Summary

Psychologist Ray Blanchard tested an idea, drawn from Kurt Freund's work, that male-to-female transsexuals come in two basic types. Using routine questionnaires at a Toronto gender clinic, he grouped 163 patients by attraction to men and women. He asked whether they had ever been sexually aroused while cross-dressing. Two-thirds or more of those attracted to women, to both sexes or to neither said yes, compared with 15% of those attracted to men. Blanchard concluded that the groups not attracted only to men form one family, separate from those attracted to men. The paper became the basis of his later 'autogynephilia' theory and of a label in the main US psychiatric manual (DSM-5). Its evidence is a single self-reported question from one 1980s clinic, with small groups and no comparison group, and critics question whether the types hold up elsewhere.

Key findings

• 163 de pacienți transsexuali de la bărbat la femeie de la o clinică de psihiatrie din Toronto au completat chestionare despre atracția sexuală. Vârsta lor medie era de aproximativ 30 de ani.
• O metodă statistică ce sortează oamenii după scoruri similare, stabilită dinainte să găsească patru grupuri, a dat 100 de pacienți atrași de bărbați, 35 atrași de ambele sexe, 16 atrași de femei și 12 atrași de niciunul.
• Excitația sexuală în timpul travestirii a fost raportată de 14 din 16 atrași de femei (88%), 9 din 12 atrași de niciunul (75%) și 23 din 35 atrași de ambele sexe (66%), față de 15 din 100 atrași de bărbați (15%).
• Grupul atras de bărbați a diferit clar de fiecare dintre celelalte grupuri, în timp ce celelalte trei grupuri nu au diferit clar între ele.
• Blanchard a concluzionat că cei atrași de ambele sexe sau de niciunul sunt variante ale celor atrași de femei, rezultând două tipuri de bază: atrași de bărbați și nu (numite ulterior „autoginefilice”).
• Studiul a fost punctul de plecare pentru tipurile lui Blanchard și pentru ideea sa de autoginefilie din 1989, pe care manualul psihiatric american DSM-5 a folosit-o ulterior pentru o etichetă atașată diagnosticului de tulburare de travestire.

Abstract

This study tested a prediction derived from the hypothesis that asexual and bisexual transsexualism are actually subtypes of heterosexual transsexualism. Two questionnaire scales measuring erotic attraction to males and females were administered to 163 male-to-female transsexuals. A cluster analysis of their scores divided the subjects into four groups: heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, and asexual. Fisher Exact tests were used to compare the frequency with which subjects in the four clusters reported a history of erotic arousal in association with cross-dressing. As predicted, there were no differences among the asexual, bisexual, and heterosexual transsexuals, and all three groups included a much higher proportion of fetishistic cases than the homosexual group (p less than or equal to .0001, two-tailed). These findings support the view that male transsexuals may be divided into two basic types: heterosexual and homosexual.

Conclusion

The prediction that asexual and bisexual transsexuals would report a history of cross-gender fetishism about as often as heterosexual transsexuals, and much more often than homosexual transsexuals, survived what Blanchard called an objective, 'hands-off' test that could have shown it false. He argued that anyone dissatisfied with his hypothesis must offer an alternative that explains the high rates of cross-gender fetishism in the asexual and bisexual groups and makes a new, testable prediction. He concluded that male transsexuals may be divided into two basic types, heterosexual and homosexual, with the asexual and bisexual forms being variants of the heterosexual type.