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_](/2017/Feb/a-beacon-through-the-darkness-or-getting-it-right-the-first-time/) "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 are [pointedly insistent on](/2017/Dec/a-common-misunderstanding-or-the-spirit-of-the-staircase-24-january-2009/) not being _proud_ of the fact that they're guys. (And who dimly, privately suspect that this may somehow be causally related to their obsessive masturbation fantasies about being magically transformed into a woman.)
-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 monograph [_Men Trapped in Men's Bodies: Narratives of Autogynephilic Transsexualism_](http://www.annelawrence.com/mtimb.html), and Imogen Binnie's novel [_Nevada_](https://www.dailydot.com/irl/nevada-imogen-binnie-transgender/) (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 up to 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_" phase](/2017/Jan/the-line-in-the-sand-or-my-slippery-slope-anchoring-action-plan/) (although I [still think](/2017/Sep/hormones-day-156-developments-doubts-and-pulling-the-plug-or-putting-the-cis-in-decision/) I'm smarter than that).
+Moving to "Portland" in 2016 and meeting some _very interesting_ people there led me to do some more reading—Kay Brown's blog [_On the Science of Changing Sex_](https://sillyolme.wordpress.com/), Anne Lawrence's monograph [_Men Trapped in Men's Bodies: Narratives of Autogynephilic Transsexualism_](http://www.annelawrence.com/mtimb.html), Imogen Binnie's novel [_Nevada_](https://www.dailydot.com/irl/nevada-imogen-binnie-transgender/) (this item is reverse-scored)—and I eventually 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 up to now may even be _typical_ of trans women who transition in their thirties, right up to the ["Oh, I just want to _experiment_ with hormones, I'm not actually going to _transition_" phase](/2017/Jan/the-line-in-the-sand-or-my-slippery-slope-anchoring-action-plan/) (although I [still think](/2017/Sep/hormones-day-156-developments-doubts-and-pulling-the-plug-or-putting-the-cis-in-decision/) I'm smarter than that).
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+(If you only have time to read one paper, I recommend Lawrence 2017 ["Autogynephilia and the Typology of Male-to-Female Transsexualism: Concepts and Controversies."](http://www.annelawrence.com/autogynephilia_&_MtF_typology.html))
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?"
-So, while I realize that a lot of people have strong feelings about this topic, and I wanted to be sensitive to that, I also want to promote this information, because I want people to have accurate information about the underlying psychological condition, so they can make the best choices about what to do about it, whereas people might make poorer choices in a regime where everyone had to figure things out for themselves in an environment full of misinformation about "gender identity."
+So, while I realize that a lot of people have strong feelings about this topic, and I wanted to be sensitive to that, I also want to promote this theory, because I want people to have accurate information about the underlying psychological condition, so they can make the best [choices](http://unremediatedgender.space/2017/Dec/lesser-known-demand-curves/) about what to do about it, whereas people might make poorer choices in a regime where everyone had to figure things out for themselves in an environment full of misinformation about "gender identity."
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+Let me tell you about the moment I stopped wanting to be sensitive—the moment of liberating clarity when I resolved the tension between being a good person and the attendant requirement to pretend to be stupid by deciding not to be a good person anymore.
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+I was arguing about all this with a (cis, male) acquaintance over instant messaging, who I'll call "Kevin."
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+Understand the underlying psychological phenomenon _first_, I said, _then_ decide on quality-of-life interventions based on the facts.
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+He said that the quality-of-life interventions available from that seem small relative to the harm caused by insisting that late-transition trans women aren't real women, that the right time to consider confronting this would be after the culture war over trans rights is safely out of the Overton window, probably in 25 to 30 years. He said that I would have a generally better model of the world if I assumed that autogynephilia is not a real thing that has tangible effects.
-Let me tell you about the moment I stopped wanting to be sensitive.
+But then how am I supposed to explain the last 14 years of my life? I asked. Am I supposed to believe I was secretly a girl this entire time and didn't notice? Even though I didn't know, _and_ no one else knew, _and_ I had a male body _and_ the vast majority of my psychological traits were in the male normal range?
-[recount conversation]
+Yes, he said, you were a girl and misdiagnosed it; that's the simplest explanation of the facts. He said that my focus on what causes my MtF feelings is misplaced: it would not benefit me to find out. It will not benefit anyone else to find out.
It didn't feel like I was talking to a reasonable, sane person who happened to have different beliefs from me about the etiology of male-to-female transgenderedness.
I understand that for people who have _already_ built up a self-image around the idea that they are literally women and always have been, the idea that their female gender identity arose out of a misinterpretation of misdirected male sexuality could be extremely disturbing.
-I'm happy to shut up about, um, rguavp VD qvssreraprf univat n fvmnoyr trargvp pbzcbarag, but this, _this_ is _personal_.
+But people dealing with gender dysphoria who haven't already transitioned deserve accurate information! I'm happy to shut up about, um, rguavp VD qvssreraprf univat n fvmnoyr trargvp pbzcbarag, but this, _this_ is _personal_.
-But people dealing with gender dysphoria who haven't already transitioned deserve accurate information! This is _personal_ to me. If being a good person means submitting to social pressure aimed at getting me to _shut up and stop thinking_ about the true nature of the beautiful feeling at the center of my life for _twenty-five fucking years_ (!?), then I have _no interest_ in being a good person.
+If being a good person means submitting to social pressure aimed at getting me to _shut up and stop thinking_ about the true nature of the beautiful feeling at the center of my life for _twenty-five fucking years_ (!?), then I have _no interest_ in being a good person.
I'm certainly not _trying_ to say things that will hurt people—_least_ of all people who are mostly just like me but read different books in a different order and are living out a pretty decent approximation of _my wildest fantasy_.
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