Lia Thomas Accused of Being Autogynophilic By Weird Losers
The attacks on the former college swimmer are getting grosser and more evil.
by Evan Urquhart
Nearly a year after her win in the NCAA Division 1 500 yard freestyle (and fifth place finish in the 200), Lia Thomas is being hunted by the right wing press for sport. Her fellow fifth-place finisher, Riley Gaines, has accused her of indecency for changing in the only available locker room at the March 2022 meet, and transphobic extremists are now digging for any information they can use to portray her sexuality as unsavory and elicit their readers’ disgust. They’ve found little, but that hasn’t stopped them from trying to make something out of the possibility Thomas may have liked a few memes.
A right wing sports podcaster associated with the Daily Wire, Jake Crain, accused Thomas of liking some memes about autogynephilia on a secret Instagram account. Thomas is also accused of being in a relationship with another trans woman who likes and posts memes. None of the memes they believe Thomas liked on a private alt account are particularly shocking, explicit, or bad, they’re just jokey references to the idea of trans women finding themselves or other trans women attractive. Some of them use crudely drawn depictions of boners to get that rough idea across. If you’re predisposed to be afraid of or disgusted by trans women (in other words, if you’re a transphobe) then it’s fodder to fuel that fear or disgust, but there’s nothing anyone who wasn’t a hateful bigot would be worried about.
Some on the right, including our old friends at the Washington Examiner, are also using the opportunity to breathe new life into the pseudoscientific theory of autogynephilia, or AGP. Therefore it seems useful to talk about AGP in more depth. The discussion that follows will largely be drawing on work by Zinnia Jones, a trans woman who has written some excellent critical analysis of AGP.
Autogynephilia is an old school psychological theory. It dates back to a time before psychology had any truck with data or research, and instead just kinda made stuff up based on vibes. The theory holds that there are two types of trans woman. One type is solely attracted to men, and AGP theorists think that means they’re really just extremely gay men, men who are so gay they want to live as straight women and have relationships with straight men. Proponents of AGP generally feel this type of trans woman is basically okay, as long as they’re conventionally attractive enough and don’t make any waves. However, the theory goes, there is a second group of trans woman, a bad kind, who are attracted to women, and they are disgusting and wrong. The “autogynephilia” part comes in because, the theory goes, these trans women (and never the other kind) experience arousal when they imagine themselves to be women. This experience of arousal is believed to be the only reason this type of trans woman seeks to transition, and the reason they should not be allowed to do so. Many proponents insinuate that these trans women are predatory, and all tend to treat their existence and their sexuality in a dehumanizing way that relies on disgust.
Critics of AGP don’t claim trans women never experience arousal when they imagine themselves to be women, but they suggest that this is a normal, healthy part of some trans people’s sexuality, and can happen whether they’re gay, straight, or bi. They point out that many cisgender women also experience arousal at the idea of their own female body, and at relating sexually as a woman in a woman’s body. This is called “experiencing arousal.” Further, they say that having sexual thoughts about being the opposite sex doesn’t mean such thoughts are the primary reason trans people seek to transition, and that the evidence shows trans women who have such thoughts experience gender dysphoria like other trans people and their outcomes are improved by transition, like other trans people’s are.
AGP isn’t a proper scientific theory at all. If it were a proper scientific theory, there would be two observable, distinct groups of trans women, with little or no overlap. That is simply not the case, and proponents’ own research proves that. In truth, AGP is little more than a formalized way for weird jerks to talk about how disgusted they are by trans women. It makes no testable predictions, and offers no meaningful insights into trans people’s motivations or lives.
screenshot from Gender Analysis
Lia Thomas may or may not have liked some memes referencing AGP, and she may or may not have experienced sexual feelings like those described by transphobic creeps as autogynephilic. It’s really no one’s business but hers and her partner’s. It’s been almost a year since Thomas beat all the other women in one high profile swim race, and was beaten by cis women in the other races she swam. She has a right to like memes, to be in a lesbian relationship with another trans woman, and to have a private sexual life that harms no one. Nothing about Thomas is disgusting, but the right wing bigotry she faces certainly is.