+But what was in question wasn't the observations of Hans's performance, only the interpretation of what those observations implied about Hans's psychology. As Pfungst put it: "that was looked for in the animal which should have been sought in the man."
+
+[TODO: the skeptical family friend's view—
+ * Similarly, in the case of the trans three-year-old, the skeptical family friend doesn't need to doubt that the child said "I'm a girl" and that it wasn't explicitly coached
+ * kid not having being told that boys are the ones with penises
+ * It's really salient that the grownups in the child's life are treating the gender assertion differently than everything else; "I'm a girl and I'm a vegetarian"
+ * Felix Fix-It, Jr. anecdote
+ * lemon anecdote
+ * fascination with forklifts at the same time the pronoun change is going on, but with wisdom of previous generations, and d=2.44 in the literature, has no weight
+ * http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2020/02/relationship-outcomes-are-not-particularly-sensitive-to-small-variations-in-verbal-ability/
+]
+
+Anyway, that's just a hypothesis that occured to me in early 2020, about something that _could_ happen in the culture of the current year, hypothetically, as far as I know. I'm not a parent and I'm not an expert on child development. And even if the "Clever Hans" etiological pathway I conjectured is real, the extent to which it might apply to any particular case is complex; you could imagine a kid who _was_ "actually trans", whose social transition merely happened earlier than it otherwise would have due to these dynamics.
+
+For some reason, it seemed important that I draft a Document about it with lots of citations to send to a few friends. If I get around to it, I might clean it up and publish it as a public blog post (working title: "Trans Kids on the Margin; and, Harms from Misleading Training Data"), but for some reason, that didn't seem as pressing.
+
+I put an epigraph at the top:
+
+> If you love someone, tell them the truth.
+>
+> —Anonymous
+
+Given that I spent so many hours on this little research and writing project in May–July 2020, I think it makes sense for me to mention it at this point in my memoir, where it fits in chronologically. I have an inalienable right to talk about my own research interests, and talking about my research interests obviously doesn't violate any norm against leaking private information about someone else's family, or criticizing someone else's parenting decisions.
+
+(Only—[you two have such beautiful children](/2023/Nov/hrunkner-unnerby-and-the-shallowness-of-progress/)!)