Theology in the Raw - Understanding Cross Dressing and Autogynephilia Part 1: A Non-Religious Perspective with Phil Illy

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

Phil Illy is the author of 'Autoheterosexual: Attracted to Being the Other Sex', a book that explains the science of internalized heterosexuality so that autogynephilic males and autoandrophilic females can better understand themselves and be more informed when contemplating gender transition. Register for the Austin conference on sexualtiy (Sept 17-18) here: https://www.centerforfaith.com/programs/leadership-forums/faith-sexuality-and-gender-conference-live-in-austin-or-stream-online Register for the Exiles 2 day conference in Denver (Oct 4-5) here: https://theologyintheraw.com/exiles-denver/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of theology in the raw. Our sexuality and gender conference is right around the corner, September 17th, 18th in Austin, Texas at life family church. You could sign up for the conference at center for faith.com also right around the corner. From that corner is our two day exiles of Babylon conference in Denver, Colorado, October 4th to 5th. You could register for that conference at theology in the rod.com. My guest today is Phil Ily, who is the author of auto heterosexual attracted to being the other sex, a book that explains the science of internalized heterosexuality so that auto gynecophilic males and autoandrophilic females can better understand themselves and

be more informed when contemplating gender transition. This is planned to be part of a two-part podcast series on the concept of auto-gynophilia. Phil, my first guest today, is not a Christian. We're not having a conversation surrounding the morality of autogynephilia. We are first trying to understand the concept. Phil is autogynephilic. This is his personal experience and he's very well studied on the topic. His book is very long, very well researched around a very controversial issue. I'm planning to have another podcast with a Christian who also experiences autogynephilia or AGP. And

in that conversation, we will look at it through a Christian lens. So I probably use a lot of terms that maybe you're not familiar with, you're not familiar with. So, um, just a very, very brief introduction to auto-gynophilia. And the term was coined by psychologist Ray Blanchard and, uh, first in 1989, and then through a series of articles, he teased out this concept, the term auto-gynophilia simply means the love of oneself as a woman. And Blanchard expands on this definition and says that auto-gynophilia is a male's propensity to be sexually aroused by the thought of himself as a female. That comes from an article in 1989 that Ray Blanchard wrote. There's been several books on this topic. In fact,

this one right here is by Anne Lawrence, men trapped in men's bodies, narratives of auto gynecophilic transsexualism. Dr. Anne Lawrence is a researcher who is also auto gynecophilic. And then this one is fairly popular. At least it was popular when it was written, J. Michael Bailey's, The Man Who Would Be Queen. If you want a popular kind of introduction to the concept, I would probably recommend Bailey's. And then if you want a more academic, very thorough researched book, then I would recommend Ann Lawrence's book. And I would recommend Phil's Phil's book as well. This is very controversial. This topic. In fact, I have some people have accused me of promoting junk pseudo science

by even mentioning the concept of a God again, Ophelia, which I've done just briefly in, in my book embodied, but I think that just not true. The concept obviously exists because I have several people in my life that experienced this. Uh, Phil, our guest for the show experiences it and Lawrence surveyed over 200 people in her research that experienced AGP. Um, and as you'll hear in this, in this podcast, there's, uh, uh, actually a good percentage of natal males who might identify as trans that, uh, we would experience some level of AGP. So that's what we're doing in this podcast episode. Again, controversy is the name of the day. Uh, but I found Phil to be a very thoughtful, well researched, um, uh, person and, uh, who brings his own story to the table. So yeah, welcome to Theologen Raw folks

and welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only, Phil Ille. All right. Greetings, Phil. Welcome to Theologen Raw. Thanks for coming on the show. Yeah. Thanks for having me Preston. So we've known each other for about nine seconds. So my audience could listen in as we get to know each other. So tell us a bit about yourself. And then I would love to get into autogynephilia and help us. Have you helped us understand what it, what it is, what it isn't. And then we'll see where that goes. Yeah. I just, I reached out to you because an autogynphilic person I know that I met through the internet said they heard about it through your book and I checked out how you wrote about it in an embodiment. And I was really impressed with how few words you

conveyed the gist of it in a really clear, non-stigmatizing and understanding way. And so that's why I reached out to you. And I learned that I had this sort of internalized heterosexuality that's, it's called autogynephilia. It means love of self as woman. I learned I had this at about age 31, so five or six years ago. And it kind of blew my mind that I had been dealing with this for years privately and no one told me about it. It's like, why wasn't I told about this? And it bothered me that other people were going through similar experiences. So I wrote a book that explains autogynephilia and also it's a counterpart in females, autoandrophilia.

The book's called Auto-Heterosexual, the idea being that it's just heterosexuality turned inward towards the self. I took a few years to write that. I tried to distill what the research said into a very easy read so that the people who had this could be like, oh, that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point.

I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point.

I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. coming in. So just to make sure we're all on the same page, like, how is autogynephilia different from maybe a different kind of gender dysphoria or trans experience that probably most people are

more familiar with? Well, at least in natal males, people that are born male, autogynephilia is the most common kind of trans experience. It's at least 80% in Western individualist countries of people transitioning male to female are of autogynephilic etiology. The other type is the homosexual type in which it seems that sexual orientation develops alongside a bunch of other psychological traits, perhaps in utero.

And so when someone, basically homosexuals can sometimes be very gender nonconforming. And this is just sort of like an inborn thing. They sort of have a cross gender shift and personality traits. And sometimes this is to a degree that makes them feel uncomfortable socially as living as their birth sex. And they may transition to become socially heterosexual So yeah, that's the other type. What are some characteristics of if somebody experiences autogonophilia, maybe even somebody listening and saying, huh, I think I might experience some of this stuff, what are some key characteristics that would describe autogonophilia? And then the other thing is, what are some of the characteristics of autogonophilia? And then the other thing is, what are I might experience some of this stuff. What

are some key characteristics that would describe somebody who has AGP? And we say, so AGP is kind of shortened the acronym or yeah. Right. Yeah. How are you going to feel you? I guess like in a sexual context, it would be, say like during fantasies, being a woman, and this could include being a woman, being intimate with men. If they've ever, say, cross-dressed and that led to sexual arousal, that is from autogynephilia. Yeah, basically, if they find that being feminine or thinking of themselves as a woman improves their sexual experience or sexual gratification, then autogynephilia is the likely reason for that.

And outside of just a sexual context, I'd mentioned that first just because the concept is ultimately about a sexuality, but it manifests in other ways too, just in everyday cognition where someone that's autogynophilic might see a beautiful woman and feel this inner conflict about not knowing whether they want to be with her or be her. It's this sort of like tension between this gender envy and attraction. And it can be very confusing. That's one sign just in everyday life where if they see women and envy them and want to be in their place and feel sort of a sad longing that they're not female. And yeah, if someone has gender dysphoria that first arose after puberty and gets worse with time, then that is likely the autogynephilic type of gender dysphoria as well.

So the non-autogynephilic type, typically they might have... So if somebody has early onset gender dysphoria, it's like from the time they're two, three, four, five years old. Yeah, that's the homosexual kind. Ah, I didn't know that. So AGP is a post or late onset post puberty. Okay. Yeah, because yeah, it's sort of like when most people go through puberty and their sex drive ramps up, they sort of start having infatuations and strong attractions. And when that happens with infatuations and strong attractions. And when that happens with an internalized form of sexuality,

it'll make them want to start being whatever it is they're attracted to. Okay. Okay. I've also heard it described, I don't know, I've got a couple of books in front of me and we can maybe get to these later, but would love your thoughts on Bailey's book that kind of put this on the map.

Yeah, it's a good intro to it. Only the last third of the book really handles autogynephilia though. It's mostly about the homosexual type because that was more of his research program at the time was male homosexuality. This one I found it's more academic, but really thorough and helpful is that, I mean, cause Ann Lawrence is also autogonophilic researcher. So, and then I've read other stuff by, you know, more articles and stuff, but another description, I think that came, I think it might have been Bailey said like, uh, socially speaking, people with AGP would typically, you know, natal males who are, would be more socially masculine, athletic in the military. They're in male typical professions, you know, computer science or something like that. These

would be kind of other indicators. Have you found that to be true as well? Is that first of all, is that inaccurate? I'm recalling from like five years ago when I read up on this. Yeah, I think that it typically someone males that are autogynephilic are kind of normatively masculine for their sex. They might be a little, some of them, particularly the autistic ones, might be a little kind of like shy and introverted or not really settled into masculinity quite strongly, but They do seem on average

normatively masculine and Some of them as part of trying to fight this sort of like inner woman with within them some of them sort of doubled down on masculinity and their 20s say like by trying to a list in the military or, you know, getting really into weightlifting or martial arts or something very masculine to try, cause to try to have their male side win the inner conflict. Is that, was that your experience or tell us about your own journey in this? I mean, I did have a phase of having that inner conflict and it's hard to say how much of my working out and getting strong was to try to win over the inner female self.

But I did have a phase of having that, that inner conflict in my mid twenties for a few years and then sort of receded for a bit, you know, cause probably because I got into relationships often with autogynephilia. When you, when you get into a relationship with a woman in the first, sort of in the honeymoon period, the autogynephilia can, can sort of recede as sort of your attraction to women is being satiated by the real live woman that you're with. But once the honeymoon phase ends, often the autogynophilia comes back. I've had one friend describe it to me as exactly what you said. That's almost to the T what he said.

And then over time, it's almost like he would struggle with almost being like jealous of his wife or like envious of her. Yeah. The gender envy. Yeah. Yeah. And would feel so guilty. It's like, no, wife, I love her. I value her. And I've had some reason how these hard to pin down like thoughts of her, but not like a desire for her objectively, but yeah, almost like a jealousy. Right. Yeah. And that happens a lot. And often autogynephilia, someone can kind of, it'll have tendency to make them put women on a pedestal and like really admire them deeply.

That can also contribute, make the feelings of envy even more bad. Wow. You said something that I'm pretty sure is very that, but there's not, I won't give you the backstory here, but on a Reddit thread that discusses me, I'm not going to say that I'm gay, but I'm not going to say that I'm gay. I'm not going to say that I'm gay. I'm not going to say that I'm gay. I'm not going to say that I'm gay. I'm not going to say that I'm gay. I'm not going to say that I'm gay.

I'm not going to say that I'm gay. I'm not going to say that I'm gay. I'm not going to say that I'm gay. I'm not going to say that I'm gay. I'm not going to say that I'm gay. I'm not going to say that I'm gay. I'm not going to say that I'm gay. I'm not going to say that I'm gay.

I'm not going to say that I'm gay. I'm not going to say that I'm gay. I'm not going to say that I'm gay. I'm not going to say that I'm gay. I'm not going to say that I'm gay. I'm not going to say that I'm gay. I'm not going to say that I'm gay. I'm not going to set the, there's not, I won't give you the backstory here, but on a Reddit thread that discusses me, they discredit my work because they said I talk about autogated philia, which has been largely discredited as an actual phenomena. So this person says my work is junk because I mentioned autogated philia when this has just been largely discredited.

It doesn't even exist. And you're saying the opposite. Not only does it exist, it's, I mean, it's your story. So you exist. But 80%, is that well established? Is that a controversial number? Where are you getting that from? So the way that calculation is done is, so Ray Blanchard, who coined the concept of autogynephilia and worked at a gender clinic from 1980 to 1995 he found that He separated male to female transsexuals according to sexual orientation into homosexual bisexual asexual and heterosexual groups to see sort of what which groups seem to be similar and which seem to be different. He's trying to figure out how many types of trans there were.

He found that all the homosexual ones were different from what he called the non-homosexual ones. Non-homosexual meaning either bisexual, asexual, or heterosexual with respect to birth sex. The ones who were non-homosexual, the majority of them, the vast majority of them reported that they had been aroused by cross-dressing before or that they had been aroused by fantasies of being a woman, whereas in the homosexual group, a much smaller proportion, in his research, 15%, said that they had been aroused by cross-dressing before. So yeah, I guess, yeah, the homosexual group, 15% of them reported prior arousal from cross-dressing and then the non-homosexuals altogether, 73% of them said that they had been aroused by cross-dressing.

So there's just these an erotic anomaly that the non-homosexual ones were oriented towards the idea of being a woman. They were also different from the homosexual group in terms of the age they presented at the clinic and their sort of recalled childhood gender nonconformity. But yeah, basically Ray Blanchard found that you could, based on this, you could sort of diagnostically determine that if a male, person born male, is experiencing gender dysphoria and they were heterosexual, bisexual, or asexual with respect to birth sex, that they have the autogynephilic

type of gender dysphoria. And so the 80% figure, I calculated that by just looking at the very large transgender surveys in the United States, like the 2011 National Transgender Discrimination Survey and the 2015 US Transgender Discrimination Survey in the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey. They had thousands and thousands of participants. So just there was a huge N and I thought and these this data set is used by tons of conventionally pro mainstream trans researchers so I figured I'll use the same data set if they're signaling that it's valid. And I just added up based on the reported sexual orientation identities, whether people

said they were straight or bisexual or whatever, I added up all the ones that indicated non-homosexuality and that sort of gets you, that's where the 80% figure comes from. Pretty thought out. You're not just throwing it around. So most people that experience AGP in, well, let me ask you a question. Do most people, the 80%, would they even, would they say that this is their experience? No.

No, they would strongly deny it. With similar verbiage to what you mentioned when someone, you said someone on Reddit was trying to discredit your work. They'll often talk about autogynephilia as if it's been debunked or that it's pseudoscience or that it's transphobic or it was just basically made by this transphobic psychologist for the purpose of stigmatizing trans women. And it's because the theory is true that there is such strong opposition to it.

It's because they're so deeply attached to the feminine persona within them, and it hurts to have that questioned, almost like if you were to say like insult a man's wife, but it's even more personal because it's within them. And so they have really strong opposition to the theory and it's because it's within them. And so they have really strong opposition to the theory and it's because it's true, but they can't admit that to themselves. But that's the situation.

How about with your story? When you said you just five years ago, well, you've had the experience since puberty, but five years ago you had, you were introduced to the category. Did you find it stigmatizing or why are you different? Why are you freely able to, you had, you were introduced to the category. Did you find it stigmatizing or what? Why are you different? Why are you freely able to, you know, talk about it? I prioritize truth very highly. If something is true, then that's like enough said case closed. If it's true, it's true. And also physically I have a pretty masculine skeleton and there's no way, no amount of hormones or surgeries that could ever make me reasonably approximate female like appearance and so I knew that transitioning probably wasn't in the cards for me and so I

probably wouldn't develop the same degree of attachment to that feminine self as other people who say could transition and so I Yeah, I decided to speak about this just because it really bothered me that the, if there's like a few percent of males that have this, which means millions and just the US alone, there's just so many people out there that privately deal with these feelings either constantly or just intermittently and it bothers them and it confuses them. And it seems that it'd be better if they could instead

encounter the concept and be like, recognize themselves in it and then be like, oh, that's what it is. OK, you know, and like, I think it could be a lot simpler. This episode is brought to you by Mitopure by Timeline. Timeline is a Swiss based life science company and is a global leader in Urolithian A research. Okay, so I've recently been learning about Urolithian A. Urolithian A is a powerful postbiotic that is nearly impossible to get just from your diet alone. And Mitopure is the first product to offer a precise dose of Urolithia A to upgrade your mitochondrial function, increase cellular energy and improve muscle strength and endurance.

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you'll feel yourself getting stronger, recovering faster after a workout, and experiencing less inflammation. Now, Timeline is offering a 10% off discount of your first order of MitoPR. If you go to timeline.com forward slash theology and use the code theology, you'll get 10% off your order. That's timeline, T-I-M-E-L-I-N-E dot com forward slash theology to take advantage of this offer. Go check it out. When you look around at, and this, I don't know if there's a definitive answer to this, but in just in your opinion or perception, when you look at kind of like trans women and pop

culture, would your guess be like most, a lot of them, most of them would be autogonophiliac or? Yeah, it's just because statistically that is the vast majority. That's true, yeah. There's a few. It's really what's more interesting is trying to find which ones are the other type, the homosexual type. Because based on the different base rate percentages,

it's kind of safe to, like if you're just trying to guess, you kind of can assume autogynephilic unless until proven otherwise, and you'll be right much of the time. And so yeah, like someone like Caitlyn Jenner, for instance, who transitioned late in life and had been married to multiple women, that's someone that fits the autogynephilic profile. Very masculine Olympian, like, yeah. Exactly. And I think that's the thing about the I mean, if they do transition, they, their female presentation, I want to say in a way that's not maybe like is, is much more sensual is much more stereotypical female. Yeah. Maybe sensual is the best. I mean, the classic example is Caitlyn Jenner on the, on the cover of

was it vanity fair or whatever. There was just this much, just kind of more erotic presentation of female, almost like the ID, like it's almost like was one, one, uh, trans person I know, who I think is AGP as well said, it's almost like the presentation of female is the object of the male gaze. It's like what men want women to look like, you know? Um, that's who they kind of how they present. Would that be, would that be a fair assumption or how would you? Yeah, because it's, it's sort of based on what the person finds attractive in women, right? Like, and so it'll be things that also signify femininity to a high degree.

So you know, it might be seem a bit extra, particularly early in transition, if they've been bottling up the feelings a long time, and then it's sort of like, they're finally letting it out. It'll be pretty extra, especially at first. But yeah, it's, it's based on their own conception of what is a woman and what they find attractive in women. And so they want that for themselves. And so yeah, it can lead to sort of that manifestation

as you're saying, like sensual, you know, where it's, yeah, it's appealing to the male gaze because that's what it's trying to be or what it just is. Yeah, I can imagine that it can be stigmatized. Like I get why people would not want to talk about or even admit it because once you kind of sexualize his experience, they can have a certain stigma around it. Have you in your interaction with other people, I imagine you've probably encountered other people since you've been talking and writing publicly about this

that have talked to you about their own experiences. Is that been true as well that they feel stigmatized by the experience or shame or? I would say I disproportionately talk to the ones that already know they're autogynephilic and have accepted it just because otherwise how would they encounter me? And they're typically, some of them do have concerns about say if this theory were more widely known, how it might impact trans women who are just trying to go about their lives. In terms of societal discrimination,

there is some concern about that and reasonably so. But I think the ones who already know that they're autogynophilic, they don't worry too much that it could be seen as stigmatizing because they already accept that it's ultimately born out of sexuality. How many people have you met over the years that experience AGP? It's hard to quantify. I mean, much of it is over the internet.

Although in person in my everyday life, I encounter people in my social circles who I inwardly categorize as autogynephilic. And I've talked to some of them and that's been confirmed. But most of them I don't bring it up with. If they've already transitioned, I don't talk to them about it. People are much more open to it before they transition hearing about it. But afterwards there's, it has to be resistance. So it's that's just, that's just something I've found.

Um, but yeah, many people over the internet, um, cause I'm well plugged into the sort of a growing online community of people that know they have this orientation and want and like understanding themselves on a reality basis and Because they care about what's true. And so those are the most mostly the ones I talked to have you faced a lot of opposition as well Sometimes yeah for the most part the trans community is Ignoring me for now because they don't want to talk about the subject. They're gonna ignore it as long as possible. I attended

There's a sort of a gen spec'd conference last fall. I don't know if you heard about them. They're an organization Yeah, that's a Sasha Ayad and Stella O'Malley? Those or no? Well, Stella is the one that is the director of it. OK. Yeah, I attended that and the conference went fine. But then a few days later on Twitter, someone started trying to initiate a struggle session against GenSpec because I had been there. And it led to this Twitter controversy. So yeah, so far there's only been one controversy and it was started by feminists.

So that's not really a big deal, I don't think. You seem like you would handle it okay if you did face opposition. Yeah, I mean, I have to. I was very scared of going down this path of being out about this because of what happens to people who talk about this. But I realized that this is true and it comes up generation after generation. It's not going away. And at a certain point, we have to exist in the light of truth and someone and preferably

more than one person, you know, a group of people need to start talking about it and saying, yeah, I have this and humanizing it so that people who have these feelings can know what's going on with them. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Nothing's helped. Nobody's helped by silencing the conversation. Of course, there's going to be maybe the debated areas

within the research. That's always going to be true, but we can't debate those areas unless we have the conversation. If you just shut down the conversation by labeling something transphobic or pseudoscience or whatever, then that's just not helping anybody. I've talked to a few people who find great, great relief just knowing that there is a name for this. When I speak on the topic and if I do end up mentioning Otogonophilia, which might be 20 seconds of my presentation, just kind of as

one of many diverse trans experiences, I almost always get somebody that comes up with, I can just feel this, they see the shame in their face, but also a ray of hope, like, wait, this, what you were saying there, I feel like you were describing me. I get that a decent amount. And so, yeah, I think talking about it can potentially reduce the shame, which is a starting place that anybody needs to take. So if somebody has AGP and they don't want to transition for whatever reason, what are some other ways to mitigate the dysphoria? You can even speak personally for you or, yeah. To mitigate the dysphoriaphoria it's about increasing the proportion of positive gender related experiences which are sometimes called

gender euphoria and and reducing the amount of negative gender related experiences, gender dysphoria. To mitigate the dysphoria you have to get in touch with that inter feminine construct to some degree, right? Because it arises out of sexual orientation and people typically develop a bond with that feminine construct within themselves. So they have to just fully trying to close off that part of themselves. Like full on repression seems to not lead to as good of wellbeing as say like indulging in various ways.

And that could either be, say, sexually in the bedroom or altering how they dress or change their gender presentation. Maybe they want a different haircut or to grow their hair out. Maybe they want to try makeup. The types of things that an autogynophilic person wants to embody, it varies. Some of them care mostly about having a female body or about being seen by others as female. And in those cases, something like transsexualism is kind of like the most realistic way of attaining that sort of desire. Others wish to dress more like a woman or to behave like one. What we typically, the sort of consensus among people that are autogynephilic, that know they're autogynephilic, and also that has been reported by old transvestite organizations such as the Society for the Second Self,

is integration, where instead of fully repressing the female side, you allow it to express to some degree, but you integrate it into your self-system as two sides that are part of a whole, rather than just completely closing one off. That's interesting. Wow. What role might porn play in someone's experience? Is porn use a... How do I... So many people watch porn. So this isn't to single out a group, but could porn exacerbate someone with AGP, their dysphoria, or is it just unrelated? While it doesn't cause autogynephilia in the first place, it can intensify erotic target

identity. Basically it can intensify the dysphoria and the trans identity that can arise out of autogynephilia, even though it doesn't cause the autogynephilia in the first place. And depending on the type, basically, because through that porn, they can, if that's a way that they get in touch with that side of themselves, that autogynephilic side,

it could severely conflict with their self image, you know, because quite a bit of the porn is degrading to various degrees. And if they incorporate that into their self concept, it can, you know, injure their self image and ultimately make them feel worse about themselves over time. And so using porn can exacerbate the identity and dysphoria aspects of it. Yeah, that's sort of just the gist of it. The theory of, the broader theory that the concept of autogynephilia falls within is this theory called erotic target identity inversion theory, which is basically that sometimes

sexual attractions get inverted inward towards the self and it makes you get attracted to being whatever it is that you love. When this happens with male heterosexuality, it creates autogynephilia, but when it happens with other sort of attractions, such as some men are attracted to amputees, for instance, and some of them have an internalized attraction to being an amputee, and it can make them want to have their limbs severed.

You may have heard of body integrity dysphoria. That's what this is caused by. It's the same root cause of internalized sexual attraction, but it's for being a different type of thing. Basically, the erotic target identity inversion theory separates between the internalized attraction and the dysphoria and identity crisis that can result from it. The strength of the internalized attraction strongly correlates with the strength of dysphoria and sort of trans identity that result from it. But it's not necessarily a one to one connection, but it's very highly connected. And so someone that, someone that like goes real hard on expressing their autogon

affiliate to the fullest degree all the time, it's going to lead to a much faster cross-gender development process in terms of coming to identify as a woman than if they sort of indulge more occasionally in a more moderated manner. That's helpful. Do we know anything about the cause, the whole nature, nurture, biology, environment,

or is it this, like I know a same-sex sexuality, it's kind of like, we just, we can't really, it's just kind of a blend of nature, nurture, there's probably a lot of biological push. There's also some environmental factors, it's hard to kind of untangle it all. Is that similar for AGP, or do we know about the cause? There's also some environmental factors. It's hard to kind of untangle it all. Is that similar for AGP or do we know about the cause?

The heritability of autogynephilia has not been directly measured yet. However, the heritability of gender dysphoria or gender nonconformity has been measured and it does seem heritable to some degree. The measurements vary widely, but they always find some degree of heritability. And I do think it does seem to be an inborn predisposition. The type of culture and environment someone is in will alter the particular ways in which it manifests,

say like the styles of dress that will be attractive or you know whether they can even act on it say like in more Eastern collectivist countries people might not even have any time alone to cross dress if they're living in intergenerational housing you know so in Western individualistic countries it seems to develop faster and more often the sort of like the identity and dysphoria aspects of it. However, autogonophilia has arisen across generations and it arises across many cultures. It doesn't matter where you give a survey to any people in like sort of the civilized world. Um, some proportion of them are going to report arousal, like prior arousal

from cross dressing or from fantasies of being a woman. Yeah. I think it's, I consider it a mostly innate trait that it's, it's mostly just, um, an inborn thing and Blanchard sort of theorized that there's some mechanism in the brain that directs one's sexual attractions outward versus inward. And sometimes there's a developmental, like during development,

there's sort of what he considered like a mislearning where for some reason it gets directed inward rather than outward. So that mechanism about whether attraction is directed inward rather than outward, it seems to be, I think that's primarily innate trait. Like the degree to which one's sexual orientation is directed inward. But it, lots of life experiences will alter how the ways in which that manifests. Do you know of any cases or many cases

where somebody's AGP goes away through, you know, maybe efforts on their own or just for no reason, it just kind of like they just don't deal with this anymore? Or is it typically something people experience on some level their whole life? I would say typically it's always there or the predisposition towards it is always there. The most common way that people feel it going away and receding in intensity, like I mentioned, is when they get in a relationship with a woman and temporarily it's their their gynafilia is directed outwards rather than inwards. And I have read some first person reports from people that say they were

able to steadily make it go away over time. I think that that might that there probably are people who can do that. And it doesn't mean like the predisposition is gone. Like if they were to allow themselves that sort of expression again, it would probably come roaring back if they were to try cross-dressing or something. But I do think there's some autogynephilic males whose autogynephilia is either similar in intensity to their externally

directed gynephilia or milder, where they can sort of route through conscious effort, conscious deliberate effort, route their attraction to women externally and dissuade themselves from that internal attraction. And yeah, like I said, some people have reported success doing this. It's hard to know though, because so much of the times when people report things, it's wishful thinking. As far as I could tell,

the predisposition is largely innate. So yeah, I'm not too optimistic, but some people have reported that they could change it and make it go away. Yeah, self-report is always tricky. You don't want to deny someone's self-report. At the same time, we're all humans and self-report isn't always the most reliable.

But what about this transitioning? If someone transitions, does that typically reduce or alleviate the dysphoria or is it really case by case basis? So without a gynecophilic gender transition, it seems to reduce dysphoria in a couple ways at the same time. One is that it reduces the one sex drive. Because by taking anti-androgens and taking estrogen,

a male will have a lower sex drive. And on the other hand, it moves their body in the feminine direction and makes, it alleviates sort of the emotional distress because the way their body is changing is favorable to them. And so it feels like a promising trajectory emotionally. They're getting the body, the desire, whereas if they don't have that body,

that desire is kind of unmet in a sense. Exactly. It helps meet the desire while also tamping down the desire in the first place. Yeah, as far as I could tell, medical transition in terms of taking hormones, at least for AGPs, there is a very high satisfaction rate. Some of them decide it's not for them.

For example, some of them will go on, as soon as they go on the anti-androgens, all of a sudden it'll eliminate their sex drive and then they'll be like, why am I even doing this? Why do I even want, they're not having the feelings of wanting to be a woman anymore because the drugs alleviate it and then they'll go off of it. And then the feelings come back and some of them yo-yo back and forth quite a few times

because they don't understand the mechanism at play here. It's very confusing. Like why being on testosterone would make you feel like you want to be more feminine and being on estrogen would make you not want that anymore. It doesn't make intuitive sense unless you understand autogynephilia. So is our anti androgens then, is that a potential, I don't want to say cure, but like a potential way to mitigate the dysphoria in somebody with AGP? Just on their own. It's kind of my understanding.

I'm not an endocrinologist, but my understanding is that it's important to have at least one set of hormones in the body. Like the human body is designed to either be testosterone driven or estrogen driven. And being on neither, it's not the best for the body. Like it can lead to like osteoporosis being on neither, it's not the best for the body. It can lead to osteoporosis and other various issues

with health over time. Hey friends, I am so excited to let you know that the Upside Down Kingdom Study Bible releases on September 10th. And I had the absolute pleasure of serving as a general editor for the study notes for the study Bible. We enlisted a fantastic team of scholars, writers, and thinkers, people like Francis Chan, John and Lisa Bevere, Michael Byrd, Eugene Cho, Jermaine Gray, Michelle Knight,

Rebecca McLaughlin, and the list goes on and on and on. The study notes address topics like creation care, divorce, festivals, food and drink, science, sexuality, gender, Satan, demons, angels, and giants, politics, race and ethnicity, and many, many other relevant cultural, political, and social topics. So please check it out. The upside down kingdom study Bible, wherever books and Bibles are sold. You mentioned auto androphilia, the love of oneself as a man, the opposite for natal females in my limited reading compared to you. Some say that doesn't, isn't a thing or it's extremely, extremely rare. Is that, is that the case or is it, you know?

You know, I originally did believe that, you know, cause scientists such as, as Michael Bailey and Anne Lawrence have said that because it's a parapher, because autogynephilia is a paraphilia, if auto angiophilia existed, it would be a paraphilia and females don't really get those. So it's unlikely that auto-angrophilia exists. However, I did, I changed my mind over time because while learning about auto-angrophilia, I encountered women online

who said that they were auto-angrophilic. And I set up Zoom calls with them to interview them about their experience. And what they said certainly seemed like if auto-androphilia existed that this is it. And so I went through the sexology literature to try to find anything I could on it. Because they often, usually male sexuality is studied by sexologists.

They've historically neglected female sexuality. But there's some cases of female transvestism where I read it and the psychology reported there the first person narrative, the quotes. It's very much like the analog of what autogonophilia is. The overall structure of thinking is the same, but it's about being a man instead. I also looked at research into trans men who are either bisexual or attracted to men because if auto-angiphylia were to exist in females, you'd expect it the ones, the trans men who are attracted to men or who are bisexual to have auto-androphilia

because they wouldn't be the homosexual type. Again, like those narratives that I saw, the overall structure of thinking is the same. I would say overall it's more, it's kind of like a female typical, it's more feminine with the overall cognition, maybe a little emotional and sentimental rather than directly sexual.

But the overall structure of thinking was the same. And since my book has come out, I've had auto angiophiles, had contact with auto angiophiles. I have a YouTube channel where I've interviewed a few. It does seem to be real again to be clear this is not yet accepted by sort of like the The most prestigious sexologists yet the trans man population the female to male population

most of them do not report being just Homosexual like just attracted to females in terms of their sexual identities and in community samples, most of them report a non-homosexual type of sexual identity. And so it means they're not the homosexual type. And so there's some other type. And the other, the two contenders are either autoangrophilia or the rapid onset gender dysphoria that is sometimes talked about.

I think for someone that has gone on testosterone and gotten a mastectomy and is pleased with it and is not homosexual, I think it's most likely that they're autoangrophilic. If they were to be pleased by those changes to their body, that they're auto-angrophilic. If they were to be pleased by those changes to their body, it doesn't seem like a simple matter of social contagion, especially if years later after doing it, they're still satisfied. So yeah, I originally did not think auto-angrophilia was real, but then I looked into it and I concluded that yes, it is real and that it's even harder for them to hear about it

than it is for the, for the autogynephilic people. So I included them in my book as equals because I wanted them to have, you know, a fair shot at hearing about their orientation. That's interesting. Wow. I've never met, yeah, I've not met somebody who would be characterized by that. So it's still way more rare than AGP for natal males, but definitely exists. You've met people that- Yeah, it's less common. If I were to guess just based on survey items, which

is where people answer whether they're a man in their sexual fantasies or whether they've been aroused by such things. If I were to guess, it's maybe like a half, maybe a third, somewhere between a third or a half is common as autogynephilia. And there's a good chance that due to differences between the sexes in terms of their libido and just their sexual psychology that it it may not be as intractable of an attraction like for for an auto-android philic female like she might be able to sort of put that to the side in favor of think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing.

I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing.

I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing.

I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a back to auto-gynophilia in your, in your opinion, educated opinion, um, when we look out at, for instance, like drag queens are big in pop culture, you know, we're coming off the Olympics that had, you know, some controversy around drag queens. And w would you say that drag queens stereotypically fit an AGP persona? Historically, those were homosexuals, not the AGPs. And drag queens were.

It was something that was just done within the sort of like homosexual community and it was generally hidden and the general public did not see it. I think now that this stuff is more out in the open, that there are drag queens who are autogynophilic now, but historically that identity and that subculture was just a homosexual thing. Okay. I mean, my understanding, I know even like drag queens can be so stigmatized. And I think people's knowledge is so politicized on just when they think of drag queens, typically, like everybody, most people listening probably have never met somebody who's a drag queen. It's just kind of like those people out there, depending on which news outlet you're reading this through,

you're gonna have a very different opinion on that population. But typically like a drag queen is somebody who wouldn't even consider themselves trans. It's more of a performative thing that they do from time to time, not a sort of permanent identity. Now again, there's going to be diversity within that population, obviously. But yeah, that's,

that's correct. Yeah. But that see that even that, like, I don't want to, I'm not trying to correlate it, but it is, does seem similar. Somebody with AGP, we're cross stressing in private isn't a permanent thing. It's just something, you know, uh, done periodically like that. That seems to be similar to the drag queen experience. But again, it could be two different things though. I don't know. Kyle Soria Yeah. Historically, they were two different things where say maybe in the 70s or 80s before, you know, back when this was much more stigmatized, the cross dressers that dress in the seventies or eighties before, you know, back when this was much more stigmatized, the cross dressers that dress in the privacy of their home would be, they used to be called transvestites. Those are the, those were the autogynophiles, the autogynophiles and the drag queens were

homosexuals and these communities rarely intersected. But the, I would say the only autogynephiles that would participate probably in that homosexual subculture were the ones that on a transsexual trajectory, um, where, you know, going to those places be a safe place for them to present in public, but generally historically they were separate populations because that they are very psychologically different conditions. And it's only now in the modern time where gender nonconformity and trans is sort of seen as this one thing that the different types are being mixed together in a much more

fluid way. I want to ask another question. This one's really sensitive. I mean, this whole conversation piece, sensitive people are like, wait, now you're getting sensitive. So I, I would, I would just want to word it as well as I can and, and be accurate, but I want to, um, would love your opinion on the, cause I think this is, might be where people's minds are going. Any kind of correlation between like pedophilia and, and a kind of AGP experience. So let me be, I hope, I hope that's a good question. I think that's a good question.

I think that's a good question. And so I'm going to assume that 30% of the people who are going to be going to the same sex orientation as me, they're going to be going to the same sex orientation as me. So I'm going to assume that 30% of the people who are going to be going to the same sex orientation as me, they're going to be going to the same sex orientation as me. So I'm going to assume that 30% of the people who are going to be going to the same sex orientation as me, they're going to be going to the same sex orientation as me. heterosexual, got pedophiles in that population. So I'm going to assume that there's going to be some people with an AGP experience that also

might experience some kind of pedophilia. Well, let me just start as a question. Is there any correlation here? Are these completely separate categories or? I don't know if there's a core, there's a similarity in only in the very broad sense that these are atypical sexual attractions, you know, which places a sexuality

under the heading of paraphilia, which means like beyond, like a beyond sort of love. Okay. I don't think, I've seen Blanchard tweet before that he doesn't, that in his experience at the clinic, he didn't see an overlap between autogynephilia and pedophilia. I mean, but that's just like, that's not like a study.

That's just his like sort of opinion after just lots of experience. I would say that when someone does have an internalized sexuality, it would be much easier to know if they are also pedophilic, for instance, if they engaged in say like age regression or like wearing diapers, things like that, for either emotional or sexual gratification. That could be an indicator sort of that they're attracted to youth. When it's when it's directed inward, it's just it's particularly visible. So it really is a separate category that like anything that could overlap,

but we shouldn't in our minds think AGP is going to lead to or something like pedophilia. Right. Yeah. I guess the way of thinking of it- That's important for people to hear because that could be a good de-stigmatization of it so that people aren't making that connection. I guess a clear way to say is that sexual orientation seems to be multi-dimensional, that there's a dimension about gender and sex, and there's also one

about age. And these two have been established mathematically by research that there's both a gender and an age dimension of sexual orientation. And it's also looking like that self other dimension that I was talking about that leads to autogynephilia. That that's another dimension, although it hasn't been conclusively proven yet, but that again seems to be another dimension. So yeah, basically sexual orientation, it has multiple dimensions to it. And the gender one, there's lots of ethical ways to act upon that. But if someone has an attraction to children, it's not ethical to act upon that. And so it's

while psychologically they may all fall under the idea of sexual orientation in a, in a moral and ethical sense that they can't be equated. Yeah. That's helpful. That's super helpful. Do you come across in your, in your, in your work and your relationships, people you talk to, do you come across specifically Christians that experience AGP that reach out to you? And how do you navigate those conversations? Some of them. Yeah, that's how I heard about your work. I do sometimes come across them in the subreddit where we have the the self aware autogynophiles,

um, it's called ask AGP for any Redditors listening to this. Um, there are sometimes Christians that post about how they feel this tension between their autogynophilia and their desire to live their life in a way that fits with their religious aspirations. And so there's definitely a tension there and there are definitely are some Christian. AGPs. Do you have any religious background? I didn't ask you this at the beginning, because I know you're not a Christian, but I mean, were you all raised in a church or religious environment? My mom brought me to church for a few years because she thought that it was just part of being a parent

was to expose your kid to religion. And then she asked me around. I think it was a Methodist church. There's some sort of ceremony that happens when you're around eight years old. I don't know the name of it. But after that, she asked me if I wanted to keep going. And I said no.

And that was it. But so yeah, I don't really have a deep religious background. I recognize that it does help a lot of people live good meaningful lives and that it's important to a lot of people. But it just it hasn't yet appealed to me. Is there anything else we're gonna wrap things up anything else that we haven't covered that you'd like our audience to know specifically about AGP? Yeah, basically if just that if you have, if you're autogynophilic or auto angiophilic, it doesn't make you a bad person. It's fine to have this.

It's just kind of a quirky kind of heterosexuality. It doesn't have to be a super big deal. By understanding what it is and how it works, you can better understand yourself and also gain more control over how your gender journey, so to speak, plays out over your life. Because through understanding, your predictions will come true more often. That's good. If people want to get a hold of you, do you? Is that OK? Or yeah, yeah, people can they can email me at autogynophilic at gmail.com.

They can read my work at autoheterosexual.com also on Reddit and ask AGP or our autogynephilia. I'm a mod moderator on both of those. I'm on Twitter at autogynephilia. I'm a moderator on both of those. I'm on Twitter at autogynephil. There's plenty of places that they can contact me and if they're autogynephilic or autoangiophilic I'm perfectly fine with them doing so. Awesome. Thanks so much Phil for the very interesting and intriguing conversation. Thanks for being a guest on the show. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.