--- /dev/null
+Title: A Beacon Through the Darkness; Or, Getting It Right the First Time
+Date: 2017-02-05 21:28
+Category: other
+Tags: autogynephilia, personal
+
+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_.
+
+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.
+
+I wrote in my notebook:
+
+> 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.
+
+
+
+And:
+
+> 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.
+
+
+
+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_, social-role defaults are inevitably going to accrete around them.)
+
+The funny part is that, in retrospect, it looks like a lot of the appeal to me of psychological sex differences denialism—besides its being ideologically fashionable—was an autogynephilia-inspired rationalization: _I didn't want to believe that girls were a different thing that I didn't understand_. (This theme is very explicit in my writings at the time. In the same notebook, I wrote: "Heterosexuality should already imply antisexism, as people don't generally want to slander their lovers.") And the "woman I truly am inside" gender-identity narrative that I so disdained _also_ looks like an autogynephilia-inspired rationalization, on the part of autogynephilic males (perhaps growing up in a less egalitarianist memetic environment than me) who took the _other_ route, of successfully deluding themselves into believing that they themselves are feminine, rather than my route of successfully deluding myself into believing that femininity isn't a real thing. (Contrast to androphilic "true" transsexuals who have just been really feminine their entire lives and don't need any delusions to justify their desire to be women.)
+
+Still, despite everything I've learned in the past decade, what's striking—at least, striking in contrast to the _utter raving lunacy_ I see trotted about around me in the name of transgender rights—is how much I got _right_ even then. I've had these desires since puberty, and have grown to cherish them, to let the fantasy shape my morals and ambitions. I didn't think it would be wrong to do something about it, if the costs and benefits added up. But I never took the fantasy literally, let alone expected the rest of the world to take it literally.
+
+Ten years later, this still seems like the only sane approach.
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / blobdiff