Men Trapped in Men's Bodies: Narratives of Autogynephilic Transsexualism

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 (sometimes called "crossdreamers") 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.

Men Trapped in Men's Bodies: Narratives of Autogynephilic Transsexualism is 242 pages in length and has 12 chapters. Its chapters include "Men Trapped in Men's Bodies", "Theory and Case Histories", "Narratives by Autogynephilic Transsexuals", "Confronting Autogynephilia", "Developmental Histories", "Manifestations of Autogynephilia", "Autogynephilia and Heterosexuality", "Sex with Men", "Other Aspects of Autogynephilic Sexuality", "Debating the Meaning of Autogynephilia", "Narratives by Nontranssexual Autogynephiles", and "Autogynephilic Transsexualism in Perspective". It includes 249 first-person narratives of autogynephilia by transgender women and 52 narratives of autogynephilia by non-transgender males (301 narratives in total) that were submitted to and collected by Lawrence. This followed earlier collections of the same kinds of narratives that Lawrence had published in 1999. Besides the book, Lawrence has published a number of literature reviews on autogynephilia.

The book has a similar title to a 1998 essay published by Lawrence in Transgender Tapestry called Men Trapped in Men's Bodies: An Introduction to the Concept of Autogynephilia and to a 1999 essay presented by Lawrence at the 16th Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA) symposium known as Men Trapped in Men's Bodies: Autogynephilic Eroticism as a Motive for Seeking Sex Reassignment. Both of these essays were also previously published on Lawrence's website,  in addition to her earlier 1999 collections of autogynephilia narratives. The book's title is also similar to the title of a chapter called Men Trapped in Men's Bodies in J. Michael Bailey's 2003 book, The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism, with this chapter title being inspired by and taking after the titles of Lawrence's earlier essays. The phrase "men trapped in men's bodies" refers to the fact that transgender women are often described as "women trapped in men's bodies", yet autogynephilic transgender women are said not to resemble women in terms of their behavioral characteristics and life histories but instead to be more similar to men in these areas and to have an intense desire to become women due to their autogynephilic feelings. Hence, these transgender women, relative to pretransition, could, in a sense, alternatively be described as "men trapped in men's bodies" per Lawrence. Ray Blanchard has stated that Lawrence initially startled even him with the phrase and the forthright titles of her essays.

Men Trapped in Men's Bodies: Narratives of Autogynephilic Transsexualism has received several published book reviews, including by psychologist Richard Lippa, psychiatrist Stephen B. Levine, sexologist Kevin Hsu, psychologist Richard Carroll, and psychologist Margaret Nichols. It has been regarded by Ray Blanchard, who wrote the foreword of the book and developed the concept of autogynephilia, as the definitive text on the subject of autogynephilia. He has compared it favorably to Magnus Hirschfeld's classic 1910 work, Die Transvestiten: Eine Untersuchung über den Erotischen Verkleidungstrieb (Transvestites: The Erotic Drive to Cross-Dress).

Many transgender women reject autogynephilia as an explanation for their feelings and consider the concept to be offensive. Criticisms have been lobbied against the construct of autogynephilia on a variety of grounds. However, some people, most famously Lawrence herself, identify with autogynephilia and find that it accurately describes their experiences. That some individuals identify with autogynephilia is also evidenced by the 301 narratives of autogynephilia by transgender and non-transgender people that were submitted to and published by Lawrence.