I did this all 10 years ago, concluded I was likely enough to have a female gender identity that trying out hormones was worth it, talked with a therapist who diagnosed me with gender dysphoria, etc… I could talk to a therapist again but there doesn’t seem to be a point if I’m not trying to change meds.
Therapists aren’t in the business of telling people their gender identities these days; gender identity disorder is an outdated diagnosis; instead, they diagnose gender dysphoria.
A marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and primary and/or secondary sex characteristics (or in young adolescents, the anticipated secondary sex characteristics)
A strong desire to be rid of one’s primary and/or secondary sex characteristics because of a marked incongruence with one’s experienced/expressed gender (or in young adolescents, a desire to prevent the development of the anticipated secondary sex characteristics)
A strong desire for the primary and/or secondary sex characteristics of the other gender
A strong desire to be of the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender)
A strong desire to be treated as the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender)
A strong conviction that one has the typical feelings and reactions of the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender)
And I did have multiple of these. The criteria are not totally distinct from autogynephilia, though. An autogynephilic person may, for example, strongly desire female primary and/or secondary sex characteristics. They might think of themselves as having a female gender identity because society will accept them more if they do. (I thought of myself as autogynephilic prior to thinking of myself as trans). So insofar as gender identity is determined by the criteria of gender dysphoria, autogynephilia is not a distinct phenomenon. That doesn’t mean the causality necessarily goes autogynephilia → gender dysphoria, but empirically they’re correlated, so have some sort of causal relation in terms of Bayes nets.
And none of this says something significant about brains, no one determines whether you have gender dysphoria by scanning your brain. To be clear, the brain studies in general don’t show that a trans woman’s brain is more like a cis woman’s than a cis man’s, they show that there is some significant difference between a trans woman’s and a cis man’s brain. So if a therapist says you have mtf gender dysphoria, it doesn’t follow that they think your brain is more like a cis woman’s than a cis man’s.
There’s also the more cultural/activist phenomenon of people saying you don’t need gender dysphoria to be trans, which means gender identity is not dependent on the criteria listed such as wanting different sex characteristics. These people presumably think that therapists are not competent to determine gender identity, and it’s up to people to decide it themselves. In which case, there’s not much semantic correlation at all with brain features.
As an AGP, my view is that … like, that list of symptoms is pretty diverse but if I don’t want to be a woman—not in the sense that I would be upset to be misgendered, though I would be, but more for political than genderical (?) reasons—I don’t see why it would matter if I desire to have a (particular) female bodytype.
If I imagine “myself as a woman” (as opposed to “myself as myself with a cute female appearance”), and actually put any psychological traits on that rather than just gender as a free-floating tag, then it seems to me that my identity would be severely less recognizeable to myself if I changed it along that axis. Several parts about me that I value highly are stereotypically masculine traits—and isn’t that what gender is? (Is it?) So I still think there’s a very bright line here. Similarly, when you say
They might think of themselves as having a female gender identity because society will accept them more if they do.
I don’t get this at all. This just seems to be at direct odds with the idea of an identity. Isn’t it supposed to be a belief about yourself? “I want to be whatever you approve of the most” may be a preference, but it doesn’t seem like it can be an identity by definition, or at least any definition I recognize.
Hmm, I don’t mean this to apply to all people who experience autogynephilia but some of them. A lot of transfeminine people including me have explored more general gender related feelings after (because of?) noticing autogynephilia. I mean, if a male person prefers to have sex using female genitalia, for example, that would generally be classified as “autogynephilia” due to showing up in sexual fantasies and could motivate gender transition.
Gender identity is an under-defined term, it’s incredibly easy to make stuff up about. If society says it will allow people to transition because they have a trans gender identity, then someone who wants to transition has an incentive to say they have a trans gender identity so they fit the pattern. They might also psych themselves up about this, incentives can apply not-deliberately in the sense of the elephant in the brain. I think I’ve experienced something like this, the main actual decision I made was to try estrogen and I started saying I was a woman and having related identity thoughts shortly afterwards. It makes sense that people would recognize social scripts for doing things they want to do and follow those social scripts. This is a social skill taught to autistic people and also applies to cases such as dating and job interviews.
If a gender identity is a belief about one’s own gender, then it’s not even clear that I have one in a substantial relevant sense, which is part of the point of my “Am I trans?” post. I think I would have said early on that I better matched male psychological stereotypes and it’s more complicated now (due to life experience?). It feels kind of silly to say I’m not trans even though I did all the usual trans things, but maybe it’s implied by that sort of definition.
If a gender identity is a belief about one’s own gender, then it’s not even clear that I have one in a substantial relevant sense, which is part of the point of my “Am I trans?” post. I think I would have said early on that I better matched male psychological stereotypes and it’s more complicated now (due to life experience?).
Right? I mean, what should I say, who identifies as male and wants to keep his male-typical psychological stereotypes? It seems to me what you’re saying in this post fits more closely with the conservative stereotype as the trans movement as “something that creates transgender people.” (Implied, in this case, “out of autogynephiles.”) I mean, if we say some AGPs who cannot transition are so unhappy that they kill themselves, all the usual utilitarian logic still applies, it just puts the ontology in doubt. And also means that as someone who wants to—like, not inherently identify as male but keep the parts of himself that would be identified as male (aside from appearance), I should stay away from the trans movement at all costs?
Also doesn’t it put the Categories in a kind of reverse dependency? We’ve defined “trans mtf” as “the category of people who are women despite having a male body” and “the category of people allowed to transition”. And Scott said we should allow people to be in the category because it makes them happy. But if it makes (edit: some of) them happy because they are allowed to transition, then this model is bizarre; the “female identity” part just sort of hangs on there out of path dependence.
I guess I could say, if you want to keep being psychologically male, don’t medically transition and present as a woman for years, and if you do don’t buy into the ideology that you did any of this because of some gender identity? Probably there’s variation in the degree to which people want to remain psychologically gendered the way they are which is part of what explains differences in decisions.
I think there is a real problem with the gender/trans memespace inducing gender dysphoria in people, such as distress not previously present at being different from people of one’s identified gender in various ways. I think this kind of criticism would be more likely to be accepted by more left/liberal people if connected to broader societal phenomena. There’s gender binarism, which tells people they have to “pick one”, and expect people to support transition less if they don’t. There’s the Judith Butlerian perspective on gender identity where it’s induced by coercion (in cis people not just trans people) and creates the illusion that psychological traits and desired behaviors follow from gender identity rather than vice versa. There’s general stigmatization of gender nonconformity, and gatekeeping of medical transition, so that it’s considered strange/unacceptable for a male person to wants breasts if they aren’t acting as a woman more generally. And there’s classism in terms of only some people having access to certain narratives about transition because of education level and so on. In rephrasing the conservative critiques I’m saying a lot of the same content but in a way that is also critical of general cisheteronormative society, and I think that’s one of the main controversial political axes.
I think part of the appeal for some people is the female identity part, but it’s hard to tell how much this reflects intrinsic preferences because of the coercion to say you have one if you’re transitioning. It’s a general nature/nurture difficulty with disambiguating causes of behaviors. I think it would matter a lot less to people (such as me and the author of this post) how people are categorized if it was clear that extreme gender nonconformity was acceptable.
I did this all 10 years ago, concluded I was likely enough to have a female gender identity that trying out hormones was worth it, talked with a therapist who diagnosed me with gender dysphoria, etc… I could talk to a therapist again but there doesn’t seem to be a point if I’m not trying to change meds.
Therapists aren’t in the business of telling people their gender identities these days; gender identity disorder is an outdated diagnosis; instead, they diagnose gender dysphoria.
The symptoms of gender dysphoria are:
And I did have multiple of these. The criteria are not totally distinct from autogynephilia, though. An autogynephilic person may, for example, strongly desire female primary and/or secondary sex characteristics. They might think of themselves as having a female gender identity because society will accept them more if they do. (I thought of myself as autogynephilic prior to thinking of myself as trans). So insofar as gender identity is determined by the criteria of gender dysphoria, autogynephilia is not a distinct phenomenon. That doesn’t mean the causality necessarily goes autogynephilia → gender dysphoria, but empirically they’re correlated, so have some sort of causal relation in terms of Bayes nets.
And none of this says something significant about brains, no one determines whether you have gender dysphoria by scanning your brain. To be clear, the brain studies in general don’t show that a trans woman’s brain is more like a cis woman’s than a cis man’s, they show that there is some significant difference between a trans woman’s and a cis man’s brain. So if a therapist says you have mtf gender dysphoria, it doesn’t follow that they think your brain is more like a cis woman’s than a cis man’s.
There’s also the more cultural/activist phenomenon of people saying you don’t need gender dysphoria to be trans, which means gender identity is not dependent on the criteria listed such as wanting different sex characteristics. These people presumably think that therapists are not competent to determine gender identity, and it’s up to people to decide it themselves. In which case, there’s not much semantic correlation at all with brain features.
As an AGP, my view is that … like, that list of symptoms is pretty diverse but if I don’t want to be a woman—not in the sense that I would be upset to be misgendered, though I would be, but more for political than genderical (?) reasons—I don’t see why it would matter if I desire to have a (particular) female bodytype.
If I imagine “myself as a woman” (as opposed to “myself as myself with a cute female appearance”), and actually put any psychological traits on that rather than just gender as a free-floating tag, then it seems to me that my identity would be severely less recognizeable to myself if I changed it along that axis. Several parts about me that I value highly are stereotypically masculine traits—and isn’t that what gender is? (Is it?) So I still think there’s a very bright line here. Similarly, when you say
I don’t get this at all. This just seems to be at direct odds with the idea of an identity. Isn’t it supposed to be a belief about yourself? “I want to be whatever you approve of the most” may be a preference, but it doesn’t seem like it can be an identity by definition, or at least any definition I recognize.
Hmm, I don’t mean this to apply to all people who experience autogynephilia but some of them. A lot of transfeminine people including me have explored more general gender related feelings after (because of?) noticing autogynephilia. I mean, if a male person prefers to have sex using female genitalia, for example, that would generally be classified as “autogynephilia” due to showing up in sexual fantasies and could motivate gender transition.
Gender identity is an under-defined term, it’s incredibly easy to make stuff up about. If society says it will allow people to transition because they have a trans gender identity, then someone who wants to transition has an incentive to say they have a trans gender identity so they fit the pattern. They might also psych themselves up about this, incentives can apply not-deliberately in the sense of the elephant in the brain. I think I’ve experienced something like this, the main actual decision I made was to try estrogen and I started saying I was a woman and having related identity thoughts shortly afterwards. It makes sense that people would recognize social scripts for doing things they want to do and follow those social scripts. This is a social skill taught to autistic people and also applies to cases such as dating and job interviews.
If a gender identity is a belief about one’s own gender, then it’s not even clear that I have one in a substantial relevant sense, which is part of the point of my “Am I trans?” post. I think I would have said early on that I better matched male psychological stereotypes and it’s more complicated now (due to life experience?). It feels kind of silly to say I’m not trans even though I did all the usual trans things, but maybe it’s implied by that sort of definition.
Right? I mean, what should I say, who identifies as male and wants to keep his male-typical psychological stereotypes? It seems to me what you’re saying in this post fits more closely with the conservative stereotype as the trans movement as “something that creates transgender people.” (Implied, in this case, “out of autogynephiles.”) I mean, if we say some AGPs who cannot transition are so unhappy that they kill themselves, all the usual utilitarian logic still applies, it just puts the ontology in doubt. And also means that as someone who wants to—like, not inherently identify as male but keep the parts of himself that would be identified as male (aside from appearance), I should stay away from the trans movement at all costs?
Also doesn’t it put the Categories in a kind of reverse dependency? We’ve defined “trans mtf” as “the category of people who are women despite having a male body” and “the category of people allowed to transition”. And Scott said we should allow people to be in the category because it makes them happy. But if it makes (edit: some of) them happy because they are allowed to transition, then this model is bizarre; the “female identity” part just sort of hangs on there out of path dependence.
I guess I could say, if you want to keep being psychologically male, don’t medically transition and present as a woman for years, and if you do don’t buy into the ideology that you did any of this because of some gender identity? Probably there’s variation in the degree to which people want to remain psychologically gendered the way they are which is part of what explains differences in decisions.
I think there is a real problem with the gender/trans memespace inducing gender dysphoria in people, such as distress not previously present at being different from people of one’s identified gender in various ways. I think this kind of criticism would be more likely to be accepted by more left/liberal people if connected to broader societal phenomena. There’s gender binarism, which tells people they have to “pick one”, and expect people to support transition less if they don’t. There’s the Judith Butlerian perspective on gender identity where it’s induced by coercion (in cis people not just trans people) and creates the illusion that psychological traits and desired behaviors follow from gender identity rather than vice versa. There’s general stigmatization of gender nonconformity, and gatekeeping of medical transition, so that it’s considered strange/unacceptable for a male person to wants breasts if they aren’t acting as a woman more generally. And there’s classism in terms of only some people having access to certain narratives about transition because of education level and so on. In rephrasing the conservative critiques I’m saying a lot of the same content but in a way that is also critical of general cisheteronormative society, and I think that’s one of the main controversial political axes.
I think part of the appeal for some people is the female identity part, but it’s hard to tell how much this reflects intrinsic preferences because of the coercion to say you have one if you’re transitioning. It’s a general nature/nurture difficulty with disambiguating causes of behaviors. I think it would matter a lot less to people (such as me and the author of this post) how people are categorized if it was clear that extreme gender nonconformity was acceptable.