The Colonisation of the Boyhood of Pre-Gay Children by Heterosexual Transgender Activists: interview with @BlanchardPhD

Similar ground is covered in this interview with Dr Oren Amitay and Dr James Cantor.

In October 2016, I had the privilege of interviewing Ray Blanchard. This is the first piece in a series of posts I am going to do around the discussion we had, which covered his research into transsexualism and the political aspects of transgender activism.

In conversation, Blanchard is friendly and chatty, and conveys the impression of being firmly grounded in reality. He is nobody’s fool. When I brought up the subject of the current focus on children, his response was brisk:

“I don’t like to talk too much about actual treatment because I’ve never work with children, but within an area where I feel competent to comment.”

A lot of transgender activism is focussed on children, ‘transkids’, and much of this activism is carried out by late-transitioning non-homosexual transgender males, men who have lived a life as a man, benefitted from this and often leave a wife and children behind as they move out and pursue their midlife crisis. I asked Blanchard whether these cheerleaders, who are generating a powerful vector to normalise the social and medical transition of children, are the same type of transsexuals as those children who would ordinarily be regarded as being ‘transkids’.

“I think that in some cases where you have a male to female transsexuals of the non-homosexual type, which is to say they were previously married. They had children. They were fathers. They were this and that and then became women. That type of transsexual who are very well represented to say the least among trans activists, when they involve themselves in treatment of children, they are really colonizing a clinical population to which they don’t belong. They are claiming the boyhoods of pre-gay males for themselves and saying: ‘I was this kind of boy.’ They weren’t.”

He continued:

“I don’t doubt that a lot of autogynephiles who are not homosexual male to females may have had explicit cross-gender wishes that precede puberty (but) I don’t think they had the pervasive, conspicuous, unhideable femininity that you see in many pre-gay boys.”

The claim by many of these transsexuals is, as children, they ‘didn’t fit in’, they played with toys coded to the sex opposite their own and had feminine ideation of themselves. But there is a distinction, these boys generally grow into unremarkably masculine men who are sexually interested in women. The homosexual transsexual (until recently the popular image of what it is to be transsexual) has been mandated out of existence by opportunists using those narratives and lives as political leverage.

Why would they do this? Why would these transsexuals be going out of their way to normalize the transitioning of children when this is, to be blunt, nothing to do with them?

“I think it’s a question of just trying to expand their influence, trying to expand their dominance over how transsexualism is seen in society. Let me hasten to say, I understand the viewpoint of activists. Activists do what activists do. They have social goals and their interest is in attaining their social goals. They’re not concerned about the niceties of theory.

If the most convenient narrative is one that cuts corners on the science or is frankly at odds with the science, so be it. Social activists have goals they want to attain and they’re not going to be too fussy about theoretical purity in making their rhetorical arguments.”

Of course, at the heart of this is these activists’ own self-knowledge that Blanchard’s two-type typology, which they vehemently deny, is in fact bang on the money.

“They certainly, they are non-homosexual male to females are hardly going to underscore the differences between themselves and the homosexual type of transsexuals because they don’t want to underscore the difference of two different types. They don’t want to be the less feminine type, which to their mind would be less authentic.”

Blanchard is more charitable, although considering the activities of these transsexuals dishonest, he admits:

“I don’t know whether the dishonesty is primarily with themselves or primarily with the public and the gullible members of the media who do this, they report this. It certainly is dishonest at some point along the line.”

So, of course they could be kidding themselves, personally I doubt it. I think they know exactly what they are doing.  Autumn Sandeen has stated publicly that ‘transkids’ desexualise transsexualism, and that to me appears a fair representation of their position. I wondered whether Blanchard considers there to be any benefit to transgender individuals in accepting the idea of autogynephilia, rather than the flat denialism we have at the moment.

“Well that’s a very interesting suggestion, and several people including Anne Lawrence, Alice Dreger, Mike Bailey, I think they’ve all suggested in one way or another that it would be a healthier solution for autogynephiles to just accept their feelings as they are and not try to develop unrealistic and untruthful narratives about their lives.”

“At some level I think that the trans activists who are being untruthful with the general public via the media might just have come to the conclusion that the true story is not going to be a sell in terms of obtaining civil rights and social justice for transsexuals. That the average person just is not capable of a nuanced understanding of transsexualism, which is based in eroticism, but becomes something else. That might be asking too much of the average citizen. Maybe it’s just better to skip to the ‘Cinderella’ story or the ‘Ugly Duckling’ story.

12 Replies to “The Colonisation of the Boyhood of Pre-Gay Children by Heterosexual Transgender Activists: interview with @BlanchardPhD”

  1. i wish that blanchard would stop with this lie that these males are turning themselves into females….. it totally feeds into the narratives this group of ‘activists’ are pushing in the media….

    humans cant change sex…. males cannot become females (woman = adult human female)…. no amount of surgery, hormones, cosmetics, clothes etc can turn a male human into a female human….

    this lie needs to stop being told by people like blanchard… and when people stop telling or supporting the lie, then the narrative will crumble and kids will no longer be abused in this way by these males who need the “story” of “i was born this way” to legitimise their fetish…

    1. I think Miranda’s tactic is “meeting them half way” to a degree. That, and “live and let live”. So transexuals can do what they like, as long as they’re not affecting the lives of others. It’s their body to mutilate.

      A more neutral tone helps people accept your writing without the “bigot” flag going off, and makes it more difficult for opponents to simply write you off as one, by picking on a particular point.

      The point is, these arguments, eg Dr Blanchard’s work, exist. They exist whether or not transexuals are legitimate. So the bigot-calling (a tired but still popular tactic) can be left out. If the writer sticks to the issues firmly, her critics will also have to. The points can stand on their arguments alone, rather than ideology and group affiliation. Which has done enough damage to debate.

      1. calls to “live and let live” are unsound; they do not take into account the full ramifications of allowing the lie that humans can change sex and that a male can be a ‘female/woman’ to stand…

        the lie that a male can be a female is now enshrined in legislation in many countries… the lie hurts females and children, on so many levels that it would take a full essay to enumerate them…..

        thankfully, i dont have to author such an essay — many women before me have already done that work…. you could check it out for yourself if you were of a mind….. good starting point would be the letters to the UN written by Cathy Brennan and Elizabeth Hungerford in 2011 and 2012… you can find them at sexnotgender.org (drop down tabs)

  2. It would be honest, and standard practice for interviews, to just post what you both said. Ideally in it’s entirety, although cutting certain questions for reasons of length is generally still seen as honest.

    As it is, you’re placing quotes without letting us know the questions that preceded them. I know you generally agree with Dr Blanchard, so I don’t doubt your sincere motivation. But for the sake of your own credibility, if nothing else, you need to post the full interview. If necessary even just as a link at the bottom of the article, for those who are interested.

    1. I wrote this as a feature rather than a Q&A simply because I think this reads better and allows me to explain things the reader may not be aware of.

      1. Still, for the sake of journalistic integrity, providing the full interview would be valuable. Otherwise you’re open for accusations of quote mining. Anyone can edit someone’s words out of context.

        Explanations are fine, but Dr B deserves his words giving to the public in the context he spoke them.

        1. I can assure you there’s no sleight of hand, it’s quite usual for professional journalists and hacks like me to write long form like this. I will see if I can release the audio from that section of the interview.

  3. Thanks for sharing this interview. I am a fan via your appearances on ryas YouTube channel. I can’t say that he is right on autogynophilia but I certainly see a important distinction between androphilic and gynophilic trans women. I have known some amazing folks mostly of the second type and a roommate of the first. But I was so glad to hear someone use the term colonization because that is how it seems. As a gay man I feel such a chill as I hear liberals determined to be trans allies pushing for gay boys to be redefined as transgender. And mean while homes are written out of our own organizations and history. The major way you see this is the scientific studies that rerun a host of gay studies and neither even use the words gay or homosexuality nor note that none of what they are talking about relates to those who for theast 70 years have been the majority group in the trans community namely the ladies who like the ladies. So of in doubt here is one gay man who will hit the street marching doe your civil rights and to secure you greater acceptance in the world but would love for you all to show today s gay boys the nurture and acceptance as gay males that they need. I mean this with respect when I say in my early years I and other friends who where no match for the cutthroat gay bar scene let alone the glitzy but often cutting and aggressive drag queens where often encouraged and kept safe by trans women who tended to be a bit older but nonpreditory and who provided in one person a substitute mother and father figure of a sort.

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