The transgender macrophile: Case report of erotic target identity inversion
Case report of a natal male macrophile who fantasizes about being a fantastical, giant woman, and has actually transitioned to being female, likely motivated by an erotic target identity inversion.
📖 Background
For background on internalized sexual attraction in general and its manifestation in macrophilia in particular, read the previous case report.
➤ Introduction
It has been hypothesized that for each class of erotic targets of men’s sexual attraction, be they “usual” (i.e. women) or “unusual” (e.g. amputees, children, other men), there will be a subset of men who have an internalized sexual attraction, meaning they become aroused by imagining they are their erotic target.1
In the case of macrophilia, the paraphilia where men typically have a sexual fascination with fantastical, giant women, the subset of them who have the internalized form of sexual attraction—automacrophilia—are aroused by imagining themselves as the giantesses they are fascinated with. I previously reported a case of automacrophilia in a Brazilian man, linked above.
In men who have internalized forms of sexual attraction, there is a further subset of them who experience a sustained wish to change their bodies to make them more similar to the internal erotic target. They also experience a dissatisfaction with their body’s dissimilarity to that target. This phenomenon is more properly called an erotic target identity inversion, as the people who experience it come to identify with their internal erotic target, even in nonsexual contexts.2
For example, in men who are sexually attracted to women, a subset is also aroused by the idea of being a woman (internalized sexual attraction), and a further subset also experiences gender dysphoria (erotic target identity inversion): the sustained wish to transition to being female and an associated dissatisfaction with being male. Likewise, in men who are sexually attracted to amputees, a subset is also aroused by the idea of being an amputee, and a further subset also experiences body integrity dysphoria: the sustained wish to amputate a limb and an associated dissatisfaction with the body’s integrity.3
This case report describes an erotic target identity inversion in macrophilia. The subject is a natal male who discovered in his early adolescence that he has a sexual fascination with giantesses. Shortly after, he discovered he had the internalized form of attraction—automacrophilia—as he was aroused by the idea of being a giantess himself. Over the years, his identification with his online giantess persona grew so strong that it felt more real to him than his reality of being male. This played an important part in his decision to transition to being female so he could better align his reality with his imaginary persona.
This observation adds to the evidence supporting the theory that for every given class of men’s erotic targets, a subset of them have a sufficiently strong internalized sexual attraction that it becomes an erotic target identity inversion.4
📝 Case report
Nancy, previously Nathan (fictitious names), is a 26-year-old white natal male from the United States who currently identifies as female. She reports realizing she was transgender in the year preceding this account. For the sake of clarity, I use male pronouns and refer to Nathan in describing the period prior to the adoption of a female identity, and I use female pronouns and refer to Nancy for the period after.
Nathan grew up with a sexual fascination for fantastical, giant women—giantesses, as they are called. He was introduced to them when he was 13 years old through movies that depicted people of gigantic size, such as the 2009 animation Monsters vs. Aliens. He discovered he was sexually aroused by imagining giantesses, and he developed an interest in media that catered to this erotic interest, depicting tiny men interacting with giant women.
As time passed, Nathan realized he was aroused by the idea of being a giantess himself. This idea was erotic on its own, and his fantasy did not need to involve other participants. Thus, Nathan had the internalized form of macrophilia: automacrophilia. When he was 16 years old, he decided to start “pretending” to be a giantess in online roleplaying forums that catered to macrophiles.
At first, Nathan wanted to interact with other giantess characters while he played such a role himself, but it was impossible for him to find partners for this kind of roleplay. For this reason, he had to content himself with interacting with other macrophiles who played the role of regular-sized or tiny men. With time, this kind of roleplay became attractive to him as well.
Nathan felt bad about these online interactions as he thought he was “catfishing” the other men he roleplayed with by not telling them he was actually a man. He felt as though he was “tricking” them. After some years, Nathan became “more serious” with his fantasy of being a giantess, and his roleplaying habits developed into an online “persona”. He often imagined what it would be like if he did not have to pretend to be a giantess—meaning, he wished he were a real woman who could operate in these online spaces without “tricking” the people he interacted with.
With time, Nathan’s online giantess persona began to feel “more real” to him than his reality of being a man. He recounts an interaction with a transgender woman online who told him that his roleplaying was “so good that she wouldn’t have guessed [he] wasn’t a real woman”. Nathan was pleased to hear this. The ensuing conversation ultimately led to his contemplation of a transgender identity. Nathan “ran the idea” by his best friend, and she told him it made “total sense” to her.
In retrospect, Nathan says he was noticeably effeminate as a man and always felt like he was acting “manlier” than he wanted to be just to “fit a role” he was told to have. Although he felt “content” with his gender, he was not “comfortable” with it. He never liked his body but he believed it was due to his dissatisfaction with body weight.
Nathan was raised in a strict, religious, conservative household, so his period of gender exploration was kept secret. He grew up with the belief that being transgender was sinful and wrong, a belief he himself held for most of his teenage years and early 20s that prevented him from ever considering being transgender. He eventually left the religion, and his gender exploration ultimately led to his adoption of a transgender identity. “Something just clicked,” he says, as his online female persona became his personality.
Nathan became Nancy, and she came out as transgender to numerous people in her life in the six months preceding this account. As of the time of writing, she has been medically transitioning for three months, taking 2 mg of oral estradiol daily, obtained through a nonprofit organization. Nancy also plans on getting gender-affirming surgeries: vaginoplasty and perhaps facial feminization surgery, if the opportunity arises.
Nancy never experienced significant gender dysphoria, which makes her often doubt herself. She did not wish to go into the details of this doubt and what she attributes it to, but she believes that gender dysphoria is not necessary for one to be transgender.
Nowadays, Nancy’s erotic fantasies are exclusively about being a giantess, unless she finds another person who is “really, really good” at playing the character of a giantess. On such a rare occasion, Nancy fantasizes about being a regular-sized person, but always as a female. She never really enjoyed roleplaying as a regular-sized male. She says she tried it once but she hated it, as it did not “feel right”.
It is not obvious to Nancy herself why she always liked roleplaying as a female throughout the years but never questioned her gender identity until recently. She says she was never aroused by pretending to be female per se, but what aroused her was specifically the idea of being a giant woman. In other words, the element of size was a necessary factor for sexual arousal.
Nancy has always been strictly attracted to women only, but she reports she is currently “opening up to being slightly bisexual”. She finds some male giants attractive, but it happens rarely. Nancy infrequently experiences the desire to have sex with others. To her recollection, she only felt the desire for intercourse once. She says it is only when she has an emotional connection with a person that she feels aroused by the thought of sexual contact. This makes her wonder if she is asexual—lacking sexual attraction to others. She is currently actively looking for a partner.
Nancy’s religious beliefs prohibited sex before marriage, and she has experienced very limited sexual contact with others in real life. Her sexuality is prominently focused on macrophilia. The pornographic media she consumes is almost exclusively macrophilic. She does not believe she has ever watched or been aroused by “conventional” pornography, with the sole exception of lesbian pornography, which elicits arousal comparable to that evoked by macrophilic media.
Nancy reports she does not experience sexual arousal from the idea of being female per se, but she does experience “euphoria”, which she describes as “an intense, joyful feeling that’s almost like butterflies in your stomach and is related to doing things that match your gender identity”. She had never worn feminine clothes until recently, and she reports she was not aroused by the outfits she tried so far.
While the idea of cross-dressing is not erotic to her per se, she is aroused by the more specific idea of cosplaying as one of the many giantess characters in comic books and manga. Although she has not tried it yet, she plans on exploring the idea in the future as she becomes more comfortable in her body. Cosplaying as a fictional giantess will give her the feeling of being a giantess herself, simply by virtue of familiarity with the fictional character’s physical size. This is perhaps the closest analogue in automacrophilia to transvestism in autogynephilia.
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➡️ Further reading
You might also be interested in reading the results of my systematic study of internalized attraction and erotic target identity inversion in macrophilia.
Freund, Kurt, & Blanchard, Ray. (1993). Erotic Target Location Errors in Male Gender Dysphorics, Paedophiles, and Fetishists. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 162(4), 558–563.
Lawrence, Anne A. (2009). Erotic Target Location Errors: An Underappreciated Paraphilic Dimension. Journal of Sex Research, 46(2-3), 194–215.
Lawrence, Anne A. (2006). Clinical and Theoretical Parallels Between Desire for Limb Amputation and Gender Identity Disorder. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 35(3), 263–278.
Bailey, J. Michael, Hsu, Kevin J., & Jang, Henry H. (2023). Elaborating and Testing Erotic Target Identity Inversion Theory in Three Paraphilic Samples. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 1–19.