In some of the online "autogynephilia" debates I come across Blanchard-supporters who tell me that "paraphilia" is a benign term that simply means "unusual". The implicit message is that calling a trans woman "paraphilic" cannot be stigmatizing, as it is an innocent descriptive term. They are wrong.
For those who are unfamiliar with these terms: "autogynephilia" is a term made up by Ray Blanchard, a transphobilc psychologist, who have spent much of his time helping anti-trans activists, arguing that trans women who are attracted to women are suffering from a "paraphilia".
Many of his supporters, some of whom are trans folks who have internalized the transphobia of their society, try desperately to picture him in a more positive view, to the point where they even try to turn into a friend of trans people.
He is not, as I have documented in the article Science and Transphobia: Ray Blanchard is Now Assisting White Supremacists. Why?
Blanchard has never presented "autogynephilia" as anything else but a sexual perversion. And given that his "autogynephilia" is a "paraphilia", his message is, and has always been that gynephilic and bisexual trans women are sexual perverts. It cannot get much more stigmatizing than that.
Here's what he said in an interview with the conservative site National Review:
Kearns: I’m really interested in your work on “paraphilia.” What is the difference between “paraphilia” and, say, a “disorder” or an even older term perhaps, a “perversion”?
Blanchard: Yeah sure, “perversion” was an older label for what’s now called paraphilia. Correct.
Kearns: And is the only difference a linguistic one where the morally loaded connotations of the word are removed? Or is there a substantive difference?
Blanchard: I don’t think there is any substantive difference. I mean the word “pervert” had become part of the lay vocabulary and was routinely used as an insult or as a derogatory comment whether seriously or in jest. Everybody knew the word pervert, had a vague idea of what it meant, and knew that it was something bad. So, the word paraphilia was substituted because it had a nice medical sound to it, and it had not and still has not entered the popular vocabulary as an insult.
And, for once, Blanchard is right. Paraphilia is a new term for sexual perversion, popularized by John Money, who wanted to avoid the stigma attached to the term "perversion". In the medical community, however, the connotations remained the same.
The medical establishment is, step by step, leaving this kind of invalidation behind. The international manual of health, The ICD-11, has simply removed any reference to "fetishistic transvestism" in its recent edition. The American DSM-5 is somewhat schizophrenic on the matter, as it has included "autogynephilia" as a "paraphilia", while it at the same time says that such feels can be a sign of gender dysphoria and as such not a mental illness. This is because the chapter on paraphilias was controlled by Blanchard and the chapter on gender dysphoria by a new generation of researchers.
See also: Blanchard and the DSM-V, redefining paraphilia
Bibliography on paraphilias and the DSM-5
What the DSM-5 says about terms like transgender, transsexual and gender dysphoria
Science and Transphobia: Ray Blanchard is Now Assisting White Supremacists. Why?
The photo: You noticed, didn't you? This is not a photo of Ray Blanchard, but of the Architect in the transgender Wachowski-sisters' Matrix movies. The similarity is by no means accidental. In the movies the Architect created the digital simulation that keeps people in bondage, while Ray Blanchard has developed a narrative that forces trans people to live by the rules of a transphobic society.
