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Okay, Hi, I’m from that other thread, what exactly is the general consensus about AGP and how it relates to being transgender?(r/asktransgender)
The general consensus is it’s bullocks, pseudo-scientific quackery. Totally unrepentant, irredeemable horse shit.
The basic idea with AGP is you’re not a “true transsexual,” a “real woman” if you have sexual desires and fantasies about yourself as female.
The primary theory we have right now for the cause of transsexuality is that, through some combination of genetics and in utero hormone levels, someone is born with a masculinized brain in a female body or a feminized brain in a male body. In the neural sense, trans really are women. Trans men really are men.
So, that’s the primary theory. How does that interact with sexual desire? The proponents of AGP declare that if you have sexual fantasies of yourself as female, you can’t really be female. It’s all just “a fetish,” whatever the hell that means. But what if we applied the same standard to cisgender women?
Cisgender women have sexual fantasies too. Some proponents of AGP actually developed surveys and tests to determine if someone was a “true transsexual” or not. Others decided to have some fun with them. They took the same surveys and gave them to cisgender women. What did they find? Lo and behold, 90% of cisgender women suffer from AGP!
Think about that. 90% of women have sexual fantasies of themselves as women. BIG FUCKING DUH. Most women get off imagining themselves as a girl. A straight guy gets off fantasizing about himself, as a guy, fucking a hot girl. A straight girl gets off fantasizing about herself, as a girl, getting fucked by a hot guy. Lesbians fantasize about themselves, as women, with other women. Gay men fantasize about themselves, as men, with other men. Who would of thunk it? People have sexual fantasies that match their orientation and gender identity!
But for proponents of AGP, we’re not allowed to apply this brutally obvious common sense to trans gals. It seems the only trans women who are “really trans” are asexual. It’s like if you’re not a chaste, innocent nun of a woman, you’re can’t really be trans.
If you’re really a woman inside, there would be something strange going on if you DIDN’T fantasize about yourself as a woman. Whether you like guys or like gals, your fantasies will likely involve you, as a female, with a partner of your preferred sex.
AGP is ultimately rooted in misogyny. It’s a fantasy that denies the validity of women if they exhibit any sort of sexual energy at all. Women are supposed to be demure, asexual, fragile little things that only have sex when tricked or cajoled into it by virile, masculine men. “Good women” aren’t supposed to really desire or want sex. It’s pure old Victorian bullshit.
Notice, there’s no equivalent for AGP for trans men. If a trans guy tells a psychologist, “damn. I really like the idea of being a guy. When I masturbate, I imagine myself as a dude with a huge cock banging the hell out of a hot babe,” no one diagnoses him with a masculine equivalent of AGP. Apparently this standard only applies to women.
Again, this is rooted in old school misogyny. “Real men” are supposed to be hard-fightin’, beer-drinkin’, lumberjacks of men that want to fuck everything that moves. Thus, if they exhibit a healthy sexuality, their identities are validated, not invalidated.
AGP is just another misogynist tool meant to beat trans women over the head. It’s a bullshit diagnosis that has been completely rejected by the modern psychological community.
I know it’s commonly recommended, but if you haven’t, I suggest you read The Whipping Girl. It’s a great work and the go-to reference for this sort of thing. It’s good for helping cisgender people understand trans folks better and for trans folks to learn to overcome some of the crap and guilt society has ground in to us. I highly recommend it, and I’m sure others will as well.
So yeah, in summary, AGP is bullcrap.