Diane Frank is a American crossdressing activist. Frank was Director of Outreach and Communications for the Alpha Omega Society AOS), a group which split from Tri-Ess, a national crossdressing group. AOS became inactive in 2005.
The Man Who Would Be Queen
In 2003 Frank was quoted on the Joseph Henry Press site promoting anti-trans book The Man Who Would Be Queen, though the full comments are much more reflective of Frank’s views:
Mike Bailey has finally published his book “The Man Who Would be Queen”. Drawing heavily on Blanchard (see above), Bailey describes in a readable form a theory that works as follows: Boys who are feminine will mostly grow up to be gay, and a few will become what I’ll call transkids. These transkids often go through a ‘gay boy’ phase before seeking to transition. Like gay men, these people who seek sex changes early in life are promiscuous, or “boy crazy” in one observer’s mind. They also seek to become exotically beautiful women and seek heterosexual men as partners. To the extent that so many of these kids are throw aways whose parents cannot face their gender differences, Bailey may be again confusing cause and effect when he talks about promiscuity, sex work and the like in these cases. But it is clear that he does not regard them wholly as women. (According to one ex-trans kid I’ve corresponded with, they don’t care!) Boys who are not particularly feminine discover crossdressing at puberty, and it is an erotic turn on. For some the turn on becomes focused on the idea of actually having a woman’s body, although Bailey cites examples of fantasies about being in a women’s knitting circle as being in this category as well. Blanchard called this kind of eroticism ‘autogynephilia’. Few people like this transition early in life, instead they attempt to cope with a forbidden eroticism, get conventional jobs, marry, have children and so forth. Some will, in middle age find themselves unable to cope with the accumulated desires and ideation and find it impossible to live further as men. Thus, one kind of transsexuality is related to ‘gayness’, while another kind is related to a sexual kink shared with ‘heterosexual crossdressers’. In either case he believes the cause is not a question of moral weakness or bad parenting, but instead is the result of variations in brain development. In other words, it’s not anyone’s fault.
Bailey is not unsympathetic to the plight of either kind, and states emphatically and forcefully that old notions of morality do nothing to help the individuals or improve the situation. He believes the distress caused by these conditions is real, and some people can and should be treated by sexual reassignment. He also notes that the general public finds ‘homosexual transsexuals’ understandable and is generally sympathetic to them, while not understanding and being totally unsympathetic to either crossdressers or late transitioning transsexual’s alleged sexual motivation. He is also emphatic about not believing stories from late transitioning transsexuals or heterosexual crossdressers that don’t acknowledge autogynephilia as part of their being.
I’ll keep my comments brief on this right now: While Bailey and Blanchard are correct in recognizing the existence of ‘autogenyphilia’ as a possible sometime motivator for some late transitioning transsexuals and some heterosexual crossdressers, they confuse cause and effect. We know that there is massive rewiring of the during adolescence. The question of which comes first at this point, identification with the other gender and then a variant eroticism or variant eroticism followed by identification with the other gender. This is a difficult question and I suspect that the answer is that both occur. The other point that Blanchard, Bailey and the rest seem to willfully overlook is about outcomes. Face it, marriages generally don’t occur in Western Societies where people pick their own mates because of sincere devotion, admiration, understanding and mutual respect…and sex comes along as the caboose on the train. We live in a sex saturated society because the sex drive does come first…but out of it come devoted couples who admire, understand and respect each other. Thus the real question isn’t so much why or about categories, but what circumstances can create positive outcomes from these variations, just as we expect positive outcomes from typical heterosexuality? So much of human experience rises from the muck. What we should look for are the transcendent outcomes that show paths to being better people.
In August, Frank sent this follow-up note:
I got a rather snarky reply from Mautner…but they’ve pulled our quote from the website…I had suggested that if they really wanted the proper context for quoting me they should substitute as follows:
If you really must quote us, how about “yet another version of the idea that crossdressing is only and always about sexuality (and transsexuality is just an extreme version of it), presented as if it were based on science but lacking a scientific foundation. Read it so you know what you’ll have to deal with”
Abnormal Psychology
Ms. Frank also excerpted relevant passages from a common anti-trans textbook taught in American colleges at the time: Abnormal Psychology and Modern Life (11th Edition)
authors:
- Robert C. Carson (Duke U. Psychology Emeritus)
- James Neal Butcher (U. of Minnesota Psychologist and a major player in the MMPI)
- Susan Mineka (another Northwestern U. Psychologist)
References
Frank, Diane (2004). Psychiatric Writings. http://www.aosoc.org/Webmistress_Choices/psychiatric_writings.htm [archive]
Resources
The Alpha Omega Society (aosoc.org) [2003–2005 – archive]
- Abnormal Psychology and Modern Life excerpts
- http://www.aosoc.org/Webmistress_Choices/AbnormalPsychandModernLife.htm [archive]