rae
1yr ago
That hasn’t been my experience. I did CBT and there it was quite focused on tracking my emotional state and finding actions to regulate it, and more ordinary talk therapy where I was pushed to be more assertive, recognise abusive relationships and be more emotionally resilient overall. therapy does encourage you to have more self-compassion and avoid emotional repression, but to me that’s the opposite of fragility. People who bottle up everything tend to be very brittle - seeming solid until it gets too much and they shatter.
rae
1yr ago
Why would therapy be less effective for men? I’ve heard moreso that men don’t want to start going to therapy for various reasons (associating therapy with leftism is a new one for me, which I don’t really understand) but it’s a very useful tool to have.
And there’s more than one way to practice it - cognitive behavioural therapy has been found to be effective for anxiety, depression, PTSD, ADHD, and more, and I can’t conceive of a reason it would be less effective for men.
rae
1yr ago
It’s an especially stupid reason to commit suicide because it’s still possible to provide for your family if your business fails - you can still get an ordinary job, or do consulting work, drive an Uber, whatever it takes. The only sure way to be unable to provide is to be dead, so what does killing yourself accomplish? Your spouse now has to shoulder the entire burden on their own.
The scientific evidence, from what I’ve read, seems to say that both sexuality and gender identity are influenced by the exposure to prenatal androgens and other hormonal factors. Gay men and trans women would have less androgen exposure than straight men - resulting in different physiological traits such as higher digit ratio and the infamous “gay face”. A gay man will be involuntarily aroused by homosexual sexual stimuli and there’s no evidence that psychological interventions can change that baseline physiological response. All kinds of men (bisexual, or straight men in prison) can have sex with men, but for gays, their attraction is fundamental physiological trait.
Meanwhile a trans woman is a biological male with some degree of gender dysphoria that takes steps to alter their gender presentation and goes on cross-sex hormones to alleviate that dysphoria. Again, gender presentation is a choice, but the gender dysphoria itself is an involuntary (possibly hormonally caused) condition, and psychological interventions will also have limited success - trans repressors will attest to the psychological toll it takes.
One difficulty I see is distinguishing between one’s inner state and one’s actions. A man is not gay because he has sex with men, he is gay because he is attracted to men. A gay man can be married to a woman and need to fantasise about men to have sex with her, and a straight man can have sex with men (e.g. in prison, on a ship) while thinking about women. There are people that will argue that if you’re a man who has sex with men, then you’re gay, but then does that mean that men who masturbate are attracted to their own hands? That teenage boys are attracted to couches, apple pies or whatever objects that they stereotypical use as masturbation aids?
Same with gender identity, except there definitions get even more controversial (i.e. “what is a woman”). The mainstream trans orthodoxy, from what I understand, says there is an inner “gender state” that can be reflected by your gender presentation, and the inner state is what we should call man/woman/non-binary/etc. Conservatives say there’s just biological sex and someone that’s an adult human male is a man, and someone that’s an adult female human is a woman. Personally I’m not sure there is really an inner “gender identity” in the same way there’s an inner sexual orientation, but gender dysphoria is definitely a thing, and it’s possible to change your gender presentation so that other people see you as the opposite sex and consequently call you a man/woman.
rae
1yr ago
That’s the first time I hear of such a hypothesis and I would say that while there might be a subgroup to which this applies to - the exhibitionist type that flaunts their bodies regardless how well they pass and engage in hugboxing on Reddit - the majority of trans people I know are the opposite in that they have body dysmorphic disorder, imposter syndrome, and issues with self worth. Of course the former group is going to be more visible, but applying conclusions to the entire transgender phenomenon based on them would be a mistake.
If an institution gives preferential treatment to individuals based entirely on their identity, it’s absolutely understandable why someone would fake it if all it takes is self-declaration.
It’s completely the prison’s own fault if Nazi inmates are pretending to be Jewish so that they don’t eat the standard prison slop, and I have little sympathy for the abusive, violent institution that is the US justice system. If they wanted to “fix” the problem, they should make the kosher food as unpalatable and inconvenient as the rest of their offerings, not test inmates for Judaism.
Personally, my preferred solution would be to limit or remove the circumstances where individual identity matters at all. For instance, my preferred solution to the pronoun issue would just be to remove gendered pronouns completely; in languages like Hungarian or Turkish for example, they don’t exist and people communicate just fine, while romance languages go further than English and have almost every single noun and adjective be gendered. Obviously this is not always practical but the general goal should be towards less identity politics, not more.
rae
1yr ago
I was under the impression that straight men were into seeing breasts and butts, but weren’t particularly visually into vulvas on their own, as that’s what the (admittedly limited) conversations I’ve had with straight men focused on.
rae
1yr ago
Wouldn’t straight men not also be weirded out by an unsolicited labia pic? Dick pics aren’t the same as a nude or a thirst trap, they’re an impersonal, disembodied close-up robbed of context and personality, and when they’re unsolicited, it’s like they’re intentionally there to shock or provoke; the equivalent of someone flashing their genitals at you but in the digital world.
rae
1yr ago
If just looking at attractive people is being a slave to unproductive passions, then surely making the extra effort to have sex with them is even worse? The recipe for sexual success is relatively straightforward and you probably know what’s involved - on some level I’m sure you’re aware that it would require you to invest a significant amount of time on what is ultimately a vacuous pursuit and you’re choosing to spend it on things you care about instead. So there’s no reason to feel let down.
Personally I was very promiscuous in the past but all my hook-ups were exactly as you describe being around attractive women - transitory happiness, like eating a nutrient-bereft slice of cheesecake but feeling empty despite all the calories, a quick fix of validation to make me feel better when I felt unattractive or worthless. No amount of sex can substitute for genuine human connection, but it’s hard to really internalise that when society is pushing hard for equating self worth with sex appeal - but I hope you’re able to make the leap and go for forming genuine friendships and romantic connections without spending huge amounts of energy at the meat market first.
rae
1yr ago
What do you mean “deal with”? It’s not like you can’t control yourself, and I don’t see how the fewer clothes women are wearing, the more you’re more depressed about your dating life. Whether you mostly interact with women in hijabs or bikinis won’t make you any more or less single, so isn’t it a positive to be around people you’re attracted to?
The straight men I know seem to enjoy and get cheered up by being in Southern European beaches where a decent proportion of women look like outright models, vs. say the UK where most English women are plain at best; that’s even if they’re married and aren’t looking to cheat. Single men I know are happy just being in the presence of attractive women.
rae
1yr ago
One point is that trans people are far more likely to be the victims rather than the perpetrators of sexual assault and violence, and you won’t have much luck convincing groups like rationalists to focus on the statistically smaller externalities of bad actors that they don’t know, versus the statistically more common occurrence of their friends being threatened, abused, raped or victimised.
But moreso I fail to see why trans people need any special policies. Assault or sexual harassment in bathrooms is illegal regardless of the perpetrator’s gender or biological sex; trans people should go where they pass/are safest. Segregating by biological sex is a losing battle; if trans men are forced to use the bathroom of their biological sex, they can get assaulted for being “men in women’s bathrooms”.
Rape in prisons should not be tolerated, people who sexually assault their cell mate should be isolated and dealt with appropriately.
Women’s sports is more thorny, but I don’t see anything wrong with banning anyone who went through male puberty or more generally went above a certain threshold of exogenous or endogenous androgens in the past (a former trans man who took T from ages 13-17 would have an advantage against cis women, a trans woman who took puberty blockers since the age of 12 would not).
I’ve seen your blog in the wild before and always wanted to respond, so I’m happy to see you here!
I will second a few comments and encourage you to attempt to condense your writing; your two linked articles are long even by the standards of this community and engaging with them in their entirety would take a lot of effort. I think I can summarise, from skimming them and having read a bit of your blog, but do correct me if I make any mistakes:
- You disagree with Scott et al’s assertion that categories are purely man-made and believe that there are natural ways to “carve reality at its seams”
- This comes up with trans people where you state there’s natural binary categories of male/female or man/woman, and disagree with the pro-trans view
- You further support the Blanchardian taxonomy of autogynophiliacs (AGP) vs homosexual transsexuals (HSTS) as opposed to the gender identity or “brain in a body of the opposite sex” mainstream view
- You yourself have very intense autogynophilia and mild gender dysphoria which has caused you significant amounts of distress (hence the long posts)
- You tried HRT but it didn’t do much for you, and stopped
- You claim fulfilling the AGP fantasy is impossible for the foreseeable future as it requires you not only to have a body typical of the opposite sex but also a brain (as per Yudkowsky’s post that RandomRanger brought up).
- You had a break with progressivism in 2017
With that in mind, I do wonder if perhaps one of your issues is that you saw a false dichotomy between two extreme viewpoints of “gender theory”: either men are men and women and women and accepting trans people is lying about biological reality (perhaps for the sake of a fetish), or that being trans is purely due to an innate sense of gender identity that’s not aligned with the body, and that we should 100% respect someone’s self-declared gender no matter their appearance.
But I don’t think I’ve seen you address the “trans medical”/truscum POV which would be relatively uncommon nowadays but which is to me the most sensible one. There’s a condition called gender dysphoria, which is psychological distress towards one’s biological sex. The most effective treatment is transitioning, and the goal is to pass as the opposite sex and have people refer to you by the right pronouns based on your appearance. Your sexual orientation, “gender identity”, etc. is basically irrelevant, the only thing that matters is, do you feel better on HRT and is your life improved by transitioning?
And I agree you that being trans gender is not a physical intersex condition in the sense of “brain stuck in an opposite sex body”, what do you think about hypotheses like Meyer-Powers syndrome or the RCCx hypothesis? You stated you were neurodivergent but I do wonder if you have any of the other physiological symptoms - almost all the trans people I know do. I ask this because there are anecdotal reports of possible treatment for mild gender dysphoria that can be an option if you are open to possibilities other than “I have a fetish” or “I am a woman on the inside”.
I’ve brought these links up before and very aware that any conclusion they have are purely conjecture, but checking physical symptoms and getting tested for a gene mutation is something that might give you objective results. I am also biased towards the trans medical POV because that’s what worked for me as a trans woman who didn’t fit in either the Blanchardian typology or the woke gender identity narrative.
rae
1yr ago
And then when those externalities do happen, and a male-born trans person wins against a female athlete (inherently, unfairly), or a trans person assaults a woman in the bathroom, or a trans prisoner impregnates a woman, those objections are at best handwaved away and dismissed as outliers or discredited, or at worst labeled "transphobic" and censored.
As others have said, trans people (and other gender non-conformists) are a significant part of the rationalist community. The points you mentioned simply do not come up when it comes to the daily interactions that people in it would have.
Take the prototypical Bay Area trans woman someone like Scott Alexander would know: autistic, nerdy, moderate-to-high income, involved in tech, polyamorous (but mostly dating other trans women), and largely similar to other rationalists in terms of mentality. This type of individual is not particular athletic (unless it’s rock climbing), unlikely to be involved in criminal activity or engage in violent behaviour (much like the average male nerd).
This is a stereotype perhaps, but familiar to anyone that hangs around those circles; there’s very little downside to being accepting of them, and the factors you brought up have no direct impact and are in fact very low-probability events when it comes to that demographics.
rae
1yr ago
The issue is that for a lot of trans people, the goal is to look like an ordinary member of the opposite sex, not a someone with a unique appearance. And that’s achievable if the person transitions young: they aren’t going to be a freak who looks visibly different from the rest of the population, they’ll just pass as the gender they transitioned to. Meanwhile an adult transitioner is more likely to be conspicuously trans and require cosmetic surgery to look “normal” (especially in the case of MtFs).
While fewer seem to want to go “stealth” these days as opposed to in the past, many do hold conventional jobs. I know trans hairdressers, programmers, cooks, receptionists, etc, and most go through their daily life without having anybody stare at them the way people would stare at someone with horns or who tattooed their whole body.
rae
1yr ago
Justice is what keeps a social group cohesive instead of turning on each other. A “weaker” tribe with a functioning social system can often outlast a stronger one that tears itself apart due to power struggles and revenge over perceived slights.
But different societies absolutely have different conceptions of justice, how do you know yours is the objective truth? Many things you do, people from other nations or time periods would find absolutely abhorrent, and vice versa.
rae
1yr ago
Here is a decent blogpost that goes into detail with a few links: https://kate.meyerhome.net/blog/2023/meyer-powers-syndrome-lenore-syndrome
While some correlations have been known, most of them are understudied but definitely deserve further attention.
rae
1yr ago
Smell is the one thing that’s pretty much guaranteed with HRT. Trans women smell like women and trans men definitely smell like men, even “down there”. Skin texture also dramatically changes.
Looking female will depend on this early the transition is and the individual’s baseline. Some will pass as female to the average person but remain “clockable” to people who know what to look for. Some trans women who started off hormones young enough will be indistinguishable, some are lucky to pass after a few surgeries. But we definitely can’t take any random biological adult male and making him fully look like a woman.
Reproduction isn’t there yet, but some results of sexual reassignment surgery are quite visually impressive, others less so (Thai surgeons for instance are known to have better results and use a different technique). For some, it has been enough to fool unsuspecting men before (plenty of reports of trans women going stealth) and it certainly is enough to reduce dysphoria and function as a sexual organ in most cases. However, it is a gamble.
I’d say current technology is good enough to alleviate dysphoria and at the very least there’s no point of delaying taking HRT in the hopes of a better transhumanist future. But if you’re just curious and want a magic gender swap to experience life as the opposite sex for whatever reason, obviously we’re not there yet and the current treatments should absolutely not be taken lightly as some changes are irreversible.
rae
1yr ago
I’m an atheist and consider myself a moral relativist, which is to me is quite distinct from being a moral nihilist. Morality, to me, is a subjective human construct but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist; it exists in that same sphere as concepts, ideas and beliefs. It’s based on axioms which are essentially arbitrary; the only thing you can do is point out logical contradictions ensuing from them. In that manner, it’s quite similar to maths, which also don’t materially exist but certainly can be studied.
I find the very concept that morality could ever be objective to be logically incoherent; whatever moral “truth” you come up with, I can immediately just invent another worldview that contradicts it due to having different axioms. Even if God existed, I don’t see why I couldn’t disagree with his morality. The fact that he created me or the universe doesn’t grant him any philosophical authority any more than my parents, and being omnipotent just makes him a cosmic dictator with the power to punish me if I stray from his own personal beliefs.
rae
1yr ago
I think there is a definitely a truth to the social contagion aspect for a sizeable amount of FtMs - they comprise the majority of de-transitioners and their numbers have surged in recent years. But I disagree about this part:
The condition has no observable physical symptoms, no objective correlative. If I tell you I’m really a man, you have to take my word for it.
There are a number of physical correlations to being trans, which I’ve previously touched on in a previous post. Mutations associated with MTHFR deficiency were found in 98% of transgender patients in one clinic (versus the expected 20%) and both endocrine abnormalities and auto-immune issues are quite common. Treating the correlates actually seems to improve the psychiatric distress associated with being transgender, although it’s still very early.
The recent surge in trans people could very well be explained by similar factors as to what’s driving the increase in autism, ADHD, autoimmune diseases, inflammation, etc. For instance, micro plastics and other endocrine disrupters in the environment and diet, low vitamin D from not going outside, the recent recommendation for pregnant women to take folate supplements, etc. “Putting chemicals in the water that turn the friggin’ frogs gay” is pretty close to the truth, funnily enough.
So if you want to stop young adolescent females from transitioning, instead of blaming it on social contagion and the media, perhaps you should first see if they have congenital adrenal hyperplasia, polycystic ovarian syndrome, or abnormal testosterone levels; there’s a high chance that’s the case.
rae
1yr ago
I think a lot more men would like those activities if it weren’t for social stigma. Fashion for men was historically huge in the West and is very prevalent in some countries still, make-up is getting more and more popular for men in Korea, and lots of men are addicted to shopping, just for “male-coded” things like video games or gear for their hobbies. And I know a lot of masculine gym bros who suddenly got obsessed with taking selfies the moment their physique became visible.
rae
1yr ago
I’m a bisexual trans woman so I got to experience some manner of both, but I do agree that the effect is greatly confounded by deeper issues like dysphoria.
My main experience would be that sex with men is a lot more variable, in that the bad is much worse but the good is a lot better, and the quality depends quite a lot on your partner, while with women it’s generally fairly average and depends more on your own state than the other person. So casual sex would be better for most men, but relationship sex would be better for women with the right partner.
The peak physiological pleasure is definitely greater when you’re a woman though, multiple full-body orgasms aren’t really a thing for men (trans men generally keep the ability to have multiple if they had it before, but they become otherwise closer to the male ones: brief and concentrated in the genitals). I certainly don’t miss the male sexual experience at all and see it as the equivalent of sexual fast food vs. going to a proper restaurant.
rae
1yr ago
Also casual sex tends to be a mediocre experience for women; you tend to orgasm even less than in relationships (32% vs 72% from a quick Google search), you’re at the mercy of someone much bigger and stronger than you (most men don’t seem to really grasp this), the risk is higher (STDs, pregnancy, sexual assault, etc).
I’ve been with a few women in the past (although I didn’t particularly enjoy it) and it was depressing how many would be surprised by the fact that I seemed to care about them at all.
I don’t think anyone will argue against the fact that women’s life outcomes tend to cluster around the averages while men tend to the extremes, however I do think you’re overstating the importance of those factors in the life outcomes of average people. Middle-class men in developed countries are already unlikely to be involved in crime, to have a blue-collar occupation, to join the military (the draft has been abolished in many places), to end up homeless, etc.
But the question is, what do you want to about it? Many of the issues are the “fault” of men in that they actively choose riskier lifestyles with a higher payoff, due to cultural and hormonal factors. Most lower class men, at the bottom of the totem pole and life outcomes, will even mock any attempts to fix those issues and take pride in their violent masculine lives, while they don’t really impact the middle and upper classes.
If you’re an individual man, you can absolutely bridge the gap by investing in a bigger social circle of people who care about you, being paranoid about your physical safety when going outside (as many women are, while I know many men who are completely oblivious), having a better work-life balance, not taking risks and choosing a stable boring career, be willing to go to therapy, etc. But a lot of men are unwilling to do those things.
rae
1yr ago
Ok? I'm unhappy that we can't fly, that we age, and that we can't eat and talk at the same time. In the context of decrying the sex-change limitation as "morally abhorrent and the equivalent to a dystopian caste system" you make it sound like an artificial man-made limitation rather than just a reflection of reality's limitation. I find this particular thread confusing.
Well, humans being upset that they couldn’t fly is what led to the invention of the airplane. And you should rightly be upset at ageing, there’s far too many people many excuses for what’s the #1 killer out there; if it can be even just slowed down, the quality of life of many would significantly improve. I find ageing abhorrent and cruel in the same way I find forced gender roles and sexual biology to be.
Accordingly, your feminine appearance serves as a billboard-size instruction manual to others on how you prefer to be interacted with in the context of relationships.
Is that a fair paraphrasing?
Fairly spot on assessment to be honest.
(though that wouldn't explain to me wanting/needing to identify as a completely different gender).
There’s no “rational” psychological motivation for the physical gender dysphoria, it’s more of a neurological/endocrinological problem from what I’ve been researching. There it’s more of a visceral reaction of disgust towards your own body; like if you saw yourself as physically deformed.
But on the social side, you can imagine that being a feminine male is inferior to being a normal woman, both in terms of personal safety, how others treat you, your dating options, and the very way you have sex. A lot of the thoughts can be “ah, if only I was a real woman, I wouldn’t have X issue”.
I don’t personally “identify” as a woman, I just like it when I happen to pass well enough that people assume I’m one. As I’ve said before, I don’t care about whatever an internal sense of gender identity means.
I’m not sure there’s a difference between how the emotions from how interpret the experience vs. the experience itself? Mental issues are by definition intrinsic. Not all soldiers develop PTSD after experiencing a traumatic event - there seems to be many variables influencing its development, such as age, pre existing conditions, support network, even genes (I’m reading that PTSD is 30-40% heritable). And there’s depressingly large amounts of women that have PTSD from sexual assaults and physical abuse - while only a small minority of men become soldiers in the west.
I’m also not sure what you mean by women’s mental issues being more intrinsic? Anxiety, depression, addiction and abusive relationships would be common reasons the average westerner would go to therapy, and I don’t see how there’s a difference in “cause” there when it comes to gender?
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