-In a world where we don't _have_ magical perfect sex-change technology, but we _do_ have hormone replacement therapy and various surgical methods, you actually end up with _four_ clusters: females, males, masculinized females (a.k.a. trans men), and feminized males (a.k.a. trans women).
+In a world where we don't _have_ magical perfect sex-change technology, but we _do_ have hormone replacement therapy and various surgical methods, you actually end up with _four_ clusters: females (F), males (M), masculinized females a.k.a. trans men (FtM), and feminized males a.k.a. trans women (MtF). I _don't_ have a "clean" philosophical answer as to in what contexts one should prefer to use a {F, MtF}/{M, FtM} category system (treating trans people as their social gender) rather than a {F, FtM}/{M, MtF} system (considering trans people as their [developmental sex](/2019/Sep/terminology-proposal-developmental-sex/)), because that's a complicated semi-empirical, semi-value question about which aspects of reality are most relevant to what you're trying think about in that context. But I do need _the language with which to write this paragraph_, which is about _modeling reality_, and not about marginalization or respect.
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+Something I have trouble reliably communicating about what I'm trying to do with this blog is that "I don't do policy." Almost everything I write is _at least_ one meta level up from any actual decisions. I'm _not_ trying to tell other people in detail how they should live their lives, because obviously I'm not smart enough to do that and get the right answer. I'm _not_ telling anyone to detransition. I'm _not_ trying to set government policy about locker rooms or medical treatments. I have trans friends, who I love and envy; I want them to be safe and have their names and body mods and more.
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+The thing I'm objecting to is this _culture of narcissistic Orwellian mind games_ that thinks people have the right to _dictate other people's model of reality_. I don't know what the _right_ culture is, but I'm pretty sure that _this ain't it, chief_.
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+Some trans woman on Twitter posted an anecdote complaining that the receptionist at her place of work compared her to a male celebrity. "I look like this today [photo]; how could anyone think that was a remotely acceptable thing to say?"
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+It _is_ genuinely sad that the author of those Tweets didn't get perceived the way she would prefer! But the thing I want her to understand is—
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+_It was a compliment!_ It seems overwhelmingly likely that that poor receptionist was thinking of [David Bowie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bowie) or [Eddie Izzard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Izzard), rather than being hateful and trying to hurt. People can recognize sex from facial structure at 96% accuracy, remember?
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+I want a shared cultural understanding that the _correct_ way to ameliorate the genuine sadness of people not being perceived the way they prefer is _better and cheaper facial feminization surgery_, not _emotionally blackmailing people out of their ability to report what they see_.
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+In a world where surgery is expensive, but people desperately want to change sex, there's an incentive gradient in the direction of re-engineering the culture to bind our shared concept of "gender" (the social perception of sex) onto things like [ornamental clothing](http://thetranswidow.com/2021/02/18/womens-clothing-is-always-drag-even-on-women/) that are easier to change than secondary sex characteristics.
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+But [_the utility function is not up for grabs._](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6ddcsdA2c2XpNpE5x/newcomb-s-problem-and-regret-of-rationality) I don't _want_ to reliniqush my ability to notice what women's faces look like, even if that means noticing that mine isn't, even if that seems vaguely disappointing due to an idiosyncracy in my socio-sexual development; I don't want people to have to _doublethink around their perceptions of me_.