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Notes
Madeline H. Wyndzen is a pen name that I use to compartmentalize transgenderism from other aspects of my professional and personal life.
Describing this history as having only two sides is meaningful but could oversimplify. For example, I disagree with Blanchard’s model and this sides’ method of gaining publicity without a parallel improvement in the theory’s scientific rigor. At the same time, as a professor of developmental psychology, I share many underlying values with this side and may even disapprove of some of the other sides’ tactics even more than they do. Among the wide individual differences are two clusters of ideas and so, for sake of simplicity in this commentary, I will use terms like “side” and “pro- and anti-autogynephilia” without the additional qualification about the range of viewpoints and range of views on if the “sides” are best identified by attitudes toward Blanchard’s model.
Lawrence’s website has changed quite a lot since then. Like me, her site has become less about herself and more about academic ideas. I still thought she kept her personal material on-line, like me, but when I went back to check the citation (and my memory of almost a decade ago), I found she removed the page. Her website is also missing from the web archive (archive.org). It is also important to note that Lawrence does not set up the same dichotomy between models as Bailey and Dreger, so she is not contradicting herself.
I am puzzled that Dreger described McCloskey’s autobiography as endorsing the feminine essence narrative. It does not fit my reading of it or, for example, the New York Times book review. However, Dreger is consistent with Bailey’s interpretation.
To provide context, my score at the time was the same as the average “homosexual” transsexual on the “core autogynephilia” scale and the same as the average bisexual transsexual on the “autogynephilic interpersonal fantasy” scale.
I question if people have any essence at all. Maybe being human is about inventing yourself rather than letting a destiny unfold?
An article commemorating the 30th anniversary of removal of homosexuality from the DSM list of mental illnesses provides a striking parallel. Veteran gay and lesbian advocate Gittings says, "[The mental illness label for homosexuality] was an albatross around our neck ... Yes, we were also viewed as sinners and as law-breakers, but there was room for legitimate differences of opinion about what should be immoral and what should be illegal.... The sickness label, on the other hand, was supposedly a scientific finding that couldn’t be questioned. And that made it tough to argue for our rights. Anything we said on our behalf could be dismissed as ‘That’s your sickness talking’.” (from “Instant Cure” by Robert DiGiacomo in “Philadelphia Gay News” on December 12, 2005).
In recent years, Lawrence (2007) has expanded her view in a way consistent with my initial critique of her first essay and my re-examination of this data.
Many believe Smith, van Goozen, Kuiper, and Cohen-Kettenis (2005) is a response to this critique. For example, it appears as counter-evidence on Wikipedia. If this was their intent, it is missing the necessary evaluation of clusters and does not include the necessary control groups to account for base-rate information (a concern I have about most pro-autogynephilia research).
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Wyndzen, M.H. A Social Psychology of a History of a Snippet in the Psychology of Transgenderism. Arch Sex Behav 37, 498–502 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-008-9340-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-008-9340-2