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.
Replies
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?
aug 25, 2025, 2:14 pm • 10 0 • view
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.
aug 25, 2025, 12:42 pm • 72 2 • view
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
aug 25, 2025, 1:47 pm • 6 0 • view
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
aug 25, 2025, 1:47 pm • 4 0 • view
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
aug 25, 2025, 1:59 pm • 4 0 • view
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
aug 25, 2025, 2:07 pm • 4 0 • view
I think you may be thinking I’m saying something different than I actually am.
aug 25, 2025, 2:09 pm • 0 0 • view
Alright
aug 25, 2025, 2:14 pm • 0 0 • view
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.
aug 25, 2025, 12:47 pm • 69 5 • view
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.*
aug 25, 2025, 12:50 pm • 87 8 • view
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?
aug 25, 2025, 12:52 pm • 67 5 • view
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.
aug 25, 2025, 12:53 pm • 87 8 • view
as a bi trans woman, I think there's something to be said about comphet and how friendships form. Like it was a bit of a cultural shock even knowing to expect it going from 'normatively we expect you are into women' before I came out to 'normatively we expect you are into men' after...
aug 25, 2025, 2:00 pm • 6 0 • view
and I guess, when you are accepted more easily as a friend by cis dudes than by cis women if you are trans and sapphic, there's a lot of exposure to "femininity = shameful" even when it's not aimed directly at us, because men are more frequently overtly misogynistic.
aug 25, 2025, 2:04 pm • 6 0 • view
so I get shame about liking women, shame about maybe sometimes liking men, shame about being too masculine, and shame about being too feminine, and both cis guys and women code switch between treating me as a guy or a woman in subtle and often weaponized ways to assert power or shame me -
aug 25, 2025, 2:08 pm • 6 0 • view
to try to pressgang me into their group when it's convenient or exclude me when it's convenient.
aug 25, 2025, 2:08 pm • 6 0 • view
annd yeah! If it weren't for not having much of a sex drive thanks to antidepressants and my own anxious hangups, I'd probably be a lot kinkier, just by default, from this kinda stuff. And I won't say being sometimes a bit sex repulsed isn't ALSO (sometimes) a product of that shame and anxiety.
aug 25, 2025, 2:10 pm • 5 0 • view
>> for those whose inner sense of themselves is exclusively female, how TF else is it possible to experience one's developing sexuality other that what bastards like Bailey would pathologize as erotic cross dressing? 1/2
aug 25, 2025, 2:18 pm • 5 0 • view
Also, subconsciously linking gender dysphoria to "erotic cross dressing" is a maladaptive defense mechanism to control, delay, and repress that dysphoria into discreet episodes while persisting in denial about being trans. 2/2
aug 25, 2025, 2:18 pm • 5 0 • view
I seem to recall Serano saying something of the nature once. I think it was in one of her spoken word pieces and not sure if it was one in Whipping Girl or another she performed when I saw her workshop in 2009. Either way it was about channeling the shaming into sex.
aug 25, 2025, 2:34 pm • 3 0 • view
But the specter of autogynephilia and all theories its proponents attach to it loom over the entire conversation, poisoning any effort to understand this by making it painful and humiliating for sapphic trans women to take ownership of any experiences that might cross into this territory.
aug 25, 2025, 12:56 pm • 82 5 • view
I call this effect interpretive sabotage. It sabotages the ability of trans women to interpret our experiences because there’s already such an aggressive, motivated, and hostile set of interpretations being pushed onto us about those very experiences.
aug 25, 2025, 12:58 pm • 104 14 • view
For real. I don’t know what it’s like for most trans people, but I am fortunate enough to have some internal feedback going on that occasionally drives home how real my own experience is. Without that idk if I would survive the narrative being shoved down my throat.
aug 25, 2025, 2:01 pm • 3 0 • view
I first started feeling this from the “HSTS” angle: any desire of mine to explore the gay boy-trans girl overlap I directly see in my own life is already sabotaged with “whoa isn’t that basically HSTS?!” bsky.app/profile/godd...
aug 25, 2025, 1:00 pm • 75 6 • view
This echoes for me somewhat from the detrans angle, the interpretive sabotage thing, albeit it is not of psychiatric origin per se. It feels difficult to explore and contextualise your feelings about your transition--
aug 25, 2025, 1:15 pm • 23 0 • view
--when there's a spectre over you of "you're a delusional dabbler / transphobic grifter / damaged goods / etc." So you start thinking, hey I'm not sure I like being on T, maybe I shouldn't have, and the spectre immediately rears up, so much louder than you ever could be
aug 25, 2025, 1:15 pm • 23 0 • view
Reading the thread had me think that these guys have been so focused on trying to get easy wins to get desistance made standard they don't want to research into advanced stuff like orientation change, poly/mono, shifting expression, caretaking, pregnancy angst, partnership dynamics, etc.
aug 25, 2025, 4:05 pm • 1 0 • view
I find it deeply funny in their desire to find some binary difference in trans femme folks, they won't even attempt a survey into 5 year, 10 year, 15, 20 etc changes in life, especially once someone hits a point they have spent more time transitioned than cis. Where that is an actual frontier
aug 25, 2025, 4:05 pm • 2 0 • view
Sexology is just bad literature pretending to be science. If you read realist fiction and memoir by trans women you see the simple types of sexology are just crude reductions from the variations and habits of our lives, which our literature handles so much better.
aug 25, 2025, 4:54 pm • 6 0 • view
Going back in time to smack my younger self over the head with this post.
aug 25, 2025, 1:01 pm • 1 0 • view