Culturally Integrating Autoheterosexuality
the novel situation of sexual differences in location
Here, in chapter 8.0 of Autoheterosexual: Attracted to Being the Other Sex, I briefly contemplate some ethical considerations associated with autosexuality and its forms of trans identity.
Autoheterosexuality and the two-type model of transgenderism will become mainstream knowledge. When that happens, how should society handle it?
To orient thinking on this topic, consider homosexuality.
Homosexuality has been destigmatized to the point that same-sex marriage is legal in many places around the world, and discriminating against people on account of their sexual orientation is becoming more socially and legally unacceptable. These are welcome changes. After all, it’s a form of sexual discrimination to police which gender someone’s sexual partners can be[i].
Homosexuality is also associated with gender-atypical mental traits and behavioral expressions. Although these reach their most vibrant expression in the drag subculture, they are present to a lesser extent in everyday life. When people mistreat gender-atypical homosexuals because of this gender variance, it is another form of discrimination based on sex.
Like homosexuality, autoheterosexuality can also lead to same-sex partner preferences and gender-atypical behavior. Just as it would be wrong to mistreat homosexuals for their partner choices or gender nonconformity, it would be just as wrong to mistreat autoheterosexuals for the same.
However, autoheterosexuality isn’t exactly the same situation. Homosexuality differs from heterosexuality in the dimension of gender, whereas autoheterosexuality differs in terms of location. The sexual dimension of location is a new one for people to consider.
Even though neither of these gender-based sexual orientations are intrinsically harmful, it will require some new thinking to settle on the appropriate norms regarding autoheterosexuality and autosexuality more broadly.
Freedom of Dress
What are the acceptable bounds for autoheterosexual expression?
Some people have argued that crossdressing in public is unacceptable for autoheterosexuals on the grounds that it’s analogous to involving bystanders in a kink or a fetish. But I think this is wrongheaded for a few reasons.
In Western countries like the United States, it’s common for people to kiss, hug, or hold hands with someone of the other sex in public[ii]. It seems that most people are fine with public displays of affection. In fact, some people even like to see these signs of love in everyday life.
Most of the autogynephilic transfems I’ve seen out in public are shrouded in the transvestic equivalent of hand-holding or a peck on the cheek. It’s tame. It’s rare that I see a truly saucy outfit on others of my kind out in the wild. And even when I do, I don’t see any tangible harm from it.
If anything, the greater harm would be to prohibit people from such behavior. Restricting clothing choices based on the sex of the person wearing them is a form of sexual discrimination.
Do we want to live in a society where females are forbidden to wear pants, and males forbidden to wear dresses? This sort of prohibition reinforces antiquated approaches to gender roles that restrict people to certain narrow norms of behavior and expression based on their sex or gender: women can do this; men can do that.
Feminists fought hard to create cultural norms that enable females to wear pants. A whole rainbow of queer people fought hard for the ability to deviate from gender norms through same-sex relationships and alternative gender expressions.
Prohibiting people from wearing clothing associated with the other sex would go against the spirit of this gender liberation. It would also make everyone less free to express themselves in their everyday lives.
Pronouns
When someone wears clothing associated with the other sex, it does not require any participation from other people.
Pronouns, however, are different.
When a trans person has pronouns that don’t match those that others would attribute to them by default, other people must put effort into remembering those pronouns in order to avoid misgendering. The incongruence between the gender people see and the pronouns they are expected to say can make some people uncomfortable. It’s like a small taste of the internal gender incongruence that trans people experience.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of people don’t like this feeling. Some resent the expectation that they should override what their brain is telling them in order to cater to someone else’s gender feelings.
In his standup special The Closer, Dave Chapelle asked a question that gets to the heart of the pronoun issue: “How much do I have to participate in your self-image?”[iii].
It’s a valid question.
To complicate matters, most transgender identities are a downstream effect of autosexual orientations, and interpersonal autoheterosexuality can cause someone to get gender euphoria or arousal when treated as the other sex. Therefore, it could be argued that when autohet trans people request that others use their cross-gender pronouns, they’re involving bystanders in their sexuality.
Focusing on eroticism, however, would largely miss the point.
It’s uncommon for autoheterosexuals to socially transition simply to get off sexually. Most transition because they have strong feelings about wanting to live as another gender that transcend eroticism. For many, the prospect of transitioning is terrifying, but they do it anyway.
In the case of trans women, the drugs they take to lower their testosterone tend to drastically reduce their propensity for erotic response. And on the odd occasion they do get aroused by being addressed with feminine pronouns, it’s often upsetting to them because it conflicts with their idea of femininity.
In general, when trans people ask others to use their pronouns, they’re not doing so to seek arousal. Many hate feeling like they’re imposing on other people by even making a pronoun request in the first place.
Trans people usually ask people to use certain pronouns for identity reasons. It’s perfectly acceptable for them to request that others use their pronouns, and I believe it’s also reasonable to honor that request if they’re using one of the commonly used pronouns (she/they/he).
Sometimes people are against using trans people’s pronouns, however, and they may argue that forcing them to do so is compelled speech. As a freedom-lover, I’m somewhat sympathetic to this argument. Legal mandates to use particular pronouns would conflict with the principle of free speech, so such laws would be a terrible idea.
However, cultural norms are another matter entirely. Cultural norms are guidelines for behavior, not mandates backed by the threat of state violence.
To ponder this cultural question, it can be helpful to have a little distance.
If you were to be born into a society but couldn’t know ahead of time what sort of traits you would have (sex, health conditions, sexual orientation, race, etc.), what sort of society would you like to be born into?
There’s some risk of being born with a sexual predisposition that causes gender issues. Knowing that risk exists, would you want to be born into a culture in which it was customary to use people’s preferred pronouns, or one that didn’t?
If you reproduce, your offspring may be born with a sexual orientation that leads to gender issues. If you had a kid who suffered when reminded of their sex, what type of society would you want for your kid?
Personally, I’d prefer to live in a society that honors people’s preferred pronouns for the most part. I believe a society that makes such accommodations to help reduce gender-based suffering is more thoughtful and kind than an otherwise equivalent society that doesn’t do so.
Which Kinds of Trans Identities Can Fit into Society?
I think it’s great that transgender people have raised awareness of their situation and improved public understanding of their condition. With greater understanding, they are better incorporated into broader society. I’m also strongly in favor of an adult’s right to modify their body how they wish, and for trans people to live as the gender they feel themselves to be.
The recent gender liberation spearheaded by trans people also allows nontrans people to have more leeway in their gender behaviors. Gender roles have become less strict, which increases freedom for everyone, not just trans people.
However, transgender identity isn’t the only type of trans identity—transrace, transabled, transspecies, and transage identities exist, too. At some point, people will have to decide which types of trans identity can (or ought to) be accommodated by society, and which cannot.
Due to the allosexual attractions associated with these types of cross-identity, I suspect that transracialism and transableism have a chance at acceptance, but transspecies and transage identities don’t. People of various races and disabilities can consent to sexual activity, but children and nonhuman animals can’t. Children aren’t developed enough to adequately advocate for themselves, and nonhuman animals can’t speak human languages.
Sexual interest in children is the most heavily stigmatized type of sexuality because of the immense damage caused by acting upon it, so anything even associated with that kind of attraction faces immense headwinds. If transageism fits the pattern seen with other types of trans identity, most transage people experience sexual attraction to minors.
But even if transage people don’t fit that pattern, how would transageism fit into everyday life? Adults who outwardly identify as eight years old don’t belong in third grade, let alone the broader K–12 school environment.
Sexual attraction to animals is also heavily stigmatized, so transspecies identity faces similar obstacles to acceptance. Yet even if stigma weren’t an issue, where do wolf and dragon identities fit into society? Perhaps I’m just sheltered, but I have yet to encounter a dragon in real life.
These issues make it clear that transage and transspecies identities face significant hurdles to acceptance. The prospect of integrating transableism or transracialism into society, however, is much more plausible.
There are preexisting legal and architectural accommodations for disabled people that could just as well be used by “post-op” transabled people. And transableism is quite rare, so transabled people probably won’t make a noticeable dent in the resources available to conventionally disabled people.
Although currently contentious, I expect that transrace identity will ultimately attain a moderate degree of societal acceptance as well. For the most part, fitting transracialism into society requires taking someone’s word for it if they identify as a particular race.
When the time comes, there will be debates over transrace inclusion in scholarships and awards meant for people of certain races. There will also be debates over whether transrace people should have race-affirming medical care covered by insurance.
There are undoubtedly obstacles to transrace and transabled acceptance. However, I suspect both groups will ultimately overcome these barriers, and I wish them the best of luck.
The Vanilla Definition of Sexual Orientation Is Obsolete
The conventional definition of a sexual orientation only describes sexual preferences for adults based on their gender. It’s usually something like, “an enduring pattern of sexual or romantic attraction to women, men, or both”.
This is the vanilla definition of sexual orientation, and it’s too limiting. Frankly, it’s obsolete. It excludes all autosexual orientations. It also excludes non-gendered dimensions of attraction such as race, age, body integrity, and species.
These other forms of attraction may not be the norm, but they have a similar capacity to create strong attachments, alter identity, and shape sentiments such that people build their lives to accommodate them.
If a person is consistently most aroused by one of these types of attraction and it’s their strongest source of sexual and romantic fulfillment, who can say it doesn’t count as their sexual orientation?
Someone might argue that nonvanilla sexual orientations don’t count as orientations because they’re too rare or too weird. Rarity and weirdness, however, do not determine if a form of sexuality counts as a sexual orientation. And even if they did, autoheterosexuality itself would still count as a sexual orientation. It’s about as common as homosexuality, so it’s not too rare. And it’s a type of heterosexuality, so it’s not too weird.
When it comes to nonvanilla sexual orientations, the real question is which of these attractions are acceptable or ethical to act upon, and under what circumstances?
Pedophilia can be a sexual orientation, but it’s not morally permissible for adults to have sex with children under any circumstances. And although autozoophilic people may love puppy play and want to be in dog mode 24/7, it’s not appropriate for them to mark their territory in the pet aisle at Walmart.
As a culture, we need to collectively hammer out the acceptable range of behavior for different types of sexuality instead of declaring that a whole bunch of sexualities with the same propensity for attraction and attachment as vanilla sexual orientations somehow don’t actually count as sexual orientations.
This old way of framing sexuality collectively holds us back from having a more nuanced, advanced level of discourse about human sexuality by artificially deciding that anything described as “sexual orientation” is acceptable, but anything else is less important or fundamentally different in nature.
It’s time to expand the definition of sexual orientation. As a start, I suggest the following:
Sexual orientation—an enduring pattern of preferential sexual or romantic interest in a particular type of entity, embodiment, or method of interaction.
Under this definition, someone whose interest in adults of the other sex outshines their other sexual interests would have a heterosexual orientation.
Likewise, someone who is most strongly attracted to animals would have a zoophilic sexual orientation, and someone whose primary sexual interest is being degraded and physically hurt would have a masochistic sexual orientation.
Technology to Change Sexual Orientation
It would be a net good if it became possible to change human sexual orientation. If a safe, reliable technological method of changing human sexual orientation existed, it could avert a great deal of suffering.
The primary benefit of this technology would not be its ability to turn gay or bisexual people straight. Gender-based attractions like these are fine. Instead, other dimensions of sexual orientation such as age and species would be the best targets for change.
Consider pedophilia, the most vilified sexual orientation. When pedophilic people act on their sexual attraction to children by molesting them, it causes serious psychological harm. If technology existed to make these child-attracted people attracted to adults instead of kids, it would protect millions of minors from sexual harm. It would even help pedophilic people who abstain from sexual contact with children by removing a part of themselves that brings upon shame, vilification, and a desire that can’t be met.
A similar rationale applies to changing species-based attractions. Animals cannot consent to sexual contact with humans, so it would prevent both animal and human suffering if it were possible to change a zoophilic person’s sexual orientation to instead be attracted to adult humans.
Changing sexual orientations in the dimension of location could also help reduce suffering.
There are many autoheterosexuals who wish more than anything that they could be regular heterosexuals. There are also plenty who suffer intensely from gender dysphoria.
If the location dimension of sexual orientation could be changed, it would be possible to directly address the root cause of not only autohet gender dysphoria but also autophylophilic race dysphoria, autoacrotomophilic body integrity dysphoria, autopedophilic age dysphoria, and autozoophilic species dysphoria. All of the forms of autosexual dysphoria could be alleviated.
To be clear, I think humanity is nowhere near creating technology that can safely and reliably change sexual orientation. However, such technology has the potential to greatly reduce sexuality-related suffering, so its development should not be forbidden.
Sexual Preferences Are Not Transphobic
It isn’t transphobic to lack sexual interest in transgender people.
It’s flat-out unacceptable to suggest to someone that they might be transphobic (or that transphobia informs their sexual preferences) simply because they don’t want to have sex with trans people.
Evolution has shaped human sexual orientation to optimize the union of sperm and egg, so attraction to physically typical adults of the other sex is the most common sexual orientation. Most people won’t be attracted to people who possess a mixture of female and male sex traits.
The “born this way” framework for understanding sexual preferences that has helped destigmatize both same-sex sexuality and transgenderism is incompatible with the notion that sexual disinterest in trans people is a moral failing, or in any way political. When someone is not attracted to trans people or doesn’t want to be sexual with them, it does not indicate a moral shortcoming.
People are allowed to decide who they want to get with and who they don’t. If someone can’t say “no”, free from coercion, then they can’t truly consent. Any deviation from this absolutely basic principle of sexual autonomy betrays the spirit of consent.
Just because a trans person’s gender identity is supposedly compatible with another person’s stated sexual orientation, it doesn’t mean that person must be open to having sex with them. Straight dudes aren’t obligated to be sexually open to trans women, and straight women aren’t obligated to be sexually open to trans men. Most people are heterosexuals who want to have sex with people of the other sex that aren’t trans[iv], and that’s okay.
If a lesbian doesn’t want to have sex with trans women but feels pressured to do so because she’s worried about being seen as transphobic for only being attracted to females, that’s coercive bullshit. Lesbians, like any other group of people, should be free to say no to sleeping with trans women. They should be able to freely state their sexual boundaries and have them respected without bargaining, guilt trips, insinuations of transphobia, negative social consequences, or any other coercive tactics.
If a gay man doesn’t want to hook up with a trans man, he is not transphobic for being true to his sexual preferences. A lot of gay men only want to get with males. They didn’t choose to like that, it’s just what they like. And that’s okay.
It has to be, if consent is something we truly value and want to continue striving for.
In Sum:
Many of the considerations that extend to homosexuality also extend to autoheterosexuality. It is a form of sexual discrimination to force people to adhere to gender norms or have sexual partners of a particular gender. Neither homosexuals nor autoheterosexuals should be subjected to these forms of sexual discrimination.
Restricting the types of clothes someone may wear on account of their sex is a form of sexual discrimination that goes against the spirit of sexual and gender liberation inherent to the gay rights and feminist movements. Even though dressing as the other sex can be erotic for autoheterosexuals, in practice it’s usually as tame as heterosexual public displays of affection such as hugging and holding hands—both of which have widespread cultural acceptance.
When a trans person prefers pronouns that differ from those usually attributed to them by default, other people must put effort into remembering those pronouns in order to avoid misgendering. The conscious effort required to do so can make people uncomfortable. There is a legitimate tension between people who want to prioritize sex over gender and people who want to prioritize gender over sex.
It’s possible to act on sexual attractions in the dimensions of gender, race, or body integrity because the targets of these attractions can consent, but children and animals cannot. This ability to be an independent agent capable of giving consent is also what separates the types of cross-identities that may be embodied full-time and integrated into broader society (transgender, transracial, transabled) from those that cannot (transage, transspecies).
The definition of sexual orientation should be expanded to include any enduring pattern of preferential sexual or romantic interest in a particular type of entity or method of interaction. Ethical concerns over which sexual orientations are acceptable to act upon are completely irrelevant to the question of whether various forms of sexuality count as sexual orientations.
It would be beneficial if technological methods to change sexual orientation were developed—not to change gender-based sexual orientations, but to change other dimensions of sexual orientation such as age, species, and location. Children and animals are not ethically viable erotic targets, so the ability to eliminate attractions to them would reduce sexual abuse. In addition, many autosexuals have autosexual dysphoria and would gladly change their orientations if it meant they would suffer less.
It’s not transphobic to lack sexually interest in trans people. Sexual preferences largely result from inborn developmental factors and are thus highly individual. Although societal forces may influence their expression, sexual orientations do not yield to the dictates of society. People like what they like, and that’s okay. It’s not acceptable to insinuate that someone is transphobic if their sexual preferences don’t include trans people. In order to stay true to the sexual principle of consent, people must be free to say “no”—free from coercion—to any sexual interactions in which they do not wish to participate.
[i] Supreme Court of the United States, “Bostock v. Clayton County,” 9.
[ii] Miller, “Public Displays of Affection”; Vaquera and Kao, “Private and Public Displays of Affection Among Interracial and Intra-Racial Adolescent Couples*.”
[iii] Chapelle, “Dave Chappelle: The Closer (2021) | Transcript.”
[iv] Blair and Hoskin, “Transgender Exclusion from the World of Dating.”