Title: The Categories Were Made for Man to Make Predictions
Date: 2018-02-23 08:45
Category: commentary
-Tags: epistemology, Scott Alexander, sex differences, two-type taxonomy, whale metaphors
+Tags: categorization, epistemology, Scott Alexander, sex differences, two-type taxonomy, whale metaphors
> I said, "The truth is whatever you can get away with."
>
>
> —_Distress_ by Greg Egan
-In ["The Categories Were Made for Man, Not Man for the Categories"](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/21/the-categories-were-made-for-man-not-man-for-the-categories/), the immortal Scott Alexander argues that proposed definitions of concepts aren't true or false in themselves, but rather can only be evaluated by their usefulness. Our finite minds being unable to cope with the unimaginable complexity of the raw physical universe, we group sufficiently similar things into the same category so that we can make similar [predictions](http://lesswrong.com/lw/i3/making_beliefs_pay_rent_in_anticipated_experiences) about them—but this requires not only a metric of "similarity", but also a notion of which predictions one cares about enough to notice, both of which are relative to some agent's perspective, rather than being inherent in the world itself.
+In ["The Categories Were Made for Man, Not Man for the Categories"](http://web.archive.org/web/20200610230130/https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/21/the-categories-were-made-for-man-not-man-for-the-categories/), the immortal Scott Alexander argues that proposed definitions of concepts aren't true or false in themselves, but rather can only be evaluated by their usefulness. Our finite minds being unable to cope with the unimaginable complexity of the raw physical universe, we group sufficiently similar things into the same category so that we can make similar [predictions](http://lesswrong.com/lw/i3/making_beliefs_pay_rent_in_anticipated_experiences) about them—but this requires not only a metric of "similarity", but also a notion of which predictions one cares about enough to notice, both of which are relative to some agent's perspective, rather than being inherent in the world itself.
And so, Alexander explains, the ancient Hebrews weren't _wrong_ to classify whales as a type of _dag_ (typically translated as _fish_), even though modern biologists classify whales as mammals and not fish, because the ancient Hebrews were more interested in distinguishing which animals live in the water rather than which animals are phylogenetically related. Similarly, borders between countries are agreed upon for a variety of pragmatic reasons, and can be quite convoluted. While there may often be some "obvious" geographic or cultural Schelling points anchoring these decisions, there's not going to be any intrinsic, eternal fact of the matter as to where one country starts and another begins.
-All of this is entirely correct—and thus, an excellent [motte](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-brick-in-the-motte/) for the less honest sort of _Slate Star Codex_ reader to appeal to when they want to obfuscate and disrupt discussions about empirical reality by insisting on gerrymandered redefinitions of everyday concepts.
+All of this is entirely correct—and thus, an excellent [motte](http://web.archive.org/web/20200529221511/https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-brick-in-the-motte/) for the less honest sort of _Slate Star Codex_ reader to appeal to when they want to obfuscate and disrupt discussions about empirical reality by insisting on gerrymandered redefinitions of everyday concepts.
Alexander goes on to attempt to use the categories-are-relative-to-goals insight to rebut skeptics of transgenderedness:
> If I'm willing to accept an unexpected chunk of Turkey deep inside Syrian territory to honor some random dead guy—and I better, or else a platoon of Turkish special forces will want to have a word with me—then I ought to accept an unexpected man or two deep inside the conceptual boundaries of what would normally be considered female if it'll save someone's life. There's no rule of rationality saying that I shouldn't, and there are plenty of rules of human decency saying that I should.
-This is true in a tautological sense: if you deliberately gerrymander your category boundaries in order to get the answer you want, you can get the answer you want, which is great for people who want that answer, and people who don't want to hurt their feelings (and who don't mind [letting themselves get emotionally blackmailed](/2017/Jan/dont-negotiate-with-terrorist-memeplexes/)[ref]It is tempting to interpret Alexander's Turkish special forces reference as particularly telling in this light.[/ref]).
+This is true in a tautological sense: if you deliberately gerrymander your category boundaries in order to get the answer you want, you can get the answer you want, which is great for people who want that answer, and people who don't want to hurt their feelings (and who don't mind [letting themselves get emotionally blackmailed](/2018/Jan/dont-negotiate-with-terrorist-memeplexes/)[ref]It is tempting to interpret Alexander's Turkish special forces reference as particularly telling in this light.[/ref]).
But it's not very interesting to people like rationalists—although apparently not all people who _self-identify_ as rationalists—who want to use concepts to _describe reality_.
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: while there is a gynephilic group whose blurry etiological boundary with butch lesbians looks like a fairly straightforward analogue of the relationship between androphilic trans women and feminine gay men, it's less clear whether autoandrophilia ("love of oneself as a man") might play a similar role for non-gynephilic trans men as autogynephilia does in the male-to-female case—and the [distribution of trans men 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: cis 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 id="two-types"></a>_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 like a fairly straightforward analogue of the relationship between androphilic trans women and feminine gay men, it's less clear whether autoandrophilia ("love of oneself as a man") might play a similar role for non-gynephilic trans men as autogynephilia does in the male-to-female case—and the [distribution of trans men 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: cis 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 much 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 justifying 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 study of the public biographies of trans women (the life-arcs of people like Jenner or [the Wachowski sisters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wachowskis) _look 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.[ref]But for reference, some of the most popular critiques of the typology (often—I claim erroneously—cited as [debunkings](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/13/debunked-and-well-refuted/)) are [Serano 2010](http://www.juliaserano.com/av/Serano-CaseAgainstAutogynephilia.pdf) and [Moser 2010](http://unremediatedgender.space/papers/moser-blanchards_autogynephilia_theory_a_critique.pdf).[/ref]
+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 much 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 justifying 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 study of the public biographies of trans women (the life-arcs of people like Jenner or [the Wachowski sisters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wachowskis) _look 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.[ref]But for reference, some of the most popular critiques of the typology (often—I claim erroneously—cited as [debunkings](http://web.archive.org/web/20200609030501/https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/13/debunked-and-well-refuted/)) are [Serano 2010](http://www.juliaserano.com/av/Serano-CaseAgainstAutogynephilia.pdf) and [Moser 2010](http://unremediatedgender.space/papers/moser-blanchards_autogynephilia_theory_a_critique.pdf).[/ref]
I _am_, 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). This hypothesis is weaker than the autogynephilia theory, but still has implications for the ways in which transgender identity claims might or might not be validated by natural, prediction-motivated categorization schemes. If most trans women's traits are noticeably _not drawn from from the female distribution_, that's a factor making it less practical to insist that others categorize them as women.
<aside class="boxout"><strong>Figure.</strong> A schematic visualization of genderspace using fictitious but hopefully illustrative data <a href="/ancillary/categories-scatterplot-source/">(scatterplot source code)</a>. Suppose that the distributions of cis men (represented by the <span style="color: #1E90FF;">light blue</span> datapoints) and cis women (the <span style="color: #FF1493;">hot pink</span> points) have the same variance, but their means differ by 3.5 standard deviations in each of the <em>x₁</em>, <em>x₂</em>, and <em>x₃</em> variables, and that the distribution of non-exclusively-androphilic trans women (the <span style="color: #B000B0;">purple</span> points) is the same as that of cis men for the <em>x₁</em> and <em>x₂</em> variables, but resembles that of cis women for <em>x₃</em>. People who care more about predicting <em>x₁</em> and <em>x₂</em> have reason to prefer categories and corresponding language that group by natal sex (<span style="color: #0000C8;">blue</span> category boundary); people who care more about predicting <em>x₃</em> have reason to prefer categories and language that group by gender identity (<span style="color: #E00000;">red</span> boundary).</aside>
-In less tolerant places and decades, where MtF transsexuals were very rare and had to try very hard to pass as (cis) 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 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]
+In less tolerant places and decades, where MtF transsexuals were very rare and had to try very hard to pass as (cis) 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 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://web.archive.org/web/20200527231354/https://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.
+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://web.archive.org/web/20200619091119/https://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://web.archive.org/web/20200602002139/https://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 (cis) 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-cis-women ratios.[/ref] reports on recent changes in local social norms—
+A (cis) female friend of the blog, a member of a very ["Blue Tribe"](http://web.archive.org/web/20200623015648/https://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://web.archive.org/web/20200428161537/https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/04/the-ideology-is-not-the-movement/) will have much less bizarre trans-to-cis-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 (cis) 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/).
+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 (cis) 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://web.archive.org/web/20200427201543/https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/10/15/it-was-you-who-made-my-blue-eyes-blue/).
Another female friend of the blog writes:
All you can do is incentivize them to lie.
-This is the other problem with gender-as-self-identification: passing is hard and not-passing hurts, so kind-hearted people try to protect their trans friends from the pain of not being read the way that they would prefer—with the inevitable result that the laudable instinct to be kind gets corrupted into [universal socially-mandatory lies](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/23/kolmogorov-complicity-and-the-parable-of-lightning/). Even if you don't need predictively-natural categories for any particular practical decision—even if we were to collectively agree to integrate previously sex-segregated bathrooms and sports leagues and prisons so that no actual policy decision depended on what "gender" somebody is—as an aspiring [epistemic rationalist](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2017/02/a-common-misunderstanding/), there's something spiritually deadening about a world in which the mental representations you need to _make sense_ of the world can't be spoken about without layers of obfuscating euphemisms.
+This is the other problem with gender-as-self-identification: passing is hard and not-passing hurts, so kind-hearted people try to protect their trans friends from the pain of not being read the way that they would prefer—with the inevitable result that the laudable instinct to be kind gets corrupted into [universal socially-mandatory lies](http://web.archive.org/web/20200428132642/https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/23/kolmogorov-complicity-and-the-parable-of-lightning/). Even if you don't need predictively-natural categories for any particular practical decision—even if we were to collectively agree to integrate previously sex-segregated bathrooms and sports leagues and prisons so that no actual policy decision depended on what "gender" somebody is—as an aspiring [epistemic rationalist](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2017/02/a-common-misunderstanding/), there's something spiritually deadening about a world in which the mental representations you need to _make sense_ of the world can't be spoken about without layers of obfuscating euphemisms.
[Friend of the blog](/tag/ozy/) Ozymandias [writes that the _Less Wrong_ community doesn't have a gender gap](https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2014/12/01/lw-has-an-assigned-sex-at-birth-gap-not-a-gender-gap/)—we just have an _assigned sex at birth_ gap. (Gee, that makes me feel _so much better_.)
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / blobdiff