This article may contain excessive or inappropriate references to self-published sources .(May 2024) |
Anne Alexandra Lawrence | |
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Born | 17 November 1950 |
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | Washington School of Professional Psychology, Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, University of Minnesota, University of Chicago [1] |
Occupation(s) | Sexologist, psychologist, anesthesiologist [1] |
Known for | Work on transgender women, gender transition, autogynephilia, erotic target location errors, paraphilias [2] [1] |
Spouse | Unknown (married 1987–1995) [3] |
Children | 2 [3] |
Website | annelawrence |
Anne Alexandra Lawrence (born November 17, 1950) is an American psychologist, sexologist, and physician who has published extensively on gender dysphoria, transgender people, and paraphilias. [4] [5] [2] [1] [6] Lawrence is a transgender woman and self-identifies as autogynephilic. [7] [6] She is best known for her 2013 book on autogynephilia, Men Trapped in Men's Bodies: Narratives of Autogynephilic Transsexualism , which has been regarded by Ray Blanchard as the definitive text on the subject. [5] [7] [6] Lawrence is one of the major researchers in the area of Blanchard's etiological typology of transgender women and has been one of the most major proponents of the theory. [8] [7] [6] While Blanchard's typology and autogynephilia are highly controversial subjects and are not accepted by many transgender women and academics, some, such as Lawrence, identify with autogynephilia. [8] [7] [9] Lawrence's work also extends beyond Blanchard's typology, to transgender women and to transition more generally. [2] [1] [8]
Lawrence attended the University of Chicago from 1967 to 1971, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in chemistry. [1] She subsequently attended the University of Minnesota from 1971 to 1974, where she earned a Doctor of Medicine (M.D.). [1] She completed internship, residency, and fellowship from 1974 to 1977 and was licensed as an anesthesiologist. [1] She practiced in this area from 1978 to 1997, mostly at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. [1] Lawrence was married from 1987 to 1995 and had two children, a son and a daughter, before separating from her wife in May 1995. [3]
Lawrence is a transgender woman. [6] [7] [3] She uses "she" pronouns for herself. [5] Lawrence is a proponent of Ray Blanchard's etiological typology of transgender women and personally self-identifies as autogynephilic. [6] [7] She has described having autogynephilic feelings and gender dysphoria from early childhood. [6] [3] She began privately crossdressing at age 8, which resulted in sexual arousal, and has described herself as unremarkably masculine and not feminine as a child. [6] [3] Lawrence came out to her parents as wanting to be a girl when she was age 14 in the 1960s. [6] She was sent to psychotherapy, which she found to be unhelpful. [6] Lawrence discovered Harry Benjamin's The Transsexual Phenomenon (1966) while at the University of Chicago, which was her first exposure to the concept of transgenderism. [6] However, she could not relate well to Benjamin's writings, as Benjamin's descriptions of transgender women as being highly feminine and androphilic did not match her own presentation. [6] In any case, Lawrence privately continued to crossdress and she self-administered estrogen off and on starting at age 18 and throughout her adulthood. [6] [3] She also seriously considered attempting self-castration, but ultimately did not go through with this. [6] Lawrence suppressed her feelings about her gender identity for decades as she found nothing that spoke to her own experience and due to fears of the strong societal prejudice towards transgender people that existed at the time. [6] [3] She felt that transitioning would cause her to be seen as "psychotic". [6]
In 1994, Lawrence discovered Ray Blanchard's work on autogynephilia and transgenderism and described this experience as an epiphany for her. [10] [6] [11] She has said that Blanchard's writings gave her the insight and courage to undergo transition. [6] Lawrence started transitioning in mid-1994, when she was age 44, and continued through 1996. [6] [11] [3] [12] She saw Marsha C. Botzer at the Ingersoll Gender Center in Seattle for psychotherapy and was diagnosed in early 1995. [11] [3] She was on full hormone therapy by 1995 [3] and underwent vaginoplasty with Toby Meltzer in 1996. [12] Following transition, Lawrence pivoted her career from anesthesiology to transgender health. [1] [13] From 1997 to 2001, Lawrence attended the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality and earned a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in sexology. [1] Then, from 2003 to 2006, she attended the Washington School of Professional Psychology and earned a Master of Arts (M.A.) in clinical psychology. [1] Starting in 1996, Lawrence published extensively in the areas of gender dysphoria, transgender people, and paraphilias, both in academic journals and on her personal website, Transsexual Women's Resources. [4] [2] [1] [14] [6] [15] [16] From 2000 to 2015, she maintained a private practice in transgender medicine and psychotherapy. [1] [17] From 2008 until at least 2017, she was an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada. [4] [1]
Lawrence was involved in the controversy surrounding J. Michael Bailey's 2003 book The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism , which has been chronicled by historian and bioethicist Alice Dreger. [8] [18] [11] Lawrence defended Bailey and Blanchard's typology and has described feeling traumatized and alienated from the transgender community following the extreme backlash against the book. [8] [6]
Lawrence retired from practice in 2015. [19] She was last published in 2018. [2] [20] [4] However, in late 2023, Lawrence debuted a new version of her website and stated that she is working on a new research project of long-term narratives by autogynephilic transgender women who had transitioned more than 10 years ago, [21] [22] although this was removed months later. [23] Lawrence resides in Seattle, Washington with her two cats. [5]
Lawrence is a proponent of Ray Blanchard's etiological typology of transgender women and self-identifies as an autogynephilic transgender woman. [7] [24] Along with Ray Blanchard and J. Michael Bailey, she is one of the major researchers in the area of Blanchard's typology (also sometimes referred to as the "Blanchard–Bailey–Lawrence" typology), and of autogynephilia particularly. [7] [8] Lawrence has proposed that autogynephilia is not only sexual in nature, but also encompasses elements and feelings of romantic love, much like gynephilia. [25] [26] Blanchard's typology and autogynephilia are highly controversial subjects, and are rejected and viewed as offensive by many transgender women. [4] [8] Critiques have been lobbied at these constructs on a variety of grounds. [27] [28] [29] However, some people, most famously Lawrence herself, identify with autogynephilia and feel that it accurately describes their experiences. [7] [8] [9] Lawrence has written a 2013 book on autogynephilia called Men Trapped in Men's Bodies: Narratives of Autogynephilic Transsexualism . [7] This book includes over 300 first-person narratives of autogynephilia by transgender women and non-transgender males that were submitted to and collected by Lawrence via her website. [7] Lawrence has stated that all her life she had an absence of narratives that gave meaning to her own experience, and this was her motivation for writing the book. [6] It has been regarded by Blanchard as the definitive text on the subject of autogynephilia, and he has compared it to Magnus Hirschfeld's classic 1910 work, Die Transvestiten: Eine Untersuchung über den Erotischen Verkleidungstrieb (Transvestites: The Erotic Drive to Cross-Dress). [7]
Besides her book, Lawrence has published numerous literature reviews on autogynephilia and Blanchard's typology, [30] [26] [31] [32] [33] [4] other erotic target location errors and paraphilias, [34] [35] [36] and gender dysphoria, transgenderism, and transition. [37] [38] [39] [40] [20] She has additionally published multiple clinical studies on transgender women, transition, and autogynephilia and other paraphilias. [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] Lawrence has defended Blanchard's typology against opposition and critiqued studies claiming to contradict it. [48] [49] [50] [51] She has also challenged claims by some, such as sexologist Charles Allen Moser, that cisgender women experience autogynephilia similarly to transgender women. [52] [53] She has additionally critiqued the brain-sex theory of transgenderism, at least applied to transgender women matching the profile of being autogynephilic. [54] [55] In 2009, Lawrence published a case report of autoandrophilia in a gay man, which was one of the first documented reports of this claimed phenomenon. [33] [56] [57]
Lawrence has been a member of the American Medical Association and the International Academy of Sex Research and has served on the board of directors of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality. [30] She has been a member of the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA) (now the World Professional Association for Transgender Health or WPATH) since 1995. [58] Lawrence was a consultant for the fifth version (1998), a coauthor of the sixth version (2001), and provided limited recommendations for the seventh version (2012) of the HBIGDA/WPATH Standards of Care for gender dysphoria and transgender people. [58] [59] [60] [61] She worked to help liberalize the Standards of Care and to reduce barriers to care, especially for transgender women who fit the profile of being autogynephilic. [8] Besides the Standards of Care, Lawrence provided input on gender dysphoria and transgenderism to the 2013 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). [62] [63] [64] She subsequently criticized some of the decisions for this area of the DSM-5 after it was published. [64]
Lawrence previously maintained a personal website with information for transgender women called Transsexual Women's Resources. [15] [8]
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), formerly the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA), is a professional organization devoted to the understanding and treatment of gender identity and gender dysphoria, and creating standardized treatment for transgender and gender variant people. WPATH was founded in 1979 and named HBIGDA in honor of Harry Benjamin during a period where there was no clinical consensus on how and when to provide gender-affirming care.
The Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People (SOC) is an international clinical protocol by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) outlining the recommended assessment and treatment for transgender and gender-diverse individuals across the lifespan including social, hormonal, or surgical transition. It often influences clinicians' decisions regarding patients' treatment. While other standards, protocols, and guidelines exist – especially outside the United States – the WPATH SOC is the most widespread protocol used by professionals working with transgender or gender-variant people.
John Michael Bailey is an American psychologist, behavioral geneticist, and professor at Northwestern University best known for his work on the etiology of sexual orientation and paraphilia. He maintains that male sexual orientation is most likely established in utero.
The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism is a 2003 book by the American psychologist J. Michael Bailey, published by Joseph Henry Press.
In behavioral science, androphilia and gynephilia are sexual orientations: Androphilia is sexual attraction to men and/or masculinity; gynephilia is sexual attraction to women and/or femininity. Ambiphilia describes the combination of both androphilia and gynephilia in a given individual, or bisexuality. The terms offer an alternative to a gender binary homosexual and heterosexual conceptualization of sexuality.
Ray Milton Blanchard III is an American-Canadian sexologist who researches pedophilia, sexual orientation and gender identity. He has found that men with more older brothers are more likely to be gay than men with fewer older brothers, a phenomenon he attributes to the reaction of the mother's immune system to male fetuses. Blanchard has also published research studies on phallometry and several paraphilias, including autoerotic asphyxia. Blanchard also proposed a typology of transsexualism.
The American-Canadian sexologist Ray Blanchard proposed a psychological typology of gender dysphoria, transsexualism, and fetishistic transvestism in a series of academic papers through the 1980s and 1990s. Building on the work of earlier researchers, including his colleague Kurt Freund, Blanchard categorized trans women into two groups: homosexual transsexuals who are attracted exclusively to men and are feminine in both behavior and appearance; and autogynephilic transsexuals who experience sexual arousal at the idea of having a female body. Blanchard and his supporters argue that the typology explains differences between the two groups in childhood gender nonconformity, sexual orientation, history of sexual fetishism, and age of transition.
Gender incongruence is the state of having a gender identity that does not correspond to one's sex assigned at birth. This is experienced by people who identify as transgender or transsexual, and often results in gender dysphoria. The causes of gender incongruence have been studied for decades.
Sexuality in transgender individuals encompasses all the issues of sexuality of other groups, including establishing a sexual identity, learning to deal with one's sexual needs, and finding a partner, but may be complicated by issues of gender dysphoria, side effects of surgery, physiological and emotional effects of hormone replacement therapy, psychological aspects of expressing sexuality after medical transition, or social aspects of expressing their gender.
The classification of transgender people into distinct groups has been attempted since the mid-1960s. The most common modern classifications in use are the DSM-5 and ICD, which are mainly used for insurance and administration of gender-affirming care.
A transgender person is someone whose gender identity differs from that typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth.
A transsexual person is someone who experiences a gender identity that is inconsistent with their assigned sex, and desires to permanently transition to the sex or gender with which they identify, usually seeking medical assistance to help them align their body with their identified sex or gender.
James M. Cantor is an American-Canadian clinical psychologist and sexologist specializing in hypersexuality and paraphilias.
Erotic target location error (ETLE) is a hypothesized dimension for paraphilias, defined by having a sexual preference or strong sexual interest in features that are somewhere other than on one's sexual partners. When one's sexual arousal is based on imagining oneself in another physical form the erotic target is said to be one's self, or erotic target identity inversion (ETII).
Analloeroticism is having no sexual interests in other people. Anil Aggrawal considers it distinct from asexuality and defines the latter as the lack of a sex drive. Analloerotics are unattracted to female or male partners, but not necessarily devoid of all sexual behaviour.
The real-life experience (RLE), sometimes called the real-life test (RLT), is a period of time or process in which transgender individuals live full-time in their identified gender role in order to be eligible to receive gender-affirming treatment. The purpose of the RLE has been to confirm that a given transgender person could function successfully as a member of said gender in society, as well as to confirm that they are sure they want to live as said gender for the rest of their life. A documented RLE was previously a requirement of many physicians before prescribing gender-affirming hormone therapy, and a requirement of most surgeons before performing gender-affirming surgery.
Alice Domurat Dreger is an American historian, bioethicist, author, and former professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, in Chicago, Illinois.
Transgender health care includes the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of physical and mental health conditions for transgender individuals. A major component of transgender health care is gender-affirming care, the medical aspect of gender transition. Questions implicated in transgender health care include gender variance, sex reassignment therapy, health risks, and access to healthcare for trans people in different countries around the world. Gender affirming health care can include psychological, medical, physical, and social behavioral care. The purpose of gender affirming care is to help a transgender individual conform to their desired gender identity.
The medicalisation of sexuality is the existence and growth of medical authority over sexual experiences and sensations. The medicalisation of sexuality is contributed to by the pharmaceutical industry, along with psychiatry, psychology, and biomedical sciences more generally.
Men Trapped in Men's Bodies: Narratives of Autogynephilic Transsexualism is a 2013 book on the subject of autogynephilia and transgender women written by sexologist Anne Lawrence. In the book, she discusses autogynephilia, a paraphilia in which a person is sexually attracted to and aroused by the thought or image of themselves as female. It is defined as an erotic target location error, as a self-directed form of gynephilia, and as a sexuoromantic orientation. Autogynephilia has been theorized by some academics, such as Lawrence, Ray Blanchard, and J. Michael Bailey, to be the motivating etiology for a subset of transgender women. It has also been theorized to be the cause of the feelings and behaviors of certain non-transgender males, including non-transitioning autogynephiles and erotic crossdressers ("transvestites"). In respect to the latter, transvestism has been defined as a subtype of autogynephilia. Lawrence herself is a transgender woman and self-identifies as autogynephilic. However, Blanchard's etiological typology of transgender women and autogynephilia are highly controversial subjects and are not accepted by many other transgender women and academics. The book was published in 2013 by Springer in New York.
Anne A. Lawrence, MD, PhD, is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Lethbridge, AB, Canada. She is the author of Men Trapped in Men's Bodies: Narratives of Autogynephilic Transsexualism (Springer, 2013) and over 50 book chapters, research studies, review articles, and commentaries concerning gender identity disorders and paraphilias.
As you may imagine, I've done a great deal of reading about transsexualism over the past 30 years. But among all the books and papers I've read, one article stands out as having most influenced my thinking about transsexualism. When I first read it in 1994, I experienced a kind of epiphany. This article's initially unpromising title was "Clinical Observations and Systematic Studies of Autogynephilia." It was written by Ray Blanchard, a clinical psychologist at the Clarke Institute in Toronto.
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: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)Consultants: Dallas Denny MA, Domineco DiCeglie MD, Wolf Eicher MD, Jamison Green, Richard Green MD, Louis Gooren MD, Donald Laub MD, Anne Lawrence MD, Walter Meyer III MD, C. Christine Wheeler Ph.D