Straight men's fear of knitting

What a friend taught me about how we all play along to let the gender stereotypes govern our lives.

A month ago I posted a comment on my "real life" facebook account about similarities between Nordic knitting patterns and neolithic chevrons, wondering what they both expressed something about our subconscious minds.  (Yeah, I am a nerd. Deal with it ;-) )

I think it was the accompanying photo of a Norwegian sweater that made a friend add the following comment:

"So you have started knitting now?" 

I believe there was a smiley involved. I cannot remember.

That sentence got me thinking.

Friendly bullying

There are three possible interpretations:

1. He genuinely wanted to know if I had started knitting, with no ulterior motive.
2. He questioned my status as a real male, as I indicated an interest in womanly knitting.
3. It was a man to man joke, where he acknowledge my "manhood", but he was teasing me for challenging the borders for proper male behavior.

If he had been a woman, I would have gone for alternative 1. But since he had shown no interest in tricotage before (or for any stereotypical "feminine" hobby for that manner), I doubt very much he was looking forward to discussing the sizes of knitting needles with me.

A new US study of changes in people's attitude towards homosexuals, tells us how trans people may gain recognition and acceptance

In the US people's attitudes towards gay and lesbian people have changed dramatically, and in a positive way. It turns out it is much harder to dehumanize sexual variation when people meet gay, lesbian and bisexual people in the workplace or among friends. In other words: The more gay and lesbian people straight people have meet, the less likely they are to be homophobic. It is a fair guess that over time the same will apply to the attitudes towards trans people.

In 2004  polls showed that 60 percent of  Americans opposed same-sex marriage, while only 31 percent were in favor. Today  61 percent support same-sex marriage, while 31 percent oppose it.

Support for same-sex marriage has increased among nearly all demographic groups, across different generations, political and cultural divides and religious faiths.

In The Washington Post Samantha Schmidt argues  that the main reason for this reversal is that gay and lesbian people started to come out in great numbers. At the same time gay and lesbians became much more visible in the media.

Y does not necessarily equal M: On what intersex people can tell us about gender identity

Emily Quinn is an intersex woman with XY chromosomes and (as she says) "balls".
According to the logic of transphobes she should be banned from women's bathrooms.

The current debate about intersex women in sports, is actually weakening the TERFs and the transphobic right's attacks against transgender people. The very existence of  XY intersex women, who have been raised as women and who identify as women, makes it very hard to reduce gender identity to chromosomes and genitals.

A few times I have ended up in discussions with "trans exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs) in social media. These women are neither "radical" nor real "feminist", sharing – as they do – the common traditionalist prejudices against transgender women.

On the "positive" side: They have taught me a bit about how prejudices are created and spread, and that might come in handy.

But Science!

TERF activists often pretend to have a discussion with you. In this pretend discussion they may even refer to Science (capital S implied), their most common argument being that trans women cannot be women, because they have Y chromosomes.

When you refer to real science, the one that show that gender dysphoria is a real phenomenon, and tell them that most experts in the medical field believe that the transgender identities are caused by variations in the hormone balance in the womb, combined with environmental and social factors, they simply fail to respond.

Alternatively they argue that the science community has been taken over by "transgender cult". In other words: They are not really interested in science at all. They want to cherry pick findings that seem to confirm their own prejudices.

The Gender Pencil Test

The TERFs are masters at using social control and stigmatization to invalidate and marginalize trans people.

Like the racists of Apartheid and Jim Crow, they know, for instance,  that  access to public bathrooms serves as a very important symbol of social acceptance and inclusion.   So they do their best to ban the people they do not like from these spaces, in order to hurt and humiliate them.

Like the white racists of South Africa they also use sports to put "The Other" in their place.

Autoandrophilia Defined

"Autoandrophilia" has been defined as "the paraphilic tendency of a biological female to be sexually aroused by the thought of becoming a male."

A lot of women have fantasies about being a man, but
 "autoandrophilia" is not a scientific term, and it does not
capture what this gender-crossing crossdreaming about.

This  is in the mirror term of Ray Blanchard's concept of "autogynephilia", where male to female crossdreamers and transgender women who are attracted to women are believed to be suffering from some kind of "erotic target location error". They are,  according to this theory, attracted to their "inner woman" as opposed to real women "out there".

So "auto-andro-philia" would translate into "self-man-love".

Autoandrophilia is not a thing

If you are a woman having fantasies of being a man, and who has found this article by searching for "autoandrophilia", there are a few things you should know:

1. Your feelings are real. You are not alone. There are many people assigned female who have such fantasies. Some of them identify as trans. Others identify as qenderqueer or nonbinary. Many identify as cis (non-transgender). Regardless: You are a natural part of the wonderful spectrum of sexuality and gender. This is not a sexual perversion.

2. "Autoandrophilia" is not a thing. It is a made up and misleading pseudo-scientific term, referring to an explanation for crossdreaming for which there is no proof, and which has not been accepted by the broad medical community.

On women who have sexual fantasies about being men

It turns out there are a lot of people assigned female at birth who have sexual fantasies about being a man.

Illustration by francescoch.

Last year I wrote a post about what the sexual fantasies of non-transgender people can tell us about crossdreamers and those who are some shade of transgender.

I documented that a lot of the fantasies that are used to invalidate the identity of trans women (and that are also found among many male to female crossdreamers) are actually quite common among non-transgender women.

And if these fantasies are found among cis women, they cannot be explained as a misdirected form of male sexuality when reported by  MTF crossdreamers and trans persons.

Do female to male crossdreamers exist?

Another myth of this kind is the one saying that there are no female to male crossdreamers. Women do not get turned on by the idea of being a man or having a man's body, the argument goes.

Post from a female to male crossdreamer from the reddit crossdreaming forum.
Republished with permission.

A relatively new collection of female sexual fantasies tells another story. The book, Garden of Desires, is a follow up to Nancy Friday's influential collections of such fantasies. Emily Dubberley, the editor, is the creator of Cliterati, a British fantasy website for women.

Left-Hander in London

We know that facts and logic may not be enough to help bridge the divide between LGBTQ people (especially transgender) and some people. There is also a place for humor and music to help facilitate understand and discussion. This is where I believe I can help.

Guest post by JJ Marie Gufreda

JJ Marie Gufreda (JJ) is the author of Left-Hander in London:  A Field Guide to Transgenders, Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals - In the Family, On the Job and In the Pew and  a playwright and performer. (Private photo).

I’ve been focusing my marketing and development on two areas - doing my show for as many people as possible, and helping companies improve their Diversity and Inclusion initiatives.