I would say that the preponderance of the transgender literature that I have read reject this term--mostly because it seems to create another binary and because it reduces all of the mystery of an adult male's identification with being female to a mere erotic drive. We all have to interpret our own experience. Mine would indicate that there are two major groups of transgender persons with hundreds of individual variations. I clearly fall into the delayed onset group (age 62) with no sense at all of being trapped in the wrong body. I had a 'successful' (high achievement) youth but never established a successful heterosexual role with a woman despite three marriages. Over the course of a year long relationship with a gay man I discovered both that I was not gay and that I most wanted to share intimacy, especially sexual intimacy, in a female manner. I wanted someone to appreciate me and make live to me as a woman. Initially it didn't martyer to me whether I was with a man or a woman as long as he are she related to me as a woman. I ultimately discovered that another woman was more likely to be able to accept and embrace both parts of me and allow me to grow into my new identity at my own pace and enjoy it. It also turns out that giving and receiving sex with a woman as a woman comes very naturally to me and is wonderfully satisfying to us both.
Am I autogynephiic? I fit easily enough into Blanchard's definition, but (aside from the in unloveliness of the word) I feel that so much of my life, it's meaning, and it's direction is left out by a mere focus on the erotic experience. It is true that my experiences in a female role have been sensationally erotic, but sex and Eros are really such a small part of life. I want a complete life--work I love (which so far remains mostly masculine), a soul mate to share all the non-erotic moments with, a passionate drive to both explore and create myself (as a woman) and as a sensitive, loving, and increasingly beautiful aging person. Is for some tragic reason sex became impossible. I don't believe my gender identification would change, in fact, I believe my female self would achieve more contentment and satisfaction in this situation than my male self ever could. Of course, I don't believe my muse, Eros, would abandon me. I would still love life and loving and enjoy that warm, physical glow that one gets from truly knowing and becoming oneself.
Autogynephilia is an instructive but ultimately ugly and limiting word. We of the second group of transgendered need a better, more lovely word or phrase. Something like 'Miss' or 'Ma'am' for starters.
