some people whose opinions seem worth listening to
Worth listening to?—of course. Worth believing after looking at the rest of the available evidence? My claim is, “No, this theory looks really solid and explains so much of what I see in myself and what I see in other people that I trust it more than any particular contradictory self-report; psychology is about invalidating people’s identities.”
You might disagree. Most trans women might disagree. And that’s okay! It’s okay for my world-model to not agree with your world-model!
If most trans women disagree then that seems to me like pretty good reason to doubt the model.
(Not conclusive, of course; people can be wrong about themselves, which I think is the correct version of the overstatement “psychology is about invalidating people’s identities”.)
explains so much of what I see in myself and what I see in other people [...]
So, you are uninterested in everyone else’s anecdotal evidence because it contradicts your own anecdotal evidence? :-)
Less uncharitably: perhaps I’m misunderstanding something here, but it seems to me that we need to distinguish between a weaker claim (W): “There are trans women who fit well into each of the categories in Blanchard’s typology” and a stronger claim (S): “Blanchard’s typology gives a correct description of essentially all trans women”. (Where for “Blanchard’s typology” you should feel free to substitute some more accurate term that reflects more recent work along similar lines.)
If what you’ve seen in yourself and those around you fits well (or at least seems to) with Blanchard’s typology, that’s good evidence for W, but it’s not such good evidence for S. If other people say it badly fails to fit their experience, that’s good evidence against S, but not much evidence against W. It seems like the obvious conclusion would be that probably W is right and S is wrong; that there are plenty of people who fit into the typology but also plenty who don’t.
Yes; people in general are really really shockingly bad at self-reporting. People don’t know why they do things; they just notice themselves doing things and then tell a self-serving story about why they did the right things.
There was also a period of time when I embraced the word “pervert” and viewed my desire to be female as some sort of sexual kink. But after exploring that path, it became obvious that explanation could not account for the vast majority of instances when I thought about being female in a nonsexual context.
I trust that Julia Serano is telling the truth about her subjective experiences. But “it became obvious that explanation could not account for” is not an experience. It’s a hypothesis about human psychology. I don’t expect anyone to get that kind of thing right based on introspection alone!
Again, it’s very important to emphasize that I’m not saying that non-exclusively-androphilic trans women who deny autogynephilia are particularly delusional. I’m saying that basically everyone is basically that delusional about basically everything!
Worth listening to?—of course. Worth believing after looking at the rest of the available evidence? My claim is, “No, this theory looks really solid and explains so much of what I see in myself and what I see in other people that I trust it more than any particular contradictory self-report; psychology is about invalidating people’s identities.”
You might disagree. Most trans women might disagree. And that’s okay! It’s okay for my world-model to not agree with your world-model!
If most trans women disagree then that seems to me like pretty good reason to doubt the model.
(Not conclusive, of course; people can be wrong about themselves, which I think is the correct version of the overstatement “psychology is about invalidating people’s identities”.)
So, you are uninterested in everyone else’s anecdotal evidence because it contradicts your own anecdotal evidence? :-)
Less uncharitably: perhaps I’m misunderstanding something here, but it seems to me that we need to distinguish between a weaker claim (W): “There are trans women who fit well into each of the categories in Blanchard’s typology” and a stronger claim (S): “Blanchard’s typology gives a correct description of essentially all trans women”. (Where for “Blanchard’s typology” you should feel free to substitute some more accurate term that reflects more recent work along similar lines.)
If what you’ve seen in yourself and those around you fits well (or at least seems to) with Blanchard’s typology, that’s good evidence for W, but it’s not such good evidence for S. If other people say it badly fails to fit their experience, that’s good evidence against S, but not much evidence against W. It seems like the obvious conclusion would be that probably W is right and S is wrong; that there are plenty of people who fit into the typology but also plenty who don’t.
Am I missing something important?
Yes; people in general are really really shockingly bad at self-reporting. People don’t know why they do things; they just notice themselves doing things and then tell a self-serving story about why they did the right things.
For example, prominent trans activist (and autogynephilia theory critic) Julia Serano writes (Whipping Girl, p. 84):
I trust that Julia Serano is telling the truth about her subjective experiences. But “it became obvious that explanation could not account for” is not an experience. It’s a hypothesis about human psychology. I don’t expect anyone to get that kind of thing right based on introspection alone!
Again, it’s very important to emphasize that I’m not saying that non-exclusively-androphilic trans women who deny autogynephilia are particularly delusional. I’m saying that basically everyone is basically that delusional about basically everything!