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?

Female to male crossdreaming - the Max Wolf Valerio story

Crossdreaming is often considered something that male to female crossdressers engage in only.

Dreaming of becoming Thor.
Drawn by Jack Kirby.

It is the sexual arousal that gives them away. Apparently regular straight women or trans men do not get those kind of feelings. It has been described as a kind of misdirected straight male sexuality.

I believe I have documented quite thoroughly on this blog this that crossdreaming -- i.e. getting excited by imagining yourself as "the other sex" or your target sex -- is quite common among a lot of transgender and queer people, including female to male transgender people, lesbians,  gay men and homosexual trans men (i.e. trans men who love men).

I am currently reading the fascinating book The Testosterone Files, by Max Wolf Valerio, a female to male heterosexual transsexual. Max started out presenting as a lesbian woman, and loves women.

The book gives a fascinating glance into his exploration of his male identity and how he has to handle both stereotypical and not so stereotypical male behavior.

The Crossdreamer Portal gets its own domain

This blog has several sister sites, one of which is the Crossdreamer Portal.

Photo: Photos.com

I have gathered links and feeds to a lot of blogs and sites that cover crossdreamers and transgender issues.

Unfortunately it has, for historical reasons, been presented under the rather unfortunate URL: autogynephilia.blogspot.com.

It made sense to use that address at the time, as most crossdreamers would find crossdreamer sites by searching for "autogynephilia".

However, I am no longer able to live with the fact that the URL refers to this toxic, transphobic, theory.

From today on you will find The Crossdreamer Portal over at crossdreamers.org!  

(The old URL will continue to work).

When Real Life Gets in the Way of Transphobic Science

Gigi Gorgeous first came out as a gay man, then
as a trans woman, and now as a lesbian, falsifying
the autogynephilia theory in the process.

Two recent articles and a YouTube blog post present lives that prove the stereotypes of transphobic psychologists wrong. 

Meet Ekundayo Afolayan, Gigi Gorgeous and Kat Hamilton!

Sexology has caused a lot of suffering in queer and transgender circles.

Since the late 1980s terms like "transvestic fetishism" have been used actively to invalidate the  identities of male to female transgender people, mostly by reducing their sense of self to some kind of sexual perversion.

The clearest example is the the autogynephilia theory of Ray Blanchard, which is based on traditional gender stereotypes and a strict binary understanding of sex, sexuality and gender.

He is basically reducing sexuality, gender expression as well as gender identity in male to female trans people to a function of sexual attraction. In other words:  Who you are attracted to determines what kind of transgender person you are. And male to female transgender persons are either effeminate gay men or mentally ill straight men, according to this theory.

In real life there is no one to one relationship between sexual orientation on the one hand and masculinity and femininity on the other.

In real life there is no clear boundary between male to female transgender people who love women and those who love men, neither when it comes to appearance, behavior, desires nor when they first become aware of their gender variance.

Modern sexology often reduces the identity and
sexuality of trans and queer people to
"autoeroticism", a strategy used to invalidate
gay, lesbian and transgender people for more
than a century. (Thinkstock)

But that is exactly what the theory requires.

"Homosexual transsexuals" (this is what these researchers offensively call straight trans women who love men) are described as effeminate and sexy young transitioners, while "autogynephilic transsexuals" (i.e homosexual and bisexual trans women) are masculine, unattractive,  and "late-onset".

Actually, this binary encompasses non-transitioning transgender persons as well, including drag queens and crossdressers.

I am not going to repeat the main arguments against the theory here. You will find ample documentation here and here.

In this post I will present three recent publications made by people who all violate the borders set up by Ray Blanchard.

Coping with gender dysphoria without transitioning

Felix Conrad has published a new ebook: How to Jedi Mindtrick Your Gender Dysphoria, containing some pretty useful observations and advice for those MTF crossdreamers who do not go down the road of transitioning.

Felix' inner wise man talking to his inner woman.
(Photo of female Luke Skywalker by MJ MIller.)

The recent interest in transgender issues has been of great help to transgender people of all types.

Yes, the bathroom laws represent a back-clash, but you only get a back-clash when society is changing, and in this case in a much more tolerant direction.

Non-transitioning

There is still one group of transgender people  --- and I am using the term in its broader, umbrella meaning of gender variance here -- who remain invisible, though. Or, at least, less visible.

These are the gender dysphoric transgender people who -- for a wide variety of reasons -- decide not to transition.

This is the group Felix Conrad, our MTF crossdreamer philosopher per excellence, targets in his new book How to Jedi Mindtrick Your Gender Dysphoria.

On being transgender -- hope and despair

Many transgender people struggle with shame, guilt and self-denial, some to the point of attempting suicide. Monica P. Mulholland's book brings hope to those troubled.

Monica Mulhand (from Newshub New Zealand)

I recommend that you to take a look at Monica P. Mulholland's book Me! The gift of being transgender! 

Although the book's main focus is on transgender people who have transitioned or intend to transition, it does cover the needs of the whole transgender spectrum.

There is even a chapter on crossdreaming. Most MTF crossdreamers and crossdressers will therefore find something of interest.

Monica herself courageously discusses the dark side of being transgender, including the pain of gender dysphoria, the fear of social exclusion and the possibility of self-harm and suicide attempts.

Many transgender writers avoid this topic, as they fear that writing about it may trigger destructive behavior. I agree with Monica: We need to bring this part of being trans and gender variant out into the open, and talk about it. That is the only way we can bring trans and queer people out of isolation.

Talk about feelings

Monica underlines the need to look at transgender feelings:

"Many who misunderstand the Transgender experience seem to lose sight of the word 'feel'. They may speak about the anatomy and endocrine processes, while dismissing the Transgender person's 'felt' experience as 'personal choice' -- rather than as something physiological. 

"Feelings are an extremely important part of the human condition -- and especially so when trying to understand, and communicate with, a person who is Transgender. If a Transgender person does not feel known, understood, accepted, loved or included, then barriers to feeling of well-being and self-worth negatively impact their communication with those who are most important to them."