Julia Serano and Jack Molay were… right all along?

For years, I have had a post sitting in my drafts folder, where I intended to write a critique of Julia Serano’s Case Against Autogynephilia. In it, she writes various things that seem to make no sense if you read the literature. However, over the years I’ve come to realize that it actually makes much more sense than you would think, once you realize that she is responding not to the literature, but to the various advocates of autogynephilia theory that she sees in discussions on the internet. The same seems to apply a lot to Jack Molay.

Critics of autogynephilia theory should not primarily be thought of as critics of obscure scientific papers that nobody reads. Rather, they should be thought of as critics of opponent activists, such as Rod Fleming, Kay Brown, Steve Sailer, Michael Bailey and James Cantor. These opponent activists are often deeply unpleasant and dishonest, and they tend to use autogynephilia as a weapon against trans activists. They engage in personal attacks, harassment, doxxing and similar. Furthermore, they tend to reject any information that trans activists might collect, making it feel more like an attempt at frame control, that admittedly has mostly failed.

I can’t recall ever seeing a good-faith engagement from these people, where we’ve gone in depth in exchanging information. Probably such engagements have happened, and probably at least Bailey has had some good-faith engagements with me, considering the long time I’ve been in this area; but overall it’s striking how consistently bad Blanchardians (including Bailey) are.