cis men. He also has a tendency for patching holes in his theory (like, say, the fact that almost all trans people say they are not motivated to transition by a sexual fetish) by simply saying that trans women are liars (but only when it's convenient to his theory: survey data that the theory is based on is allegedly not also a lie). This, not to put too fine a point on it, has several other scientists saying that his theory is unfalsifiable and therefore pseudoscientific. It's controversial among trans people because Blanchard uses all sorts of outdated and degrading terminology, and because the general upshot of the theory is that the primary motivation for gender dysphoria is a sexual fetish. This is very much against the lived experience of most trans women, and it should be reasonably obvious why trans women usually consider this explanation to be disguised transphobia, basically calling them perverts. (Should probably make a quick note here that we're talking about autogynephilia *as a motivation for transition* here. Being attracted to oneself really does seem common, but not just among trans women but among cis women as well.) Loki (talk) 21:33, 8 June 2023 (UTC) It kind of seems like a very vocal contingent of trans women have effectively shut down the concept of autogynephilia simply because they don’t like it, or because they find the characterization distasteful. The concept strikes me - an impartial observer - as quite sensible. It doesn’t seem that any of these experts have called trans women “perverts” in any of the studies they have published. Torrimiller (talk) 23:04, 8 June 2023 (UTC) Lets not get into WP:NOTFORUM territory here. You can believe what you like. Loki and I were just tying to help you to understand why most people think otherwise. Medical consensus is that this is, at best, an unproven hypothesis. That's not the trans people saying that. That is the medical consensus. Now, I'm not here to berate you but I will note that you described yourself as "an impartial observer" while making some pretty wild claims and misunderstanding what we both told you. I think that you already have fully formed opinions on this matter and that maybe your initial question was not the innocent enquiry that it seemed. Anyway, WP:NOTFORUM suggests that we leave it there. Lets do that. --DanielRigal (talk) 00:48, 9 June 2023 (UTC) Oh, FFS! I see that our "just asking questions" friend has just been blocked for sockpuppetry. What a complete waste of everybody's time. I'll roll this up. --DanielRigal (talk) 00:59, 9 June 2023 (UTC) (I wrote a reply before I saw that Loki had already done so. This covers some of the same ground but maybe it is helpful anyway.) This is covered in the article but, basically, some people dispute its validity as a meaningful term and many others dispute that it applies to trans women more than to women in general or that it can be a useful criteria for categorising trans women. The whole typology, of which this is part, is disputed as not being backed by solid evidence. It does not have much traction in medical academia outside of a small group of followers who genuinely believe in it. Outside of medicine there are other groups of people, all antagonistic towards trans people, who find it extremely useful for political reasons, whether they actually believe it or not. While I'm sure that Blanchard did not intend it as such, it has been an absolute gift to people who deliberately seek to mischaracterise trans women as fetishists. It has provided them with a scientific sounding word that they can use in order to sound rational and civil while accusing innocent people of being perverts based on nothing but misunderstanding and prejudice. This is why mere mention of the word is sometimes seen as a red flag. I would be interested to know how closely you read the article before asking your question? That's not me trying to be intrusive. If you read the article and did not get a clear understanding of the nature of the controversy then maybe we are not doing a good job of explaining it? If so, that would be good to know. --DanielRigal (talk) 21:56, 8 June 2023 (UTC)