But after moving to Berkeley and doing a little bit more reading ... I _don't_ think Blanchard was dumb and wrong. I think the two-type taxonomy is _basically_ correct, as a first approximation. (Where psychology is complicated enough such that there's much more to be said about what that means, and what better approximations would look like, but simple theories that [explain a lot of our observations](https://surveyanon.wordpress.com/2019/04/27/predictions-made-by-blanchards-typology/) are better than pretending not to have a theory.) I think a _substantial majority_ of trans women under modern conditions in Western countries are, essentially, guys like me who were _less self-aware about what the thing actually is_.
So, I realize this is an inflamatory and (far more importantly) _surprising_ claim. Obviously, I don't have introspective access into other people's minds. If someone claims to have an internal sense of her own gender that doesn't match her assigned sex at birth, on what evidence could I _possibly_ have the _astounding_ arrogance to reply, "No, actually I think you're just a perverted male like me"?
But after moving to Berkeley and doing a little bit more reading ... I _don't_ think Blanchard was dumb and wrong. I think the two-type taxonomy is _basically_ correct, as a first approximation. (Where psychology is complicated enough such that there's much more to be said about what that means, and what better approximations would look like, but simple theories that [explain a lot of our observations](https://surveyanon.wordpress.com/2019/04/27/predictions-made-by-blanchards-typology/) are better than pretending not to have a theory.) I think a _substantial majority_ of trans women under modern conditions in Western countries are, essentially, guys like me who were _less self-aware about what the thing actually is_.
So, I realize this is an inflamatory and (far more importantly) _surprising_ claim. Obviously, I don't have introspective access into other people's minds. If someone claims to have an internal sense of her own gender that doesn't match her assigned sex at birth, on what evidence could I _possibly_ have the _astounding_ arrogance to reply, "No, actually I think you're just a perverted male like me"?