Thomas Hubbard (Wikipedia) was previously a classicist at the University of Texas-Austin who wrote/edited several important books on sex in ancient Greece and Rome, until some students took his discussions of ancient man-boy sexuality as a defence of modern pederasty and vandalised his house. This led to his retirement. He is now President and Executive Director of the William A Percy Foundation for Social and Historical Studies.
William A Percy (Wikipedia) is best known for The Age of Marriage in Ancient Rome (2003) and was a co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Homosexuality (1990). The articles in the Encyclopedia on ‘Transvestism (Cross-dressing)’ and ‘Transsexualism’ were pretty bad generally, totally ignoring writings by trans persons, and also admiring the pioneering transphobe Janice Raymond - but they were written by the other two co-editors, not by Percy. See my “More on Wayne Dynes”. I did meet Percy in person. He asked me various questions re trans matters, but showed no conscious interest in autogynephilia as such - although he did offer to sponsor me to go to Fantasia Fair (which I declined).
Percy, before his death in 2022, maintained an extensive web site williamapercy.com but the Foundation set up in his name has allowed it to die.
The Foundation web page lists 14 projects, almost all related to male homosexuality. The odd one out is The Autogynephilia Project.
Let us start with the image on the Autogynephila Project page:
This is a 1841 painting of a cis woman admiring herself in a mirror by the Danish painter Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg.
Now the point of Autogynephilia is that it is a diagnosis of a type of boy or man who is sexually aroused by the idea of himself as female. Autoandrophilia is a girl or woman who likewise is sexually aroused by the idea of herself as male. One of the criticisms of the idea of Autogynephilia is that if there is actually such a thing, its most common occurrence is in post-pubertal teenage cis girls who are delighted by the changes in their maturing bodies. Some cis women continue to be autogynephilic well into maturity, as some cis men do continue to be autoandrophilic. If so, autogynephilia is a normal variation, not a mental illness. It occurs in mature trans women to the extent that transition is a sort of second puberty.
Very little research has been done on cis female autogynephilia, and thus there is no baseline against which to measure trans female autogynephilia.
However the Blanchard-Bailey-Zucker clique do not go with this interpretation.
The picture is definitely not an image of an autogynephilic trans girl.
So why this image? Does it imply that Hubbard etc do not understand what autogynephilia is supposed to be? Or is it a sly subversion of their own project?
What is Autogynephilia (AGP)?
Prior to 1910 the words ‘transvestite’ and ‘tranvestism’ had been used without specific reference to sexual arousal or orientation. The Paris police had been issuing permissions de travestissement since 1800 mainly to female-born persons living and/or working as male without reference to sexuality. In 1910 Magnus Hirschfeld published his Die Transvestiten: Eine Untersuchung über den erotischen Verkleidungstrieb,(Transvestites: The Erotic Drive to Cross-Dress) and two years later a pictorial supplement, Der erotische Verkleidungstrieb (Erotic crossdressing).
The inclusion of “erotischen Verkleidungstrieb” in the title misled later writers although we may note that many of the actual case studies in the former book do not report anything sexual as such. Due to criticisms that he had conflated homosexuality and transvestism in earlier writings, Hirschfeld had overcompensated, and for the 17 case studies that comprise Part 1, he systematically excluded androphilic transvestites. Eight years later in his Sexualpathologie he reversed this and reported that about 35 per cent of transvestites are heterosexual and an equal percentage homosexual, while about 15 per cent are bisexual. The remaining 15 per cent are mostly what he called automonosexual, but also include a small proportion of asexuals. Hirschfeld also arranged police permissions, translating the French permissions de travestissement as Transvestitenscheinen, and, as in Paris, the document was with reference to work, not to sexuality.
Various psychiatrists, notably Emil Gutheil and Wilhelm Stekel, mainly working as Freudian psychoanalysts, picked up on the erotic slant, and analysed their trans patients as needing to be cured. (Stekel apparently coined the term ‘paraphilia’.)
Kurt Freund, in Toronto in the 1980s was a pioneer in the application of penile plethysmography. This tool claimed to measure penile arousal when a ‘man’ was shown various pictures of adults and children or listened to descriptions of such. The results of this research were such that Freund was never able to identify anyone as bisexual, and so, rather than see this as a defect in his methodology, he claimed that there are no bisexuals. Despite this deficiency, he used penile plethysmography, to divide trans women into two groups whom he designated as ‘homosexual’ and ‘non-homosexual’. For both types, the term ‘homosexual’ for heterosexual trans women denies that we are women.
Ray Blanchard, who replaced Freund at Toronto’s Clarke Institute (now CAMH=Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) coined the term ‘autogynephilia’ for the ‘non-homosexual’ group. In his “Origins of the Concept of Autogynephilia” he defines it as “a male’s propensity to be erotically aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman”. Blanchard was criticised for dismissing exceptions to his model as either misreportings or even lies.
Other approaches
Of course the word “autogynephilia” is simply “love of oneself as a woman” using Greek roots. Apparently most of the cross-dressers and gynephilic trans women who do use the term “autogynephilic” for themselves use it in this sense without the baggage of fetish or erotic arousal. Indeed an actual erotic arousal while out shopping or on public transport is very likely to be problematic.
Anne Vitale proposed a 3-type division: G1 the high intensity trans person who often starts to transition in childhood; G2 persons who spend some years as a lesbian or gay man before transition; G3 persons who conform to society’s gender expectations, often marry and have children - they typically suffer increasingly painful and chronic gender dysphoria and live secretive lives. G1 and G2 transition without trauma, requiring medical assistance only for hormone prescriptions and gender surgery. G3 need help dealing with what she calls Gender Deprivation Anxiety Disorder (GEDAD) which seems to be similar to AGP but offers a healthier solution.
There is a cultural problem in that AGPs seem to be found only in North America and Europe. Rod Fleming claims to identify AGPs in the Philippines and wrote about his affair with Samantha whom he presents as AGP. He sees Filipino AGPs as not androphilic, but like androphilic trans women they transition before maturity although after puberty. In which case they do not go through the fetishistic (GEDAD) phase - and therefore do not meet Blanchard's definition.
Charlotte Goiar proposed the concept of Harry Benjamin Syndrome (HBS) as opposed to autogynephiles. To many, HBS and Blanchard’s Homosexual Transsexual (HSTS) appear to be almost the same, but HBS and Blanchardianism are two solitudes not talking to each other.
Jack Molay took what is useful in the concept of autogynephila and came up with Crossdreamer - ‘transvalued’ as he says. “The act of dreaming about being one’s target sex or getting aroused by the idea of being one’s target sex. Crossdreamer is a subcategory under the wider umbrella term ‘transgender’ … Crossdreamers may be assigned male or female at birth. Their sexual orientation varies. There is no clear and distinct boundary between crossdreamers and other transgender people.” Crossdreamer is not a synonym for autogynephilia in that it does not require erotic arousal.
The anti-trans people, TERFs, Trump’s Maga people, and various religious groups, are delighted by the concept of Autogynephilia. They see all transsexuality as inauthentic, and a mental condition to be cured. Blanchardism feeds their prejudices and they see even HSTS as autogynephilic. “Autogynephilia” has become a strong insult term applied without discrimination.
Meanwhile out in the trenches of living as AGP, Rosey Bloomflower, a self described autogynephilic wrote comments on my encyclopedia two years ago: “Interestingly, the majority of the soi-disant autogynephiles in my generation (bear in mind I am quite young, going on 20 right now) seem to be exclusively attracted to other trans women. I have a boyfriend at the moment, but sometimes a relationship with a non-op trans woman does seem appealing. I am not attracted to genetic females or anyone with a vagina even if surgically constructed”. This is way beyond Blanchard. “It is my belief that the majority of "AGP" trans women are primarily attracted to other trans women, and only force themselves to sexually interact with cis women out of heteronormativity and internalized homophobia. You can see many cases where they divorce their cis wives if they had one, and partner with another trans woman after transitioning.”
I commented in reply: “Two trans women attracted to each other is a type of homosexuality. 'homo' = 'same' not 'male'. If they also self-id as AGP then they are homosexual AGPs, but Blanchard's definition of AGP (bi, hetero and asexual) is that AGPs are non-homosexual. So here we have an interesting contradiction of terms. Blanchard is a closeted gay man who has made comments outside his theoretical works that are even more anti-trans. His whole schema is a cisplaining using insulting terms/exonyms derived from the dubious concept of 'fetishism', and he has even refused to restate it in more polite terms.”
Recently, psychologist James Morandini has proposed that as many as 1 in 3 bisexual men may be autogynephilic. So much for Freund’s erasure of bisexuality.
Conclusion
Of course the problem with any Typology is human beings are idiosyncratic, they are human. Some appear to fit into one of the boxes of the Typology; others are re-interpreted until they appear to fit; others read the Typology as an instruction manual; and many just do not fit in any way at all. See my The Game of Typology. Blanchard proposed only two types of trans woman; Vitale proposed three; Harry Benjamin proposed six (and, as has been noted, he erased gay transvestites and gynephilic ‘true transsexuals’ ); in my expansion of Benjamin’s scale I propose nine. One could easily come up with many more - especially when indigenous and Asian variations are considered.
Hubbard writes: “The Percy Foundation is funding further study of this marginalized identity by an international team of prominent sexual scientists, led by Prof. J. Michael Bailey of Northwestern, and including Blanchard, Ken Zucker … and the evolutionary psychologist Paul Vasey, as well as several others.”
This team can hardly be objective in that Bailey, Blanchard and Zucker have built careers by assuming that AGP is a real thing. For them to find that AGP is a valid diagnosis is like a defence lawyer also being the judge and jury.
Hubbard shows no discomfort at the misuse of the word “homosexual” for heterosexual trans women, as if we were still in the 1980s. It is long past the time when Blanchardians should have proposed a less contentious terminology. Alice Novic proposed the terms Love-to-be-femme and Act-femme. Phil Illy has proposed AutoHeterosexual. Neither of these have been accepted. The only alternate term that has gained traction is Cross Dreamer with its significant revision of what AGP is.
It may not be a real thing, but in the last 40 years, different writers have taken different approaches to the conceptual nexus that encompasses AGP, GEDAD and cross dreaming. There is no indication that The Androphilia Project will absorb any of that, or even discuss the absence of AGP in Africa and Asia, or in previous centuries. The sociology or social psychology of identity formation is not even mentioned.
The Androphilia Project needs a rethink, and should be done by other more neutral people, not those who invented the concept and built their careers on taking it as fact.
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Magnus Hirschfeld. Die Transvestiten: Eine Untersuchung über den erotischen Verkleidungstrieb, mit umfangreichem kasuistischem und historischem Material. Verlag Alfred Pulvermacher, 1910.
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Magnus Hirschfeld & Max Tilke. Der erotische Verkleidungstrieb: Die Transvestiten. Verlag von Alfred Pulvermacher & Co., 1912.
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Magnus Hirschfeld. Sexualpathologie. Ein Lehrbuch für Ärzte und Studierende. 1918. Volume II: Sexuelle Zwischenstufen. Das Mannlicher Weib und der Weiblicher Mann. (5 Sections: Hermaproditismus, Androgynie, Transvestitismus, Homosexualität, Metatropismus).
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Wilhelm Stekel. Der Fetischismus, vol. 7, Störungen des Trieb- und Affektlebens. Urban & Schwarzenberg, 1923. Translated by S Parker: Sexual Aberrations: The Phenomena of Fetishism in Relation to Sex. John Lane The Bodley Head Ltd, 1930.
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Kurt Freund, Betty Steiner & Samuel Chan. “Two types of cross-gender identity”. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 11, 1982.
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Kurt Freund. “Cross-Gender Identity on a Broader Context”. Chp 9 in Betty Steiner. Gender Dysphoria: Development, Research, Management. Plenum Press, 1985.
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Ray Blanchard, J G Racansky & Betty Steiner. “Phallometric Detection of Fetishistic Arousal in Heterosexual Male Cross-Dressers”. The Journal of Sex Research, 22, 4, November 1986.
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Ray Blanchard. “Origins of the Concept of Autogynephilia”. Feb 2004. Previously online at www.autogynephilia.org/origins.htm.
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Anne M. Vitale. Gendered Self: Further Commentary on the Transsexual Phenomenon. Flyfisher Press/Lulu, 2010.
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Jack Molay. A Creative Crossdreamer Vocabulary: Reflections on Transgender. Amazon Digital & Blurb, 2015.
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Charlotte Goiar. The Original Harry Benjamin Syndrome Book. Self published, 2021.
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Phil Illy. AutoHeterosexual: Attracted to being the other sex. Houndstooth, 2023.
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“The Autogynephilia Project”. William A Percy Foundation for Social and Historical Studies. Online.
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Andrea James. “Thomas K. Hubbard vs. transgender people”. Transgender Map, November 3, 2025. Online.
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James Morandini. “One in Three Bisexual Men May Be Autogynephilic. Understanding Their Experience Matters”. QueerMajority, November 18, 2025. Online.
