On Being Transgender, The Jack Molay Interview

Felix C has basically turned crossdreamer blogging into transgender chill-out clubbing.

Who is Jack Molay?
Illustration by Jorgenmac

Really, there is no other site out there quite like the Transcend Movement.

Felix and I had a talk about how to make a good pasta sauce, crossdreaming, autogynephilia, my life as transgender, bullies, Sense8 and more.

You can read it all if you click here!

Janet Mock and Laverne Cox Embrace a Broad Interpretation of Transgender

Janet Mock and Laverne Cox are supporting the
transgender umbrella. Photo: Jamie McCarthy

Trans activists Janet Mock and Laverne Cox supports a wide definition of the word transgender. Mock's new book explains why.

Janet Mock's new autobiography should be obligatory reading for everyone interested in trans issues, and for various reasons. 

One is the fact that she throws light upon why some transsexual people feel such a need to invalidate other members of the transgender family.

Getting validation as a "real woman"

Mock tells the story about how she as a young transsexual woman ended up distancing herself from other trans people, insulting them in the process.

She writes:

"Growing up, I learned that being trans was not something you did take pride in; therefore, I yearned to separate myself from the dehumanizing depictions of trans women I saw in popular culture..."

Mock starts out by pointing out that umbrella terms like transgender can cause difficulties, as society often blurs the lines between drag queens and trans women.

This is highly problematic, Mock says, because this causes many people to believe that trans women, like drag queens, go home, take off their wigs and chest plates, and walk around as men:

"Trans Womanhood is not a performance or costume. As [Mock's friend] Wendi likes to joke, 'A drag queen is part-time for show-time, and a trans woman is all the time!"

Gender dysphoric drag queens and crossdressers

Still, when Mock does not dismiss the broader transgender alliance (or end up as truscum), this is because she learned to know drag queens and divas personally, and found that many of them are, in fact, transsexual women.

On the Various Shades of Transgender

Photo: anopdesignstock 

On why it is impossible to draw firm and unambigious borders between the different shades of transgender.

faekingit over at tumblr asked the following question:

"Though I’ve seen other people do this before, I’m curious to get my own responses.

Yes, I’m truscum, but I’m open to listening to answers without flipping out and threatening you with death or something. I probably won’t even reply unless there’s something I want to correct.

And the question is this - what exactly makes you another gender if you don’t experience sex/body dysphoria (not dysmorphia, keep in mind the difference)? How do you feel, say, in the case of a demiboy, “partially male”, without using gender roles and stereotypical expectations and gender expression to describe it? Answers are appreciated; ignore it if you want since I’m “disgusting true scum”.

The question forced me to try to simplify the complex matter of sex, gender and transgender in a way that makes sense, even for those who do not know all of the background. It is an impossible task really, but this was my attempt:

"I am gender dysphoric, so I can relate to your view of the world. But let me try to answer, anyway, as I believe much of the fighting going on in this area is caused by some basic misunderstandings.

People do not agree on what they mean by gender. In the social sciences it refers to culturally defined mores and ideas. In biology it refers to the end effect of a complex interplay of biological, environmental and social factors. Needless to say, your choice of point of view here makes a huge difference.

Blank slate vs. biology

Personally I find the "blank slate" idea of everything sex and gender being cultural or political hard to understand. We are also animals, with all the instincts and drives that this entails.

But it is equally clear that much of what people understand as typically male or female is cultural. Female liberation has shown us that there are few differences between the sexes as regards personality traits, abilities, temperaments and expressions.

Dimensions of gender

So none of the following dimensions alone determine whether you are a man or a woman. Nor can they be used to decide whether you feel like a man or a woman:

1. Personality traits, including abilities
2. Sexual orientation
3. Genitals and other bodily features
4. Femininity or masculinity, in the sense of a drive towards expressing whatever your culture defines as being such.

Survey of truscum transsexual separatists

raeltran over at tumblr has published a survey of truscum.

Truscum is a predominantly online phenomenon playing out on the social media site tumblr. This is group of transsexuals who are trying to appropriate the word "transgender" for themselves, and forbid non-transsexual gender variant people from using it. For some reason they feel embarrassed by using the word transsexual, but think the term "true scum" is a good one.

Photo: Bs/Wei, thinkstock

I am not sure to what extent this survey is representative, but if it is, it gives us some interesting information about the composition of the  truscum  separatist tribe.

1. Most of them are female to male transsexual.

Unlike the previous separatist movement, the "Classic Transsexual/HBS tribe", they are men (assigned female at birth).

This rhymes with my general impression: The younger generation of trans women are not following the separatist line. This also helps explain the lack of co-operation between the old female and the new male  generation of separatists.

2. The truscum are young. 

Over 80 percent are between 15 and 25 years old.

This may partly explain their lack of knowledge of transgender history. It seems to me that most of them truly believes the word "transgender" equals "transsexual". I do not think they are lying or trying to deceive (at least not most of them). This paradox can only be explained them lacking an understanding of transgender history.

3. 75 percent are white and  73 percent are American. 

All the respondents come from English speaking, Anglo-Saxon/Irish, countries.

In short: We are talking about a movement predominantly driven by American white men.  This may partly explain their desperate need to purify the word transgender from crossdresser/crossdreamer/genderqueer contamination.

In the US we see an increasing acceptance of transsexuals following the traditional "men trapped in a woman's body" narrative. We do not see a similar acceptance of non-dysphoric and non-transitioning transgender people, who often are considered sexual perverts by "experts" and laypeople alike. In other words: Expelling crossdressers, crossdreamers, girlfags and other questionable individuals from the transgender movement may allay any suspicions people have of the truscum being "unclean".

That being said: The great majority of truscum accepts that non-binary identities are valid with gender dysphoria.  In this they differ from the previous generation of separatists, where most required gender dysphoria and a strong identification with the traditional interests, abilities and temperaments of their target sex.

See also:
"You are not one of us!" said the separatist transsexualTruscum and the Transgender War of Words

realtran has also written a post on the reception of the survey, which is worth reading.

PDF-version of survey (date May 9 2014)

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.

Truscum and the Transgender War of Words

While "classic" male to female transsexual women reject the word "transgender", the female to male transsexual separatists are claiming ownership. What is a crossdreamer to do?

Separatism divides and weakens us (photo: Ken Lloyd)

There are many wars on terminology going on in the spheres of gender and sexuality. The common denominator seems to be a need to uphold some kind of cultural and natural purity.

Accusations about appropriation and mislabeling are launched with varying precision, in gay as well as trans communities.

In the case of the transsexual separatists, this is a fight to end all doubts about them being real women or real men, as any association with crossdreamers and crossdressers is seen as a threat to their legitimacy.

The narrative of the classic transexual

The male to female transsexual separatists  argue that real  transsexual women suffer from a medical condition, and that they have nothing in common with crossdreamers, crossdressers, drag queens,  and gender queer, who  -- according to them -- are not suffering from such a medical condition.

Since they mistakenly believe the word "transgender" was coined by the infamous male to female crossdresser Virginia Prince (it wasn't!), they become insulted if you try to include them under this umbrella term for gender variant people.

According to them they have never been part of the Transgender Continent. Calling them "separatist" is therefore also insulting. They live on an island of their own.

The bizarre reversal of the female to male separatists

In my recent ventures into the female to male side of the Trans Continent, I have found the brother tribe of the MTF classical transsexual.  On tumblr, which has become an important arena for trans debate, they are know as "truscum".

(No, I have not been able to find the origin of the term truscum, although it seems clear that it was originally meant as a slur against the separatists.)

The truscum argue that transsexuality is a medical condition and that transsexuality is defined by the symptom of physical sex dysphoria (i.e. severe suffering from a misalignment between sex identity and body). They accuse non-transsexual people of "transtrending", i.e. appropriating real transsexual identities.

But here's the kicker: The FTM truscum trans men call themselves transgender! 

Dysphoria, Crossdreaming and the Politics of Gender

In this guest blog post Joanna Santos argues that we have lost ourselves in the politics of gender. She recommends another approach to gender variance, on based on tolerance and compassion.

By Guest Writer Joanna Santos

Lili Elbe undertook sex realignment surgery in 1930.

Gender dysphoria has likely always existed as part of the human condition but much of our understanding and interpretation of what it is gets lost in the cacophony and noise coming from all directions.

In today’s society, we have lost ourselves in the politics of gender and have forgotten to go back to the source.

Fetishists and Classic Transsexuals

On the one extreme you have fetishists who argue that their activity is sourced in their own natural psychology and have no problems agreeing with Ray Blanchard that they are engaging in a paraphilia of their own choosing.

They have no issue with admitting that they are comfortable with their fetish but at the same time insist that gender dysphoria cannot be sourced in biology and is a purely psychological construct.

On the other extreme you have the older generation so called “classic” transsexuals who argue that they alone suffer from a complete psycho sexual inversion and are true women seeking a correction which will return them to a state they should be in naturally had there not been some cruel mistake made. Anyone else is an impostor or a “man in a dress” and their worst fear is that their “womanhood” will be invalidated in the eyes of society by merely being associated with the loathsome transgender umbrella.

Harry Benjamin: Between the Extremes

The problem with both of these positions is that they ignore the people who live in between both extremes; the research by people such as Harry Benjamin as well as numerous studies and interviews involving post transition transsexuals.

Julia Serano on the transsexual separatists and crossdreaming

Those of you who have followed the transgender vs. "true" or "classical" transsexual debate, should take a look at Julia Serrano's recent article in the Transadvocate, and her following comment over at her new blog.

Serrno is probably one of the most influential transsexual activists in the USA today, and yes, she supports the transgender alliance of crossdressers, gender queer and transsexual people.

Activism requires alliances

She writes:

"...I have mostly avoided this debate because of the name calling, disparaging stereotypes and nonconsensual sexualization that are sometimes associated with it. But recently, I read a post where someone referred to me as being firmly in the 'transsexual' (rather than “transgender”) camp. This was the second time that I had seen such a claim, and frankly, it surprised me.


"Granted, in my book Whipping Girl, I argued that the transsexual experience is different from other transgender trajectories, and I also decried the manner in which some cissexual gays and lesbians appropriate transsexual identities. 


"But I never once advocated that transsexuals should completely split off from the transgender or LGBT communities. Rather, my intention was constructive criticism – I hoped to make those alliances more aware and respectful of transsexual voices and perspectives

"So, for the record, I am in the pro-umbrella camp, even though I acknowledge that sometimes umbrella politics are messy and less than equitable. In other words, I believe that the pros of umbrella politics outweigh the cons."


Why this is important

There are separatist transwomen who make serious, coherent and constructive arguments for why they do not want to be part of a movement that encompasses crossdressers, gender queer and homosexual people. They often argue that (1) they have nothing in common with homosexuals and (2) that they refuse to be forced into a club that do not fit their needs.

Fair enough. I am not going to repeat the arguments for why it makes sense to have an umbrella term here. I think Serano explains this well. But these arguments made by the constructive members of the separatist side are definitely legitimate.

Trans-transphobia

Still, it seems to me that the majority of separatist bloggers and commentators are not against the transgender and LGBT umbrellas out of purely democratic or pragmatic reasons. They are against it because they do not want to be associated with people they basically despise. There is a lot of homophobia in these circles, and also misandry; but most of all there is a deep contempt for crossdressers.

Crossdressers are routinely accused of  being sexually obsessed perverts. They are considered men who harass women online and  in women's restrooms (sic!). It is therefore extremely important for these activists to explain that crossdressers and "autogynephiliacs" have absolutely nothing in common with post-op transsexual women.

As I have argued before, there is a huge difference between the male to female crossdresser who lives as a man and a transsexual woman. A large number of M2F  crossdressers and queder queer identify with their birth sex. They do not claim to be women, and should not be treated as such.

But there is one extremely big elephant in the room that these more vocal separatist do not want to acknowledge,  and that is that a large number of transwomen have a crossdresser/crossdreamer past.

This is why the Serano article is so important. Serano is a transsexual activist who not only acknowledge that the elephant is there. She does not hesitate to talk about it.

From "transgenderist" to "transgender" - on Virginia Prince and crossdresser separatism

Virginia Prince played an important role in the development of trans narratives made by trans people. But she was a child of her times and ended up confirming transphobic and homophobic ideas.

In my post When four tribes go to war I argued that transgender separatist -- i.e. groups that try to define themselves as substantially different from other transgender people -- become separatists in order to be recognized as normal people.

They want to fit into society as it is, to the best of their ability. In order to do so they have built a wall between themselves and those that do not, in their opinion, pass as normal women or men.

I believe this is why some trans women refuse to be associated with transpeople who do not follow the rules of traditional behavior, being those male to female "crossdressers "or transsexual sex workers. The first group may be defined as fetishistic or paraphilic men; the other may be explained to be sex crazed feminine gay men. The operative term is "men". The very existence of these groups is seen as a threat, as they may undermine the trans women's possibility of being respected as ordinary women.

"Classic transsexuals" (CTs) define and redefine their definitions in order to keep out trans women associated with the "unclean". The androphilic "transkids" use science to keep the much coveted natural femininity for themselves. And, as I will show you in this post, "crossdresser" activists have been feeding this dragon of antagonism as well.

Controlling language

It seems to me this is partly a struggle for control over language.

To give one example:

The "classic transsexuals" (and their later variant, "transmedicalists") – i.e. trans activists who see themselves as "real" men and women as opposed to other gender variant people –  are trying to take control over core terms in order to avoid any suspicion of them being the same as crossdressers and effeminate gay men. They do this by limiting the definition of the word "transgender" to their own taste and by associating it with the groups they despise and want to avoid.

Then they start attacking people who use the term "transgender" in the all encompassing way, arguing that they being included in such a group is insulting. By establishing that the term "transgender" is offensive, they manage to offend the other party while at the same time appearing as the victim.

It is a brilliant ploy, I must admit.

The enemy of my enemy

It can get really bad.

In 2009 one of the CT blogs, Enough Nonsense, revealed the strategy in an amazing post called Allies and a recent skirmish. The post tells the story about the establishment of an Internet group that is to challenge the TG "at every opportunity":

"We are coordinated. We act. We respond. And, we do so consistently, persistently, and reasonably. Our group is growing and we've succeeded in shutting down threads spouting TG [transgender] non-sense... To us, rewriting GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender] as GLBT/TS is just a further manifestation of transgender…and is no revision whatsoever.

Any type of political association to transgender…is transgender.

Any defense of transgender strategy…is transgender.

When Four Tribes Go to War Part 1

I promise you, I am not going to turn this blog into a war zone. I do feel a need to finish the discussion on transsexual separatism and the place for crossdressers and crossdreamers, though. This is the first post of a two-parter on the conflict between the various transsexual and transgender clans. Then I'll go back to regular reseach based blogging.

In a comment to my post on Dyssonance, Jamiegottagun makes the following comment:

"Dyssonance is known for only one thing, really: causing problems, and trolling. She also often stoops to all the things she accuses her enemies of, like misgendering to dismiss people."

Dyssonance is definitely more proactive than others, and if she has been misgendering someone, that's really bad.

Still, you could probably blame many of us for the TS/TG wars, including me.

There has been times I have felt so depressed from all the attempts at labelling crossdreamers and crossdressers as pathetic perverts, that I have wanted to strike back and hurt the people who are attacking "my kind".

It is like being back in the school yard again. I feel like I am being bullied for not having cracked the code for what is needed to be accepted by the in crowd. That's childish, I know, but hey, I'm human!

Vicious circle

It is easier for me to let it pass now. I am starting to get a much needed distance, seeing the suffering behind all the hostile snarling.

But we need to talk about this. For many crossdreamers and crossdressers the first meeting with the online transgender community is with aggressive transwomen telling them go hide in the closet.

I have also seen lack of respect for transwomen among some crossdreamers. There are, for instance, those that fall into the Blanchard trap, arguing that all transwomen are nothing but "autogynephiliacs". Some M2F trangender persons have a rather weak gender dysphoria, and manage quite well to include their "otherness" into their lives as men. Then they mistakenly believe that all transgender persons are like this, failing to realize that some M2F transwomen truly are trapped in an alien body.

In many ways we are facing some kind of self-reinforcing vicious circle here: People express their insecurity, there is a counter-reaction, then the first ones get aggressive, the other party gets hurt and starts hitting back. Finally you end up with TS and TG clans fighting it out Somali style with AK-47's and rocket launchers.

At that point the various clans are busy defining their own identity as something different from the others, that all real communication breaks down.

There are at least four types of separatist clans as far as I can see:

The People's Front of Judea

1. There are some organized crossdressers, who insist that they are gender variant men, and who would rather not see androphilic transgender or transsexuals at their meetings.

The operative phrase here is "We are men".

The Judean's People's Front

2. Then there are the Classical Transsexuals (CT) who argue that they have nothing in common with "fetishistic crossdressers" and "gay effeminate men".

The operative phrase here is "We are women".

TransGriot's interview with Dyssonance

TransGriot has published an interview with transgender activist Antonia D'orsay, also known as Dyssonance.

Dyssonance describes herself as a "multi-ethnic, early Generation X, native Arizonan writer, 3D artist, sociologist and psychologist who rarely cleaves to the standard party line for any group."

The interview is relevant to my previous post on the conflict between so-called "Classic Transsexuals" and the rest of the transgender community.

Dyssonance represent their exact opposite, a transwoman that would like to unite the various types of transgender people under one banner.

She has written an interesting summary of her own debates with the CT crowd:

"[This debate] is about the right to determine who is and who isn’t a transsexual.

They want to say that if they are left alone (well, transgender is an umbrella term for everyone but this group of some transsexuals right here is what they want said) they will leave us alone.

The problem is that when you tell them that all they need to do is go away and ignore us, then they suddenly say 'well, no, it’s also about how you embarrass us. You need to stop using transsexuals whenever you talk about transgender people.'

You argue that point, and suddenly it becomes 'No, because you aren’t a transsexual, You are a transgender.'

And if you piss them off, you get called a non passing transvestite hooker pretending to be a transsexual.

If they really get a hard on for you (pun intended), they misgender you, calling you sir or man."

And that, being addressed with the male pronoun, has happened a lot of time in Dyssonance's own online life.

In the interview she asked about where sees see the trans community at the end of this decade and beyond.

She answers:

"In-community, I think we'll see a division that becomes stronger as the various gender variant groups fund their own language outside the binary that many transsexual people feel is best for them. I'd like to say that I also see many of the APA estimated 2-3% of the population that is CD [crossdresser] but not transsexual emerge and step up, which will have an effect on the transsexual dominated forms of discourse surrounding political efforts.

“However, I fear that the intense degree of internalized stigma in that community will continue to limit them, especially when combined with a high degree of stigma within the overall 'full time' trans community. Reminds me of the 'weekend warriors' in fighting between the regular Army and the NG/AR units before the Gulf War pointed out they all bleed red just as easily."

In other words: She does see the possibility of crossdressers and crossdreamers getting some more respect if we start making ourselves more visible, but it is a long shot.

I would add: for that to happen, we would have to be as respectful to others, as we want them to be to us.

Here are some of Dyssonance's other posts that might be of interest to you:

Internal trans warfare: Some Insights (on using the term transgender as an insult and the Classic Transsexuals)

The end of disorder (on the relationship between homosexuality and transgender conditions in American psychiatry and the DSM)

Goodbye Disorder, Hello Incongruence (on the DSM, gender issues and autogynephilia)

Transgender (Golden Calves, Part III) (on the non-transsexual parts of the transgender community, including crossdressers and "autogynephiliacs")

Purple Silence

I have not really spent much time on arguing with the Classic Transsexual separatist group, you know, the one arguing that crossdressers and crossdreamers have nothing in common with them, being real women.

One of the reasons for this is that I agree with their argument that transsexualism is not a psychological syndrome, but something inborn. They are real women to me, not some kind of strange gender hybrid.

There are a few of them, however, who spend an awful lot of time attacking people the call the "transgender" or "TG", who in their opinion are trying to take over the transsexual narrative. They are accusing all other "TGs" of being the same as the majority of my readers: fetishists, "autogynephiliacs" and crossdressers. Some of them are extremely aggressive, to point of using the male pronoun for tranwomen that they feel do not live up to the purity of womanhood.

Tweeting

I have not blogged about them, but I have tweeted. Here is one such tweet:

The destructive and hateful TS/TG war flares up again.http://ow.ly/3JDVA http://ow.ly/3JDVI http://ow.ly/3JDW0 http://ow.ly/3JDWC

Purple gets annoyed

One of the links go to the blog Purple Speaks. Purple is not amused. In a post called Jack Molay strikes again she writes:

"I am getting sick of Jack Molay, a cross-dresser, keeping tabs on this mainstream and TS blog. Being a TG cross-dressing man, he has no right to keep an eye on TS sites. The TG+gay community is one community, and the TS/mainstream/cis-gendered community is another. TGs have no right to try to control or keep tabs on TSs, and TSs have no right to do that to TGs.

Jack's libel of TS-only sites as anti-TG hate sites is unwelcome. We don't hate them. We just want our OWN community without them trying to lead us, help us, or define us. Let us be our own train wrecks if we must, and stay out of our way. We have the right to fail, on our own, without TGs trying to help us in ANY way....

True-TSs are neither autogynephiles or androphiles, since there are NO sexual or erotic motives to true-TSism. Autogynephiles are straight men who have a fetish for femininity, while androphiles are self-hating, effeminate gay men. Discredited 'researchers' who were really TG admirers and who couldn't admit their homosexual attraction to cross-dressed men invented the entire AG/AP thing. So that makes them homophobes, and they were willing to abuse/exploit true-TSs for unsavory purposes, and Jack pays homage to them."

You can read the rest here.

Anyway, I posted a response over at her blog, but she is holding on to her principles, and so far she has not published my comment. So, I publish my response to her here instead:

My response

"Just some points of clarification:

I am not trying to deny you or other of your allies to organize separately from any other group of persons. That is your democratic right.

I am not saying that you are a crossdreamer or an 'autogynephile'. If you say you are not, and that you have never experiences arousal from 'feminization fantasies', I believe you.

I believe that you are who you say you are. A woman. I don't care what you have between your legs. Your sense of gender is located between your ears, and if your sex identity is female, a woman is what you are.

I am not claiming to be a woman. I present as a man and live as a man. But unlike you I do not think that division between the genders is as clear cut as you seem to believe. This refers as much to the difference between women born women vs. men born men, and women born men vs. men born men. But that's fine. We do not have to agree on this, as long as we respect each others right to explore what sex and gender is all about.

The idea that I should stop linking to your blog or stop tweeting about it because you and I belong to different tribes is against everything learning is about, discussions are about and democracy is about.

Even if you are right -- and the causes of crossdreaming and transsexualism are completely unrelated -- we are still left with a social and cultural context that puts the two into the same box. If you want to convince people that you are right you have to communicate with the rest of us in a constructive manner.

Your blog and some other CT [classic transsexual] blogs have the separatists struggle has the main objective. That's fair. But because of that you constantly comment on the people you consider 'transgender' say and do. If it is OK for you to comment on them, it must be OK for them to reflect on your position.

You say you don't hate people like me; that you just would like to be left alone. Still, in this very blog post you manage to write that "To TGs, it is just a game. It is a game of sex and power, and the forces that drive forced TG inclusion are just as bad as rape." You are actually calling me a rapist. How do you think that feels?

You also indicate that I pay homage to the researchers that invented the AGP concept. If you have really read my blog, you would have seen that I probably have spent more time on criticizing the theories of Blanchard & friends than any CT blogger I know of. I find their theories simplistic, sexist and offensive.

Still, in your last paragraph you repeat some the main ideas from this tradition: 'Autogynephiles are straight men who have a fetish for femininity, while androphiles are self-hating, effeminate gay men.' Blanchard does not like the word fetish, but apart from that this is exactly what he and Bailey believe is true. What does that make you?

By the way: I am not a crossdresser."

(Purple gives another explanation of her standpoint here.)