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Zack M. Davis / “Mark Taylor Saotome-Westlake” and transgender people

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Zack M. Davis is an American “autogynephilia” activist. Davis initially wrote under the pseudonym “Mark Taylor Saotome-Westlake.”

Background

Davis is part of the so-called “rationalist” and evolutionary psychology movements. At age 18, in 2006, Davis happened across the “autogynephilia” article on Wikipedia which had been started by “autogynephilia” activist Hontas Farmer in June:

On 6 August 2006 (I was eighteen years old), while browsing Wikipedia (likely the 31 July revision of what is now the “Blanchard’s transsexualism typology” article?), I came across the word autogynephilia for the first time, and immediately recognized that this was the word; this was the word for my thing.

I didn’t know it was supposed to be controversial, and was actually surprised that it had been coined in the context of a theory of transsexualism; I had never had any reason to come up with any ludicrous rationalizations that I was somehow literally a girl in some unspecified metaphysical sense.

I wrote in my notebook:

THERE’S A WORD FOR IT. There’s a word for it. I don’t know whether to be happy that there’s an adjective for what I have, or sad that other men have it, & that it’s not mine, & only mine. Bless Wikipedia for showing me […] But still, after all emotions have fitted themselves away, there is the word. “Autogynephilia.” So simple; I know all the foreign roots; I should have thought of it. “Autogynephilic.” That’s what I am.

The revelatory nature of learning the shibboleth has been documented by other “autogynephilia” activists like Anne Lawrence (they often talk of finding themselves in the word), who went on to proselytize for the diagnosis with similar zeal.

Davis is a thoughtful and prolific writer who began a personal blog in 2011 that continues through discovery of the diagnosis “autogynephilia.” In it, Davis documents extensive efforts to evangelize for adopting the term.

Selected writing by Davis

Davis, Zack M. (December 18, 2023). Reply to Scott Alexander on Autogenderphilia. The Scintillating But Ultimately Untrue Thought http://unremediatedgender.space/2023/Dec/reply-to-scott-alexander-on-autogenderphilia/

Davis, Zack M. (July 8, 2023). Blanchard’s Dangerous Idea and the Plight of the Lucid Crossdreamer. LessWrong https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RxxqPH3WffQv6ESxj/blanchard-s-dangerous-idea-and-the-plight-of-the-lucid

Davis, Zack M. (May 2, 2021). Sexual Dimorphism in Yudkowsky’s Sequences, in Relation to My Gender Problems. The Scintillating But Ultimately Untrue Thought http://unremediatedgender.space/2021/May/sexual-dimorphism-in-the-sequences-in-relation-to-my-gender-problems/

Davis, Zack M. (April 28, 2020). Book Review: Charles Murray’s Human Diversity: The Biology of Gender, Race, and Class. The Scintillating But Ultimately Untrue Thought http://unremediatedgender.space/2020/Apr/book-review-human-diversity/

Davis, Zack M. (December 20, 2019). Reply to Ozymandias on Fully Consensual Gender. The Scintillating But Ultimately Untrue Thought http://unremediatedgender.space/2019/Dec/reply-to-ozymandias-on-fully-consensual-gender/

Davis, Zack M. (October 6, 2019). Self-Identity Is a Schelling Point. The Scintillating But Ultimately Untrue Thought http://unremediatedgender.space/2019/Oct/self-identity-is-a-schelling-point/

Davis, Zack M. (August 11, 2019). The Social Construction of Reality and the Sheer Goddamned Pointlessness of Reason. The Scintillating But Ultimately Untrue Thought http://unremediatedgender.space/2019/Aug/the-social-construction-of-reality-and-the-sheer-goddamned-pointlessness-of-reason/

Davis, Zack M. (April 19, 2018). Reply to The Unit of Caring on Adult Human Females. The Scintillating But Ultimately Untrue Thought http://unremediatedgender.space/2018/Apr/reply-to-the-unit-of-caring-on-adult-human-females/

Davis, Zack M. (February 23, 2018). The Categories Were Made for Man to Make Predictions. The Scintillating But Ultimately Untrue Thought http://unremediatedgender.space/2018/Feb/the-categories-were-made-for-man-to-make-predictions/

Davis, Zack M. (January 23, 2018). Don’t Negotiate With Terrorist Memeplexes. The Scintillating But Ultimately Untrue Thought http://unremediatedgender.space/2018/Jan/dont-negotiate-with-terrorist-memeplexes/

Davis, Zack M. (February 5, 2017). A Beacon Through the Darkness; Or, Getting It Right the First Time. The Scintillating But Ultimately Untrue Thought http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Feb/a-beacon-through-the-darkness-or-getting-it-right-the-first-time/

Davis, Zack M. (October 1, 2016). Reply to Ozymandias on Autogynephilia. The Scintillating But Ultimately Untrue Thought http://unremediatedgender.space/2016/Oct/reply-to-ozy-on-agp/

Davis, Zack M. (September 5, 2016). Psychology Is About Invalidating People’s Identities. The Scintillating But Ultimately Untrue Thought http://unremediatedgender.space/2016/Sep/psychology-is-about-invalidating-peoples-identities/

Media

“Phil Illy” with Zack M. Davis (July 15, 2024). Autogynephilia and Epistemic Despair— Zack M. Davis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJVXq3kJvw

Resources

Zack M. Davis (zackmdavis.net)

The Scintillating But Ultimately Untrue Thought (unremediatedgender.space)

GitHub (github.com)

LessWrong (lesswrong.com)

X/Twitter (x.com)

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

Facebook (facebook.com)

Note: This site previously attributed writing by Davis to “autogynephilia” activist Michael McClure. This site regrets the error.