u/RMS-106

\*\*Note:\*\* This post was translated from Japanese into English using a translation tool.

About a week ago, on a whim, I conducted a Button Test poll in a Japanese-language casual discussion community on Reddit, restricting participation to people who identify as cisgender and heterosexual.

https://www.reddit.com/r/lowlevelaware/s/o3VJnnSVek

The results showed that roughly half of both men and women voted that they would press the button.

Of course, some people may have voted out of mere curiosity, and my wording may have been flawed. Even so, isn't that an unusually high proportion?

Also, four days ago, a Japanese-language post went viral on X. It described a certain type of socially disadvantaged man who, when thinking about the kind of girl he likes, feels not that he "wanted to date her," but that he "wanted to be her."

https://x.com/yunisub25/status/2106884558251839726?s=46

There were many replies and quote posts expressing agreement with this sentiment. However, from what I could tell, very few of those people identified as transgender.

These examples make me wonder: Is the desire to change one's sex actually much more universal than we tend to think?

In Japan, there is a strong stereotype that MtFs are people who are attracted to men, have had feminine interests and mannerisms since childhood, and experienced clear social and physical gender dysphoria before puberty. This raises the possibility that there are many people in Japan who are unconscious repressors and have yet to recognize their own desires.

If they really are unconscious repressors, I'm incredibly envious of them.

I could have been like them, too. But by chance, I came across Blanchard's typology online and came to recognize that I was MtF myself. Is there any way to return to the state I was in before I became aware of it?

因みにiOSのアプリでredditを利用しています
フィードを調整出来るとかなり便利なのですが

**\*\*Note:\*\* This post was translated from Japanese into English using a translation tool.**

I’m curious whether there’s a difference between people who are transitioning and those who aren’t.

View Poll

Note: This post was translated from Japanese into English using a translation tool.

I understand meta-attraction as something like this: “I would feel uncomfortable dating a man while remaining in my male body, but if I imagined myself as a woman, then being with a man would feel acceptable.”

However, my experience is slightly different. I also feel uncomfortable with the idea of dating a woman while remaining in my male body.

Because of this, I consider myself asexual in the real world. However, in my AGP fantasies, both men and women can appear as potential partners for me. In that sense, I might be described as bisexual within my AGP fantasies.

That said, the men who appear in my fantasies are often faceless men. In contrast, the women who appear in my fantasies are more likely to have recognizable faces.

Note: This post was translated from Japanese into English using a translation tool.

This is probably a crazy post.

I am a Japanese person with AGP. Until recently, I had never experienced any particularly noticeable gender dysphoria. However, last year, I learned about Blanchard’s typology and began connecting my desire to become a woman with the experiences of MtF people. As a result, I started suffering from unbearable gender dysphoria. I even started HRT despite having no realistic prospect of socially transitioning.

Recently, I was watching an anime called Animentaly: Decision, which is about the Pacific War, and it made me think about this.

In Japan during World War II, there was not even a concept of “gender dysphoria” in the modern sense. At the very least, I would never have been exposed to the concept, so I probably would not have recognized what I was experiencing as gender dysphoria.

Of course, for someone who had known from birth that they were a girl, the environment at the time might have been extremely difficult.

But I had never even suspected that I might be trans until I learned about Blanchard’s typology. So if I had lived in that society, I think I could have simply lived a normal life without ever worrying about my gender.

And since the concept of being transgender did not exist in anything like its current form at the time, I would not have had other MtF people to compare myself with and suffer over.

At the time, arranged marriages with the opposite sex were the norm, so having to marry a cis woman might have been somewhat difficult for me.

But before that happened, I could have volunteered for a kamikaze mission and ended my life as a man relatively quickly.

And even aside from kamikaze missions, there would have been plenty of other ways to end my life as a man in that era.

Perhaps being born in peaceful, prosperous, and free modern Japan has been a kind of living hell for me.

My gender dysphoria is a luxury illness.

**Note:** This post was translated from Japanese into English using a translation tool.

Which of the following best describes your relationship with your parents during childhood and adolescence?

If both parents apply to the first two categories, please select “Both parents.”

**My case:**My father has been an alcoholic for as long as I can remember, and I don’t like him very much because of his behavior. My relationship with my mother has always been good.

View Poll

**Note:** This post was translated from Japanese into English using a translation tool.

How do you feel about your penis as an AGP?

If you have already had SRS, please answer based on how you felt immediately before SRS.

My own stance:

I have absolutely no interest in using my penis for PIV sex, and I didn’t masturbate at all until I was 22.

So when it comes to my penis, I am completely indifferent. I don’t feel dysphoria or any particular positive feelings toward it. It’s useful for urination, and that’s about it. Otherwise, it feels almost like something that was just attached to me.

If I could get SRS for free, I think I would probably do it. But since it costs a lot of money in reality, I plan to settle for an orchiectomy instead.

View Poll

\*\*Note:\*\* This post was originally written in Japanese and translated into English using a translation tool.

I’m 25 years old, AMAB, and I’ve been on HRT for five months.

Given my age when I started HRT, as well as my fairly masculine facial features and body, passing as a woman isn’t realistically possible for me. I intend to continue HRT repping while remaining socially male.

In Japan, there is still some resistance to socially transitioning as transgender, but on the other hand, androgynous men and men who undergo things like hair removal aren’t particularly unusual. So as long as I don’t socially transition, I don’t expect HRT itself to cause any major problems in my social life.

My reasons for continuing HRT are to prevent further masculinization and reduce the distress caused by gender dysphoria.

For now, I intend to continue HRT repping for the rest of my life. However, I wanted to ask others what they would do if they were in a similar situation.

If continuing HRT repping caused no significant problems in your social life, relationships, finances, or everyday life, would you still continue it for the rest of your life?

View Poll

**Note:** This post was translated from Japanese into English using a translation tool.

I am an analloerotic AGP, and I have never been attracted to either men or women. Throughout my life, the only thing that has ever sexually aroused me is imagining myself as a woman.

However, when I look at everything outside of sexuality, I feel that I am very close to a cis heterosexual man.

About 80% of my real-life friends are cis heterosexual men, and almost all of my hobbies are traditionally masculine. The people whose ways of thinking and values I relate to most are also cis heterosexual men. For that reason, I consider my gender identity to be male as well.

At the same time, I gradually began experiencing gender dysphoria, and I have now started HRT. I am also considering FFS and castration. If there were a magical option that allowed me to become a woman, I would choose it.

In other words, I feel that AGP is the word that describes me best when it comes to my sexuality, while I identify my gender identity as male. At the same time, I genuinely want to feminize my body and be perceived as a woman.

I have not found any other word that describes someone like me.

Because of this, when I talk about my struggles with gender dysphoria in mainstream trans communities, I sometimes use "AGP" as a word to describe myself.

However, I often get responses such as, "AGP doesn't exist," "AGP is transphobic," or "Your gender identity is female." As a result, the discussion often gets derailed from the actual issue I wanted to talk about: my struggles with gender dysphoria.

I am not using the word AGP to invalidate anyone or to attack transgender people. It is simply the word that currently feels most appropriate for describing myself.

So I would genuinely like to know if there is another term that can describe someone like me without using the word AGP.

**\*\*Note:\*\* This post was translated from Japanese into English using a translation tool.**

If transition or SRS has made ejaculation difficult or impossible, answer based on your situation immediately before that change.

View Poll

**\*\*Note:\*\* This post was translated from Japanese into English using a translation tool.**

I’d like to know the degree of gender dysphoria among AGP individuals in the AGP community on Reddit.
If you’re not AGP, please vote for “I’m not AGP.”

View Poll

**Note:** This post was translated from Japanese into English using a translation tool.

Recently, I came across a post on this subreddit criticizing users who label AGP or transgender people as autistic based on only a few superficial traits. I'd like to share my thoughts on that trend.

The post in question is here.
[Jesus knock it off, AdvancedGuiProfile］
https://www.reddit.com/r/askAGP/s/DrQkugudQB

First, Ray Blanchard, who proposed the concept of AGP, described it as "something like a sexual orientation." If that is the case, then it is reasonable to view AGP as something that cannot be fundamentally cured.

The same applies to gender dysphoria. In the past, conversion therapy was attempted as a treatment. However, it failed to produce reliable evidence that gender dysphoria could be eliminated, and as a result, that approach has largely been abandoned.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is also currently understood to have no treatment that fundamentally eliminates the condition.

For that reason, I don't see much point in labeling AGP or transgender people as autistic.

All of these are generally understood to be innate traits or predispositions, and none currently have a treatment that fundamentally removes them. Whether someone chooses to transition or not, I think it is more constructive to focus on how to live with these characteristics rather than expecting them to disappear.

In fact, one of those users also suggested that I was autistic. My reaction was simply, "Yes, I am. So what?"

I was formally diagnosed with autism in elementary school. It is officially recognized by the government in my country, and I also hold a government-issued disability certificate.

From the perspective of someone who has actually been officially diagnosed, I find it rather careless when people declare that someone is autistic based on only a handful of traits.

Autism is a condition that should be diagnosed through a professional clinical evaluation. It is not something that can be determined by noticing a few characteristics. That's why I feel uncomfortable when people casually label others as autistic.

**Note:** This post was translated from Japanese into English using a translation tool.

I’ve always been curious where people in the TransRepressors community are from.
Reddit polls only allow 6 options, so I had to group some regions together.

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

View Poll

\*\*Note:\*\* This post was originally written in Japanese and translated into English using a translation tool.

I'm a 25-year-old AGP AMAB, and I've been on HRT for five months.

No matter how many times I think about it, I can't find a convincing reason to stop HRT or rule out future castration.

I've never been romantically or sexually attracted to either women or men. The only sexuality I've ever experienced is AGP. Even before I knew what AGP was, I had been telling my parents since my late teens that I never wanted to get married or have children.

I didn't even masturbate until I was 22, so losing sexual function would simply mean going back to how I used to live.

I told my mother that I was on HRT, and she didn't reject me. I also told a few close friends that I've only ever been aroused by the fantasy of becoming a woman. They found it unusual, but they accepted it, and our friendships haven't changed at all.

As for work, I don't think HRT alone will cause major problems as long as I don't socially transition. Japan is still not very accepting of transgender people, but androgynous men aren't particularly unusual, and plenty of cis men get facial hair removal.

On the other hand, I have clear reasons to continue HRT.

I want to reduce my AGP-driven libido as much as possible. I also want to prevent further masculinization and reduce the distress caused by my gender dysphoria.

So far, I haven't experienced any significant side effects from HRT. The only thing I've noticed is that I feel a little sleepy after my injections, and I haven't experienced any noticeable changes in my mood or mental state.

The main downsides are the cost, the inconvenience, and the health risks.

But because my gender dysphoria makes it difficult to even enjoy my hobbies, I can accept the cost and inconvenience as long as they don't threaten my financial stability. As for the health risks, they don't feel like a major deterrent to me because I don't want to spend decades growing old as a man anyway.

Given all of that, continuing HRT simply seems like the more rational choice.

The irony is that I already went through male puberty. My face and body are unmistakably masculine, and I don't realistically believe I'll ever pass as a woman.

Mentally, aside from my sexuality, I'm not much different from a typical cis man. Most of my friends are men, my hobbies are stereotypically masculine, and I've never felt that I have a female identity.

And yet, I still feel compelled to continue HRT.

That's what makes this feel like hell.

If there had been even one convincing reason for me to stop, I never would have started HRT in the first place.

That's the part that hurts the most.

**Note:** This post was translated from Japanese into English using a translation tool.

I’m curious about the demographics of this community. Please choose the option that best describes you.

View Poll

**Note:** This post was translated from Japanese into English using a translation tool.

I am a 25-year-old AGP AMAB, and I have been on HRT for five months.

Because of AGP, I feel despair whenever I imagine having to live for several more decades.

Throughout my life, I have never been attracted to either men or women. The only thing that has ever sexually aroused me is the thought of becoming female.

I first began wanting to become female when I was around ten years old. That was the beginning of my AGP.

By the time I reached high school, I had developed a profound sense of emptiness about life. Back then, I often thought, "If I were to die suddenly tomorrow, I wouldn't have any regrets." I believed the reason I felt that way was because I had no friends.

After I started working, those feelings developed into suicidal ideation. At the time, I believed the main causes were my low IQ, ASD, relative poverty, and my father's alcoholism.

Back then, I also believed that my desire to become female was simply the result of low self-esteem. I thought that if I could improve my self-esteem, the desire would disappear and I would become a heterosexual man.

So I worked on everything I could improve. I made an effort to start conversations with people and made more friends. I learned about investing and Japan's social welfare system, and I even managed to build some savings.

As a result, my self-esteem improved significantly. My suicidal thoughts disappeared, and I recovered to the point where I could honestly think, "If I died suddenly tomorrow, I wouldn't have any regrets."

However, my desire to become female never went away. Nor did I become heterosexual. I was deeply confused.

A year or two later, at the age of 24, I happened to discover Blanchard's typology.

According to Blanchard, AGP is one of the motivations for male-to-female transition. I also read several books about AGP. The experiences described by the people in those books were almost identical to my own.

Once I began associating my desire to become female with the experiences of MtF individuals, I also started experiencing physical gender dysphoria, something I had previously felt very little of.

That was when I experienced the strongest suicidal thoughts of my life.

Unfortunately, I had already gone through male puberty, so the options left to me are limited.

As I see it, I have only two possible paths forward. One is to continue my transition, live as a non-passing trans woman while remaining socially male. The other is to detransition, suppress these feelings, and eventually suffer a mental breakdown around the age of 50, like "John 50," the case described in Anne Vitale's paper.

The second option feels unbearable to me.

Japan is still not very accepting of transgender people. Fortunately, however, there is also a cultural preference for youthful, androgynous-looking men. Facial hair is often considered unclean, and even many cisgender men are expected by their employers to shave. In fact, I have been undergoing laser hair removal, and I noticed that many of the other clients were cisgender men as well.

Because of that, I believe that as long as I can hide my breasts, continuing HRT is unlikely to cause serious problems with my job.

So I will probably remain on HRT for the rest of my life.

Even so, when I think about carrying this burden for decades to come, it feels almost impossible to endure.

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

To be honest, I don't really care whether the claim that "cis women also have AGP" is true or false.

In fact, if ordinary cis women really do have AGP, that wouldn't be comforting to me—it would be hell.

Because to me, it would mean that cis women are born with the very feelings I've desperately longed for over the past fifteen years.

In MtF communities, people often try to reassure me by saying things like, "Cis women have AGP too, so you don't need to worry," or "You're a woman too." But those words don't comfort me at all. If anything, they only intensify my gender dysphoria and my envy toward cis women.

That's why, for me, hearing "You're a woman" is far less comforting than hearing, "You're a man with AGP—a male with a paraphilia." As harsh as that sounds, it's much easier for me to live with because it matches how I understand my own reality.

And this is simply a personal wish, but I don't want ordinary cis women to have AGP.

I want ordinary cis women to be fundamentally different from me. I want their romantic and sexual desires to be directed toward other people, not toward themselves or their own femininity in the way AGP describes.

Of course, whatever future research ultimately concludes is a separate issue. But for the sake of my own mental well-being, it is far easier for me to believe that AGP is something found in trans women and only a very small number of exceptional cis women—not in ordinary cis women as a whole.

By “fundamental solution,” I mean something that resolves or substantially reduces the distress in the long term, rather than simply helping someone cope with it.

View Poll

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

About three months ago, I told my mother that I have AGP (autogynephilia).

At that time, I explained that I do not identify as female, that being treated as male is not distressing to me, and that I have had this pattern since around the age of 10.

(Previous post: https://www.reddit.com/r/askAGP/s/99uSlJ9kZs)

Since then, we've continued talking about it little by little. I gave her a Japanese translation of Anne Lawrence's book, explained the distinction between AGP and HSTS, and also told her that many AGP individuals medically transition later in life after finding themselves unable to tolerate male aging and the worsening gender dysphoria that often accompanies it.

Today, I finally told her that I had actually already started HRT.

I did not explain it as "I want to become a woman."

Instead, I told her that my reasons were:

• To reduce the distress caused by AGP.
• To reduce the possibility that my distress would become even worse as my body continues to masculinize with age.

I also told her that, in my own experience, HRT has noticeably reduced the intensity of my AGP itself.

She was surprised at first, but then she simply said,

"So that's why."

Apparently she had noticed changes in my chest before, and after hearing this, everything finally made sense to her.

The thing that struck me most was that I felt she finally understood how serious this has been for me.

She had never rejected me before.

Her attitude had always been something like,

"As long as you're able to live happily, that's all that matters."

But I also felt that she regarded it as something closer to an unusual fetish than a lifelong problem.

After learning that I had actually started HRT, however, I felt she finally understood that this was something I had struggled with for many years.

There was one thing I intentionally did.

I actually do experience body-related gender dysphoria.

However, I barely mentioned it during this conversation.

In Japan, if you simply say "gender dysphoria," most people immediately assume the typical HSTS / gender identity disorder narrative.

Because of that, instead of explaining HRT as "I want to become a woman," I framed it as using HRT to lower my sex drive, weaken AGP, and reduce the distress caused by it.

At the end of the conversation, my mother said,

"We should sit down and talk about this again sometime."

I don't think she understands everything yet.

But at least now, I feel like we're finally discussing the same problem from the same starting point.

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.**