A critique of the paraphilic understanding of the sexuality of transsexual women
the problems with Ray Blanchard's theory of “autogynephilia”
Abstract
This work aims to critically address Ray Blanchard's theory of autoginephilia. According to the author, there are two types of transsexual women due to their sexuality: those attracted to men and all the others, who would be autogynephilics. Autogynephilia, understood as a paraphilia, designates a set of sexual fantasies about the image of yourself as a woman. Blanchard postulates that the etiology of female identity in non-androphilic transsexual women is autoginephilia. In this way, we focus on the critical literature on the subject, with a special focus on the perspectives of transsexual women themselves. We argue that the theory proposed by Blanchard is not only inconsistent with the narratives of transsexual women themselves, but also responsible for reiterating stigmatizing views about the sexuality of transsexual women, particularly those who are not exclusively attracted to men.
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