What Really Drives Transphobia: The Fears of the Fearful

Transphobia is fueled by the fears of the fearful, as are most kinds of bigotry. The fearful are people who want to protect themselves from the unpredictability of life by retreating into some kind of imaginary "normalcy."Any person who does not follow the rules given within this "Fortress of Normalia" is seen as a threat who must be eradicated. 

If we want to understand transphobia, we need to understand these fears.

A darkness has fallen over our democracies. The mood is very much like in Europe in the 1930s. At that time evil and cynical politicians used Jews as the scapegoats needed to take control of society. Everything bad was, according to this narrative, caused by a secret  cabal of Jews who controlled Hollywood, world banking and communism.

Racism was and is a key tool in any totalitarian handbook, since it ensures that the dominant, default, "race" remains in power. Racism is still a potent weapon wielded by those who seek control.

The current enshittfication of our societies  is, like the previous one, also powered by the desire to defend traditional gender roles, which - according to this belief - is anchored in both nature and God's will.  This sexist nonsense is an essential part of the word view of conservative extremists like Trump, Putin and Orban. Trans people are seen as a threat to this "natural" order. That is why it makes sense to persecute them.

From Hitler to Trump

This need for traditional gender conformity explains why one of the first things the Nazis did when they came  to power in Germany was to destroy  Magnus Hirschfeld'ts Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin. 

Magnus Hirschfeld's science and practice called for a humanization of gay and transgender individuals. Hirschfeld did not see queer and trans  people as mentally ill, but rather as  natural variations of humankind. His work reflected an increasing tolerance of LGBTQ people in a city like Berlin.

Magnus Hirschfeld (the one with glasses)  with friends.

The Nazis, however, believed in the gospel of strong white men dominating everyone else, and that world view required a strict adherence to traditional gender roles, where men rule and women raise children and serve men with adoration in their eyes.

Controlling science

This kind of nationalistic traditionalism was not only based on cultural norms and accepted behaviors; it was also based on pseudo-scientific ideas about the natural order of things. 

Eugenic research was seen to "prove" white superiority over people of color. A lot of researchers studying sexuality and gender let their own prejudices label everything that did not follow the vanilla script of submissive woman loving dominant man as sexual perversions. Gender variance was just a sign of such perversions.

How trauma may affect the lives of LGBTQ+ people and what they can do about it

This post will look at how psychological distress may play out among queer and transgender people and give you an introduction to the concepts of trauma, PTSD and Complex PTSD (CPTSD) in an LGBTQ+ setting. I will point to some steps you could take to help yourself or a friend suffering from trauma related issues. 

By Sally Molay

If the headline above caught your attention, you might know someone who struggles with the effects of trauma. Or maybe you suspect that you yourself carry unresolved trauma and the time is right to look into that. In either case, welcome to this primer and good luck in your important work!

Please note: I am not a doctor or a psychologist. This is not medical advice. I am a queer person and a trans ally. I suffer from complex trauma from childhood emotional abuse. I am also a survivor of sexual assault. I have been fortunate enough to heal and learn through years of therapy. I am also a trained instructor of iRest, a research-based relaxation and meditation technique for healing trauma.

I would like to underline that being trans is not a mental illness. Having a sexual orientation different from the straight one is not a psychological disorder. The current medical manuals explicitly state that being trans is not a mental illness.  However, the ways a cis/hetero-normative world treat queer people can often cause trauma. Moreover, queer and trans people are people like other people, and as such they can face emotional challenges that are not directly linked to their gender identity or sexual orientation.

Which topics are covered?

This is a lengthy post. If this feels daunting, I have included this little menu that you can use to jump to the parts you want to investigate: 

• What to do if you are in distress right now
• Why write about trauma in an LGBTQ+ context?
• What is a trauma? 
• Flight, fight, freeze, fawn
• PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder)
• Complex PTSD
• Somatization (bodily expressions of trauma)
• The window of tolerance
• How to get help
• How to help yourself
• Resources

Depression in Transgender People May be a Tool for Survival

New research on depression may throw some light upon the way transgender and nonbinary people experience depression.  In "We’ve Got Depression All Wrong. It’s Trying to Save Us," Alison Escalante argues that depression may be  part of a biological survival strategy.

Normally depression is seen as a negative side effect of emotional trauma, abuse or some random physiological or medical factor. Depression is not seen as something functional or meaningful per se. 

However, I have seen research that tries to explain depression as an attempt to achieve the social isolation needed for healing and recalibration. 

This article takes this argument one step further:  Depression leads to a kind of withdrawal that reduces the risk of violence and abuse from people around us. So in a dysfunctional family with an abusive parent or spouse, the body triggers a kind of inertia that may protect a person agains physical or emotional violence.

When the inner need for growth collides with people's desire to conform

Think of it this way: We are all born with a need for self expression and self realization, which may lead to conflict with others. Good parents and good friends give people room to explore and express themselves (within reason). 

Sociopaths,  control freaks and people driven by fear of social exclusion  may see such independence as a threat to their own hegemony and/or status in society. They will therefor use violence to curtail this freedom.  They may even think of this as a way of "helping" the child.

What Transphobic Norwegian Doctors can Teach Us about the Diversity of Transgender People

The major Norwegian clinic for transgender people is run by  doctors who are invalidating large sections of the transgender community. This  tells us a lot about how old stereotypes and prejudices among  gate keepers can ruin the lives of young trans people.

You'd better live up to the stereotypes if you want to get help from the transgender university clinic in Oslo. Photo: olgakr.

A progressive country...

As a Norwegian I am happy to say that we have some of the most liberal gender identity laws in the world. A trans person who wants to get legally recognized as their true gender, fills in an online form,  and that is all there is to it. There are no gate keepers in the legal sphere.

Morevoer, "transvestism" has been removed from the Norwegian version of the international medical manual, the ICD-10, and is no longer considered a mental illness. The same applies to being transgender in general.

...with a reactionary trans clinic

But getting your true gender legally recognized does not necessarily get you the medical assistance you need.  The National Treatment Unit for Transsexualism (Nasjonal behandlingstjeneste for transseksualisme, NBTS) at The University Hospital of Oslo has controls people's access to  surgery and does so in a very restrictive way.

I know of many trans people who have been denied any kind of help if they have admitted to erotic crossdreaming fantasies, for instance, or if they have not lived up to gender stereotypes as regards dress code, interests and mannerisms.

In the end it got so bad that Amnesty International got involved, arguing that the whole policy was in violation of trans peoples' human rights. (I have written more about this here.) 

A white paper has proposed a whole new regime, basically arguing that more clinics should provide services of this kind, in that way removing some of the power The National Treatment Unit for Transsexualism  has today.

Doctors show their true face

That has turned out to be a very wise recommendation, indeed. In a recent article in the major Oslo newspaper Aftenposten, leaders of the NBTS express opinions that are undeniably transphobic.

Among traditionalists Jazz Jennings is the perfect
transgender girl. God bless Jazz Jennings, but
the fact is that a large number of trans kids
are forced to hide who they are. 

The arguments they use to invalidate trans people are the  ones readers of this blog will know far too well:

Trans people who come out during puberty or later, and who do not visibly express their true gender through gender stereotypes throughout childhood, are not considered the right kind of transgender.

Anne Wæhre og Kim Alexander Tønseth from NBTS address the minister of health, Bent Høie, in their article, arguing that his liberal policy for transgender people has backfired.

The recent upsurge in young people approaching the clinic is, as they see it, the result of a "misguided and misplaced kindness mixed with minority activism and professional conflicts."

It is Time to Break the Vicious Circle of Transphobia

A look at how transphobia and homophobia cause male to female crossdreamers and transgender people to behave in ways that  confirm the prejudices of the narrow minded. It is time to break the vicious circle of transphobia.

The circle of transphobia is a circle, so you might start anywhere along it's curve, but let us for simplicity's sake start with childhood. In this presentation I will present a male to female crossdreamer and someone who has a clear female gender core (to use Felix Conrad's term). Much of the same applies to female to male crossdreamers and those who are somewhere in the non-binary and gender fluid parts of the gender continuum.

1. Childhood gender dissonance

A young male assigned gender variant child, will -- as the surrounding culture increasingly demands adherence to the expected roles of gender -- start to feel some kind of dissonance between what feels right and what parents, peers and friends expect.

As the kid learns the ins and outs of language, they may try to express this unease, buy telling their parents that they are not "really a boy" or by trying to express their dreams by other means, most likely through play. Preferring Barbies to toy guns has become a bit of a cliché in transgender narratives, but there is something to it.

Waking Up the Anima – Jung Applied to Transgender Women

Guest writer Jocelyn Muchilinski takes a new approach to using Jung's theory of the subconscious to explain transgender experiences.  

The anima represents the female
side of the male psyche
Painting by Indra Grušaitė 

Guest Post by Jocelyn Muchlinski

The Anima and the Animus

Carl Jung introduced a new vocabulary into psychology. Among the most important words in this vocabulary are anima, animus, and projection.

In this essay, I will commandeer these words and twist them to suit my meanings. Perhaps Jung will forgive me for perverting his language so freely.

The anima is the female soul in every human. The animus is the male soul.

I want to encourage readers to understand the anima and animus as two entirely different people living in the same body. I also want to suggest that the animus, in cisgender men, is one and the same with the man himself.

That is to say, the animus has the reigns of the ego. The animus is expressed and brought to life in the words, thoughts, and actions of the man. The anima, on the other hand, gains life by projecting itself onto female figures in the man’s life.

In this way, both anima and animus take an essential and substantial role in the life of the cisgender man.

Conversely, the anima is the soul and person of the cisgender woman. This woman, who is the anima incarnate, experiences her animus by projecting it onto male figures in her life. Projection of anima and animus occurs naturally first on the parents of a child.

Thus, for a boy, his first experience of his own anima is vis-à-vis his mother. For a girl, she sees her own animus—her male soul—in her father.

On Quantum Desire and why we need a new sexology of gender variance

Felix Conrad pondering the sexuality of
gender variance.
(Photo: elwynn1130)

Felix Conrad, spiritual leader of the Transcend Movement and crossdreamer philosopher per excellence, has written a new book on sexuality and gender variance called Quantum Desire. 

Antonia has asked him a few questions.

ANTONIA: Is it really necessary you write another book on crossdreaming? What’s this...the hundredth?

FELIX: I’ll ignore that! Anyway..it’s the ninety eighth.. Yes...absolutely necessary. Most of my work has been about the seismic tremors of a transgender awakening: trying to understand why I feel that I’m a woman...how valid is that feeling... and how I can live with it? So, basically, they’re about transgender psychology. This book deals with gender variance as a sexological phenomenon.

ANTONIA: And why the change?

FELIX: It’s a question of survival really. The transgender crisis screwed with my mental health and I had to sort it out...and I sort my head out out by writing. Now that I’ve turned a corner with my gender issues I can write something that’s been on my ‘to do’ list for quite some time: a sexological analysis of crossdreaming.

Also, I think that one of the fascinating things I’ve discovered recently is that when I got on top of my gender issues I started to see my desire to change gender as more of a sexual thing. Now, I don’t want to overstate that...because I’ve been irrevocably changed by my transgender awakening - but something’s shifted. It’s this quality of gender variant sexuality that gave me the book’s title: Quantum Desire; as fucking crazy as this may sound...it seems that the way you observe our sexuality can change it.

ANTONIA: But come on Felix, don’t be shy...that’s not the only reason you wrote it...hasn’t there been a certain Spanish beauty who started off this quest?

Looking for students and scientists who want to study transgender issues

Dr. Jaimie Veale is looking for students and researchers who would be interested in studying transgender  issues.

Jaimie Veale

Dr. Jaimie Veale has done some extremely important research in transgender people, documenting, for instance, a diversity and a complexity that goes far beyond the traditional dichotomies between two types of male to female transgender people.

In this context she has delivered compelling evidence that undermines the so-called "autogynephilia" theory of Dr. Ray Blanchard of Toronto, a theory that effectively reduces transgender identities to paraphilias.

I have presented some of her research here  and here, and you can find more material over at her own web site.

Having spent some time in British Columbia, Jaimie is now back in New Zealand, in a faculty position at the School of Psychology at the University of Waikato.

In time Jaimie hopes to be able to build up a team of researchers interested in everything transgender (crossdreaming included). If you are interested in this kind of research, and would even like to contribute yourself, do not hesitate to contact her. She may even supervise students from a distance.

The Two Traditions of Thinking about Transgender

There are two major strands in modern sexology, both going back to the late 19th century. One is binary, gender conservative and interprets gender variation as mental illness; the other is liberal, trans-positive and understands sex and gender as complex continuums.

I have read a lot of transgender history. Too much, probably. This also applies to the science of transgender and the philosophy of transgender.

In her book Sex and Temperament from 1935, Margaret
Mead presented an amazing variation in gender roles
and expressions in different cultures, debunking one
and for all the idea that all masculine and feminine
behavior is inborn.
(Cover of 1950 Mentor paperback edition).

There is one important lesson I have learned from all of this: Every single original idea  had been presented before 1915.

The binary, pathologizing, tradition

100 years ago you would find it all:

The binary theory of two completely separate sexes, male and female, was already there. So was the idea that gender variations are perversions threatening society's "evolutionary fitness".

As now, many researchers argued that transgender conditions was caused by variations in the presence of hormones in the womb. This applied to sexual orientation too; many researchers had some difficulty keeping the two apart, then as now.

Others argued that it had to do with bad upbringing, blaming -- for instance -- strong mothers and weak fathers. Feminists, homosexuals and "primitive", non-white, people could also be blamed for spreading these "diseases".

Then, as now, the main fear was of the feminization of boys. Society needed strong, masculine, rational boys to fight wars, colonize the world and govern society, and because of this the emotional, feminine sissies -- gay or trans -- were a threat to the system.

(Tomboys and FTM transgender were also a problem, but did not constitute the same threat to the social order. After all, the fact that women wanted to be men made sense; the MTFs, on the other hand, had to be mad to desire the life of a woman.)

This binary tradition can be traced from Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing and his book Psychopathia Sexualis in 1886. via the Freudian psychoanalysts and John Money of the 20th century, up to the current autogynephilia theory of Ray Blanchard.

What unifies this tradition is not the explanation for what causes gender dysphoria or gender identity conflicts. The researchers will blame it on inherited degeneracy, hormones or feminist mothers, all depending on the researcher's natural inclinations and cultural context. What unites them is the need to present gender variation as something unnatural and unacceptable.

Felix Conrad Talks about Transgender Research, Crossdreaming and Beach Clubbing

Felix Conrad recently set up a new site called The Transcend Movement, focusing on crossdreaming and transgender issues.  We have talked to him about how to cope as transgender, his new ebook, his devastating dismissal of the autogynephilia theory and Brazilian supermodels.

On the beach

Trans philosopher Felix Conrad brings crossdreaming
to the beaches of the Mediterranean
(Photo: Design Pics/Tomas del Amo)

Felix, you have taken an unusual approach to crossdreamer blogging. Your site is not so much a blog, but more of a beach lounge or club for all things crossdreaming. What made you chose this form of communication?

My philosophy of design is quite simple... I look at what everyone else is doing, and then kick it in the nuts. Within reason.

We - and especially you - are in the business of online community building, so I decided to play with the idea of giving that community an imagined space... a beach club located within an ideal, coastal transgender community.

In this case I think my imagination got the better of me...but this is about cross'dreaming' after all.

I have also noted that you do not shy away from communicating crossdreamer dreams and desires in an 'in your face' kind of way. There are Brazilian super models, and more Brazilian super models, which fit well with the beach club theme, I guess, but which some might find sexist. Is this your way of opening up a discussion?

Sorry, Jack... no such lofty intentions. I have a long running obsession with Alesandra Ambrosio which both I - and my children - find completely ridiculous. So, when I claim my book will 'guaranteed turn you into a Brazilian supermodel' I'm laughing at myself.

I sometimes think there is a remarkable lack of humour in the transgender community. Being able to take yourself and life seriously, but realize that, in another sense you/it are absurd, is an immense liberation.

Femephilia and autogynephilia

In your book on crossdreaming you use the term femephilia to refer to sexual arousal at the idea of being a woman. What is the difference between this term and the term crossdreaming, as you see it?

Femephilia is a sexological term - like homosexual. It's cold. Crossdreamer is a term of popular culture - like 'gay.' It's huggable.

Magnus Hirschfeld's Theory of Transgender Intermediaries

The German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld presented a very radical theory of transgender and crossdreaming back in 1910, a theory that can enrich our understanding of sex and gender today.

Magnus Hirschfeld with friends. Hirschfeld with glasses, right.

In my previous post, I presented the German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld and his arguments against the tendency to pathologize transgender identities and sexualities.

While many -- if not most -- of the other sex researchers of his day developed elaborate classification schemes of sexual desire and sexual behavior in order protect the realm of imagined normalcy against "deviants" (see Tosh 2015), Hirschfeld mapped sex and gender variation for the exact opposite reason.

Elenea Mancini puts it this way in her book Magnus Hirschfeld and the Quest for Sexual Freedom:

"Hirschfeld canvassed and classified the rich diversity of people he encountered, not for the mere sake of accruing scientific data or accentuating that which separated certain groups of people from others, but rather to uncover the fundamental similarities between all people irrespective of their sexual orientation, identity, or ethnic and racial provenance. He did not establish hierarchies of qualities such as physical traits and characteristics or sexual practices. This gave his work a distinctive flavor in that it became not only an ethnographic recording of difference, but implicitly, a celebration of that difference as well." (p. 35)

Theory of intermediaries

What Hirschfeld suggests is an early incarnation of the non-binary continuum theory, i.e. that there is no clear and distinct boundary between the male and the female, the masculine and the feminine. He calls this his "theory of intermediaries" (Zwischenstufenlehre, literally: "the theory about the steps in between").

This theory of intermediaries applies to the physiological as well the psychological, as Hirschfeld understands it. In other words: He refuses to separate body from mind, biology from psychology. Instead he considers the human being as a complex system of mind and matter.

What the DSM-5 says about terms like transgender, transsexual and gender dysphoria

The recent edition of the American psychiatric manual, the DSM-5 distinguishes clearly between the broader umbrella term transgender and the much narrower term transsexual. The text gives, in fact, a pretty good summary of the dominant model of gender variance. It is time transgender people get a chance to read it.

In the transgender debate words like "transgender", "transsexual" and "gender dysphoria" are used often without there being any clear, common understanding of what the terms really mean.

Photo: Janka Dharmasena

Unfortunately sex and gender is one of the most controversial topics around. We need love to thrive and be happy, and any real or perceived threat against the possibility of finding real love and affirmation as a sexual being can therefore be life threatening.

Because of this people seem to be willing to do anything to be included in the category of "normal", to the point of excluding other  people from the transgender community, often by attempting to  take full control over the meaning of essential words.

The purification of the term transgender

This especially applies to so-called transsexual separatists. Some of them redefine the word "transgender" to mean any gender variant person who is not like them ("classic transsexuals" and the HBS tribe). Transgender people can therefore not be "real transsexual women", as they see it.

Lately we have also seen separatists who want to appropriate the word "transgender", in effect redefining it to mean the same as the word "transsexual" (the truscum tribe). The end result is the same: The expulsion of all transgender people who do not adhere to their idea of what it means to be a real woman or a real man.

Are all crossdreamers transsexual? Is Jack?

In a discussion over at Crossdressers.com the concept of crossdreaming has come up, and I see that there are some confusion about what my position is as regards the nature of men and women who get turned on by the idea of being "the opposite sex".

Photo: Erik Reis, photos.com

auto andrea writes:

"He [Jack Molay] propagates a theory that aims to positively accommodate gender-dysphoric autogynephiliacs, by basically reducing the condition to transsexualism. Those autogynephiliacs who have never experienced gender-dysphoria, he implies, are repressed transsexuals."

I can see why auto andrea has come to read me this way, but this is actually not what I say.

What I have said is that all crossdreamers most likely have something in common, and that this "something" most probably has a biological core.

This does not mean that all crossdreamers are transsexuals -- repressed or not repressed. The fact is that I think only a minority of crossdreamers are truly  transsexual, in the sense that they completely identify with their target sex.

Crossdreaming : A Push Towards a Self Authoring Journey

On the road to self authorship (photo: Hemera/Photos.com)

In this post, guest blogger Janikest argues  that crossdreamera needs to develop narratives that makes sense of their lives.

Only then can they find ways of navigating a society that shows little understanding of what crossdreaming is about.

"Crossdreaming : A Push Towards a Self Authoring Journey"

By Guest Writer Janikest

Crossdreaming is a complex phenomenon with a wide variety of features and expressions from one individual to another. One thing is quite recurrent though : to the casual "fetishist" to the dysphoric "twilighter", crossdreaming is likely to come up with a host of issues, ranging from love shyness to chronic or permanent anxiety.

Wandering around forums and reading books on the topic has also allowed me to notice another common feature : The people who seem to be able to handle crossdreaming (be it finding an outlet, trying to figure out what it is, or chose to transition) share something in common. The present text is aimed at understanding what they share.

In Memory of Those We Lost

Suicide is the greatest threat crossdreamers face. What can we do about it?

Last summer there appeared a heart breaking post on one of the male to female transgender/crossdreamer caption blogs: Yvonne's Caption World.

The message read:

"My name is Mark. I am Yvonne's brother.

I am afraid I have to bring you the sad news that three weeks ago Yvonne decided to take her life

She left a note saying that she felt she could no longer go on living (in her words); 'in between two genders, dysfunctional in one and unable to become the other.'

She did not feel she had anyone to turn to. I wish she had given me a call."

Her site is full of captions and stories reflecting the dreams of a gender dysphoric crossdreamer. And yes, it seems obvious to me that Yvonne was a transsexual woman. In the upper right corner of her blog you will find a request for support for her transition.

Suicide among crossdreamers and transgender

We have actually no idea of how many crossdreamers take their life every year. The reason for this is that most crossdreamers are invisible, not only to health personnel  but often also to their loved ones. Often those left behind do not know what really caused their family member to chose this option.

We do have statistics for registered transgender, however, and I have reason to believe that great many of those registered as such are crossdreamers (transgender is here an umbrella term including a wide variety of gender variant people).

The Other Side of your Transgender Soul -- Body and Mind

Here is my final post on Jung and a transgender psychology.

The starting point for this series is the idea that the subconscious psyche compensates for what the conscious ego considers taboo and therefore denies.

For instance: All male bodied persons have psychological traits associated with culturally defined feminine values, but they find it hard to admit to these feelings and therefore suppress them.

Among many transgender people these suppressed feelings find a way to  the surface through crossdreaming and crossdressing.

The anima and animus becomes one

As I noted in my post on the anima and animus archetypes, the anima and arnimus archetypes may be understood in at least two ways.

The traditional way is to think of the anima as the underdeveloped feminine side of man and the animus as the primitive man in the woman.

The second explanation is to think of the anima and the animus as the gateway to the unconscious. In this sense they are parallels to the persona, the "mask" we show the people around us. The persona helps us interact with the world outside. The anima/animus helps us to interact with the world inside.

In order to function as a gateway to "the other side" the anima/animus compensates for what is lacking in the persona and the ego. If the persona is hypermasculine the anima appears as hyperfeminine in dreams, fantasies and projections. If the persona of a woman is emotional, her animus becomes quasi-intellectual.

I add the term "quasi" to signify that this intellectual side is underdeveloped, for the simple reason that this particular woman has never been encouraged to develop that side of her psyche.

The anima  of a male bodied person does not have to express culturally defined feminine traits only. Nor does the animus of a female bodied person have to be symbolized as a man in dreams and fantasies. It all depends on to what extent "the other side" has been integrated into the ego and the persona.

If the cultural ideas of what it means to be a man or a woman changes, the anima and animus are also likely to generate different content. If a woman is allowed to explore her aggressive and dominant side, her animus is less likely to express this part of her psyche in dreams and fantasies.

Murray Stein's interpretation

There are Jungians who have reinterpreted Jung for a the contemporary age, somewhat in the same vein as I have done here.


Murray Stein asks the same question in the highly recommended book Jung's Map of the Soul: An Introduction:

"But what about women who are not very feminine and men who are not very masculine in their personas? Does a not-very-feminine woman have a nonmasculine animus, and a not-very-masculine man have a nonfeminine anima? Jung would be obliged to follow this line of thought, given his premises."

The Other Side of your Transgender Soul - from Dostoyevski to Buffy the Vampire Slayer

The Anima as the archetypal hero. Joss Whedon
turned the anima archetype upside down, turning the

brainless bimbo (Buffy) and the introvert nerd

(Willow) into fearsome warriors.

Image from the Dark Horse comic book.

Our understanding of what it means to be a woman or a man is changing. That has repercussions for how crossdreamers and transgender people see themselves.

The changing anima 


In my previous posts in my series on transgender psychology I argued that Carl Jung's concept of the anima (the repressed woman withing the man) and the animus (the unconscious masculine side of women) may be useful in a transgender context, but not in the way most people think.

Far too often the anima is understood as a given, biologically determined,  set of feminine personality traits that the man suppresses in order to live up to the masculine stereotype. According to this model the feminine side of man will always be - for instance -- emotional, irrational and opinionated.

But what happens if the cultural stereotypes change?

Will the anima represent the same timeless traits like  -- let's say -- being emotional as opposed to analytical, conflict shy as opposed to aggressive?

I find that very unlikely. The psychological traits found in the anima and animus will change in accordance with what is considered accepted behavior in that culture.

The traditional anima

In the 19th century and much of the 20th century the female archetype or anima appeared in novels written by men as the comforter, the emphatic and forgiving soul, the kind of woman who helps a man reconcile a tortured soul with the undercurrents of nature.  Goethe's Faust had Gretchen. Ibsen's Peer Gynt had Solveig.

In several of Fyodor Dostoyevski's books we meet men who have gone so far in the analytical direction, that they lose touch with Nature, God  or the Harmonious Life (which in Dostoyevski's case seem to be one and the same).

The Transgender Jung

Carl G. Jung

On using  Carl Gustav Jung's model of the psyche to describe transgender experiences.

I have posted a few articles where I have been using the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung to discuss the transgender psyche.

Only one post remains, but before I publish that one, I would like to take a look at to what extent Jung discussed transgender conditions.

Here are all the posts in the transgender psychology series:
1: The Role of the Unconscious
2: The Ego and the Complexes
3: The Shadow
4: The Animus and the Anima
5: The Other Side of your Transgender Soul - from Dostoyevski to Buffy the Vampire Slayer
6: Transgender and the mind and body conundrum
7: Spellbound transgender
8: Ponyo for Crossdreamers
9: Falling in love with your own anima

See also guest post by  Jocelyn Muchlinski: Waking Up the Anima – Jung Applied to Transgender Women

Jung ignored the transgender

Did Carl Gustav Jung himself say anything about crossdreamers, crossdressers or transvestites?

As far as I can see, he did not.

That is a bit peculiar, really, as there had already been  published some interesting research on trasvestites in Berlin, which might have given him some input on his discussion on the crossgender nature of the collective  unconscious (Magnus Hirschfield: Die Transvestiten 1910)

Some Thoughts on Cross Dressing

Today I have the pleasure of presenting an essay written by Davida, a fellow male to female crossdreamer.  I think this essay presents a very useful approach towards developing an understanding of what crossdressing and crossdreaming is about.


There are a lot of crossdreamers and crossdressers out there that work hard on finding a narrative that makes sense for people like us. If you have done research of a similar kind, do not hesistate to contact me.

Jack

Some Thoughts on Cross Dressing

By David/Davida

As a young adult and as a student of behavior, I read extensively in an attempt to find an explanation for my cross dressing behavior. Several psychological hypotheses were proposed in the literature but I did not find any of them to be compelling.

Petticoating

While I don’t think it is an explanation for cross-dressing, one hypothesis that resonated somewhat with me was what is called petticoating or pinaforing. Petticoating is feminizing (cross dressing) males as a method of discipline and control. 

The basic hypothesis is that petticoating was used as a maternal discipline technique or punishment that relied on eliciting humiliation and submission to discipline a boy. This experience it is proposed leads to the boy becoming a cross dresser. 

The woman petticoating a boy calls him her sissy boy, which through association becomes a verbal trigger for the same feelings of humiliation and submission aroused through the actual petticoating.

This hypothesis in another permutation substitutes an older sister or other female relative such as an aunt for the mother. A final permutation proposes a role for the practice in older males in which the petticoating is applied by a girlfriend, spouse or even a relative stranger such as a neighbor.

I don’t think that this hypothesis accounts for cross-dressing as a behavioral phenomenon. I don’t believe that I was subjected to petticoating as a young child and don’t have any recollection of it, if it occurred. 

Falling in love with your own anima

Betty Boop falls in love

There i an interesting parallel between Carl Jung's anima-theory (that each man has an unconscious feminine side) and Ray Blanchard's autogynephilia-theory (that some men get aroused by the idea of having a woman's body).

A man will repress not only associated with what he and his culture considers the negative nature of woman, Jung argues. His anima will also be projected onto other women.

His unconscious misogyny may, for instance,  turn many of the women he meets  into stupid airheads.

But he will also project his inner ideal woman, i.e. the image of the beautiful, loving, merciful and perfect woman.

As Jung points out the man projects his own feminine side onto a woman, and then falls head over heals in love with her!


Yes, according to Jung infatuated love is indeed autoerotic, but unlike Ray Blanchard  -- who believes that it is only the "autogynephilac" who can fall in love with the image of himself as a woman,  Jung believes this applies to all men.

At this point it becomes, of course, meaningless to label this as a sexual perversion.