Category: other
Tags: autogynephilia, personal
-On August 6, 2006, I came across the
+On 6 August 2006 (I was eighteen years old), while browsing _Wikipedia_ (likely [the 31 July revision](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blanchard%27s_transsexualism_typology&oldid=66803255) of what is now the "Blanchard's transsexualism typology" article?), I came across the word _autogynephilia_ for the first time, and immediately recognized that _this was the word; this was the word for my thing_.
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+I didn't _know_ it was supposed to be controversial, and was actually surprised that it had been coined in the context of a theory of transsexualism; I had never had any _reason_ to come up with any ludicrous rationalizations that I was somehow _literally_ a girl in some unspecified metaphysical sense.
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+I wrote in my notebook:
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+> THERE'S A WORD FOR IT. _There's a word for it._ I don't know whether to be happy that there's an adjective for what I have, or sad that other men have it, & that it's not not mine, & only mine. Bless Wikipedia for showing me [...] But still, after all emotions have fitted themselves away, there is the word. "Autogynephilia." So simple; I know all the foreign roots; I should have thought of it. "Autogynephilic." That's what I am.
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+![notebook: THERE'S A WORD FOR IT ...]({filename}/images/getting_it_right_1.jpg)
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+And:
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+> Scarcity is a _metaphysical_ fact, so why am I hurt when my word (which I didn't invent & only discovered a few hours ago) has so many connotations attached to it that I don't like? The dictionary definition is perfect for me, but all the exposition after that has to do with transsexualism, which annoys me, although thinking of it now, I suppose it would seem to be a logical extension to some. I'm autogynephilic _without_ being gender-dysphoric—_or am I?_ _If_ transitioning cheap & fast & painless & perfect—wouldn't I at least be tempted? What I can't stand is transsexuals who want to express the man/woman they "truly are inside"—because I don't think there's any such thing. It _has_ to be about sex—because gender shouldn't exist.
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+![notebook: so why am I hurt when my word ...]({filename}/images/getting_it_right_2.jpg)
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+My views on gender have changed a _lot_ over the past ten years—most notably, I'm not a psychological sex differences denialist anymore, so I'm afraid I can no longer endorse that "gender shouldn't exist" stance. (Given that sex differences exist and people aren't going to _pretend not to notice_, at least some social-role defaults are inevitably going to accrete around them.)
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