In this post, I am not out to attack men with autogynephilia (AGP). Rather, as someone who has experienced autogynephilia myself, I write out of great compassion for guys who find themselves with desires they don’t know what to do with. A start for learning how to live and be free from AGP is to first understand it.

Picture this scene. You are crossdressing and looking at yourself in the mirror in the bathroom. On the one hand, you are having an erection and the result is wonderful feelings of dopamine hits and sexual pleasure. You are in love with the image in the mirror. You know others might see the image as ugly, but to you, that woman is beautiful. You are loving every minute.

On the other hand, the erection is the last thing you want. The erection that is bringing you pleasure is the same thing that is ruining your time. Your male member is ruining the image in the mirror. You are doing everything to disguise, hide, squish, and tuck your male member in order to achieve the image and womanly feeling you are craving. You are doing all you can to get rid of the distraction of that male member to the point that you might be in danger of actually physically injuring yourself again like you did in the past. The erection is what is giving you great feelings but it’s also pushing you towards masturbation and orgasm, and you know you will never feel more male than when you masturbate and have an orgasm. In fact, the orgasm will end your fantasy and you will not even enjoy crossdressing after that.

I think this scene symbolically encapsulates the self-defeating nature of AGP in a graphic way. The scene above might be enough for some of us already to see how self-defeating AGP is. But what are some deeper reasons to view it this way?

1. With AGP, you are falling in love with an image and a feeling, not a real person. You are falling in love with a fake person that you can never talk to (unless you enjoy talking to yourself), a person you can never hug, or kiss, or have sex with. This fake person cannot fulfill the longing for real love that you have. You are in love with yourself, and that ultimately is a lonely place to be.

Sure, there are some benefits to falling in love with this person. She is your sex slave. She will ALWAYS dress the way you want, move and dance the way you want, speak the words you want to hear, and be just the kind of feminine lady that you like. In fact, she will live up to your specifications 100%. It’s thrilling to have such a slave who seems to satisfy your sexual needs. But ultimately it is empty. It’s not real love. It’s lust and ultimately will not be emotionally satisfying in the way a real marriage to a real woman would be.

This person cannot challenge you and push back on your ideas. She cannot surprise you with a romantic date. She can’t suddenly touch you in a new intimate way you were not expecting. She cannot compliment you. She cannot talk with you late into the night. She cannot encourage you. She cannot pray for you or together with you. She cannot be your companion in any number of the activities people do as couples in life. She cannot serve you. You can’t serve her. Loving her is not real love, for love is giving of the self for another person. You cannot receive her love. She is you. You are the same person. You are rather simply living alone, inward looking, self-absorbed, and isolated. This love is a dead end. For more on this point, see these posts – Becoming the Woman my Wife is Not and Choosing crossdressing or sex.

2. AGP causes you to constantly war between your male self and false female self. Do you try to build muscle or lose muscle? Grow your hair or cut it? Shave your legs or not? Spend time with friends as male self, or home alone as the female self? See this post – Crossdressing demands sacrifice of self.  You are trying to love another female person as your male self, but since that female person is actually you, you have to destroy your male self in order to love the female person. Which means the romantic relationship between the man and woman ultimately gets dissolved.

Of course, transition may seem to be an option around this war. But again, to transition is to completely destroy one partner in the love relationship, putting to death the male self. And transition brings it’s own long term medical problems, frustrations, and difficulties. You will constantly have to stress about acting female for the rest of your life, hoping you are convincing to others and more importantly, convincing to yourself. You will constantly keep trying to do more, and get more medical treatments, to appear as the woman you want to appear like. Will it ever be enough? You will know every day, deep down, that you can never actually become a real woman. This may increase your dysphoria and dissatisfaction. And cause you to envy real women more and more, rather than less and less. See this post – Crossdressing Never Satisfies.

3. If you are indulging your AGP or choosing to crossdress for the reason of emotional comfort, it is only a temporary euphoria that ends up bringing shame, identity confusion, and potentially many other complications in your life. I believe there is something about AGP that makes indulging in it inevitably cause shame, regardless of how affirming a culture is. Why is this? Because it is an attack on your very self. It doesn’t matter whether all of your family members and friends celebrate you. You may still feel shame because by indulging your AGP you are attacking your very identity, perhaps your body as well.

Using crossdressing for emotional comfort may temporarily soothe the hurt from whatever pain or stresses are in your life, but it is a coping mechanism, an unhealthy one. As it soothes, it creates new problems, much like an alcohol addiction. The shame causes you regret and pain, and you look for something to soothe that pain. You go back to the crossdressing again for the temporary pleasures it brings, the temporary comforts. That in turn is an attack on your sense of self again, which causes pain and confusion. And inevitably you act out with crossdressing again to try to soothe the pain. This is the shame cycle that is present in most addictions. You treat your pain with the very thing that is now causing you the most pain in your life. See this post for more – Crossdressing for Emotional Comfort.

Conclusion

I agree that AGP is basically a sexual orientation (see this post – Orientation and Addiction), one that we do not consciously choose. But I don’t believe it is completely unchangeable, I have experienced a great amount of change over the years as I’ve starved my AGP ands fed my heterosexual desire for my wife. My view is that AGP as a sexual orientation is not a healthy one. Rather it is a sign of our brokenness as human beings. It is part of living in a broken world full of disorder, disability, disease, and suffering. There is brokenness in our sexuality. For some people that might be physical pain during sex, or lack of sexual desire, while for us our orientation itself is a feature of our broken and disordered sexuality. AGP is not a gift from God nor a positive evolutionary adaptation. It is disordered and self-defeating.

What is the solution?

That AGP is self-defeating sucks. We didn’t ask for this. But there is hope. We do not have embrace this disordered sexuality.

The ultimate solution is to recognize your brokenness before the Lord of this universe, and find healing and love in the Savior he sent, Jesus Christ. Please talk to me more about my Christian faith. I would love to talk to you! For the Christians out there, you will find great help in hundreds of posts on our website.

But even for those who are not Christians, there are still things you can practically do instead of indulging your AGP and experiencing the self-defeating struggle it brings. Focus on your heterosexuality rather than your AGP. Focus on a real woman. Feed your heterosexuality and starve your AGP. Date women, and ultimately find a wife. Connect to a real woman, a real person, who is not you. Learn to enjoy the satisfaction of a real relationship, with all of its joys and sorrows and happiness and frustrations. Refuse to give in to the AGP, and over time you can appreciate and enjoy the real woman much more than the fake woman. You have a thirst and longing for femininity. Find the connection to that femininity and enjoyment of that femininity outside of yourself. See this post – Connecting with Femininity.

Are you feeling gender dysphoria as a result of your AGP? There is a way through it! Read this post – Integration and Contentment.

I imagine I make it sound simple. It’s not simple. Resisting the desire to give in to the AGP behaviors is not easy. Learning to accept yourself, your body, and your identity as a man may not be easy. But on our website we have a lot of tips for how you can overcome gender dysphoria, and how you can resist giving in to the AGP desires when they come.

And you don’t have to do this journey alone. Consider joining one of our recovery groups where you will hear from men, who like me are now content living as men and are no longer slaves to their AGP desires. We don’t promise miracle cures, or a complete removal of AGP desires from your life. But you can experience freedom and contentment.
Christian recovery group
Non-religious recovery group
Cross Dressaholics Anonymous phone group
Discord server (for non-religious group)