Perhaps you can help me understand something. As an LGBTQ activist I have found myself surrounded by trans women since the early 1990s in New York City activist circles. Today, I routinely work with dozens of trans people editing their writing or having my own writing edited by them.

I have never met a trans woman who believes that being transgender has anything to do with having a paraphilia that causes one to become sexually aroused by dressing in women’s clothing. I have never met a trans woman who believes that the autogynophilia (AGP) hypothesis is anything but a deadly slur and categorically false.

The dozens of transgender women I know are likely to respond with a quite thorough “fuck you" or the emotional equivalent to anyone suggesting that being transgender has anything to do with a paraphilia.

If practically all transgender women are telling us that they do not “become" transgender because putting on women’s clothes arouses them sexually, why should we be debating the subject?

Note that I’m not claiming that autogynophilia does not exist or that people who experience autogynophilia are defective or shameful. Indeed, a good friend of mine who used to crossdress was quite frank about having the condition and didn’t see it as anything to be ashamed of.

He wasn’t transgender, though, and never claimed to be.