Autogynophilia (AGP) is a debunked pseudo-science concept that trans women are motivated to transition primarily as a sexual fetish, and Mike White confirmed on a podcast with the anti-trans conservative Andrew Sullivan that the Sam Rockwell monologue in s03e05 is autogynophilic.
Here is a clip from the podcast on Reddit: old.reddit.com/…/creator_of_white_lotus_mike_whit…
For more about autogynophilia: …substack.com/…/autogynephilia-junk-science-and-p…
(and her post on the White Lotus episode before Mike White went on to confirm he meant to reference AGP)
This comes after Mike White removed a scene mentioning a non-binary character from the show after Trump won the election:
“You originally found out that her daughter was actually nonbinary, maybe trans, and going by they/them,” Coon said. “You see Laurie struggling to explain it to her friends, struggling to use they/them pronouns, struggling with the language, which was all interesting.”
“It was only a short scene, but for me, it did make the question of whether Kate voted for Trump so much more provocative and personally offensive to Laurie, considering who her child is in the world,” Coon added.
According to the actor, Trump’s re-election made series creator Mike White hesitate about including that character detail in the final cut.
“The season was written before the election. And considering the way the Trump administration has weaponized the cultural war against transgender people even more since then, when the time came to cut the episode down, Mike felt that the scene was so small and the topic so big that it wasn’t the right way to engage in that conversation,” Coon continued.
Coon also said that White handles his characters with nuance: “They’re not just one thing.”
The anti-trans movement claims White Lotus is helping push AGP into the public consciousness, and are trying to use the moment to promote the theory that trans women are just fetishists.