Category: other
Tags: cathartic
-"Don't be offended by the research! We're not calling you a lying pervert! You're just a male with unusual sexual interests who has [false beliefs about himself](http://unremediatedgender.space/2016/Sep/psychology-is-about-invalidating-peoples-identities/), that's all!"
+"Don't be offended by the research! We're not calling you a lying pervert! You're just a male with unusual sexual interests who has [false beliefs about himself](/2016/Sep/psychology-is-about-invalidating-peoples-identities/), that's all!"
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Category: other
Tags: Avatar, cosplay
-I cosplayed as [Korra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korra) (from _The Legend of Korra_, sequel series to _Avatar: The Last Airbender_—see [also previously](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Jan/avatar-the-last-genderbender/)) at—let's call it "Republic City" Comic-Con the other month. Saturday only—conventions are just my excuse to crossdress in public; I don't actually perceive two and a half days' worth of things to do.
+I cosplayed as [Korra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korra) (from _The Legend of Korra_, sequel series to _Avatar: The Last Airbender_—see [also previously](/2017/Jan/avatar-the-last-genderbender/)) at—let's call it "Republic City" Comic-Con the other month. Saturday only—conventions are just my excuse to crossdress in public; I don't actually perceive two and a half days' worth of things to do.
I had gotten into the _Avatar_-verse due to a trans (some variety of trans*; she—I'm supposed to say _she_—doesn't seem to be trying to pass much) acquaintance of mine, who recommended _Last Airbender_, but I watched _Legend of Korra_ first, because the protagonist is a cool 17-year-old girl rather than [some lame 12-year-old boy](http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Aang).
-So I got a [premade costume](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EAI63JE/); I _basically_ managed to fit in the women's XL, despite busting some stiches in the back of the top when trying it on. Modulo my curls, I at least have the correct _hair_ for this role—if nothing else. I was a little bit nervous that someone in progressive "Republic City" [might take offense at](https://clutchmagonline.com/2015/10/dear-cosplayers-leave-the-blackface-alone/) my Maybelline 235 "Pure Beige" foundation being a few shades darker than my actual skin tone—although much fewer than if I were going for show-realism—but that turned out not to be an issue. (Somehow _just_ pretending to be female is OK—only I can't help but wonder what people might make of the 'race' tag on [some of my favorite blogs](http://unremediatedgender.space/2016/Oct/exactly-what-it-says-on-the-tin/).)
+So I got a [premade costume](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EAI63JE/); I _basically_ managed to fit in the women's XL, despite busting some stiches in the back of the top when trying it on. Modulo my curls, I at least have the correct _hair_ for this role—if nothing else. I was a little bit nervous that someone in progressive "Republic City" [might take offense at](https://clutchmagonline.com/2015/10/dear-cosplayers-leave-the-blackface-alone/) my Maybelline 235 "Pure Beige" foundation being a few shades darker than my actual skin tone—although much fewer than if I were going for show-realism—but that turned out not to be an issue. (Somehow _just_ pretending to be female is OK—only I can't help but wonder what people might make of the 'race' tag on [some of my favorite blogs](/2016/Oct/exactly-what-it-says-on-the-tin/).)
I guess I could have gone as Asami. I even endorse [one Tumblr user's headcanon that](http://rambleonamazon.tumblr.com/post/97980403389/you-know-whos-trans) we have something in common. (I like to imagine that the title of the [graphic novel continuation](http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Turf_Wars) was originally spelled as _TERF Wars_ before they decided to cut that subplot.)
My life got flipped-turned upside down
And I'd like to take a minute
Just sit right there
-I'll tell you how I became convinced that I share the same underlying psychological variation that motivates males like me to become lesbian trans women, but have been disturbed that apparently-politically-fueled cultural trends seem to be pushing people into interpreting it as an intrinsic female gender identity presumably caused by some sort of brain intersex condition for which the appropriate quality-of-life intervention is to transition, when I think it's _obviously_ not an intersex condition and that transition might not be such a good idea given the enormous costs to both oneself and others of trying to live as a woman despite _(a)_ likely not passing very well given the limitations of existing technology, and _(b)_ the conjunction of one's psychological traits noticeably being far more male-typical than female-typical. I started [this pseudonymous blog](http://unremediatedgender.space/) in an attempt to counteract the sorry state of public misinformation about the etiology of MtF transgenderedness and was going to let that be the extent of my attempts to intervene, but I soon became sufficiently upset with the level of transition cheerleading and uncritical acceptance of trans-activist ideology among my otherwise very smart and scientifically-literate social circle, that I decided to express my feelings in the form of a dramatic public Facebook meltdown, which led to much heated discussion amongst my friends, the stress of which was probably a contributing factor to my subsequent psychotic break. (If [almost](http://unremediatedgender.space/2016/Dec/anne-lawrence-is-the-only-honest-human-wip/) [everyone is lying to me](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Jan/im-sick-of-being-lied-to/) about autogynephilia, maybe they're _also_ lying about whether humans actually need to sleep!)
+I'll tell you how I became convinced that I share the same underlying psychological variation that motivates males like me to become lesbian trans women, but have been disturbed that apparently-politically-fueled cultural trends seem to be pushing people into interpreting it as an intrinsic female gender identity presumably caused by some sort of brain intersex condition for which the appropriate quality-of-life intervention is to transition, when I think it's _obviously_ not an intersex condition and that transition might not be such a good idea given the enormous costs to both oneself and others of trying to live as a woman despite _(a)_ likely not passing very well given the limitations of existing technology, and _(b)_ the conjunction of one's psychological traits noticeably being far more male-typical than female-typical. I started [this pseudonymous blog](http://unremediatedgender.space/) in an attempt to counteract the sorry state of public misinformation about the etiology of MtF transgenderedness and was going to let that be the extent of my attempts to intervene, but I soon became sufficiently upset with the level of transition cheerleading and uncritical acceptance of trans-activist ideology among my otherwise very smart and scientifically-literate social circle, that I decided to express my feelings in the form of a dramatic public Facebook meltdown, which led to much heated discussion amongst my friends, the stress of which was probably a contributing factor to my subsequent psychotic break. (If [almost](/2016/Dec/anne-lawrence-is-the-only-honest-human-wip/) [everyone is lying to me](/2017/Jan/im-sick-of-being-lied-to/) about autogynephilia, maybe they're _also_ lying about whether humans actually need to sleep!)
I made one little expression of suicidal ideation and my mom got scared
And called the cops, resulting in my being kidnapped by strange men who threw me in a prison/kindergarten that everyone bizarrely insists on calling a "psychiatric hospital", where I continued to have psychosis-fueled insights into the ubiquity of deception in human social life, the anthropic and decision-theoretic implications of the [simulation hypothesis](http://www.simulation-argument.com/), and how Christianity as a memeplex is highly-optimized to exploit bugs in the human mind (_in Christ there is neither male nor female_). Now I'm taking a sabbatical from my software-engineering career to study the game theory of social epistemology and blog more about the surprising true nature of late-onset gender dysphoria in males!
It's _possible_ that this was a bad idea.
-It would be one thing if I were actually _noticing_ the emotional and sensory changes that a lot of trans women report. While the psychological effects of HRT (and therefore, the [activational effects](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational-Activational_Hypothesis) of hormones in normal people who _aren't_ fucking with their biochemistry) being large would be _bad_ news from the standpoint of my [deeply-rooted ideological/sentimental hope that psychological sex differences are small](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Feb/a-beacon-through-the-darkness-or-getting-it-right-the-first-time/), at least I would get the consolation of getting to experience the other side for myself, to possess the True Secret of Being Hormonally Female. At the same time, the psychological effects of HRT _not_ being noticeable—which, with the exception of lower sex drive, has continued to be my experience—doesn't demonstrate that psychological sex differences are small; it just pushes my uncertainty into hypotheses about organizational effects and socialization (or possibly even the differences between women's hormone levels and that of a male on spiro and Estrace—you can't expect to match all the fine biochemical details of an evolved system with just two pills), which I don't get to experience.
+It would be one thing if I were actually _noticing_ the emotional and sensory changes that a lot of trans women report. While the psychological effects of HRT (and therefore, the [activational effects](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational-Activational_Hypothesis) of hormones in normal people who _aren't_ fucking with their biochemistry) being large would be _bad_ news from the standpoint of my [deeply-rooted ideological/sentimental hope that psychological sex differences are small](/2017/Feb/a-beacon-through-the-darkness-or-getting-it-right-the-first-time/), at least I would get the consolation of getting to experience the other side for myself, to possess the True Secret of Being Hormonally Female. At the same time, the psychological effects of HRT _not_ being noticeable—which, with the exception of lower sex drive, has continued to be my experience—doesn't demonstrate that psychological sex differences are small; it just pushes my uncertainty into hypotheses about organizational effects and socialization (or possibly even the differences between women's hormone levels and that of a male on spiro and Estrace—you can't expect to match all the fine biochemical details of an evolved system with just two pills), which I don't get to experience.
-Of course, the evidential impact of "I don't _feel_ different" needs to be weighed against the principle that [introspection doesn't actually work](http://unremediatedgender.space/2016/Sep/psychology-is-about-invalidating-peoples-identities/). It's at least plausible that I _am_ less aggressive, more verbally fluent, worse at mental rotation [(all of this has been documented in trans women starting HRT)](http://unremediatedgender.space/papers/van_goozen_et_al-gender_differences_in_behavor.pdf) than I was a few months ago with _some_ nonzero effect size, and just haven't _noticed_.
+Of course, the evidential impact of "I don't _feel_ different" needs to be weighed against the principle that [introspection doesn't actually work](/2016/Sep/psychology-is-about-invalidating-peoples-identities/). It's at least plausible that I _am_ less aggressive, more verbally fluent, worse at mental rotation [(all of this has been documented in trans women starting HRT)](/papers/van_goozen_et_al-gender_differences_in_behavor.pdf) than I was a few months ago with _some_ nonzero effect size, and just haven't _noticed_.
I mention psychological effects first because if we could just pretend that my _only_ motive for this drug experiment is my intense scientific curiosity about psychological sex differences, there might be some hope of finishing this post with my dignity left intact. (Which is more important than you might think: I haven't been taking my pseudonymity very seriously.)
I think it's **time to quit** the drug experiment now, though, just past the five-month mark. (I took my morning pills, but I'm not taking them tonight.) That I've got most of what I was going to get out of the experience, and if I don't _need_ a simulated female hormone balance for the rest of my life, it's safer to stop intervening.
-My 21 September lab results are in. The "suppression monitoring" testosterone test came back at <20 ng/dL, and the "ultrasensitive" estradiol test came back at 110 pg/mL, confirming that, however underwhelming the subjective experience has been, I am in fact privy to the True Secret of what it feels like to have [_girl blood_](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Jun/interlude-v/).
+My 21 September lab results are in. The "suppression monitoring" testosterone test came back at <20 ng/dL, and the "ultrasensitive" estradiol test came back at 110 pg/mL, confirming that, however underwhelming the subjective experience has been, I am in fact privy to the True Secret of what it feels like to have [_girl blood_](/2017/Jun/interlude-v/).
-Besides breast tissue, the other effect of MtF HRT that doesn't necessarily reverse itself after too long is infertility. No one seems to know exactly how long is too long, although [there's a report of spermotagenesis resuming after having stopped during a 140-day treatment plan](http://unremediatedgender.space/papers/lubbert_et_al-effects_of_ethinyl_estradiol_on_semen_quality.pdf), which bodes well for my 150-day-plus experiment.
+Besides breast tissue, the other effect of MtF HRT that doesn't necessarily reverse itself after too long is infertility. No one seems to know exactly how long is too long, although [there's a report of spermotagenesis resuming after having stopped during a 140-day treatment plan](/papers/lubbert_et_al-effects_of_ethinyl_estradiol_on_semen_quality.pdf), which bodes well for my 150-day-plus experiment.
(The last few times I've masturbated—which hasn't been very often—there wasn't much, ah, material there, indicating semen production shutting down.)
-----
-In [my last HRT post](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Jul/whats-my-motivation-or-hormones-day-89/), I mentioned one (relatively minor) motive for the experiment being a desire for trans legitimacy. If I'm going to write about trans issues with the hope of having an impact on the _Zeitgeist_ (and whatever Google Analytics says about my _current_ twenty sessions a day—is that really so unrealistic, after I write more and put more effort into (tasteful) social-media marketing?), it helps to establish credibility that I really am in the relevant reference class. _Given_ that that motivation exists, it's certainly better to acknowledge it rather than not-acknowledge it. But also, establishing credibility is kind of a _bad_ thing to have thumbing the scales on a major medical decision. After all, if I were optimizing for telling the best possible story here and having the greatest impact, the thing to do would be to transition. (Actual trans women like Anne Lawrence and [Miranda Yardley](http://mirandayardley.com/) are way more interesting than mere gender-dysphoric men like me.) Which has its temptations ...
+In [my last HRT post](/2017/Jul/whats-my-motivation-or-hormones-day-89/), I mentioned one (relatively minor) motive for the experiment being a desire for trans legitimacy. If I'm going to write about trans issues with the hope of having an impact on the _Zeitgeist_ (and whatever Google Analytics says about my _current_ twenty sessions a day—is that really so unrealistic, after I write more and put more effort into (tasteful) social-media marketing?), it helps to establish credibility that I really am in the relevant reference class. _Given_ that that motivation exists, it's certainly better to acknowledge it rather than not-acknowledge it. But also, establishing credibility is kind of a _bad_ thing to have thumbing the scales on a major medical decision. After all, if I were optimizing for telling the best possible story here and having the greatest impact, the thing to do would be to transition. (Actual trans women like Anne Lawrence and [Miranda Yardley](http://mirandayardley.com/) are way more interesting than mere gender-dysphoric men like me.) Which has its temptations ...
But no. I already have a _name_; I already have a _life_. And that's _final_.
Similarly, I applied my sixth patch today and _should_ have had elevated estrogen levels in my system for a _month_ now, but don't seem noticeably more female-like or otherwise effected in any easily-discernible way. Are there some kind of measurements I should be taking in order to pick up on subtle changes? (Bust size?) I guess I got a little teary a few times in the past week or so, which hasn't been common for me in recent years? (I used to cry a _lot_ when I was younger.)
-My dayjob performance has been utterly abysmal because I've been too upset to think about code, instead continuing to hyperfocus on how ([virtually](http://unremediatedgender.space/2016/Dec/anne-lawrence-is-the-only-honest-human-wip/)) [_everyone has been lying to me_](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Jan/im-sick-of-being-lied-to/) about _the most important thing in my life_ for _ten years_, but I don't want to attribute that to the patch, because I've kind of been doing that more-or-less continuously for the past six months.
+My dayjob performance has been utterly abysmal because I've been too upset to think about code, instead continuing to hyperfocus on how ([virtually](/2016/Dec/anne-lawrence-is-the-only-honest-human-wip/)) [_everyone has been lying to me_](/2017/Jan/im-sick-of-being-lied-to/) about _the most important thing in my life_ for _ten years_, but I don't want to attribute that to the patch, because I've kind of been doing that more-or-less continuously for the past six months.
-Again, none of this is very surprising on a starter dose with no spiro. That's fine. This is [known to be a slippery slope](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Jan/the-line-in-the-sand-or-my-slippery-slope-anchoring-action-plan/), best explored slowly and carefully if at all.
+Again, none of this is very surprising on a starter dose with no spiro. That's fine. This is [known to be a slippery slope](/2017/Jan/the-line-in-the-sand-or-my-slippery-slope-anchoring-action-plan/), best explored slowly and carefully if at all.
-So, I took off my estradiol patch during [my recent nervous breakdown](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Mar/fresh-princess/). I still [don't think](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Jan/hormones-day-33/) it had much, if any, real effect. (In particular, the stress and sleep-deprevation by themselves seem quite sufficient to explain the breakdown without attributing any of it to a nonstandard hormone balance, especially given how similar it felt to my 2013 nervous breakdown.)
+So, I took off my estradiol patch during [my recent nervous breakdown](/2017/Mar/fresh-princess/). I still [don't think](/2017/Jan/hormones-day-33/) it had much, if any, real effect. (In particular, the stress and sleep-deprevation by themselves seem quite sufficient to explain the breakdown without attributing any of it to a nonstandard hormone balance, especially given how similar it felt to my 2013 nervous breakdown.)
-Again, everyone had _told_ me that just-estrogen without an anti-androgen doesn't do anything, but that didn't seem absolutely locked down from me from what I had read ("Anti-Androgens May Not Be Necessary", according to [a lit review](https://srconstantin.wordpress.com/2016/10/06/cross-sex-hormone-therapy-female-hormones/) that I may or may not have had a causal role in commissioning), and remember: from my perspective, if [everyone is lying](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Jan/im-sick-of-being-lied-to/) about the etiology, maybe they got the dosages wrong, too! So I don't regret being conservative for the initial experiment. (The _starter_ in "starter dose" is code-switching for _placebo_!)
+Again, everyone had _told_ me that just-estrogen without an anti-androgen doesn't do anything, but that didn't seem absolutely locked down from me from what I had read ("Anti-Androgens May Not Be Necessary", according to [a lit review](https://srconstantin.wordpress.com/2016/10/06/cross-sex-hormone-therapy-female-hormones/) that I may or may not have had a causal role in commissioning), and remember: from my perspective, if [everyone is lying](/2017/Jan/im-sick-of-being-lied-to/) about the etiology, maybe they got the dosages wrong, too! So I don't regret being conservative for the initial experiment. (The _starter_ in "starter dose" is code-switching for _placebo_!)
Anyway, during the aftermath of my release from prison/kindergarten, my father got me to promise not to restart the drug experiment for a month, and I _care_ about keeping my promises—particularly so in the aftermath of a psychotic quasi-religious experience featuring heavy themes of reducing morality to game theory. (Transparent agents who tell the truth and keep their promises are easier to cooperate with and therefore form more powerful coalitions.) That would have been on 20 February, so it is in keeping with my word that I didn't get the medical establishment to resupply me with more estradiol patches and—this time—the standard anti-androgen spironolactone, until 24 March. (I should also have an order of oral estrogen and spiro coming from [an Indian supplier](https://www.alldaychemist.com/) in the post, if for no other reason than that my recent imprisonment taught me that I need to practice being less [authoritarian-submissive](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/23876) towards the medical establishment.)
"Um. Actually, I am saying that."
-"What? How _dare_ you [invalidate people's identities](http://unremediatedgender.space/2016/Sep/psychology-is-about-invalidating-peoples-identities/) like that?! Why, you're not gay at all! You're just some kind of pervert with a fetish for men! Well, I'm sorry, I can tolerate anything except intolerance—we are no longer friends!"
+"What? How _dare_ you [invalidate people's identities](/2016/Sep/psychology-is-about-invalidating-peoples-identities/) like that?! Why, you're not gay at all! You're just some kind of pervert with a fetish for men! Well, I'm sorry, I can tolerate anything except intolerance—we are no longer friends!"
"But—"
"_What?!_"
-"Oh! I get it! I shouldn't have said that last part, because that creates an incentive for powerful people being controlled by the victimhood identity-politics mind-virus to threaten me with literal physical violence or poverty after I blog a dramatization of this conversation. What I _should_ have said was, 'This is just too good of a deal for me to refuse, full stop.' Except I'm _really bad_ at lying. So maybe I should just trust that my friends—well, [what's left of them when this is over](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Jan/the-counter/)—the police, my savings, and my programming skills are altogether enough to keep me safe and happy."
+"Oh! I get it! I shouldn't have said that last part, because that creates an incentive for powerful people being controlled by the victimhood identity-politics mind-virus to threaten me with literal physical violence or poverty after I blog a dramatization of this conversation. What I _should_ have said was, 'This is just too good of a deal for me to refuse, full stop.' Except I'm _really bad_ at lying. So maybe I should just trust that my friends—well, [what's left of them when this is over](/2017/Jan/the-counter/)—the police, my savings, and my programming skills are altogether enough to keep me safe and happy."
Category: fiction
Tags: bullet-biting, interlude
-"Claiming that you don't care about anything but truthseeking may lead people to question whether your jokes were meant to convey that certain things were true. That line about 'cooperating with TERFy women who might reward me with sex and intimacy' in [your post the other month](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Mar/interlude-ii/) is something I strongly prefer to give the you the benefit of the doubt on by assuming that you're joking."
+"Claiming that you don't care about anything but truthseeking may lead people to question whether your jokes were meant to convey that certain things were true. That line about 'cooperating with TERFy women who might reward me with sex and intimacy' in [your post the other month](/2017/Mar/interlude-ii/) is something I strongly prefer to give the you the benefit of the doubt on by assuming that you're joking."
"Maybe you shouldn't! Like, I'm currently modeling one of the social functions of humor as a way to tacitly acknowledge truths that would break the consensus social narrative if taken literally, so ..."
"Any psychological effects from the anti-androgen?"
-"_Way_ too many confounding variables during the past two months to tell. It's a [long story](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Mar/fresh-princess/) that got longer."
+"_Way_ too many confounding variables during the past two months to tell. It's a [long story](/2017/Mar/fresh-princess/) that got longer."
>
> —_The Fountainhead_ by Ayn Rand
-So, right. I _thought_ I was done recovering from my delusional nervous breakdown and 17–20 February wrongful imprisonment (I continue to refuse to use the word _hospitalization_)—which I didn't even [get around to blogging](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Mar/fresh-princess/) for a month—but then it turned out that I wasn't done. Or maybe I _was_ done, but then quickly ran into _another_ series of stressors which once again pushed me over the edge into sleep deprivation and impaired sanity (in the form of [damaged priors](http://lesswrong.com/lw/13b/dreams_with_damaged_priors/); I think my fluid reasoning was still pretty good throughout). _Now_ I think I'm back to normal ("normal").
+So, right. I _thought_ I was done recovering from my delusional nervous breakdown and 17–20 February wrongful imprisonment (I continue to refuse to use the word _hospitalization_)—which I didn't even [get around to blogging](/2017/Mar/fresh-princess/) for a month—but then it turned out that I wasn't done. Or maybe I _was_ done, but then quickly ran into _another_ series of stressors which once again pushed me over the edge into sleep deprivation and impaired sanity (in the form of [damaged priors](http://lesswrong.com/lw/13b/dreams_with_damaged_priors/); I think my fluid reasoning was still pretty good throughout). _Now_ I think I'm back to normal ("normal").
-This kind of thing tends to happen to me every few years or so. (This "if it looks like [everyone is lying](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Jan/im-sick-of-being-lied-to/) about late-onset gender dysphoria in males, maybe [self- and other-reports and -perceptions are wrong in general](http://unremediatedgender.space/2016/Sep/psychology-is-about-invalidating-peoples-identities/)" breakdown was preceded by my December 2007 "school is actually bad" breakdown, my December 2010 "I feel guilty about not doing a very good job at my live-in internship for this cult [or whatever](http://lesswrong.com/lw/md/cultish_countercultishness/) that's [trying to prevent the coming robot apocalypse](http://intelligence.org/)" breakdown, and my February 2013 "school is actually still bad—no, really; also, I'm scared about how the [Tegmark IV multiverse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothesis) contains unimaginably large amounts of suffering" breakdown.)
+This kind of thing tends to happen to me every few years or so. (This "if it looks like [everyone is lying](/2017/Jan/im-sick-of-being-lied-to/) about late-onset gender dysphoria in males, maybe [self- and other-reports and -perceptions are wrong in general](/2016/Sep/psychology-is-about-invalidating-peoples-identities/)" breakdown was preceded by my December 2007 "school is actually bad" breakdown, my December 2010 "I feel guilty about not doing a very good job at my live-in internship for this cult [or whatever](http://lesswrong.com/lw/md/cultish_countercultishness/) that's [trying to prevent the coming robot apocalypse](http://intelligence.org/)" breakdown, and my February 2013 "school is actually still bad—no, really; also, I'm scared about how the [Tegmark IV multiverse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothesis) contains unimaginably large amounts of suffering" breakdown.)
I concede that it's plausible that my psychology falls into a reference class that could receive a bipolar I or paranoid schizophrenia diagnosis if I were to seek out a diagnosis, but right now, I'm modeling the field of psychiatry as an evolved social-control mechanism rather than a genuine attempt to help people, and I correspondingly decline to use its language and categories. (You sometimes hear people talk about psychiatric conditions being "underdiagnosed" at higher IQs, but that's backwards: the underlying psychological variations were [here first](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/16/burdens/); people only bother bucketing them into a "diagnosis" when people with the relevant traits cause problems in Society. But the evolutionarily-novel way that Society happens to be structured isn't necessarily optimized to be _good_ for humans except insofar as humans following their individual incentive gradients usually don't screw things up too badly for themselves. Existing Society is just the thing the forces of memetic evolution happened to cough up in the disruptive wake of the industrial revolution; it doesn't necessarily _make sense_. And _I_ don't cause problems.)
-Glancing over my email Sent folder, it looks like the time to pinpoint as when things started to, um, become eventful again, was 2 April. That evening, I got an email tip from our local shaman/raconteur "Travis" ([previous appearance](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Jan/the-erotic-target-location-gift/)) that someone we knew had just been thrown in psychiatric prison _too_ (Subject: Another autogynophilic [_sic_] rationalist is in a psych ward) and asking if I wanted to get involved. The person in question turned out to be my trans woman friend "Roberta", who had apparently been trying to board a plane in "Cleveland" to visit her family somewhere in Europe (which is large enough that I'm not going to obfuscate its identity with a scare-quoted substitute). Soon enough, I and a number of Roberta's other friends managed to coordinate to start calling psychiatric "hospitals" in the Cleveland area, hoping to find out where she was and talk to her (Subject: information centralizing thread for [roberta] situation).
+Glancing over my email Sent folder, it looks like the time to pinpoint as when things started to, um, become eventful again, was 2 April. That evening, I got an email tip from our local shaman/raconteur "Travis" ([previous appearance](/2017/Jan/the-erotic-target-location-gift/)) that someone we knew had just been thrown in psychiatric prison _too_ (Subject: Another autogynophilic [_sic_] rationalist is in a psych ward) and asking if I wanted to get involved. The person in question turned out to be my trans woman friend "Roberta", who had apparently been trying to board a plane in "Cleveland" to visit her family somewhere in Europe (which is large enough that I'm not going to obfuscate its identity with a scare-quoted substitute). Soon enough, I and a number of Roberta's other friends managed to coordinate to start calling psychiatric "hospitals" in the Cleveland area, hoping to find out where she was and talk to her (Subject: information centralizing thread for [roberta] situation).
So, a horrifying thing that I didn't realize while I was _in_ psychiatric prison in February, that I learned during this April attempt trying to help bust someone else _out_, is that these places have a _policy_ of [refusing to confirm or deny](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_response) whether they're holding someone (because ["privacy"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Insurance_Portability_and_Accountability_Act)). They'll take down your phone number and say, _If_ we have a patient with such a name, then we'll give her your message and she can choose to call you back, but we can neither confirm nor deny whether we have a patient by that name.
I'm complaining, but if possible, I'd like to avoid portraying myself as a victim here. The primary intended effect of the complaint is not to try to convince you that I have been _wronged_ by someone or something, and that _they_ "should" be held accountable for my suffering. Rather, I'm trying to explain what it felt like to have my model of social reality get undermined.
-I thought I was _safe_; I thought that words meant the same thing to other people that they meant to me; I thought I understood the limits of what ideologically-fashionable nonsense good nice [smart](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Mar/smart/) law-abiding people in "Portland" would accept—or at least, I thought that the _very smartest_ people in Portland would be a little more honest; I thought it was possible to reason with cops. I knew that there was injustice in the world—everyone knows that—but I thought that at least there was justice for _people like me_.
+I thought I was _safe_; I thought that words meant the same thing to other people that they meant to me; I thought I understood the limits of what ideologically-fashionable nonsense good nice [smart](/2017/Mar/smart/) law-abiding people in "Portland" would accept—or at least, I thought that the _very smartest_ people in Portland would be a little more honest; I thought it was possible to reason with cops. I knew that there was injustice in the world—everyone knows that—but I thought that at least there was justice for _people like me_.
But after the months of trying to figure out whether I, too, am "trans" (answer: as much as anyone, Yes—unless you mean the good kind, but if you're reading this blog, you probably don't know any of the good kind), _and_ my February ordeal, _and_ confronting the impenetrable Eichmannian blankness of [authoritarian submission](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/23876) while trying to get a straight yes-or-no answer from the Cleveland prison employees as to whether they were holding Roberta—all my illusions of safety had crumbled, and I was, and am, left with the dim and yet no-longer-deniable apprehension of the core reality of human existence: people are animals that manipulate each other by making noises. Any high-minded folderol about morality or the meanings of words is subservient to that—is _constructed_ out of that.
So, I'm facing a problem.
-On the one hand, I really want to indulge my perverted narcissistic fantasy about being a woman, and I'm _really really jealous_ of all of the trans women friends (I still have friends!—[for now](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Jan/the-counter/)) I've made since I moved to "Portland" (quotes because it might not actually be Portland, although you should know that I would still use quotes even if it is Portland, because I'm [not some kind of idiot who doesn't know information theory](https://www.gwern.net/Death-Note-Anonymity)).
+On the one hand, I really want to indulge my perverted narcissistic fantasy about being a woman, and I'm _really really jealous_ of all of the trans women friends (I still have friends!—[for now](/2017/Jan/the-counter/)) I've made since I moved to "Portland" (quotes because it might not actually be Portland, although you should know that I would still use quotes even if it is Portland, because I'm [not some kind of idiot who doesn't know information theory](https://www.gwern.net/Death-Note-Anonymity)).
On the other hand, I don't want to become a trans woman myself, because I already have a perfectly functional social identity as a man named "'Mark'" (two sets of quotes: one for words-as-words, and another because it might not actually be "Mark", although you should know that _&c._) that I'm not going to throw away for the sake of my perverted narcissistic fantasy, particularly since the standard transition narrative looks so actively delusional to me that I can't possibly participate in it.
So here is my schedule of interventions—
-* Estradiol: _Yes_ ([already underway](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Jan/hormones-day-13/))
+* Estradiol: _Yes_ ([already underway](/2017/Jan/hormones-day-13/))
* Spironolactone: _Maybe_ (conditional on results from just-estrogen)
* Facial hair removal (laser): _Maybe_ (conditional on results from E/spiro; if beard shadow makes the difference between consistently reading as "weirdly androgynous man" rather than "trans woman", I probably need to keep it)
* Cosplaying female characters at special events (Comic-Con, Halloween, *&c.*): _Yes_
Category: commentary
Tags: ozy, two-type taxonomy
-Friend of the blog—I mean, I _hope_ we're [still friends](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Jan/the-counter/) even though I'm kind of [trying to overthrow them](http://unremediatedgender.space/tag/ozy/) as _de facto_ Gender Czar of the [_Less Wrong_](http://lesswrong.com/) diaspora—Ozymandias of [_Thing of Things_](https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/) has been [running an intellectual Turing test](https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2017/02/15/transgender-intellectual-turing-test/) challenging adherents of the gender-identity and two-type theories of transgenderedness to try to impersonate each other for the good of our collective epistemology!
+Friend of the blog—I mean, I _hope_ we're [still friends](/2017/Jan/the-counter/) even though I'm kind of [trying to overthrow them](/tag/ozy/) as _de facto_ Gender Czar of the [_Less Wrong_](http://lesswrong.com/) diaspora—Ozymandias of [_Thing of Things_](https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/) has been [running an intellectual Turing test](https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2017/02/15/transgender-intellectual-turing-test/) challenging adherents of the gender-identity and two-type theories of transgenderedness to try to impersonate each other for the good of our collective epistemology!
-(An aside on credit-assignment and the history of ideas: Ozy says _Blanchard–Bailey_ where I've usually been trying to say _two-type_ in order to avoid the [tricky problem of optimal eponymy](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Mar/nothing-new-under-the-sun/), but if you are going to be eponymous about it, I can understand just saying "Blanchard" but feel like it's unfair to include Bailey but _not_ Anne Lawrence. My understanding of the history—and I think Michael Bailey reads this blog and I trust him to send me an angry email if I got this wrong—is that [Bailey's research](http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/JMichael-Bailey/research.html) had mostly been about sexual orientation and from-childhood gender nonconformity, not the two-type taxonomy as such. Bailey's popular-level book _The Man Who Would Be Queen_ drew controversy for _explaining_ the two-type taxonomy for a nonspecialist audience (in the last part of a book that was mostly about the androphilic/feminine-from-early-childhood people, not my people), but the critics who disparage _Queen_ as "unscientific" are missing the point: popular-level books that _present_ a scientific theory _aren't supposed_ to capitulate the evidence for the theory—for that, you need to follow the citations and read the primary literature for yourself. In analogy, it should not be construed as a disparagement of Richard Dawkins to note that it would be weird if people talked about the "Darwin–Dawkins theory of evolution"!)
+(An aside on credit-assignment and the history of ideas: Ozy says _Blanchard–Bailey_ where I've usually been trying to say _two-type_ in order to avoid the [tricky problem of optimal eponymy](/2017/Mar/nothing-new-under-the-sun/), but if you are going to be eponymous about it, I can understand just saying "Blanchard" but feel like it's unfair to include Bailey but _not_ Anne Lawrence. My understanding of the history—and I think Michael Bailey reads this blog and I trust him to send me an angry email if I got this wrong—is that [Bailey's research](http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/JMichael-Bailey/research.html) had mostly been about sexual orientation and from-childhood gender nonconformity, not the two-type taxonomy as such. Bailey's popular-level book _The Man Who Would Be Queen_ drew controversy for _explaining_ the two-type taxonomy for a nonspecialist audience (in the last part of a book that was mostly about the androphilic/feminine-from-early-childhood people, not my people), but the critics who disparage _Queen_ as "unscientific" are missing the point: popular-level books that _present_ a scientific theory _aren't supposed_ to capitulate the evidence for the theory—for that, you need to follow the citations and read the primary literature for yourself. In analogy, it should not be construed as a disparagement of Richard Dawkins to note that it would be weird if people talked about the "Darwin–Dawkins theory of evolution"!)
In the intellectual Turing test, contestants answer a set of questions both as themselves, and while trying to pass as someone who believes the other thing, while the audience tries to discriminate the honest entries from the fakes. Below are my probability assignments for this contest (I think it's important to assign probabilities rather than binary guesses, so that you can assess your rationality with a Bayesian [strictly proper scoring rule](http://yudkowsky.net/rational/technical/) rather than a crude "number correct"), along with an optional brief comment—
But this—_obsession_ with sex differences and genderbending has been a _thing_ for me for a really long time. It's not going away. If I can't jump the gender chasm—because I don't expect to land successfully on the other side, because I have too much to lose, because I've been ideologically corrupted by lurking [/r/GenderCritical](https://www.reddit.com/r/GenderCritical/)—don't I at least deserve a _taste_ of what my trans sisters who are braver than me are getting?
-I think—though introspection is difficult—that there's another motive present, too, one which I would be remiss to omit, despite my suspicion that some readers (insufficiently appalled by the rest of the blog) may find appalling. Something about legitimacy. If I'm going to have the termerity to blog about trans issues from a—ah, heterodox perspective, it seems appropriate that I should have some skin in the game. It's commmon for gender-dysphoric people to question whether they're "trans enough" to live as their desired gender. This is like the reverse of that: I'm [providing evidence](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/27076) that I'm "trans enough" for my rejection of _trans_ as a political identity to mean something. As it is written (albeit in a slightly different context), "[Patch](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Jan/hormones-day-33/) or STFU."
+I think—though introspection is difficult—that there's another motive present, too, one which I would be remiss to omit, despite my suspicion that some readers (insufficiently appalled by the rest of the blog) may find appalling. Something about legitimacy. If I'm going to have the termerity to blog about trans issues from a—ah, heterodox perspective, it seems appropriate that I should have some skin in the game. It's commmon for gender-dysphoric people to question whether they're "trans enough" to live as their desired gender. This is like the reverse of that: I'm [providing evidence](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/27076) that I'm "trans enough" for my rejection of _trans_ as a political identity to mean something. As it is written (albeit in a slightly different context), "[Patch](/2017/Jan/hormones-day-33/) or STFU."
-Sufficiently attentive readers of _The Scintillating But Ultimately Untrue Thought_ may have noticed that the day number in the title of this post isn't congruent with [the date I started spiro](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Mar/hormones-reboot-spironotacular/). That's because I stopped the HRT during a [relapse of unpleasantness](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Jun/memoirs-of-my-recent-madness-part-i-the-unanswerable-words/)—not a conscious decision so much as I wasn't competent enough to remember to take pills while everything else fell apart. So my true hormones-reboot-reboot start date, the one that matters, is 25 April.
+Sufficiently attentive readers of _The Scintillating But Ultimately Untrue Thought_ may have noticed that the day number in the title of this post isn't congruent with [the date I started spiro](/2017/Mar/hormones-reboot-spironotacular/). That's because I stopped the HRT during a [relapse of unpleasantness](/2017/Jun/memoirs-of-my-recent-madness-part-i-the-unanswerable-words/)—not a conscious decision so much as I wasn't competent enough to remember to take pills while everything else fell apart. So my true hormones-reboot-reboot start date, the one that matters, is 25 April.
And really, the results so far are nothing to write home about. (Although they are _apparently_ something to blog about.) My libido is down: I've been masturbating (that still works, mostly) maybe once or twice (three _tops_) a week, down from—well, I'm not sure I'm honest and brave enough to accurately estimate my historical masturbation frequency, even to myself, so let's just say my libido is down. I _think_ I'm starting to get a little bit of breast growth?—it's very subtle, but the exact way my shirt drapes over my chest in the mirror and the distribution of weight while running down stairs have a strange new quale of _correctness_ about them.
And ... that's it, as far as I can tell. Not really a big deal, at all. Should I be disappointed, that I hoped to discover some True Secret of Ultimate Gender, only to find that the secret can't be had by taking other people's medicines? Should I be relieved that maybe there's not much of a secret to be discovered in the first place? Or do I just need to continue to be patient?
-It should be noted that my 10 July lab results put my estradiol levels well below the expectation for transitioners, so I'll be increasing my dosage. The test result uninformedly just said "<50 pg/mL", with the standard range (for males, presumably) given as ≤50 pg/mL; the doctor says it should be over 100. (This information makes my earlier [patch-only-no-spiro phase](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Jan/hormones-day-13/) of the experiment look even more useless than I knew at the time.) I asked for the higher dose in oral form (well, [sublingual](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublingual_administration), anyway); the transdermal (no pun intended, one assumes) patches have _usually_ been lasting out the week that they're supposed to, but it was slightly annoying to feel the patch wrinkle when I twist or bend over. The spiro, however, does seem to be working as intended: the July lab puts my "free" testosterone at 20.8 pg/mL, with the standard range given as 59–166 pg/mL.
+It should be noted that my 10 July lab results put my estradiol levels well below the expectation for transitioners, so I'll be increasing my dosage. The test result uninformedly just said "<50 pg/mL", with the standard range (for males, presumably) given as ≤50 pg/mL; the doctor says it should be over 100. (This information makes my earlier [patch-only-no-spiro phase](/2017/Jan/hormones-day-13/) of the experiment look even more useless than I knew at the time.) I asked for the higher dose in oral form (well, [sublingual](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublingual_administration), anyway); the transdermal (no pun intended, one assumes) patches have _usually_ been lasting out the week that they're supposed to, but it was slightly annoying to feel the patch wrinkle when I twist or bend over. The spiro, however, does seem to be working as intended: the July lab puts my "free" testosterone at 20.8 pg/mL, with the standard range given as 59–166 pg/mL.
Although the experiment so far may not _currently_ feel like directly throwing myself on a fire, as things progress, I will eventually have to _decide_ what I'm trying to do here, and which trade-offs (in health risks, in the social consequences of my appearance) are worth what. Like the frog in that story about a slowly boiling pot of water. Or the man who, attempting to split the difference between getting the girl and being the girl, achieved neither.
Tags: cathartic
Status: draft
-I'm thinking of just avoiding community social events now specifically to avoid having to run into any trans women. Under a memetic regime where [invalidating someone's identity](http://unremediatedgender.space/2016/Sep/psychology-is-about-invalidating-peoples-identities/) is the ultimate social _faux pas_, people who model themselves as women who were assigned male at birth and people who model themselves as gender-dysphoric males who don't expect the rest of the world to humor them, are like matter and antimatter: better keep them apart lest they annihilate each other and kill everyone in the room in a shower of gamma rays.
+I'm thinking of just avoiding community social events now specifically to avoid having to run into any trans women. Under a memetic regime where [invalidating someone's identity](/2016/Sep/psychology-is-about-invalidating-peoples-identities/) is the ultimate social _faux pas_, people who model themselves as women who were assigned male at birth and people who model themselves as gender-dysphoric males who don't expect the rest of the world to humor them, are like matter and antimatter: better keep them apart lest they annihilate each other and kill everyone in the room in a shower of gamma rays.
There's this MtF social-contagion thing going on here in "Portland" that I find really disturbing
And of course, there are lots of other, subtler non-truth-tracking, non-usefulness-tracking features of an idea that could make it more memetically fit.
-Here's one: "You are a member of marginalized identity group Y; anyone who notices facts that could be construed to call this narrative into question is thereby hurting you by [invalidating your identity](http://unremediatedgender.space/2016/Sep/psychology-is-about-invalidating-peoples-identities/)."
+Here's one: "You are a member of marginalized identity group Y; anyone who notices facts that could be construed to call this narrative into question is thereby hurting you by [invalidating your identity](/2016/Sep/psychology-is-about-invalidating-peoples-identities/)."
A human who has accepted—who has been _taken hostage by_—this idea, will feel genuine pain and distress whenever anyone notices facts that could be construed to call the narrative into question. And so the human's friends, who love and care about them, will dutifully make sure to _pretend not to notice_ any inconvenient facts, and socially punish anyone who doesn't _pretend not to notice_, in order to avoid hurting their friend.
There's a word in the psychology literature for the beautiful feeling at the center of my life: _autogynephilia_ ("love of oneself as a woman"), coined in the context of a theory that it represented one of two distinct etiologies for male-to-female transsexualism. This theory didn't seem to be the standard mainstream view, and, I learned, people get really mad at you when you mention it in a comment section, so for a long time I self-identified with the _word_ "autogynephilia", but assumed that the associated _theory_ was false. _I_ wasn't one of those people who were _actually trans_; I was just, you know, one of those guys who is pointedly insistent on not being _proud_ of the fact that they're guys. (And who dimly suspects that this is somehow causually related to [...])
-Recent life events led me to do some reading—Kay Brown's blog [_On the Science of Changing Sex_](https://sillyolme.wordpress.com/), Anne Lawrence's [_Men Trapped in Men's Bodies: Narratives of Autogynephilic Transsexualism_](http://www.annelawrence.com/mtimb.html), and Imogen Binnie's novel [_Nevada_](http://haveyoureadnevada.com/) (this item is reverse-scored)—and I concluded that, no, wait, actually the theory looks _correct_, and I _do_ have the same underlying psychological condition that leads people to transition. That in fact, my story till now may even be _typical_ of people who transition in their thirties, right up to the ["Oh, I just want to _experiment_ with hormones, I'm not actually going to _transition_" part](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Jan/the-line-in-the-sand-or-my-slippery-slope-anchoring-action-plan/) (although I still think I'm smarter than that).
+Recent life events led me to do some reading—Kay Brown's blog [_On the Science of Changing Sex_](https://sillyolme.wordpress.com/), Anne Lawrence's [_Men Trapped in Men's Bodies: Narratives of Autogynephilic Transsexualism_](http://www.annelawrence.com/mtimb.html), and Imogen Binnie's novel [_Nevada_](http://haveyoureadnevada.com/) (this item is reverse-scored)—and I concluded that, no, wait, actually the theory looks _correct_, and I _do_ have the same underlying psychological condition that leads people to transition. That in fact, my story till now may even be _typical_ of people who transition in their thirties, right up to the ["Oh, I just want to _experiment_ with hormones, I'm not actually going to _transition_" part](/2017/Jan/the-line-in-the-sand-or-my-slippery-slope-anchoring-action-plan/) (although I still think I'm smarter than that).
This is _really important information_! This is _not_ the thing someone should have to piece together themselves at age 28. This is the sort of thing that should just be in the standard sex-ed books, that boys having these kinds of feelings can read at age 15 and immediately say, "Ah, I'm in the same taxon as lesbian trans women, and heterosexual crossdressers, and guys who have these fantasies but don't do anything about them in particular, and bigender people who are on low-dose hormones and choose how to 'present' in different social venues; I wonder which of these strategies is best for me given my exact circumstances?"
Tags: epistemology, ozy
Status: draft
-This post is a response to Ozymandias's ["Lies to Cis People"](https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2015/01/27/lies-to-cis-people/), and is part of my [continuing attempt](http://unremediatedgender.space/tag/ozy/) to overthrow them as _de facto_ Gender Czar of the _Less Wrong_ diaspora. (Nothing personal, Ozy!—it's just that the people deserve more cold-hearted cosmic horror–inducing reductionism than they're currently getting.)
+This post is a response to Ozymandias's ["Lies to Cis People"](https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2015/01/27/lies-to-cis-people/), and is part of my [continuing attempt](/tag/ozy/) to overthrow them as _de facto_ Gender Czar of the _Less Wrong_ diaspora. (Nothing personal, Ozy!—it's just that the people deserve more cold-hearted cosmic horror–inducing reductionism than they're currently getting.)
Ozymandias appeals to the concept of _lies-to-children_: simple models that fail to , but which are worth teaching and diseminating on the grounds of their practical utility. Lies-to-children
Anyway. One _more_ thing that had been disappointing about my February ordeal is that I had originally been scheduled to fly to Portland on 17–19 February for a brief vacation in order to [crossplay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossplay) at the [WizardWorld](http://wizardworld.com/comiccon/portland) comic convention there and visit friend of the blog "Jerrica", who—
-Ah. A brief digression is needed here. I invented the pseudonym "Mark Taylor Saotome-Westlake" for this blog because when I privately told people that I wanted to write about my autogynephilia and to advocate for AGP's causal role in the development of MtF transgenderedness being public knowledge, everyone said it would be smarter to use a pseudonym, and possibly to obfuscate my physical location as well, and I listened to them. Thus all the references to "Portland" (scare-quoted in the first appearance in each post) or [its metro area](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Jan/the-counter/) in the blog so far, suggesting that I should be thought of as living there (and thus, that it wouldn't make sense for me to write of flying there on vacation, as in the previous paragraph).
+Ah. A brief digression is needed here. I invented the pseudonym "Mark Taylor Saotome-Westlake" for this blog because when I privately told people that I wanted to write about my autogynephilia and to advocate for AGP's causal role in the development of MtF transgenderedness being public knowledge, everyone said it would be smarter to use a pseudonym, and possibly to obfuscate my physical location as well, and I listened to them. Thus all the references to "Portland" (scare-quoted in the first appearance in each post) or [its metro area](/2017/Jan/the-counter/) in the blog so far, suggesting that I should be thought of as living there (and thus, that it wouldn't make sense for me to write of flying there on vacation, as in the previous paragraph).
But after the events recounted in this post, that cautious, prudent advice to keep my identity and location secret is starting to seem unduly _cowardly_. The meta-level phenomenon that I'm so upset about (distinct from the object-level issue of how transness works) is _precisely_ that people are _far_ more reasonable in private than in public, that there are things that are knowable and known that almost no one is willing to _say out loud in public_ because they're _afraid_. (Whether of being harrassed by social-media mobs, or losing their job, or getting eaten by HIPAA-demons, no one ever seems to specify, but that's not surprising: if we knew how to reduce our fear to a probability distribution over outcomes conditional on actions, then our spirits would be one with the Bayes-structure, and the fear would not control us.) But protecting the social freedom to say true things out loud is _really important_ for the quality of our collective epistemology, which seems like the kind of social issue worth caring about, if anything is.
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