At the high level of taxonomy—if I have to choose between a one-type and a two-type theory—then I think the two-type theory is superior. But I also think we can do better and say more about the underlying causal structure that the simple two-types story is approximating, and hopefully explain anomalous cases that look like "noise" to the simple theory.
-
-In the language of causal graphs
-
-I think I do have a pretty good guess at what's going on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causal_graph ]
+In the language of [causal graphs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causal_graph) (where the arrows point from cause to effect), here's what I think is going on:
![transition causal graph](/images/transition_dag.svg)
Let me explain.
-[What are the reasons transitioning could possibly make sense to someone?—]
+What are the reasons a male-to-female transition might seem like a good idea to someone? Why would a male be interested in living socially as a woman?
+
+I see three prominent reasons, depicted as the nodes
[1. actually being really feminine]
[3. cultural/ideological factors]
+[Threshold model]
+
+[Okay, but where do the two types come from? The graph is just showing cause-and-effect, but if this were actually a Bayes net, there would be numbers representing a probability distribution, and I claim that the distribution clusters into two types]
+
+[The sexual orientation node increases femininity and decreases AGP, so those pathways are anti-correlated; however, the fact that straight AGP men also vary somewhat in their degree of femininity; some accounts have emphasized how masculine (even hypermasculine) AGPs are, but this seems wrong]
+
+[People who don't quite seem to fit the coarse taxonomy might still be explained by the graph and a threshold model]
+
+[Why do I believe this? All six arrows in the graph are something that I think we have a huge weight of evidence for, either formally, or just looking at the world]
+
+[Sexual orientation effect on femininity documented by Lippa]
+
+[femininity->transition would be obvious even if it weren't in th]
+
+[ETLE sexual orientation AGP v-structure, and effect of AGP on transition documented by Lawrence]
+
+[I don't have a good formal citation on cultural factors, but it seems really obvious if you've been paying attention for the last decade]
+
+[quantifying the two-type effect: Lippa]
+[further implications: as cultural factors increase, the late-onset type becomes more of a "NOS" rather than AGP type]
_(Thanks to the immortal [Tailcalled](https://surveyanon.wordpress.com/) for discussion.)_