Autogynephile expert -“The strategy of re-framing trans as a civil rights issue rather than a clinical issue changed the main question from “How to lessen the emotional distress of persons with a rare psychiatric disorder” to “How to reconcile the conflicting rights of natal women and trans women."

submitted by BEB from twitter.com

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[–]MarkTwainiac 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Except Blanchard is being a bit disingenuous here. Blanchard is one of the many male psychologists, psychiatrists, surgeons and other medical practitioners who years ago set themselves up as the "gatekeepers" who from on high would decide which males they'd give permission to pretend to be women and to invade female spaces, services and sports. Blanchard and these other men did this without ever once considering even for a brief moment the impact this would have on girls and women - and without ever consulting any female people.

In August on Twitter, Blanchard boasted about the good old days when men like him were the gatekeepers deciding which males with "gender dysphoria" would get to use ladies loos and other female facilities and call themselves women. I compared his position, unfavorably, to Chesterton's fence, calling it "Blanchard's gate" and asking him who put him in charge of deciding that certain males should get to trample over girls' and women's boundaries and abridge our rights. Within minutes, my Twitter account was suspended.

[–]jet199 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

I'm always shocked by how they are completely ignorant about and uninterested in the damage these such men have on their families and wider society.

I can't image someone treating alcoholics and drug addicts would have that attitude and get away with it.

I should image even with mental health like feeling suicidal professionals would have to have the effect that person would have on others foremost in their minds when deciding treatment.

Maybe I'm being naive about mental health practices.

However it does seem like agp gets a pass nothing else does when it comes to ethics, even other fetishes.

[–]BEB[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Yes, I'm not anywhere near completely behind Blanchard either, but what he says here I feel is spot on as to how trickily the gender lobby managed to reframe the discussion.

[–]MarkTwainiac 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I didn't think, nor did I mean to suggest, you were endorsing Blanchard. Who, BTW, strikes me as a well-meaning and intelligent man, just one with a very big blind spot when it comes to women - real women, I mean.

I just think it's a bit dishonest of him to suggest the TRAs and political lobbies are the only ones responsible for reframing the issue from “How to lessen the emotional distress of persons with a rare psychiatric disorder” to “How to reconcile the conflicting rights of natal women and trans women."

Coz Blanchard is one of the men who decades ago decided that the best way "to lessen the emotional distress of persons - in his case, it was males - with a rare psychiatric disorder" was to ignore the conflict between the "rights of natal women and trans women" by 1) focusing exclusively on the wants/needs and wellbeing of male individuals with "gender" issues, paying no mind to the female people these males would impact; 2) telling some of these men that if they worked hard enough at "passing" as the opposite sex, they'd "earn" the right to be called women and to invade women's spaces and sports; and 3) choosing to overlook that women have rights and boundaries in the first place that these male individuals were being given permission by psychiatrists and medicine to disregard, trample and remove.

Psychotherapists will say that their sole duty is to focus on the wellbeing of their clients/patients, and they aren't obliged to consider how society and other groups might be affected when they advise their patients to take a certain course of action and give their patients' decisions and desires a nod and seal of official approval. I think they are wrong about this.

[–]purrfect 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Absolutely spot on. I remember that tweet and the replies calling him out for his, let's face it, typical male framing, that women exist to service men. I like Blanchard and I don't think he intended any harm, but I'm glad he got that response, because he now knows he has been using women as treatment without our consent.

  • "What about my vulnerable patients?"
  • "We are humans, we weren't asked, we weren't informed about the consequences, we didn't consent. Find another way."

[–]MarkTwainiac 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes, I agree that Blanchard doesn't seem to mean any harm. But by turning a blind eye to the ways the grown men he sympathizes with and tried to help in therapy actually impact others - girls and women especially, but also boys and younger men - he unfortunately has done harm. Dunno if the pushback he's gotten from women has opened his eyes. If he sees women at all now, I fear he still sees us as public conveniences, listening/leaning posts and human shields for the males he's devoted his professional life to studying and trying to help.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes. By allowing even a small handful of autogynephiles to live out their fantasies and allow them to cater to the delusion that they should be allowed to force women to acknowledge them as fellow women, the door was flung open for the normalization of enabling delusions as a form of therapy. Their gatekeeping was predictably and inevitably going to result in the gate being torn down at some point.

The reality is that it's impossible to make everyone happy, and you try to serve people as best you can when they're dealing with clinical mental illnesses, but any coping mechanism that's rooted in reality denial is essentially paving the way for normalization of deeper, and deeper denialism.

[–]BEB[S] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This quote is from Ray Blanchard, who is an expert on autogynephilia (men who are sexually attracted primarily to the thought or image of themselves as female)

How cunning is the gender lobby to reframe the discussion in this manner?

[–]Omina_Sentenziosa 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Did it really change the main question to that? I don' t see anyone besides us giving an actual fuck about women' s rights. Most people in political and social spheres don' t even think that there is a conflict.

[–]BEB[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think it did, and the PR operation was masterful and global.