If a small child says, "I like this, more!" about some food, I take that literally, because immediate sensory experieces are something any animal is qualified to have an informed preference about. If a small child _in Berkeley where people talk about gender all the time_ says, "I'm sad about being percieved as a boy", I believe the part about being sad, but I'm _much_ more skeptical about the "about being perceived as a boy" part of the description. _Taken literally_, that's a _really abstract_ preference: absent a compelling theory of where all the trans kids were ten years ago, I'm a lot more inclined to chalk it up to, "I dunno, kids say lots of weird things, including on themes they pick up from their cultural environment." (I'm not _just_ being [age-ist](https://ncc-1776.org/tle1997/le970401-10.html) here; I'm _also_ pretty skeptical of a lot of grown-up verbal self-reports of gender identity and gender dysphoria, for specific reasons that are beyond the scope of this document.)
If a small child says, "I like this, more!" about some food, I take that literally, because immediate sensory experieces are something any animal is qualified to have an informed preference about. If a small child _in Berkeley where people talk about gender all the time_ says, "I'm sad about being percieved as a boy", I believe the part about being sad, but I'm _much_ more skeptical about the "about being perceived as a boy" part of the description. _Taken literally_, that's a _really abstract_ preference: absent a compelling theory of where all the trans kids were ten years ago, I'm a lot more inclined to chalk it up to, "I dunno, kids say lots of weird things, including on themes they pick up from their cultural environment." (I'm not _just_ being [age-ist](https://ncc-1776.org/tle1997/le970401-10.html) here; I'm _also_ pretty skeptical of a lot of grown-up verbal self-reports of gender identity and gender dysphoria, for specific reasons that are beyond the scope of this document.)