Another factor affecting the degree to which trans people form a more natural category with their identified gender than their natal physiological sex is the nature of transgenderedness itself. If gender dysphoria is caused by a brain-restricted intersex condition, such that trans people's psychology is much more typical of the other physiological sex—if the "woman trapped in a man's body" trope is basically accurate—that would tend to weigh in favor of accepting transgender identity claims: trans women would be "coming from the same place" as natal women in a very literal psychological sense, despite their natal physiology.
-On the other hand, if gender dysphoria is caused by something else, that would tend to weigh against accepting transgender identity claims: however strongly felt trans people's _subjective_ sense of gender identity might be, if the mechanism underlying that feeling actually has nothing in particular in common with anything people of the identified-with sex feel, it becomes relatively more tempting to classify the subjective sense of gender identity as an illusion, rather than the joint in reality around which everyone needs to carve their gender categories. (It [shouldn't be surprising](/2016/Sep/psychology-is-about-invalidating-peoples-identities) that people can be mistaken about the nature of their subjective experiences. A trans man who reports knowing himself to be a man is expressing the _hypothesis_ that his subjective experience is the same as that of typical natal males in the relevant aspects, but this is an empirical claim that could be falsified by sufficiently advanced neuroscience.)
+On the other hand, if gender dysphoria is caused by something else, that would tend to weigh against accepting transgender identity claims: however strongly felt trans people's _subjective_ sense of gender identity might be, if the mechanism underlying that feeling actually has nothing in particular in common with anything people of the identified-with sex feel, it becomes relatively more tempting to classify the subjective sense of gender identity as an illusion, rather than the joint in reality around which everyone needs to carve their gender categories.[ref]It [shouldn't be surprising](/2016/Sep/psychology-is-about-invalidating-peoples-identities) that people can be mistaken about the nature of their subjective experiences. A trans man who reports knowing himself to be a man is expressing the _hypothesis_ that his subjective experience is the same as that of typical natal males in the relevant aspects, but this is an empirical claim that could be falsified by sufficiently advanced neuroscience.[/ref]
Of course, the phrasing _If gender dysphoria is caused by ..._ implies that we're considering _gender dysphoria_ as one category to reason about homogeneously. But different people might want to transition for very different underlying psychological reasons. What categories we use may not be a question of simple fact that we can get wrong, but if, empirically, there happens to be a sufficiently robust statistical structure to the simple facts of the cases—if some people want to transition for reason _A_ and tend to have traits _W_ and _X_, but others want to transition for reason _B_ and have traits _Y_ and _Z_—then aspiring epistemic rationalists may find it useful to distinguish multiple, distinct psychological conditions that all happen to cause gender dysphoria as a symptom.
-Analogously, in medicine, many different pathogens can cause the same symptoms (_e.g._, sneezing, or fever), but doctors care about distinguishing different illnesses by etiology, not just symptoms, because distinct physical mechanisms can give rise to distinct treatment decisions, if not immediately, then at least in principle. (For example, a bacterial illness will respond to antibiotics, but a viral one won't—or today's treatments might be equally effective against two different species of bacteria, but future drugs might work better on one or the other.)
+Analogously, in medicine, many different pathogens can cause the same symptoms (_e.g._, sneezing, or fever), but doctors care about distinguishing different illnesses by etiology, not just symptoms, because distinct physical mechanisms can give rise to distinct treatment decisions, if not immediately, then at least in principle. For example, a bacterial illness will respond to antibiotics, but a viral one won't—or today's treatments might be equally effective against two different species of bacteria, but future drugs might work better on one or the other.
-_As it happens_, (I claim that) the evidence that gender dysphoria comprises more than one etiologically distinct condition is quite strong. For the rest of this post, I'm going to focus on the male-to-female case for reasons of personal interest[ref]See many other [posts](/2017/Feb/a-beacon-through-the-darkness-or-getting-it-right-the-first-time/) [on](/2017/Jan/the-erotic-target-location-gift/) [this](/2017/Dec/a-common-misunderstanding-or-the-spirit-of-the-staircase-24-january-2009/) [blog](/2016/Nov/chromatic-key/).[/ref], quality of available research [ref]The etiology of trans men is less well-researched than that of trans women—and the [distribution may be changing](http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2017/09/13/trans_youth_clinics_are_seeing_more_trans_boys_than_before_why.html).[/ref], and societal impact [ref]Which I would claim is asymmetric between MtF and FtM for several reasons.[/ref]. An analysis of the female-to-male situation would be similar in many respects but different in others, and is left to the interested reader.
+_As it happens_, (I claim that) the evidence that gender dysphoria comprises more than one etiologically distinct condition is quite strong. For the rest of this post, I'm going to focus on the male-to-female case for reasons of personal interest,[ref]See many other [posts](/2017/Feb/a-beacon-through-the-darkness-or-getting-it-right-the-first-time/) [on](/2017/Jan/the-erotic-target-location-gift/) [this](/2017/Dec/a-common-misunderstanding-or-the-spirit-of-the-staircase-24-january-2009/) [blog](/2016/Nov/chromatic-key/).[/ref] quality of available research,[ref]The etiology of trans men is less well-researched than that of trans women: while there is a gynephilic group whose blurry etiological boundary with butch lesbians looks is a fairly straightforward analogue of the relationship between androphilic trans women and feminine gay men, it's less clear whether autoandrophilia plays the same role as autogynephilia does in the male-to-female case—and the [distribution may be changing in recent years](http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2017/09/13/trans_youth_clinics_are_seeing_more_trans_boys_than_before_why.html).[/ref] and because no one cares about trans men.[ref]Less glibly: discussions of the social implications of transgenderedness tend to focus on trans women, likely because trans men tend to pass better, and because insofar as the intended purpose of many sex-segregated social contexts is to protect females from males, biologically-female trans men aren't perceived as a threat: natal men are assumed to be able to take care of their own interests.[/ref] An analysis of the female-to-male situation would be similar in many respects but different in others, and is left to the interested reader.
A minority of male-to-female transsexuals exhibit lifelong sex-atypical behavior and interests, are attracted to men[ref]_N.b._, the typical female sexual orientation[/ref], and transition early in life (typically no later than their early twenties). Essentially, these are physiological males whose psychology is so far outside of the male normal range along so many dimensions that they find themselves more comfortable and socially successful living as women rather than as extremely effeminate gay men. This likely _is_ a brain-intersex condition: [along with non-gender-dysphoric gay men](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraternal_birth_order_and_male_sexual_orientation), they [have a statistical preponderance of older brothers](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10508-011-9777-6) which is [theorized to be due to the mother's immune system response to male fetuses affecting the development of later pregnancies](http://www.pnas.org/content/115/2/302).
A review of the empirical evidence for the two-type taxonomy is beyond the scope of this post. To interested or skeptical readers who only have time to read one paper, I recommend Lawrence's ["Autogynephilia and the Typology of Male-to-Female Transsexualism: Concepts and Controversies"](http://unremediatedgender.space/papers/lawrence-agp_and_typology.pdf); for a more exhaustive treatment, see the first two chapters of Lawrence's monograph [_Men Trapped in Men's Bodies_](https://surveyanon.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/men-trapped-in-mens-bodies_book.pdf) or follow the links and citations in [Kay Brown's FAQ](https://sillyolme.wordpress.com/faq-on-the-science/).
-To avoid the main ideas of this post getting mired in _unnecessary_ controversy, I'd like to emphasize that it's possible to reject the hypothesis that autogynephilia is the _cause_ of the second type, while [still agreeing that](https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2017/04/18/against-blanchardianism/) there observationally seem to be _at least_ two types of trans women, with the late-onset/non-exclusively-androphilic type or types being less overtly feminine and not sharing the etiology of the early-onset/androphilic type.[ref]To be clear, I _do_ think autogynephilia has a causal role in late-onset gender dysphoria in males, but that can be left to other posts; arguments can only be strengthened by leaving out [burdensome details](http://lesswrong.com/lw/jk/burdensome_details/).[/ref] Between the statistical signal in the psychology literature (I again defer to [Brown's review](https://sillyolme.wordpress.com/faq-on-the-science/)), and studying the public biographies of trans women (the life-arcs of people like Jenner or [the Wachowski sisters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wachowskis) seem noticeably different from those of people like [Janet Mock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Mock) or [Laverne Cox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laverne_Cox)), I think this should be hard to dispute.
+To avoid the main ideas of this post getting mired in _unnecessary_ controversy, I'd like to emphasize that it's possible to reject the hypothesis that autogynephilia is the _cause_ of the second type, while [still agreeing that](https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2017/04/18/against-blanchardianism/) there observationally seem to be _at least_ two types of trans women, with the late-onset/non-exclusively-androphilic type or types being less overtly feminine and not sharing the etiology of the early-onset/androphilic type.[ref]To be clear, I _do_ think autogynephilia has a causal role in late-onset gender dysphoria in males, but that can be left to other posts; arguments can only be strengthened by leaving out [burdensome details](http://lesswrong.com/lw/jk/burdensome_details/).[/ref] Between the statistical signal in the psychology literature (I again defer to [Brown's review](https://sillyolme.wordpress.com/faq-on-the-science/)), and studying the public biographies of trans women (the life-arcs of people like Jenner or [the Wachowski sisters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wachowskis) seem noticeably different from those of people like [Janet Mock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Mock) or [Laverne Cox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laverne_Cox)), I think this is hard to dispute.
We _are_, however, supposing that the late-onset type or types is either not an intersex condition, or at _most_, a very mild one: we could perhaps imagine a gender identity "switch" in the brain that can get flipped around (explaining the eventual need to transition) without much affecting other sexually-dimorphic parts of the brain (explaining how transition could be delayed so long, and come as such a surprise to others).
To this it might be objected that there are many different types of women. Clusters can internally have many subclusters: Pureto Rican women (or married women, or young women, or lesbians, _&c_.) don't have the _same_ distribution of traits as women as a whole, and yet are still women. Why should "trans" be different from any other adjective one might use to specify a subcategory of women?
-What makes this difficult is that—supposing the two-types hypothesis is true and gender dysphoria in non-exclusively-androphilic biological males is mostly not an intersex condition—most trans women aren't just not part of the female cluster in configuration space, displaced from its center in some arbitrary direction. They're specifically part of _male_ cluster along most dimensions, which people _already_ have a concept for.
+What makes this difficult is that—_conditional_ the two-types hypothesis and specifically gender dysphoria in non-exclusively-androphilic biological males being mostly not an intersex condition—most trans women aren't just not part of the female cluster in configuration space; they're specifically part of _male_ cluster along most dimensions, which people _already_ have a concept for. This doesn't mean that we can't get away with classifying them as women—there's nothing _stopping_ us from drawing the category boundary however we want. But it isn't a costless, arbitrary choice—the concepts of _women_-as-defined-by-biological-sex, _women_-as-defined-by-self-identity, and _women_-as-defined-by-passing are picking out different (though of course mostly overlapping) regions of the configuration space, which has inescapable logical consequences on the kinds of inferences that can be made using each concept.
-<a href="/images/genderspace_cluster_choice.png"><img src="/images/genderspace_cluster_choice.png" width="479" height="379" alt="genderspace cluster choice"></a>
+<a href="/images/genderspace_cluster_choice.png"><img src="/images/genderspace_cluster_choice.png" width="532" height="421" alt="genderspace cluster choice"></a>
-In less tolerant places and decades, where MtF transsexuals were very rare and had to try very hard to pass as women out of dire necessity, their impact on the social order and how people think about gender was minimal—there were just too few trans people to make much of a difference. [This is why](/2018/Feb/blegg-mode/) experienced crossdressers often report it being easier to pass in rural or suburban areas rather than cities with a larger LGBT presence—not as a matter of tolerant social attitudes, but as a matter of _base rates_: it's harder to get [clocked](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=clocked&defid=4884301) by people who aren't aware that being trans is even a thing. (In [predictive processing](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-uncertainty/) terms: the prediction errors caused by observations of a trans woman failing to match the observer's generative model of (natal) women get silenced for lack of alternative hypotheses if "She's trans" isn't in the observer's hypothesis space.)
+In less tolerant places and decades, where MtF transsexuals were very rare and had to try very hard to pass as (natal) women out of dire necessity, their impact on the social order and how people think about gender was minimal—there were just too few trans people to make much of a difference. [This is why](/2018/Feb/blegg-mode/) experienced crossdressers often report it being easier to pass in rural or suburban areas rather than cities with a larger LGBT presence—not as a matter of tolerant social attitudes, but as a matter of _base rates_: it's harder to get [clocked](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=clocked&defid=4884301) by people who aren't aware that being trans is even a thing.[ref]In [predictive processing](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-uncertainty/) terms: the prediction errors caused by observations of a trans woman failing to match the observer's generative model of women get silenced for lack of alternative hypotheses if "She's trans" isn't in the observer's hypothesis space.[/ref]
Nowadays, in progressive enclaves of Western countries, transness is definitely known to be a thing—and in particular subcultures that form around [non-sex-balanced interests](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exaggerated-differences/), the numbers can be quite dramatic. For example, on the [2018 _Slate Star Codex_ reader survey](http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/03/ssc-survey-results-2018/), 9.4% of respondents selected _F (cisgender)_ for the gender question, compared to 1.4% of respondents selecting _F (transgender m → f)_. So, if trans women are women, _13.4%_ (!!) of women who read _Slate Star Codex_ are trans.
I can't say this causes any problems, because that would depend on how you choose to draw the category boundaries around what constitutes a "problem." But objectively, injecting a substantial fraction of otherwise-mostly-ordinary-but-for-their-gender-dysphoria natal males into spaces and roles that developed around the distribution of psychologies of natal females _is_ going to have consequences—consequences that some of the incumbent women might not be happy about.
-A (natal) female friend of the blog, a member of a very ["Blue Tribe"](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/) city's rationalist community (that is, basically the same group of people generating the _Slate Star Codex_ survey results just mentioned) reports on recent changes in local social norms—
+A (natal) female friend of the blog, a member of a very ["Blue Tribe"](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/) city's rationalist community[ref]_N.b._, basically the same group of people generating the _Slate Star Codex_ survey results just mentioned. Obviously, social circles not so heavily selected for the same [undefinable habits of thought](http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/04/the-ideology-is-not-the-movement/) will have much less bizarre trans-to-natal-women ratios.[/ref] reports on recent changes in local social norms—
> There have been "all women" things, like clothing swaps or groups, that then pre-transitioned trans women show up to. And it's hard, because it's weird and uncomfortable once three or four participants of twelve are trans women. I think the reality that's happening is women are having those spaces less—instead doing private things "for friends," with specific invite lists that are implicitly understood not to include men or trans women. This sucks because then we can't include women who aren't _already_ in our social circle, and we all know it but no one wants to say it.
-But this is a _terrible_ outcome with respect to _everyone's_ values. One can't even say, "Well, the cost to those bigoted cis women of not being able to have trans-exclusionary spaces is more than outweighed by trans women's identities being respected," because the non-passing trans women's identities _aren't_ being respected _anyway_; it's just that (natal) women are collectively too _nice_ to [make it common knowledge](http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/10/15/it-was-you-who-made-my-blue-eyes-blue/).
-
-(The sex difference in [Big Five](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits) Agreeableness [is around](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149680/) [_d_](https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Cohen%27s_d)≈0.5.)
+But this is a _terrible_ outcome with respect to _everyone's_ values. One can't even say, "Well, the cost to those bigoted cis women of not being able to have trans-exclusionary spaces is more than outweighed by trans women's identities being respected," because the non-passing trans women's identities _aren't_ being respected _anyway_; it's just that (natal) women are collectively too _nice_[ref]The sex difference in [Big Five](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits) Agreeableness [is around](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149680/) [_d_](https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Cohen%27s_d)≈0.5.[/ref] to [make it common knowledge](http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/10/15/it-was-you-who-made-my-blue-eyes-blue/).
Another (natal) female friend of the blog writes:
People should get what they want. We should have social norms that help people get what they want. I don't _know_ what the optimal social norms about transitioning would be. As a transhumanist as and as an individualist, I want to protect people's freedom to modify their body and social presentation, which _implies_ the right to transition. For the same reasons, I want to protect freedom of association, which _implies_ the right to be able to have sex-segregated spaces that are actually segregated by biological sex should there exist demand for that kind of space.
-People should get what they want. Social science is hard and I want to _try_ to avoid politics as much as I can (an unfortunately challenging goal when you're in the gender-blogging business). When different people's wants come into conflict, it's not for me to say what the optimal compromise is; it's too much for me to compute.
+People should get what they want. Social science is hard and I want to _try_ to avoid politics as much as I can.[ref]Unfortunately, a challenging goal when you're in the gender-blogging business.[/ref] When different people's wants come into conflict, it's not for me to say what the optimal compromise is; it's too much for me to compute.
What I can say is that _whatever_ the right thing to do is, we stand a better chance of getting there if we can be _honest_ with each other about the world we see, using the most precise categories we can, to construct maps that reflect the territory. My model of the universe doesn't stop at the boundary of your body, and yours shouldn't stop at mine.
I got better after a few nights of good sleep—but also with the help of friends who cared not just about my immediate happiness, but also my sanity, who didn't automatically dismiss everything I said as wrong, but who also _told me_ when I wasn't making sense.
-If the delusions had persisted—if I had _gone on_ thinking in terms of simulation hijinks and the literal transgender mafia, we could imagine my having friends who eventually decided to play along, hailing me as Gender Czar of our simulation. Maybe it would be fun for them or for me. Maybe it would be fascinating to read about. (Psychotic-me's worldview makes _great_ science fiction.) But I don't think it would be _helping_ me. Because ultimately, I live in the real world. Anything else [isn't there to be lived](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Litany_of_Gendlin).
+If the delusions had persisted—if I had _gone on_ thinking in terms of simulation hijinks and the literal transgender mafia, we could imagine my having friends who eventually decided to play along, hailing me as Gender Czar of our simulation. Maybe it would be fun for them or for me. Maybe it would be fascinating to read about.[ref]Psychotic-me's worldview makes _great_ science fiction.[/ref] But I don't think it would be _helping_ me. Because ultimately, I live in the real world. Anything else [isn't there to be lived](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Litany_of_Gendlin).
I want you to imagine yourself as a resident of 1870s San Francisco, someone who Norton trusts as one of his chief imperial advisors. One day, you encounter him at his favorite café looking very distressed.
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