But even setting aside exceptions to that pattern, the standout thing about the typology is the way it’s offered as the only viable explanation for these differences. As if any observable distinctions between trans women based on sexuality MUST be proof of the typology exactly as written.
This flows into my personal take, which is that the typology is based on patterns we can actually observe about sexual cohorts of trans women, and uses that basis to appeal to casual intuition as an obvious explanation.
yeah. there's a pattern there, but it doesn't match onto the typology cleanly, nor does the typology explanation itself hold water.
Good example being that age of transition was once considered a key marker of the AGP/HSTS difference, but once sapphic trans women began transitioning much younger, became no longer considered a useful distinction.
Doctors refuse to help sapphic trans women transition and then claim later transition is a characteristic of Sapphic trans women, it's unhinged
This is a great example of what I mean. You have people who clocked that a lot of trans women like anime, and a lot of them are sapphic, so a causal link enters the typological milieu. bsky.app/profile/acva...
I also continue to feel that the HSTS type has more simple basis in truth to it, in that there IS a continuum between feminine gay boys and transhet girls, and we do tend to have similar childhoods and other overlapping qualities. Some people fall right in the middle (think of many drag queens).
But IMO one reason there have been argued to be so many “AGP subtypes” is that the whole concept of a type here doesn’t really make sense if you don’t expand it to be very large and diverse.
Could we say that AGP a "all size fits all" term for people who don't fit into the stereotypical view people have of trans women being just a variation of feminine gay men, hence disregarding them as not "actual" trans women?
For instance, it does seem to be true that on average, sapphic trans women are more likely to have erotic crossdressing experiences, and more interest in thematically similar things like forced feminization stories.
I don't know that I agree. I know of a lot of accounts of erotic crossdressing among 'gay men' who'd later transition, and the quantity of things like forcefem porn that is straight far dwarfs any lesbian content of that nature
I think, if this tendency exist, it's more likely sth that manifests due to trans lesbians being more likely to stay in the closet longer--therefore, the only available means of expressing gender becomes sublimation
Exceptions like these have been brought up, but the argument usually rests on clinical data showing higher rate of erotic cross-dressing among LB transfems. However, as I get to downthread, the idea that AGP is the only explanation for that is part of the sabotage. Erotization is super common
I get that, but I'm saying that seeing it as 'explanation' at all is not productive. 'AGPs' are erotic crossdressers the same way as all Cancers are sentimental--it's a bogus litmus test in which the evidence is rigged, the proof cherry-picked and anti-proof discarded as exceptional
But not only is there a ton of variation there, it’s more complex to make the same kind of “transhet/fem gay” link between girls like that and straight male crossdressers, because those aren’t “communities” and the latter tends to be defined by secrecy.
But see the result: they end up arguing that a straight man who dresses as a woman in secret and holds onto male identity elsewhere, and a young trans lesbian who openly embraces social feminization in plain sight with no interest in male identity, have *the same gender psychology.*
You see how the typological conclusion “leads” all understanding of behavioral differences between trans women, as almost a forgone conclusion if we’re to pay attention to those differences at all?
It might actually be useful and interesting to explore why erotic cross dressing can provide relief for some sapphic trans women, and it’s not hard to see why that would be—erotization is a common psychological defense for processing shame and fear.