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Sandra Pinches's avatar

I treated men with “gender issues” for about 20 years, starting in the mid-1990’s. Most of these men were struggling with conflicts about their sexualized cross dressing, with a few having arrived at the idea that they wanted to transition. I spent a lot of time and energy trying to understand and help them, but the task was complicated by the men’s ambivalent motives to continue the behavior versus stopping them. They essentially all acted like addicts who periodically would resolve to stop, often in reaction to others discovering their secret.

Over time I came to several conclusions about these patients. First and most importantly, they are all males. It is rare to see a psychiatric problem that is so confined to one sex. This definitely suggests that transvestic fetishism is a kink associated with male biology. The second conclusion is that most of them were diagnosable with narcissistic personality disorder. To a great extent, transvestic fetishism appears to be a complication of that disorder. There was a minority of patients who did not appear as narcissistic, although they were self-centered and immature in their marriages to a significant degree.

I stopped working with these guys for some of the same reasons I stopped working with people with eating disorders. The psychiatric issues were at least moderately severe, the patients were ambivalent about recovery, and narcissistic people are for the most part not as amenable to honest self appraisals and insight as are most other patients.

I would have loved to have been able to refer them to someone like you, Dr. Burgo, but alas, most of my colleagues were not interested in trying to work with these men. I completely support your work, and am relieved to no longer be working with these men myself.

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Ray Lorman's avatar

It´s remarkable the defense and simpathy the author shows to men´s perversions and a clear paraphilia. Although interesting how this article show that feminity - sexist stereotypes forced upon women - is a male fantasy. He completly disregard the power dynamics in society and how these men pose a real threat to women. This also proves how much men need women to validate themselves and how disgusting and little they are without women.

Also, psychologists constanly have told women to be compassionate of men, who we know are dangerous. Sexologists and psychologists explain us how our rightful fear and rejection of these men should be soften through compassion: "they had a bad childhood" "life was so difficulte for them" "they suffer their shame :("; while we pay all the consequences of their sick behavior. Important to note that, OF COURSE, is the mother´s fault. All of these poor men were somehow badly treated or humillated by their mothers. There will always be a woman to blame for men´s disgusting behavior.

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