Phil Illy and Genspect’s Autogynephilia problem
How one man’s dress exposes a critical weakness of the gender-critical movement.
A new debate has sprung up in the gender-critical community of late: Phil Illy, a self-professed autogynephilic transvestite and author of the recently-released Autoheterosexual: attracted to being the other sex, has sparked widespread controversy by wearing a blue cocktail dress to an annual conference held by Genspect, a gender-critical organisation.
although he reports having experienced no negative attention at the conference itself, a slew of angered gender-critical reactions to Phil’s appearance followed shortly after an image featuring him standing beside detransitioner Laura Becker was posted to Genspect’s official twitter account.
First, some context for the uninitiated: Phil is an outspoken proponent of the two-type sexological theory of male-to-female identity prominently championed by researchers Ray Blanchard, Michael Bailey and Anne Lawrence, which states that MTF transitioners and gender-dysphorics develop a cross-gender identity for one of two reasons.
The first type, dubbed the homosexual type, is said to be prenatally undervirilised, leading to both exclusively-androphilic sexuality and a propensity for behavioural femininity which leads them to identify more with females, ultimately feeling themselves to be female — a developmental trajectory that’s comparable to more normative gender development.
It’s generally agreed that this cohort more often than not desists of diagnosable gender dysphoria by the age of 13, but if such a person remains dysphoric past the age where they can reasonably expect to desist, they may decide that transition is their best bet at an acceptable quality of life. When they make the decision to medicalise their gender dysphoria, they’re categorised as homosexual transsexuals in the two-type taxonomy.
Some interpretations of the theory — especially older ones — go so far as to claim that all feminine preandrophilic boys have gender identity disorder of childhood, but that in most cases the cross-gender wish is sublimated into a homosexual identity.
This would seem to stem from the premodern idea that feminine homosexuality is the expression of a transformed wish to be female. In this view, the homosexual is essentially an unfinished transsexual — a milder expression of a spectrum most completely expressed by homosexual transsexuals. In most contemporary interpretations of the theory, however, gender dysphoria is regarded as an issue affecting only a minority of prehomosexual children.
The second type is a little harder to explain, since it requires me to introduce a few sexological concepts that most people aren’t familiar with. The Autogynephilic type is said to be gynephilic with a dimension of sexuality known as an “erotic target identity inversion” or ETII. ETIIs are erotic orientations toward the embodiment of a particular state of being in oneself — in most interpretations, they’re conceptualised as autosexual self-direction of an existing orientation.
Just like allosexual orientations — orientations where the target is outside oneself — autosexual people can form a pair-bond with their internal conception of what they’d like to be — leading to identity dysphoria that can, in extreme cases, make them feel as if their default selves are so worthless that they would rather be dead than continue living as such.
For example, autoacrotomaphilic people — people attracted to themselves as amputees — may develop Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) from the severe psychic distress of not having the desired amputation. In some cases, doctors have been faced with the difficult decision of whether to amputate the limb of a person with BIID to prevent them from further endangering themselves through self-mutilation.
It manifests in an itch. It’d be [the] equivalent of someone growing an extra limb. It does not belong there […] I think what led me to feel was the sense of isolation and alienation, constantly having to put on a mask.
-Nick O’Hallaron
It’s a complex moral dilemma, but sometimes “do no harm” means harm reduction.
However, most people with ETIIs are not appreciably dysphoric, and most who do experience these dysphorias experience them more mildly.
ETIIs are erotic orientations toward the embodiment of a particular state of being in oneself.
As another example, people who are “Autoanthropomorphozoophilic” — yes, I know it’s a mouthful — are attracted to the thought of themselves as anthropomorphic animals, and often identify as furries. They may commission art of themselves as such or purchase fursuits to experience life temporarily as their “fursona”. These acts resemble crossdressing in that they represent temporary expressions of affection for their fursonas.
Like furries, many autoacrotomaphilic people like to practice temporary embodiment of their cross-identities by sitting in wheelchairs, hiding unwanted body parts in the mirror, or commissioning art of themselves with the desired body modifications.
In terms of pretending, I try to do it at least once a day, if not longer. I feel a lot better, and I get to see myself as I would be or should be, rather than as I am.
-Nick O’Hallaron
Most furries don’t experience serious identity dysphoria in relation to their desire to be anthro animals, but some do report significant psychological turmoil with respect to their species.
There’s a disconnect there. it kind of feels like this is what I should look like, and this is what I do look like, and it just makes me feel like I’m not who I’m supposed to be […] It’s almost, in a way, like gender dysphoria.
-Little Alpha Pup
Many autogynephilic people, such as Phil, are satisfied by using temporary embodiment — in this case, crossdressing — to experience life briefly through the eyes of their cross-gendered selves. Depending on the person, crossdressing may be done mostly for sexual reasons, or for more romantic or affectionate reasons. Think of it like a date with your significant other — sometimes, you might get excited and take things to the bedroom, but other times, you’re content to hold hands or watch a movie together. Autogynephilic people may have girlfriends a little closer to home, but that doesn’t mean their love is any less complex and multifaceted.
By my mid-late teens there was most certainly a sexual element to it, but it wasn’t driving me. I’d just sit in women’s clothes for hours and just be chilling, with no sexual desire, just wanted to dress that way.
-Anonymous
Sometimes, however, an autogynephilic person’s internal pair-bond with their cross-gender self can lead to gender dysphoria so extreme that they see gender transition as the best way for them to live happily and healthily. If they decide to go for it, they’ll be considered autogynephilic transsexuals.
In short, for every sexual orientation, there exists a corresponding ETII. and for every ETII, a portion of those affected will develop clinically-significant distress associated with their cross-identities. it’s important that such people are treated as legitimate sufferers of medical ailments and not vilified or reduced to cheap punchlines.
A common point of contention is on how autosexual orientations ought to be conceptualised — are they paraphilias, fetishes or sexual orientations?
Well, for a start, they’re definitely not fetishes. In sexology, fetishism is considered a form of Erotic Target Location Error (ETLE) in which a person is erotically oriented toward an inanimate object or an anatomic feature not normally considered sexual, such as feet. Obviously, autosexual people — even autoobjectophiles, as much as they’d like to be — are not inanimate objects, and their attractions are usually toward commonly-sexualised appendages, so their orientations wouldn’t qualify as fetishes.
The term paraphilia is useful in describing orientations that can cause distress, or whose expressions might be socially harmful. However, it’s not perfect — homosexuality, for instance, can also underlie clinically significant distress in the form of gender dysphoria, and some expressions of both it and heterosexuality aren’t always appropriate.
Indeed, homosexuality was once considered a paraphilia for some of the reasons stated above — and because, at the time, the term was commonly used to include any “atypical sexual desire”. Starting in the late 20th century, it began to be widely regarded as a sexual orientation instead — thanks not to any scientific breakthrough that demonstrated it to be so, but to shifting cultural perspectives that altered the public definition of “paraphilia”.
Ultimately, the line between “paraphilia” and “sexual orientation” is a political one.
This theory is controversial among trans people for a variety of reasons, not all of which can be dismissed as irrational.
The idea that a paraphilia might have fundamentally restructured their sense of self seems foreign and unintuitive to the majority of people who experience cross-gender identity, and as this Genspect controversy demonstrates, there are many who abuse the theory to demonise transsexuals and autogynephilic people.
The genspect team have been so fixated on the hateful attack Phil received that they haven’t even seemed to notice that the photo they posted of me is absolutely littered with dehumanising comments as well. I was chastised for my large hands and my long face, I was told to stay away from children, and that they hoped everyone now sees me for who I am. I was called a clown, accused of appropriating women’s spaces, called a narcissist, an autogynephile and told that if I had any decency at all, I would not have attended. […] this appears to be the Genspect fanbase.
-Julia Malott
Phil has been accused of parading his fetish in public, a harmful trope stemming from the misconception that autogynephilia is a “fetish” and that the only possible expressions of such are intrinsically erotic in nature. this is a woeful misrepresentation not only of autosexual orientation, but of sexuality itself.
Some have even gone so far as to accuse him of wearing the dress in service of an erection. This charge, in particular, is patently absurd — if he had wanted to have an erection, wouldn’t we expect him to have one?
Think of a man who preens himself to attract the opposite sex — is he “parading his propensity to become aroused by the thought or image of another person as female”? Technically, yes, but you’d be hard-set to find anybody who would object to such a thing. Sexuality is much more than crude eroticism, and not all public expressions therein are inappropriate.
In my opinion, this controversy is emblematic of a larger issue facing the gender-critical community — one that threatens to cleave it apart from the inside: The inherent contradiction between radical feminists and other interest groups.
For an example of what i mean, look to the online detrans community — although meant to serve as a space for detransitioners to share their experiences and seek advice, many such spaces often serve the dual-purpose of allowing gender-critical detrans users to express virtually any opinion they like on the topic of transsexuality, even if it doesn’t strictly relate to their own detransition.
Thanks to this, anti-trans feminists — not all of them detrans themselves — flocked to the r/detrans subreddit and began derailing the conversation, a problem made worse after the shuttering of their own r/gendercritical. These women often harassed detrans men, snapping at them for the crime of having ever identified as women.
The message was clear: r/detrans was a female space — Men need not apply. Thanks in part to its new reputation as a gender-critical space, the sub received a ban which was later repealed.
These women often harassed detrans men, snapping at them for the crime of having ever identified as women.
To Alex, the centrist head-moderator of r/detrans, it was obvious that something had to be done — this was a unisex space for detransitioners, not a radical feminist honeypot. she introduced harsher enforcement of guidelines prohibiting off-topic conversations and a new “anti-misandry” rule, banning the demonisation of men which, in her view, drives male detransitioners out of the detrans community and leaves them vulnerable to retransition.
When you watch these spaces for long enough, a pattern begins to emerge: Any gender-critical space which prominently features both radical feminists and men will inevitably have to choose between driving out one of these groups or the other. In Alex’s case, she wisely sided with the latter— to choose otherwise would cement r/detrans as an anti-male feminist forum, not a self-help space for both sexes.
Any gender-critical space which prominently features both radical feminists and men will inevitably have to choose between driving out one of these groups or the other.
The broader online gender-critical community, of course, is utterly dominated by such feminists. This domination is such that any woman can voice virtually any concern whatsoever, and any male who disagrees with her is derided as dismissing women’s concerns (indeed, even women who dissent are often lambasted as ‘handmaidens’).
Genspect’s decision is clear: They can either side with the sex researchers and drive out the radical feminists, or side with the radical feminists and drive out the sex researchers. Either way, one thing is obvious — their big tent will fall.
Whose side will they take?
