Huh, I wonder how I missed this post the first time around; I was already questioning my gender when it was posted. (It sounds like I’m in the same boat you were in two years ago; 21, biologically male, feel like I’m almost definitely trans (several other similar details too), but still have a lot of “And yet...”s.)
The way it stands now, the so-called gender identity disorder isn’t really something that is truly diagnosed, because it’s based on self-reporting; you cannot look into someone’s head and say “you’re definitely transsexual” without their conscious understanding of themselves and their consent. So it seems to me outside the domain of psychiatry in the first place. I’ve heard some transpeople voice hope that there could be a device that could scan the part of the brain responsible for gender identity and say “yes, this one is definitely trans” and “no, this one definitely isn’t”. But to me, the prospect of such a device horrifies me even in principle. What if the device conflicts their self-reporting? (I suspect I’m anxious about the possibility of it filtering me, specifically.) What should we consider more reliable—the machine or self-reporting?
This prospect actually isn’t only hypothetical; there’s been some research showing measurable differences in pre-transition trans people’s biology, including brain structures that actually appear to resemble those of the sex associated with their self-identified gender. This is quite interesting, and if true, suggests that genders (not just sexes) are more like natural categories than I previously thought. I’m looking forward to seeing more research done on this. And although I definitely wouldn’t advocate replacing self-reporting with brain scanning unless we had a comprehensively worked-out theory of how gender identity actually worked and we could actually predict people’s eventual gender identities and outcomes better than they subjectively could, it would at least be good in the meantime if it became possible to probabilistically screen children for likely transsexuality so that puberty could be delayed if necessary.
Anyway, I considered such a device as a thought experiment during my own questioning, and I noticed that I too would be hoping that it would say “Yeah, you’re definitely trans” and would feel despondent if it said I had to remain male. But that kind of gives the game away, doesn’t it? I can’t think of any instance where a non-trans person would be wishing or hoping they were trans (at least after reading as much about it as I have now); it’s not a life that anyone would wish upon themselves. I intercepted some other motivated reasoning during my questioning, but all of it was along similar lines — “I hope I don’t conclude I’m not trans, because then I won’t get to be a girl, and I really want to be a girl.” I’m not saying I’d embrace motivated reasoning in this case, but this case is unusual in that observing that you’re engaging in motivated reasoning toward a particular conclusion is actually at least some evidence for that conclusion. (Makes it hard to know how much to update by, though.)
Actually, a bunch of brain things we thought sorted between men and women turned out to sort between attraction to men and to women, so they won’t distinguish a straight transwoman from a cis gay man.
Also, there are quite a bunch of people who transition, then go back, so “it’s not a life anyone would wish upon themselves” won’t work. I’d much rather trust the brain scanner if it’s at all trustworthy (and has a genderqueer slot, thank you very much). If it says “Nope, you’re a girl”… well, I’ll be seriously disappointed, but I’d make the best of it and be a dyke or something.
When I was 19 or 20, I seriously considered whether I was transgender, but eventually concluded that I’m cismale. I considered myself attracted-to-women at the time (though on reflection I’m slightly bi-curious, even now I mostly think of myself as straight). I was very worried about deciding incorrectly in either direction and afterward, about possibly having decided incorrectly. I’m still fairly confident though. Thought I’d post this because I imagine most stories are shared by people who did decide they were transgender. Hypothetically though, the amount of utilons you’d have to pay me to permanently transition (with no hypothetical changes to actual me or reality), while quite large, is probably substantially lower than for most cispeople.
If you don’t mind me asking, what were the observations that lead you to locate and consider that hypothesis in the first place, and how did you come to reject it?
For my part, I’ve been trying always to hug the query as tightly as possible; when I can get myself to stop thinking abstractly and verbally about whether or not I’m “transgender” and instead wonder perceptually and at the object level about individual, separable questions such as “Have I ever been happy about becoming more masculine?” (if not, I don’t have to, whether or not I am “transgender”), “Do I feel more comfortable being referred to and addressed as male or female?” (if the latter, I can continue going by my new name and pronouns, whether or not I am “transgender”), “Am I happy about the changes I’m undergoing/anticipating; do I feel better overall?” (~7 weeks HRT so far; if so, I can continue as long as it continues to enhappy me, whether or not blahblahblah), “Do I prefer speaking in a female voice?” (since voice feminization is just a matter of training anyway and doesn’t remove manvoice, I am free to develop a female speaking (and preferably singing) voice and use it as much or as little as I find I want to), etc., the answers are always pretty unambiguous, particularly since I would have no problem with myself turning out to be genderfluid (which I had assumed I’d be for a long while, though I didn’t learn the word until this year) or bigender or otherwise nonbinary. But apparently I’m not, at least given what I know so far; not since I started letting myself think about such things have I woken up feeling any desire to be or present as more male that day than I have to, never have I felt like tying back (let alone cutting off) my long beautiful hair since I got it permanently straightened (it has more of a scruffy-male-hobo look when it’s not straightened), ne’er since I got my current one pair of girl jeans have I felt like wearing guy clothes, except when going out (I’m not able to pass yet), and I always change back as soon as I get back home, and the feeling is just kind of like “Well, why the hell wouldn’t I?”. Same with things like body hair, once I got rid of it for the first time, I’ve never felt the need to consider whether I want to let it grow back, it doesn’t even feel like a question. And as for HRT itself, at this point I don’t think I could stop if I tried, I don’t think I could even try to stop if I tried, because I just don’t have any desire to at any level. My understanding is that cis males generally would not appreciate the breast growth and diminished sex drive.
How far would you have gotten using a process like that?
Strongest evidence was a desire to have no facial hair. I’m also intrigued by the idea of having no body hair. Today I consider these to be cosmetic body modifications which I may eventually pay to have, finances permitting.
As a teenager, I sometimes fantasized being a girl; I considered this weak evidence because I found it plausible that doing so as much as I did was within the range of typical variation for cismales. Also I found it annoying to have “dangly bits”, but I concluded that the main consideration seemed to be convenience. I’m weakly convinced that bottom surgery is minus-EV with respect to convenience, though it’s possible for technology to improve. Medium-sized boobs instead would probably be more inconvenient. Small boobs instead would probably be less inconvenient; I suspect they might be more fun than no boobs. And they don’t seem /that/ inconvenient; I should mention that my male bits also don’t seem /that/ inconvenient to me now.
The rest of this comment will be far more articulate than my thinking at the time, but I think it’s close enough.
I think my feelings can be decomposed to two orthogonal categories: Munchkinism, and desire to be androgynous.
Transgender is a particularly conspicuous cluster in hypothesis-space. But my explanation is also simple, and fits well. I’m bothered that I can’t come up with any really strong predictions to distinguish Transgender versus “Androgyny” (defined as shorthand for “desire to be androgynous”), and also that I have no sense of the ratio Pr(Transgender) : Pr(“Androgyny”). Even my rather low level of body dysphoria is not that great for distinguishing. I think this is because the Transgender cluster is spacious enough that it approaches really damn close to “Androgyny”.
Come to think of it, I wonder if Munchkinism influenced the conclusion. You’d expect Transgender-or-not to almost completely outweigh it in a utility calculation, but hmm… (Munchkinism, or at least my brand of it, loves being a guy: tall, big hands (which conflicts with “Androgyny”, at least in my case), fast metabolism at certain ages (actually I’m only somewhat confident about that being preferable), also privilege (which doesn’t seem to show up much in my deliberations, but maybe it does and I haven’t noticed).
edit:
I’m satisfied with my current voice (ofc Munchkinisim would love more control over voice). That does seem to distinguish my Transgender and “Androgyny” hypotheses. I felt a significant burst of relief from having that articulated. Thank you very much.
I try not to think (primarily) in terms of convenience, because from everything I’ve heard, it seems like adult cases of gender dysphoria don’t go away and only get worse over time, eventually outweighing almost anything else. Conditional on the hypothesis that I do in fact have a transgender brain, I’d expect that if I decided to avoid transitioning now for instrumental reasons, I’d only end up regretting it later.
I did have some thoughts along those lines… e.g. at one point I was mildly wishing to be taller (I’m 5′6″) for social impressiveness reasons, though now I’m quite happy about my height and my generally not-very-masculine build. And when I was just starting to seriously wonder about this, or possibly even before then, I already had a general sense that I’d probably want to transition at some point, but I hoped I could put it off until after the singularity and put it out of my mind until then. Of course, that didn’t work out, it didn’t go away and after a few months it got to the point where I was almost constantly preoccupied by it. At that point the instrumental considerations didn’t seem that compelling.
Anyway, given my current state of information I’m still satisfied that I’m making the right decision at the moment, but thanks for sharing your experience!
(It sounds like I’m in the same boat you were in two years ago; 21, biologically male, feel like I’m almost definitely trans (several other similar details too), but still have a lot of “And yet...”s.)
Indeed, I have the uncanny sense that I’m reading something by my future self.
Huh, I wonder how I missed this post the first time around; I was already questioning my gender when it was posted. (It sounds like I’m in the same boat you were in two years ago; 21, biologically male, feel like I’m almost definitely trans (several other similar details too), but still have a lot of “And yet...”s.)
This prospect actually isn’t only hypothetical; there’s been some research showing measurable differences in pre-transition trans people’s biology, including brain structures that actually appear to resemble those of the sex associated with their self-identified gender. This is quite interesting, and if true, suggests that genders (not just sexes) are more like natural categories than I previously thought. I’m looking forward to seeing more research done on this. And although I definitely wouldn’t advocate replacing self-reporting with brain scanning unless we had a comprehensively worked-out theory of how gender identity actually worked and we could actually predict people’s eventual gender identities and outcomes better than they subjectively could, it would at least be good in the meantime if it became possible to probabilistically screen children for likely transsexuality so that puberty could be delayed if necessary.
Anyway, I considered such a device as a thought experiment during my own questioning, and I noticed that I too would be hoping that it would say “Yeah, you’re definitely trans” and would feel despondent if it said I had to remain male. But that kind of gives the game away, doesn’t it? I can’t think of any instance where a non-trans person would be wishing or hoping they were trans (at least after reading as much about it as I have now); it’s not a life that anyone would wish upon themselves. I intercepted some other motivated reasoning during my questioning, but all of it was along similar lines — “I hope I don’t conclude I’m not trans, because then I won’t get to be a girl, and I really want to be a girl.” I’m not saying I’d embrace motivated reasoning in this case, but this case is unusual in that observing that you’re engaging in motivated reasoning toward a particular conclusion is actually at least some evidence for that conclusion. (Makes it hard to know how much to update by, though.)
Actually, a bunch of brain things we thought sorted between men and women turned out to sort between attraction to men and to women, so they won’t distinguish a straight transwoman from a cis gay man.
Also, there are quite a bunch of people who transition, then go back, so “it’s not a life anyone would wish upon themselves” won’t work. I’d much rather trust the brain scanner if it’s at all trustworthy (and has a genderqueer slot, thank you very much). If it says “Nope, you’re a girl”… well, I’ll be seriously disappointed, but I’d make the best of it and be a dyke or something.
When I was 19 or 20, I seriously considered whether I was transgender, but eventually concluded that I’m cismale. I considered myself attracted-to-women at the time (though on reflection I’m slightly bi-curious, even now I mostly think of myself as straight). I was very worried about deciding incorrectly in either direction and afterward, about possibly having decided incorrectly. I’m still fairly confident though. Thought I’d post this because I imagine most stories are shared by people who did decide they were transgender. Hypothetically though, the amount of utilons you’d have to pay me to permanently transition (with no hypothetical changes to actual me or reality), while quite large, is probably substantially lower than for most cispeople.
If you don’t mind me asking, what were the observations that lead you to locate and consider that hypothesis in the first place, and how did you come to reject it?
For my part, I’ve been trying always to hug the query as tightly as possible; when I can get myself to stop thinking abstractly and verbally about whether or not I’m “transgender” and instead wonder perceptually and at the object level about individual, separable questions such as “Have I ever been happy about becoming more masculine?” (if not, I don’t have to, whether or not I am “transgender”), “Do I feel more comfortable being referred to and addressed as male or female?” (if the latter, I can continue going by my new name and pronouns, whether or not I am “transgender”), “Am I happy about the changes I’m undergoing/anticipating; do I feel better overall?” (~7 weeks HRT so far; if so, I can continue as long as it continues to enhappy me, whether or not blahblahblah), “Do I prefer speaking in a female voice?” (since voice feminization is just a matter of training anyway and doesn’t remove manvoice, I am free to develop a female speaking (and preferably singing) voice and use it as much or as little as I find I want to), etc., the answers are always pretty unambiguous, particularly since I would have no problem with myself turning out to be genderfluid (which I had assumed I’d be for a long while, though I didn’t learn the word until this year) or bigender or otherwise nonbinary. But apparently I’m not, at least given what I know so far; not since I started letting myself think about such things have I woken up feeling any desire to be or present as more male that day than I have to, never have I felt like tying back (let alone cutting off) my long beautiful hair since I got it permanently straightened (it has more of a scruffy-male-hobo look when it’s not straightened), ne’er since I got my current one pair of girl jeans have I felt like wearing guy clothes, except when going out (I’m not able to pass yet), and I always change back as soon as I get back home, and the feeling is just kind of like “Well, why the hell wouldn’t I?”. Same with things like body hair, once I got rid of it for the first time, I’ve never felt the need to consider whether I want to let it grow back, it doesn’t even feel like a question. And as for HRT itself, at this point I don’t think I could stop if I tried, I don’t think I could even try to stop if I tried, because I just don’t have any desire to at any level. My understanding is that cis males generally would not appreciate the breast growth and diminished sex drive.
How far would you have gotten using a process like that?
Evidence leading to hypothesis:
Strongest evidence was a desire to have no facial hair. I’m also intrigued by the idea of having no body hair. Today I consider these to be cosmetic body modifications which I may eventually pay to have, finances permitting.
As a teenager, I sometimes fantasized being a girl; I considered this weak evidence because I found it plausible that doing so as much as I did was within the range of typical variation for cismales. Also I found it annoying to have “dangly bits”, but I concluded that the main consideration seemed to be convenience. I’m weakly convinced that bottom surgery is minus-EV with respect to convenience, though it’s possible for technology to improve. Medium-sized boobs instead would probably be more inconvenient. Small boobs instead would probably be less inconvenient; I suspect they might be more fun than no boobs. And they don’t seem /that/ inconvenient; I should mention that my male bits also don’t seem /that/ inconvenient to me now.
The rest of this comment will be far more articulate than my thinking at the time, but I think it’s close enough.
I think my feelings can be decomposed to two orthogonal categories: Munchkinism, and desire to be androgynous.
Transgender is a particularly conspicuous cluster in hypothesis-space. But my explanation is also simple, and fits well. I’m bothered that I can’t come up with any really strong predictions to distinguish Transgender versus “Androgyny” (defined as shorthand for “desire to be androgynous”), and also that I have no sense of the ratio Pr(Transgender) : Pr(“Androgyny”). Even my rather low level of body dysphoria is not that great for distinguishing. I think this is because the Transgender cluster is spacious enough that it approaches really damn close to “Androgyny”.
Come to think of it, I wonder if Munchkinism influenced the conclusion. You’d expect Transgender-or-not to almost completely outweigh it in a utility calculation, but hmm… (Munchkinism, or at least my brand of it, loves being a guy: tall, big hands (which conflicts with “Androgyny”, at least in my case), fast metabolism at certain ages (actually I’m only somewhat confident about that being preferable), also privilege (which doesn’t seem to show up much in my deliberations, but maybe it does and I haven’t noticed).
edit:
I’m satisfied with my current voice (ofc Munchkinisim would love more control over voice). That does seem to distinguish my Transgender and “Androgyny” hypotheses. I felt a significant burst of relief from having that articulated. Thank you very much.
I try not to think (primarily) in terms of convenience, because from everything I’ve heard, it seems like adult cases of gender dysphoria don’t go away and only get worse over time, eventually outweighing almost anything else. Conditional on the hypothesis that I do in fact have a transgender brain, I’d expect that if I decided to avoid transitioning now for instrumental reasons, I’d only end up regretting it later.
I did have some thoughts along those lines… e.g. at one point I was mildly wishing to be taller (I’m 5′6″) for social impressiveness reasons, though now I’m quite happy about my height and my generally not-very-masculine build. And when I was just starting to seriously wonder about this, or possibly even before then, I already had a general sense that I’d probably want to transition at some point, but I hoped I could put it off until after the singularity and put it out of my mind until then. Of course, that didn’t work out, it didn’t go away and after a few months it got to the point where I was almost constantly preoccupied by it. At that point the instrumental considerations didn’t seem that compelling.
Anyway, given my current state of information I’m still satisfied that I’m making the right decision at the moment, but thanks for sharing your experience!
Indeed, I have the uncanny sense that I’m reading something by my future self.