u/RMS-106

Note: This post was translated from Japanese into English using ChatGPT.

Recently, while browsing r/MtF, I happened to come across this post:

> My Mom is trying to say I have Autogynephilia, and I'm scared what if it's true

Post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MtF/s/chWnGuCUS8

---

Reading it reminded me of something I posted on r/askAGP some time ago:

> "But discovering the AGP framework was actually the first thing that made me recognize myself as potentially trans at all...

> So in my case, AGP theory didn't discourage transition—it made transition psychologically understandable to me for the first time."

My post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/askAGP/s/Y3CaWWjDzC

---

Comparing these two experiences, there is something I genuinely cannot understand.

In the comments on r/MtF, I saw statements such as:

> "Autogynephilia is fake and most likely made up by a TERF/transphobe that wanted people to detransition."

> "Worse, from what I've seen, it was made up by a creepy clinician to convince trans women that sleeping with men (him) would make them feel better."

> "Considering he IS confirmed to have repeatedly slept with his so-called patients..."

> "He arbitrarily decided people were lying and changed their survey responses."

> "A semi-famous person has said Blanchard convinced them they were AGP and sexually harassed them as a teenager."

There were also many highly upvoted comments such as:

> "Fake disorder made up by a fake scientist."

> "He's always been a quack."

> "He was completely a chaser."

The overall impression was that the following were being treated as established facts:

- AGP was created to discourage transition or promote detransition.
- The AGP concept itself is inherently transphobic.
- Ray Blanchard had sexual relationships with patients.
- He sexually harassed patients.
- He manipulated research data.

Honestly, I was pretty shocked.

Afterward, I used multiple AI systems to fact-check these claims based on primary sources.

As a result, I understand that AGP theory has received extensive academic criticism.

However, regarding the serious allegations against Blanchard himself, I could not find reliable evidence such as court records, disciplinary actions, or official investigations supporting those claims.

If I've overlooked something, I'd genuinely appreciate being corrected.

But as things currently stand, it appears that claims without publicly verifiable evidence are being shared with thousands of people as though they were **confirmed facts**.

This is the part I find hardest to understand.

Criticizing a scientific theory is one thing.

Spreading serious accusations about a person as factual without sufficient evidence is something entirely different.

If evidence actually exists, I would genuinely like to see it.

But if it does not, then isn't that no longer academic criticism, but simply defamation?

---

There is another thing I don't understand.

Before learning about AGP, I never considered myself trans.

I wanted a female body, but I never felt that I "was a woman," that I had "always been a girl," or that I was psychologically female. Because of that, I couldn't relate to mainstream trans narratives at all.

Learning about AGP was the first time I thought:

> "So there are MtFs who transition for reasons like mine."

For the first time, my own desire to transition made psychological sense.

To me, AGP was **not** a theory that discouraged transition.

It was a framework that finally explained **why I wanted to transition in the first place.**

That's why I genuinely don't understand why AGP has become widely understood as:

- an ideology opposed to transition,
- a theory created to promote detransition,
- or simply transphobia itself.

Having read the original works by Blanchard and Anne Lawrence, that simply wasn't the impression I came away with.

---

So my questions are:

1. Why has the public understanding of AGP diverged so dramatically from what was actually written in the original literature?
2. Why are serious allegations against Ray Blanchard being repeated as established facts despite the apparent lack of publicly verifiable evidence?
3. Why does r/MtF appear to tolerate this level of misinformation and personal defamation?

I'm **not** trying to argue that AGP theory is correct.

What I genuinely want to understand is **why there is such a large gap between the original literature and the way AGP is understood in today's online trans communities.**

先週、r/jaで年齢層の投票をしましたので
こちらのサブレの年齢層も気になりアンケートをしてみようと思い立ちました。

View Poll

私は現在25歳で、小学4年生頃から一貫してTSF（女体化、性転換）でしか性的興奮を得られません。

作品を見ている時は、いつも男から女になった登場人物に感情移入して興奮しています。

なので、男性として女性と性行為をしたいという気持ちも、男性として男性と性行為をしたいという気持ちも全く無く、他人に性指向が向かない実質アセクシャルのような状態です。

自慰行為の際も、自分が女性になる想像をしないと射精に至れません。

同じような体験をしてる方がいるのか気になり投稿しました。

もし同じ体験をしている方がいましたら、コメ欄かDMでお話ししたいです。

Note: This post was translated from Japanese into English using ChatGPT.

For a long time, I never really understood what romantic feelings were.

I've never had much desire to have sex with either men or women, and I never truly understood why people wanted romantic relationships in the first place. Years ago, I genuinely asked a friend, "Is there any reason to get a girlfriend other than social expectations?" At the time, I didn't even realize that this wasn't a normal question.

Later, I learned about Autogynephilia (AGP) and came to believe that I most closely fit the profile of an Analloerotic AGP. My sexual arousal is centered on the idea of myself as female rather than on other people. Even when another person appears in my fantasies, they function more as a prop that completes the scenario of me being female than as someone I am genuinely sexually attracted to.

I discussed this with Grok, and it concluded that my experience is consistent with someone who has very little alloerotic attraction, with most of my sexual drive being directed toward AGP-related self-feminization. That explanation felt remarkably accurate.

However, I wasn't convinced that AGP alone could explain why I also couldn't understand romantic love. So I continued the discussion with Claude.

Together, we examined the characteristics that are commonly said to distinguish romantic love from friendship:

• Seeing someone as uniquely special.
• Wanting to spend time with them.
• Feeling jealousy or possessiveness.
• Caring deeply about their well-being.
• Feeling devastated by the loss of the relationship.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that all of these can also exist in very close friendships.

The only characteristic that seemed uniquely associated with romance was the desire for romantic or sexual physical intimacy:

• Wanting to kiss them.
• Wanting to hug or cuddle them.
• Wanting to have sex with them.

I hardly experience those feelings at all.

That means the very thing that most clearly separates romance from friendship is largely absent in my own experience.

Because of that, I've come to think that my inability to understand romantic love isn't because I'm overlooking something. Instead, it may simply be that I've never experienced the defining component that distinguishes romance from deep friendship.

Of course, romance is not simply "wanting to have sex." Friendship and romance share an enormous amount in common. Caring deeply about someone, not wanting to lose them, feeling jealous, or wanting to be important in their life can all exist within friendship as well.

For me, the clearest distinction between friendship and romance seems to be whether I desire romantic or sexual physical intimacy with that specific person.

As someone who appears to fit the profile of an Analloerotic AGP, I experience very little attraction toward other people, while most of my sexual energy is directed inward toward the idea of myself as female. If that's true, then it would naturally follow that I lack the primary psychological marker that distinguishes romance from friendship.

After all this analysis, one question still remains.

What does romantic love actually feel like?

It's something that most people seem to experience so naturally that they rarely question it. Yet I've never truly experienced it myself. The more I try to understand it intellectually, the more I wonder whether it may simply be a kind of feeling that doesn't exist within my own psychological makeup.

Perhaps, in this lifetime, I'll never find the answer.

Note: This post was translated from Japanese into English using ChatGPT.

25-year-old biological male. On HRT for 5 months. I believe I have autogynephilic (AGP) tendencies.

I believe that, in Japan, the idea of "learning to love your male body" is much harder to apply than it may be in Western countries.

In detrans communities, I often see advice such as "learn to accept your male body" or "learn to love your body." I'm sure this advice genuinely helps some people.

However, I feel that this advice is rooted in a Western cultural context, and I'm not sure it translates well to Japan.

For example, in Japan, facial hair and thick body hair are generally not considered attractive masculine traits. Instead, they're often seen as something that should be removed for the sake of cleanliness. Even many cisgender men undergo laser hair removal, and the men's beauty industry largely promotes removing facial and body hair rather than embracing it.

The same applies to facial appearance. If you look at male actors and idols who are considered attractive in Japan or South Korea, many of them are slim, have clear skin, little or no facial hair, and relatively androgynous facial features. Height is still considered attractive, but facial masculinity itself is often less emphasized than youthfulness and a clean appearance.

I once saw a comment on the Japanese forum 5channel saying, "Only handsome guys can pull off crossdressing." That comment stuck with me because it reflects how androgynous-looking men are often considered attractive in Japan.

In contrast, many Western beauty standards celebrate square jaws, wide cheekbones, thick beards, and rugged facial structures.

I recently watched a video about people undergoing maxillary expansion—not for orthodontic or breathing problems, but to intentionally widen their face and create a more masculine appearance. The Japanese comments on that video were overwhelmingly things like:

- "I don't understand why anyone would want that face."
- "He looks worse."
- "That's disgusting."

To me, that really highlighted how different the ideal image of masculinity is between Japan and the West.

Because of this, advice like "learn to love your male body" feels much harder to relate to in Japan. Many physical traits associated with traditional masculinity are not particularly celebrated here. Instead, society often encourages men to minimize them.

This difference has also influenced how I think about my own transition.

Even if I were to undergo facial feminization surgery (FFS) but ultimately fail to transition socially and continue living as a man while staying on HRT, I don't think the outcome would necessarily be as negative in Japan as it might be elsewhere.

Changes from HRT and FFS—such as smoother skin, reduced facial hair, and softer facial features—could simply make me appear as a more attractive, cleaner, or more androgynous-looking man according to Japanese beauty standards.

Of course, HRT has real drawbacks, including infertility, changes in sexual function, and lifelong medical treatment.

However, I have never wanted children. I have also never had any interest in having sex with other people and consider myself asexual.

For me personally, the biggest concern with HRT is breast development. But if my chest remained small enough to conceal, I don't feel that the other changes from HRT would negatively affect my life in Japan. In fact, I feel they could even make me more attractive according to Japanese standards of male beauty.

Given this cultural environment, I honestly can't imagine ever learning to love my male body—or naturally aging as a biological man.

This is why I wanted to ask biological male detransitioners:

How did you actually come to love and accept your body?

If you experienced strong physical dysphoria before detransitioning, what changed?

I'd also be especially interested in hearing from people who grew up in East Asia.

Do you think advice like "learn to love your male body" (or female body) is harder to relate to because our cultures tend to value more androgynous male beauty than traditionally masculine features?

ふと気になったのでアンケートをしてみました。

View Poll

Which do you think better explains AGP?

Personally, I believe AGP is innate. Many people here seem to have experienced AGP before puberty or during its early stages. In my case, it appeared around age 10.
Back then, my family didn’t even have internet access, so I had no exposure to online pornography. Because of that, I find it difficult to see AGP as something that was learned. To me, it seems more likely that it emerged naturally from an inborn predisposition.

View Poll

*Note: This post was translated from Japanese into English using ChatGPT.*

I spend a lot of time reading 5channel, Japan's largest anonymous forum.

Recently, I noticed something interesting.

Many threads are started by lonely, frustrated heterosexual men. Some are probably incels, some are simply chronically single men. They complain about never having a girlfriend, never having sex, never getting married, growing old alone, or feeling that life has somehow passed them by.

What surprised me was how familiar many of these complaints felt.

Through the lens of Erotic Target Location Error (ETLE), I found that simply replacing the object of desire often transforms these statements into descriptions of my own experience as an AGP.

The details are different, but the emotional structure often feels remarkably similar.

## Examples

Why am I alive if nobody loves me?

↕︎

Why am I alive if I can never become a woman?

---

I think I'm going to die without ever having a girlfriend, sex, or marriage.

↕︎

I think I'm going to die without ever becoming a woman, starting HRT, or transitioning.

---

I'm 38 years old and sometimes I wake up at night thinking: Is this really all my life is going to be?

↕︎

I'm 38 years old and sometimes I wake up at night thinking: Am I really going to spend the rest of my life as a man?

---

I think about sex all day. Maybe if I could finally have sex, my life would change.

↕︎

I think about becoming a woman all day. Maybe if I could finally transition, my life would change.

---

A 14-year-old is already having sex, while I'm 42 and I've never even kissed anyone.

↕︎

Some people transitioned as teenagers, while I'm 42 and still living as a man.

---

Maybe I'm going to grow old and die without ever having a girlfriend.

↕︎

Maybe I'm going to grow old and die without ever becoming the woman I've wanted to be.

---

Men become creepy old men as they age. If they don't have a wife or children, that's a miserable future.

↕︎

As I age, my body becomes more and more masculine. If I never transition, that's a miserable future.

---

You should get married while you're young. You don't want to be an old guy getting called creepy while desperately trying to find a wife.

↕︎

You should transition while you're young. You don't want to be an old man desperately trying to feminize decades of masculinization.

---

I spend every day fantasizing about girls. Without those fantasies, I might have killed myself.

↕︎

I spend every day fantasizing about being a girl. Without those fantasies, I might have killed myself.

---

What if this is it? What if I never get a wife, children, or a family?

↕︎

What if this is it? What if I never get to live as a woman?

---

Why weren't women assigned to us? At this rate we'll become sad monsters.

↕︎

Why can't we become women? At this rate we'll become sad monsters.

## What I Realized

The heterosexual man suffers because he cannot obtain the woman he desires.

The AGP suffers because the desired woman has been internalized into the self.

In both cases there is often a feeling that something important is missing, that time is running out, that other people have moved on to the next stage of life, and that the future is becoming increasingly closed off.

This observation has made me wonder whether AGP is sometimes easier to understand through comparison with heterosexual men than through comparison with women.

Many discussions compare AGPs to women, but I often find more similarities with lonely heterosexual men.

The object of desire is different, but the longing, frustration, obsession, regret, and fear of aging can look surprisingly similar.

## Personal Conclusion

For me personally, this is even more obvious because I am an Analloerotic AGP.

My AGP has largely replaced ordinary heterosexual motivation.

As a result, the resources that a typical heterosexual man might spend on women will instead be spent on AGP.

If I were a typical heterosexual man, I would probably spend money and effort on:

- Dating
- Sex
- Self-improvement aimed at attracting women
- Marriage
- Raising children

Instead, those same resources are being directed toward:

- HRT
- Feminization
- Transition-related goals
- Making my internal female image more real

I do not see this as a fundamentally different process.

A heterosexual man invests his resources into obtaining the woman he desires.

I invest those same resources into becoming the woman I desire.

That is why I increasingly believe that the suffering of AGPs is often better understood through comparison with heterosexual men than through comparison with women.

The direction of desire is different, but the structure is remarkably similar.

The more incel and lonely male posts I read, the more convinced I become that many AGP struggles are not alien to male sexuality at all. They are what male desire can look like when its target is redirected inward.

Therefore, I intend to devote as many of my resources as possible to transition. If a heterosexual man can devote his life to pursuing the woman he desires, then I see no reason not to devote mine to becoming the woman I desire.

Note: This post was translated from Japanese into English using ChatGPT.

I've been thinking about something lately and I'm curious what other AGPs think.

A lot of AGP transitioners who transitioned in their 40s, 50s, or later say things like:

"If I had been born 20 years later, things would have been different."

The argument is usually that they grew up in a different era:

- Very little information about gender dysphoria, or transition.
- Strong social pressure to marry and have children.
- Less acceptance of remaining single.
- Few visible transition role models.

On the surface, that seems reasonable.

However, I wonder whether the situation is really that simple.

One thing I've noticed is that many AGPs do not necessarily start with severe gender dysphoria.

Some start with little or no dysphoria at all.

Others begin with mild dysphoria or only occasional cross-gender fantasies.

Yet in many cases, the feelings seem to intensify over time. What may begin as a fantasy, fetish, curiosity, or manageable desire in youth can gradually become a much more persistent and emotionally significant issue later in life.

By middle age, some AGPs report dysphoria becoming intense enough that they feel unable to continue living as they had before.

This raises an interesting question:

Even if someone has access to all the information in the world at age 20, would they necessarily make different choices?

Speaking personally, before I learned about AGP, I assumed these feelings would eventually disappear.

I thought they were something that would fade with age, maturity, relationships, or simply the passage of time.

Looking back, I suspect many people may think the same way:

- "This is probably temporary."
- "I'll grow out of it."
- "Maybe a relationship will fix it."
- "Maybe marriage will fix it."
- "I'll deal with it later."

In previous generations, that "later" may have involved marriage and children.

But younger generations live in a different social environment.

Today:

- Information about transition is widely available.
- Remaining single is increasingly accepted.
- Childlessness is increasingly accepted.
- There is less pressure to follow a traditional life path.

Because of this, I sometimes wonder whether the pattern will actually disappear.

Perhaps instead of seeing married AGPs transition in midlife, we will simply see more single AGPs reaching their 40s or 50s and then deciding to transition.

In other words, maybe the life story changes, but the basic phenomenon remains.

So my question is:

Do you think middle-aged AGP transitioners will become significantly less common in the future?

Or do you think they will continue to exist in substantial numbers, even in an era with greater information and social acceptance?

If you think they will decline, why?

If you think they will continue, what do you think is driving the phenomenon?

I’ve always been curious about where people in the AGP community are from.

Since Reddit polls only allow 6 options, I had to group some regions together.

I’m from Japan myself, so I’ll be voting East Asia.

View Poll

There was a poll on a casual discussion subreddit populated mainly by Japanese people (mostly cisgender people) asking whether they wanted to get married or not, and it made me think I’d like to ask the same question to the AGP community.

For what it’s worth, I’m an analloerotic AGP, so I have absolutely no desire to marry a cis woman.

View Poll

Note: This post was translated from Japanese into English using ChatGPT.

Sometimes I wonder if I would have been happier if I had been born in a time before AGP, gender dysphoria as a concept, and transgender medicine existed.

I’m not someone who grew up believing I was literally a girl trapped in a boy’s body. I was able to function as a male and fit into society well enough. Looking back, I think that if those concepts and medical options had never existed, I probably would have lived my entire life as a man.

That’s not to say I wouldn’t have had any issues. I’ve had female embodiment fantasies since childhood, and I suspect relationships and sex with women would have been difficult for me. But if remaining single were socially acceptable, my life path would have been much simpler. I could have lived as a man while carrying a vague sense that something was slightly off.

For people who experience severe gender dysphoria from early childhood, I think the opposite may be true. A world without transgender concepts or medical treatment would probably be much harsher for them than the modern world. I’m only speaking about my own case.

I also don’t think social media is merely about comparison. Cis people compare themselves to others online all the time. The bigger effect, for me, is that social media made me aware that another path existed at all.

I learned about AGP. I learned that medical transition was possible. I saw people who had pursued that path and, to some degree, achieved the life I had only imagined.

Once you know that such a path exists, it becomes difficult to ignore it. It’s not that I believe transition is guaranteed to succeed or make someone happy. But knowing that the possibility exists makes doing absolutely nothing feel much harder.

Before learning about AGP, I had very little body dysphoria in the sense that people usually describe it. But after learning about these ideas and seeing examples of people who acted on them, that alternative became much harder to dismiss.

So sometimes I wonder whether my life would actually have been simpler if I had never known any of this in the first place. Not perfect, not free of longing, but simpler.

Note: This post was translated from Japanese into English using ChatGPT.

Before learning about AGP, I assumed my female embodiment desires would eventually fade away on their own.

I thought maybe it was just libido, and getting older would reduce it. I also wondered whether having a girlfriend, getting married, or building a family as a husband might somehow “normalize” me and make these feelings disappear.

The strange thing is that I was never very interested in relationships in the first place. I’m probably somewhere on the asexual spectrum, and my experience seems closer to analloerotic AGP — where the focus is more on oneself than on attraction to partners. I never actively tried to get a girlfriend, and I had already accepted the possibility that I might stay single forever.

Still, I had a vague idea that having a girlfriend or wife would be a good thing.

Looking back honestly, I don’t think I viewed relationships in a romantic way.

I think I saw them more as:

proof that I was a normal man,
social validation or status,
something to feel proud of compared to peers,
or maybe even a way to suppress or “fix” my female embodiment desires.

I remember seriously telling male friends:

“I’d only want a girlfriend for status. Are there other reasons people want one?”

At the time I wasn’t joking.

I genuinely didn’t understand romantic attraction very well. My thinking was basically:

“If I somehow end up with a girlfriend, that’s good because it proves something.”
“If I stay single forever, that’s also fine.”

Marriage felt similar.

I didn’t dream about having a family because I deeply wanted a wife or children. I think part of me saw marriage as a possible solution.

Maybe becoming a husband would make me settle into a male role.
Maybe family responsibilities would override these feelings.
Maybe being older would make them disappear.

Then I learned about AGP and started seeing many examples online:

people with wives,
people with children,
people married for decades,
and later-life transitioners who still had these desires.

That affected me more than I expected.

My reaction was basically:

“Wait… even marriage doesn’t necessarily stop this?”
“Even having children doesn’t stop it?”
“Then what exactly was I expecting marriage to accomplish?”

After realizing that, most of my desire for marriage disappeared.

Not because I became anti-marriage, but because I realized I may have been viewing relationships as tools — ways to become normal, gain status, or suppress something in myself — rather than wanting them for love.

By “female persona,” I do NOT mean multiple personalities. I mean an internal female self-image, mode, identity, or “inner woman.”

View Poll

Note: This post was translated from Japanese into English using ChatGPT.

Growing up, I never thought of myself as LGBT, queer, or part of any sexual minority.

In high school, I had a male friend come out to me as bisexual. I wasn’t judgmental and stayed friends with him (he’s still one of my closest friends now), but LGBT issues felt completely unrelated to me. I saw them as something that affected “other people.”

My attitude was basically: people can’t choose these things, so I’m not going to discriminate against them. But beyond that, I didn’t care much. Even when voting, I never considered LGBT policies because I assumed they had nothing to do with my life.

At the same time, I had feminization fantasies starting around age 10. I treated them as a strange fetish or embarrassing quirk. I assumed puberty, relationships, or aging would eventually make them disappear.

I also expected I’d become a normal heterosexual man someday.

Looking back, this sounds odd because I had little interest in actually having sex with either men or women. I remember talking with male friends and genuinely asking things like:

“Do people want girlfriends for reasons other than social expectations?”

I couldn’t really understand why romantic relationships seemed so important to others.

Around 21, I learned about asexuality and thought:

Maybe I’m just ace.

But even then, I didn’t feel like a sexual minority. I saw myself more as an unusual straight guy who might remain single forever.

Then around 22, I masturbated for the first time and realized I could only orgasm through feminization fantasies.

Even after that, I still didn’t reinterpret myself. I thought:

I’m probably an asexual person with a weird fetish.

I believed aging and lower testosterone would eventually reduce libido and make the fantasies disappear.

At the same time, I started feeling anxious:

What if I never become heterosexual in the normal sense?

But I kept assuming things would sort themselves out.

Then at 24, I learned about AGP.

Suddenly many disconnected things seemed connected:

- lifelong feminization fantasies
- weak interest in ordinary heterosexual relationships
- difficulty relating to typical male sexuality
- treating myself as “basically straight, just weird”

I’m still not sure exactly how to categorize myself, but many assumptions I had about myself changed after learning about AGP.

I’ve since started HRT, which is something I never would have imagined when I was younger and assumed I’d eventually become an ordinary heterosexual man.

Looking back, it’s strange how long I saw sexual minorities as “other people,” while never considering I might end up questioning my own place outside those norms.

Note: This post was translated from Japanese into English using ChatGPT.

I previously made a post about how autogynephilia (AGP) is understood in Japan: https://www.reddit.com/r/askAGP/s/BXkf2O0W1P

In short, AGP in Japan is usually not discussed through the Blanchard/Lawrence framework. Instead, it is commonly reduced to something like:
- a fetish
- a crossdressing hobby
- “male sexuality”
- or something that should never lead to medical transition.

As someone who openly identifies as AGP while medically transitioning, I increasingly feel that I have no place in either the Japanese MtF community or the Japanese AGP community.

---

## The Japanese “Real MtF” Narrative

What I noticed is that Japanese trans discourse often revolves around gatekeeping.

In many Japanese MtF spaces, there is a strong idea that only a certain kind of trans woman is “real.” The idealized narrative is usually someone who was feminine from childhood, attracted to men, always knew she was a girl, and transitions purely for survival rather than desire. Sexuality is expected to be absent from the narrative.

Within that framework, AGP is often treated as something fundamentally different from “real MtF.” I have seen Japanese HSTS-oriented creators explicitly say things like:
- “AGP people are not MtF.”
- “AGP people who take hormones are confused.”
- “Real MtF are feminine from childhood.”
- “AGP is sexual desire, not gender identity.”

One creator became angry after receiving messages from male viewers saying they wanted female bodies and had started hormones. She argued that hormones are not for “self-satisfaction” or fetishistic desire, and that AGP people medically transitioning damage public understanding of trans people. The distinction being made was very clear:
“real MtF” transition to survive, while AGP people supposedly transition for sexual reasons.

But from a Blanchardian perspective, this is strange, because AGP was originally proposed specifically as a model for many non-homosexual MtF transsexuals. In Japan, however, AGP is often transformed from a descriptive typology into a moral category:
“the kind of person who should never transition.”

---

## Late-Transitioning MtFs Who Reject AGP

What also surprised me is that many late-transitioning Japanese MtFs who seem very close to AGP-type trajectories still strongly reject AGP itself.

I repeatedly see people who:
- were married
- had children
- were primarily attracted to women
- transitioned later in life

yet aggressively insist:
“I am not AGP.”

Some openly describe AGP people as disgusting, narcissistic, attention-seeking, fake, or fetishistic.
Another late-transitioning MtF in her 60s, who had previously lived as a husband and father before transitioning, insisted that AGP is just crossdressing fetishism while simultaneously discussing experiences with male-oriented erotic massage services and “sexual development after SRS,” yet still maintained:
“I just become calm as a woman. It’s not sexual.”

From a Blanchard/Lawrence perspective, these patterns are not unusual for AGP-type MtF trajectories at all.

But in Japanese discourse, AGP often functions more like a stigma label than a psychological model. It becomes something socially contaminating:
“the thing you must never be.”

---

## Japanese AGP Influencers Also Gatekeep Transition

At the same time, Japanese AGP-identifying influencers also gatekeep transition from the opposite direction.

Many Japanese AGP creators frame AGP as fantasy, escapism, roleplay, or a controlled “B-side identity.”

Some explicitly argue that AGP is driven by male libido and that if HRT reduces libido, the desire to feminize may disappear as well.

One creator argued that changing the hormonal “OS” of the body is dangerous and that wigs, makeup, and presentation should be enough instead of medical transition.

Others create videos explaining how to distinguish “real MtF” from “AGP,” using things like attraction to women, excitement toward feminization, and enjoyment of one’s feminized appearance as indicators of AGP.

Ironically, many of these traits resemble classic AGP descriptions themselves. Yet the conclusion is still:
“therefore AGP people should not medically transition.”

So Japanese AGP discourse creates another form of gatekeeping:
MtF communities reject AGP for being “too sexual,” while AG communities reject transition for being “too real.”

As a result, people whose AGP develops into long-term embodiment dysphoria often end up belonging nowhere.

---

## AGP People With Severe Dysphoria Become Invisible

I have also seen AGP-identifying people online expressing severe suffering:
“I want to be a woman so badly I cry.”
“If this desire can never be fulfilled, maybe life itself is meaningless.”
“I want to die already.”

These people often express deep despair over:
- genital disgust
- lifelong female embodiment longing

Yet many still avoid HRT or transition because they internalized messages like:
- “AGP is just a fetish.”
- “AGP transitioners regret it.”
- “Only true trans people should transition.”

So they remain trapped:
too dysphoric for hobby crossdressing spaces,
too openly AGP for MtF spaces,
and too ashamed to speak honestly in medical contexts.

I think this part of AGP is severely under-discussed in Japan.

There seems to be very little language for people whose AGP evolves into persistent embodiment dysphoria. Everything becomes polarized into either:
“true transsexual”
or
“mere fetishist.”

People in between become socially invisible.

---

## Contrast With Western MtF Communities

Ironically, mainstream Western MtF communities often take the opposite approach.

In many Western trans spaces, AGP itself is rejected as a transphobic theory. However, at the same time, they are often much more accepting toward people whose transition motivations include sexuality, fantasy, or feminization desire.

Instead of saying:
“You are just a fetishist.”

they are more likely to say:
- “That’s gender euphoria.”
- “Many trans people start from sexual fantasies.”
- “You are probably actually a woman.”
- “Sexual motivation does not invalidate transition.”

From my perspective, Western spaces sometimes seem far more tolerant toward ambiguous or sexuality-linked transition motivations than Japanese communities are.

Honestly, I envy that openness sometimes.

---

## My Situation

I identify as AGP myself.

I do not describe myself as “a woman trapped in a man’s body.” But my female embodiment desire has existed since childhood and gradually became impossible to contain through fantasy alone.

I am already medically transitioning.

At the same time:
- mainstream Japanese MtF spaces often see people like me as fetishistic
- Japanese AGP communities see people like me as reckless or mistaken
- and both sides gatekeep transition in different ways

Ironically, I sometimes feel that academic AGP literature understood my experience more accurately than the actual Japanese trans community.

That invisibility has been one of the hardest parts of this experience.

Note: This post was translated from Japanese into English using ChatGPT.

I’m a 25-year-old Japanese person assigned male at birth, currently about 2 months into HRT.

For most of my life, I never related to the typical “I always knew I was a girl” narrative from trans communities.

I wasn’t feminine socially.
I didn’t think I had a female soul.
I didn’t naturally identify with women in everyday life.

What I did have, since childhood, was:

* persistent self-feminization fantasies
* strong envy toward female bodies
* discomfort about becoming an older male
* an almost obsessive fixation on becoming female despite being mostly asexual toward other people
* and sexuality that became heavily tied to imagining myself as female

For a long time, I assumed this would eventually disappear.

I thought maybe:

* I would someday become a normal heterosexual man,
* adulthood would “fix” me,
* relationships or masculinity would make these feelings fade,
* or this was just a phase caused by isolation or escapism.

So I spent years treating it as:

* a weird fetish,
* a private shame,
* or something I simply needed to suppress better.

Then a few years ago, mostly through Japanese GC / TERF reposts and commentary about Western trans discourse on X/Twitter, I started reading discussions about AGP and late-transitioning trans women.

Ironically, this was the first time I encountered a framework that felt disturbingly accurate to my own psychology.

Especially stories involving:

* repression through conventional male adulthood,
* attempts to live normally,
* marriage/work/fatherhood,
* and dysphoria becoming unbearable later in life.

Before that, mainstream trans narratives often felt emotionally distant to me.

But this was the first framework where I thought:

“Wait, this is uncomfortably close to my actual psychology.”

And one thing that affected me very strongly was realizing that these feelings might not actually disappear with age.

Until then, I had unconsciously assumed that eventually I would “grow out of it,” become psychologically normal, or stop caring about feminization.

But after seeing repeated stories of people suppressing these feelings for decades and still experiencing severe dysphoria later in life, something changed psychologically for me.

The moment I started believing this could be permanent, my previously vague discomfort around being male suddenly became much more intense and harder to ignore.

At the same time, starting HRT has genuinely made me feel better psychologically.

The obsessive/self-sexualized aspect has become weaker, and the idea of no longer continuing to masculinize feels deeply relieving to me.

At least for now, I still feel that I want to continue HRT.

Even before I ever learned about AGP or transgender discourse, I already felt that I probably did not want children.

From around age 20, I remember thinking that I was not capable of sacrificing my own life and freedom in order to raise children. Even before transition ever entered my mind, I felt that I would rather reduce my working hours and live quietly than become a father.

I also have ASD and learning disabilities, and I have long felt that I do not want to pass those traits on genetically.

I am also effectively asexual toward other people, so I honestly do not care very much whether transition makes me less attractive to women or to gay men who are attracted to conventionally masculine males.

And recently I remembered that TERFs often talk about transgender identity as a form of social contagion or ROGD.

So now I honestly cannot stop wondering:

Did I socially “catch” this from TERF discourse on X/Twitter itself?

By “friends,” I mean real-life/offline friendships, not primarily online friends.

I’m specifically curious about ordinary social patterns outside online trans/NB communities.

Among your cisgender friends, are most of them male or female?

View Poll