Buckle up for evolutionary psychology without guardrails. Diana Fleischman tackles the questions everyone thinks but nobody asks: Why do women feel visceral disgust at pregnant “transmen”? Why did #MeToo accidentally break dating? Could autogynephilia be men trying to psychologically "hunt" women? A polyamorous mother of two who openly advocates eugenics, Fleischman brings hard science to our softest taboos. She explains why your disgust reflexes know things your politics don't, why patriarchy might be "the natural order," and how millions of years of evolution shape today's gender wars. No apologies, no euphemisms - just data that nobody wants to hear.
About Diana Fleischman
Diana Fleischman is an American evolutionary psychologist and Associate Research Professor at the University of New Mexico. After earning her PhD from UT Austin under David Buss, she spent nearly a decade at the University of Portsmouth teaching human sexuality. Her groundbreaking research on disgust sensitivity - showing that women evolved heightened disgust as a disease-avoidance mechanism - has garnered over 2,100 citations and reshaped understanding of sex differences.
Currently hosting the Aporia Magazine podcast and writing the Substack "Dissentient," Fleischman applies evolutionary psychology to controversial topics. A mother of two young children and practicing polyamorist married to fellow evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller, she advocates for genetic enhancement and open discussion of taboo scientific topics.
The Science of Disgust and Gender Nonconformity
Opening with a discussion of the controversial Rind study on age of consent, Fleischman quickly pivots to her specialty: disgust. "Disgust evolved to keep us away from maladaptive behavior," she explains, breaking down three types - pathogen disgust, sexual disgust, and moral disgust - all of which converge in reactions to gender nonconformity.
When Mia admits feeling "visceral disgust" at seeing pregnant “transmen”, Fleischman provides a multi-layered evolutionary explanation: the visual abnormality of a "pregnant man" triggers pathogen disgust, while concerns about testosterone exposure to the fetus activate moral disgust. She notes that throughout history, androgyny has signaled illness or infertility - explaining why "a woman who has a full beard" triggers disgust responses.
Women's Anti-Rape Defenses and Single-Sex Spaces
Fleischman argues that women's discomfort with “transwomen” in female spaces stems from evolved anti-rape defenses rather than simple prejudice. "What is a woman's most nightmarish fantasy? Stranger rape," she explains, noting how this "uniquely horrifying" scenario scrambles genes with an unknown male, likely someone with "psychopathic or sociopathic tendencies."
She connects this to autogynephiles in women's spaces: "Women are more disgusted...they're men who are demonstrating a mental illness." Unlike men who can simply avoid unwanted advances, women must actively avoid potentially dangerous males - explaining the intensity of the disgust response. Drawing on rape's prevalence throughout evolutionary history (citing Genghis Khan's genetic legacy), she argues these defenses remain powerfully active today.
The #MeToo Backlash and Modern Dating
Discussing how #MeToo may have damaged young people's ability to form relationships, Fleischman suggests the movement went too far by making "men who make unwanted sexual advances deeply immoral." She notes the hypocrisy of conferences banning dating between attendees when organizers themselves met their spouses at such events - "pulling the ladder up" after benefiting.
Technology compounds the problem: "You have to have a lot of bad conversations before you learn how to have good conversations," but constant device use prevents the boredom necessary for social experimentation. Combined with society increasingly devaluing partnerships and children, she worries we're creating barriers to the very relationships that ground young people and might prevent them from "tumbling into that abyss" of gender confusion.
Evolutionary Psychology vs. Feminist Views on Gender
Fleischman presents patriarchy as "mostly the natural order" based on evolutionary pressures, noting that high-status men throughout history gained reproductive advantages. She cites research on mathematically gifted individuals showing that even with identical abilities, only 17% of women versus 40% of men would work over 40 hours weekly at their ideal job.
"Culture is downstream of evolved human psychology," she argues, explaining why women prioritize family and health while men prioritize "getting ahead." She challenges feminist dismissal of gender roles, pointing to consistent patterns across cultures - from Indian women's identical daily routines to the universal protection of women as "reproductive assets."
The Ken Zucker Controversy and Managing Gender Dysphoria
Fleischman defends aspects of Ken Zucker's approach to childhood gender dysphoria, suggesting that for extreme cases - boys insisting "I'm a girl, I want to be a mommy" - enforcing gender norms might prevent future misery. "Six months of him being miserable...is better than having dysphoria," she argues, while acknowledging this applies to only a small subset of gender nonconforming children.
However, she recognizes the approach's limitations for children likely to be gay: "He will one day grow up to be a very feminine gay man. And if you hassle him out of this, you're creating a needless mess." She wonders if gender dysphoria itself is culturally created - would boys who wear dresses simply grow up to be gay men if the trans option didn't exist?
The Evolutionary Puzzle of Paraphilias
In a fascinating final discussion, Fleischman proposes that autogynephilia represents an extreme version of men trying to understand women - like indigenous hunters wearing animal skins to better predict prey behavior. "Paraphilias are almost always like turning something that's normal up to 11," she explains.
She suggests sexual arousal acts as a "supercharged learning mechanism" that can create unusual fixations, from autogynephilia to apotemnophilia (arousal from amputation). This mechanism may explain how men progress through increasingly extreme pornography, sometimes developing attractions to “transwomen” who "tend to be more sexually experimental" due to their "masculine sexual psychology."
Follow Diana Fleischman
Website: dianafleischman.com
Substack:
Article: "You're Probably a Eugenicist"
Podcast: Aporia Magazine
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