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.
Throway
Karma: 3
- Throway 23 Oct 2011 3:42 UTC1 pointin reply to: ata’s comment on: Gender Identity and Rationality
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.