I think growing an autosexual community and making its purpose obvious to others would benefit from outreach to non-hetero autosexuals, and I'm definitely not just talking about the mythical classical autohomosexual whom one imagines must live in paradise. (I'm not convinced they do, but that's another story.) You wrote a bit about things like otherkin as autosexual, and I can see it's not a main focus of yours, but it's pretty much the only real info there is out there. I know, spreading awareness is like opening a bag of snakes, both for you and for these newly sexualized groups, but it can be such an incredibly isolating experience to have an intense, unexplained identity disturbance. I'd like to write more about atypical autosexualities myself when I find the time. I am AAP-ish but auto-other things first. I think interest in specific individuals is honestly pretty commonplace in AFAB sexuality, including autosexuality, although obviously it's not hard to find cases without it too.
"Although the rise of our collective group identity has been delayed by the transsexual subset of our kind who chose to suppress the truth rather than accept it, the sheer size of our population guarantees that there will eventually be one or more well-known group identities pertaining to us. These group identities will either coalesce around umbrella terms such as autosexual or autoheterosexual, or sex-specific labels such as autogynephilic and autoandrophilic. But regardless of which labels we eventually rally around, we have the numbers to rally."
I stand by my theory that the core constraint is that there's fairly limited point for AGPs to come out. Gay men have gay relationships, trans women transition; these are highly socially visible phenomena. What's the analogy for AGPs? Nothing. It's a pointless identity movement.
(You could say "crossdressing", but even that is fairly well covered by alternative identities like "femboy" too. You could argue that "femboy" has some problematic connotations, but "AGP" is *probably* worse on that front.)
I don't think that is what's being said at all. Some people will be helped by medical transition. Some will not.
Having an understanding of autosexualities for anyone experiencing their own questioning could help encourage only those self-aware AGP/AMP to medically transition. Thereby reducing those whom do come to regret transition.
"I don’t think this state of affairs optimizes the number of people who benefit from medical transition versus those who are harmed by it."
Are you saying autosexuals who choose medical transition are likely to be harmed by it?
Because my understanding has been that a large subset, perhaps even a majority, of trans women fall into that category, and the vast majority are happy with their decision to transition.
Personally, I thought of myself as "just AGP" for many years, until the act of creating a burner account to post in /r/askAGP led me to browse /r/asktransgender and encounter some of the threads you're talking about here, with some of those same links. Reading them led to a massive shift in my understanding of all this gender business, and soon after, to my medical transition.
But that wasn't because it convinced me that something was going on inside me that was different from what I'd thought. It was because it showed me that my own experience wasn't something different and separate from "the trans experience" that led people to transition; it was actually the way a lot of trans women felt before they transitioned. If transition turned out to be a good choice for them, maybe it'd be a good choice for me too. And so far, it has been.
So, I see value in destigmatizing the idea of autosexuality, but I don't see how that lines up with wanting *fewer* people to transition, which seems to be the underlying theme of this post. I want to destigmatize it so that *more* people who felt like I did will recognize transition as a viable option. So that instead of straining credulity with explanations of "euphoria boners" or BS studies claiming cis women are autogynephilic too, the people who respond to gender-questioning posts can just say, "You know how guys who find women attractive are usually more satisfied with their lives when they commit to a woman? Guess what, guys who find *being* a woman attractive are usually more satisfied with their lives when they commit to being a woman."
"While I don’t like how this recruitment apparatus functions because it implicitly prescribes a course of action to its targets, I readily admit it is highly effective at its core function of increasing the number of transsexuals in existence."
This... is starting to sound a bit like a conspiracy theory. Do you really think anyone is motivated by a desire to increase the number of transsexuals in existence?
Personally, the reason why I want to destigmatize autosexuality and let people who are experiencing those feelings know that transition is an option for them is that I wish I had known it earlier myself. I don't care about the number of people who transition; it's not like I'm getting paid a commission. But it sucks that it took me this long to realize that my impression of what it's like to discover you're trans, or which type of people stand to benefit from transition, was wrong; it's too late for me to do anything about that, but the next best thing is to pass that knowledge on to someone else who can gain from it.
>Are you saying autosexuals who choose medical transition are likely to be harmed by it?
No, I'm saying that the proportion who benefit from transition will increase if they accurately understand the cause of their gender issues. I think it's okay for adults to transition under an informed consent model, but I want to increase the proportion who are actually informed regarding their etiology. I want to minimize detransition regret and maximize transition satisfaction, and I think having an accurate mental model is an important part of accomplishing this. fwiw, I think autosexuals are more likely to benefit from transition than homosexuals.
>But that wasn't because it convinced me that something was going on inside me that was different from what I'd thought. It was because it showed me that my own experience wasn't something different and separate from "the trans experience" that led people to transition; it was actually the way a lot of trans women felt before they transitioned.
I often explain to trans people that most trans people are of autosexual etiology and that autosexuality is therefore the norm among transitioners, but it seems they often don't make the connection that this means their experience is a genuine, typical kind of "the trans experience". Do you have any ideas about how I could explain this so that they don't come away thinking "I'm just an AGP and this is different from being really trans" and instead think "I am AGP and this means I might be trans or benefit from transitioning"?
>"You know how guys who find women attractive are usually more satisfied with their lives when they commit to a woman? Guess what, guys who find *being* a woman attractive are usually more satisfied with their lives when they commit to being a woman."
Ooh this is a good way of putting it. I might use this analogy at some point.
>This... is starting to sound a bit like a conspiracy theory. Do you really think anyone is motivated by a desire to increase the number of transsexuals in existence?
I'm not claiming that individuals themselves are motivated by a desire to maximize the number of transsexuals. I'm claiming that there is a superordinate structure set up by collective action which functions to maximize the transsexual population. One of the primary ways this social and memetic structure replicates itself is by increasing the transsexual population. It's kind of like how an individual Christian may proselytize out of a conscious desire to help save others, but Christianity as a whole wants to create more Christians and churches so it can grow and spread further.
>Personally, the reason why I want to destigmatize autosexuality and let people who are experiencing those feelings know that transition is an option for them is that I wish I had known it earlier myself.
I think this is a good reason to spread knowledge of autosexuality. Quite a few autosexuals get hit by dysphoria during puberty seemingly out of nowhere, which brings confusion and distress. If they have autosexuality to a degree that they would benefit from transition or inevitably transition, I think knowing about autosexuality would help them act more quickly and in a more informed manner. This is especially relevant for AGPs who would benefit from juvenile transsexualism, as they have a very narrow window to act in order to achieve the appearance outcomes they seek.
I think growing an autosexual community and making its purpose obvious to others would benefit from outreach to non-hetero autosexuals, and I'm definitely not just talking about the mythical classical autohomosexual whom one imagines must live in paradise. (I'm not convinced they do, but that's another story.) You wrote a bit about things like otherkin as autosexual, and I can see it's not a main focus of yours, but it's pretty much the only real info there is out there. I know, spreading awareness is like opening a bag of snakes, both for you and for these newly sexualized groups, but it can be such an incredibly isolating experience to have an intense, unexplained identity disturbance. I'd like to write more about atypical autosexualities myself when I find the time. I am AAP-ish but auto-other things first. I think interest in specific individuals is honestly pretty commonplace in AFAB sexuality, including autosexuality, although obviously it's not hard to find cases without it too.
"Although the rise of our collective group identity has been delayed by the transsexual subset of our kind who chose to suppress the truth rather than accept it, the sheer size of our population guarantees that there will eventually be one or more well-known group identities pertaining to us. These group identities will either coalesce around umbrella terms such as autosexual or autoheterosexual, or sex-specific labels such as autogynephilic and autoandrophilic. But regardless of which labels we eventually rally around, we have the numbers to rally."
I stand by my theory that the core constraint is that there's fairly limited point for AGPs to come out. Gay men have gay relationships, trans women transition; these are highly socially visible phenomena. What's the analogy for AGPs? Nothing. It's a pointless identity movement.
(You could say "crossdressing", but even that is fairly well covered by alternative identities like "femboy" too. You could argue that "femboy" has some problematic connotations, but "AGP" is *probably* worse on that front.)
I don't think that is what's being said at all. Some people will be helped by medical transition. Some will not.
Having an understanding of autosexualities for anyone experiencing their own questioning could help encourage only those self-aware AGP/AMP to medically transition. Thereby reducing those whom do come to regret transition.
"I don’t think this state of affairs optimizes the number of people who benefit from medical transition versus those who are harmed by it."
Are you saying autosexuals who choose medical transition are likely to be harmed by it?
Because my understanding has been that a large subset, perhaps even a majority, of trans women fall into that category, and the vast majority are happy with their decision to transition.
Personally, I thought of myself as "just AGP" for many years, until the act of creating a burner account to post in /r/askAGP led me to browse /r/asktransgender and encounter some of the threads you're talking about here, with some of those same links. Reading them led to a massive shift in my understanding of all this gender business, and soon after, to my medical transition.
But that wasn't because it convinced me that something was going on inside me that was different from what I'd thought. It was because it showed me that my own experience wasn't something different and separate from "the trans experience" that led people to transition; it was actually the way a lot of trans women felt before they transitioned. If transition turned out to be a good choice for them, maybe it'd be a good choice for me too. And so far, it has been.
So, I see value in destigmatizing the idea of autosexuality, but I don't see how that lines up with wanting *fewer* people to transition, which seems to be the underlying theme of this post. I want to destigmatize it so that *more* people who felt like I did will recognize transition as a viable option. So that instead of straining credulity with explanations of "euphoria boners" or BS studies claiming cis women are autogynephilic too, the people who respond to gender-questioning posts can just say, "You know how guys who find women attractive are usually more satisfied with their lives when they commit to a woman? Guess what, guys who find *being* a woman attractive are usually more satisfied with their lives when they commit to being a woman."
"While I don’t like how this recruitment apparatus functions because it implicitly prescribes a course of action to its targets, I readily admit it is highly effective at its core function of increasing the number of transsexuals in existence."
This... is starting to sound a bit like a conspiracy theory. Do you really think anyone is motivated by a desire to increase the number of transsexuals in existence?
Personally, the reason why I want to destigmatize autosexuality and let people who are experiencing those feelings know that transition is an option for them is that I wish I had known it earlier myself. I don't care about the number of people who transition; it's not like I'm getting paid a commission. But it sucks that it took me this long to realize that my impression of what it's like to discover you're trans, or which type of people stand to benefit from transition, was wrong; it's too late for me to do anything about that, but the next best thing is to pass that knowledge on to someone else who can gain from it.
>Are you saying autosexuals who choose medical transition are likely to be harmed by it?
No, I'm saying that the proportion who benefit from transition will increase if they accurately understand the cause of their gender issues. I think it's okay for adults to transition under an informed consent model, but I want to increase the proportion who are actually informed regarding their etiology. I want to minimize detransition regret and maximize transition satisfaction, and I think having an accurate mental model is an important part of accomplishing this. fwiw, I think autosexuals are more likely to benefit from transition than homosexuals.
>But that wasn't because it convinced me that something was going on inside me that was different from what I'd thought. It was because it showed me that my own experience wasn't something different and separate from "the trans experience" that led people to transition; it was actually the way a lot of trans women felt before they transitioned.
I often explain to trans people that most trans people are of autosexual etiology and that autosexuality is therefore the norm among transitioners, but it seems they often don't make the connection that this means their experience is a genuine, typical kind of "the trans experience". Do you have any ideas about how I could explain this so that they don't come away thinking "I'm just an AGP and this is different from being really trans" and instead think "I am AGP and this means I might be trans or benefit from transitioning"?
>"You know how guys who find women attractive are usually more satisfied with their lives when they commit to a woman? Guess what, guys who find *being* a woman attractive are usually more satisfied with their lives when they commit to being a woman."
Ooh this is a good way of putting it. I might use this analogy at some point.
>This... is starting to sound a bit like a conspiracy theory. Do you really think anyone is motivated by a desire to increase the number of transsexuals in existence?
I'm not claiming that individuals themselves are motivated by a desire to maximize the number of transsexuals. I'm claiming that there is a superordinate structure set up by collective action which functions to maximize the transsexual population. One of the primary ways this social and memetic structure replicates itself is by increasing the transsexual population. It's kind of like how an individual Christian may proselytize out of a conscious desire to help save others, but Christianity as a whole wants to create more Christians and churches so it can grow and spread further.
>Personally, the reason why I want to destigmatize autosexuality and let people who are experiencing those feelings know that transition is an option for them is that I wish I had known it earlier myself.
I think this is a good reason to spread knowledge of autosexuality. Quite a few autosexuals get hit by dysphoria during puberty seemingly out of nowhere, which brings confusion and distress. If they have autosexuality to a degree that they would benefit from transition or inevitably transition, I think knowing about autosexuality would help them act more quickly and in a more informed manner. This is especially relevant for AGPs who would benefit from juvenile transsexualism, as they have a very narrow window to act in order to achieve the appearance outcomes they seek.