This is the start of some writings I might continue, which summarize my reflections on a month-to-month basis, with the hope of making things publishable if they seem helpful to others. These are my opinions, but the opinions of someone who has spent years trying to find a way to explore gender that makes sense, and someone who strives to be open to anything that serves the agenda of making my life as sustainably fulfilling as possible.
Hi. I'm writing these entries as a self-reflection, but also one that is ideally helpful to you too. I'm male and 26 years old, and have been contemplating sexuality and gender since I became aware of these concepts during puberty. I'm trying to find a way to rationalize transgender and/or transsexual identity, after staring hormones and realizing that I truly don't know how I'll anchor my sense of identity as I continue to transition. I didn't feel right calling myself a woman, the same as any cis-woman. Transwoman made sense, but that word receives a lot of pushback lately. Therefore, most of this is focused on male-to-female transition, since that is my selfish agenda. Hehe.
After scrolling through every subreddit and watching every YouTube video I could find, I have detached from the prevailing "WPATH-style" affirmative-only method of assessing myself and feel that a lot of what is driving my desire to transition is AGP. That isn't to say that I'm purely indulging a fetish if I transition. My goal is to be a normal-appearing androgynous person, not to walk around pretending I'm truly a woman and expecting to be integrated into women's social interactions as if I'm the same as them. Nor to walk around in an outfit that is unusually provocative and usually considered in poor taste to wear about town, as if that is business casual attire, claiming transphobia at anyone who dares contradict my mandate, as some activists are doing.
I see a few reasons one might adopt the more authoritarian interpretation of the "trans women are women" mandate, having whole-heartedly agreed with that at one point. It's a self-validation of one's own femininity through via the means of acting and dressing that provide the strongest stimulation. Sort of masturbatory, in a descriptive but not necessarily invalidating sense. Not only is the AGP sense of femininity based on a feeling which can vary free of reasoning, but also one that varies according to sexual appetite. There are alternative explanations, but you'll see reddit posts asking something like "Why do I want to transition less after masturbating?". This is something I've experienced, and though may be worth looking into more deeply, i.e., "how much of my motivation to transition is based on sexual dysphoria, rather than social or physical?".
Such questions won't lead to proof that a person is AGP and therefore erroneously transitioning for the sole purpose of satisfying a fetish - to be fair, the distress of AGP is often intolerable, leaving someone with the options of self-harm or transition, and while some would even consider transition self-harm, it can certainly be considered the lesser of two evils when the alternative is suicide. I've been there, and would take any option possible to relieve the pain. However, the challenge remains to address the cases of predatory AGPs entering women's spaces and ruining tolerance of flexibility regarding things like letting female-identified people into women's bathrooms.
Alternatively, imagine a case where someone who exhibits AGP to the point where they can no longer sustain any sexual relationship while being seen as masculine, leaving them isolated. If transition does not involve them forcing speech on others (i.e. still being OK with being called male, using male spaces, generally not exerting the authoritarian pressure of transphobia accusations on those around you for not submitting to your reality), what is the ethical problem with addressing AGP with HRT and potentially surgery? This is a choice of personal expression which doesn't require a restructuring of language and something approaching compelled speech.
Some might argue "I don't want to be forced to be around someone else's fetish" in response to whether it's ethical to accept AGP people in day-to-day life. True, it can be uncomfortable realizing why they look and act how they do, but in the same vane, this would be an exclusion based on what you think that person must be thinking. A similar example would be excluding all men from society because of the instances where they fantasize about female coworkers. It's not comfortable to imagine being the object of unwanted attraction, but this is impossible to get rid of, and thoughts aren't punishable, so we accept it in society. I could even argue AGP is in some cases more ethically unassuming than heterosexual attraction - even if you know what the AGP person is thinking, those desires likely aren't toward any person other than themselves and any meta-attracted image they generate to validate their sense of femininity.
Furthermore, HRT can diminish the intensity of AGP fantasies such that they may be less likely to be acted upon. This has at least been my experience. I was on sublingual estradiol and spironolactone for about a month (4 and 100 mg/day), and by a couple weeks in, the arousal at the thought of being female was diminished. My libido was diminished overall, which was welcome honestly. However, I became quite depressed and lethargic, as well as unsure of where I was heading with this treatment, so I decided to stop and re-evaluate before making more permanent changes. I can't say it was wrong, but this is quite a challenge to rationalize through the noise of current "trans ideology".
Questions for you:
Should AGPs who transition while not contesting that they are still male, and otherwise don't subject others to their fantasies beyond looking more feminine, be accepted?
What other techniques have you used to quell AGP, under the assumption that it can't be ignored or suppressed? (I've heard of SSRIs, occasional crossdressing and indulging the fantasies without HRT, or Paraphilia substitution, for example)
What other questions should I be asking?