I think your point is getting a bit lost in this discussion. Anyone who can understand basic statistics can look at the relative differences in population averages.
What exactly is the hypothetical autistic teenager supposed to learn by comparing his performance to other women playing the same sport? It’s unlikely for him to be good enough that he can’t find a single woman who’s better than him. How is it supposed to discourage him from transitioning?
rae
4d ago
I don’t want to discount the psychological and physical benefits of but come on, it won’t stop anyone from being autistic, or even trans. I wish it did! I went to the gym and I just became an autist with a six pack. And it didn’t stop me from being trans either, unfortunately.
Plenty of athletic people I know are various flavours of neurodivergent or queer. Some trans guys I know are particularly into bodybuilding and powerlifting and it uh… has the opposite effect of making them conform to the social expectations of birth sex.
I don’t disagree that it’s appalling that physical fitness being neglected for the majority (although calling men “weak” and “feeble” as opposed to just unhealthy is an odd choice of language). It doesn’t really matter for the main point that there’s elite female athletes, but it’s still important to know that the delta is not that big at the extremes. The top female athletes are about ~10% worse than the top male ones, and if you look at something like a 5k run, the top females today are better than the top males from the 1930s. That’s way closer than most posters here would suggest, and to compete with female Olympians in most sports you’d still have to be in like the top 0.1% fittest men. The average Joe, even with a decent amount of training, doesn’t stand a chance.
But that’s getting aside from the main point. How exactly is knowing that he can easily surpass most women at sports with relatively little training supposed to dissuade the hypothetical autistic teenage boy from transitioning? If anything it might backfire and make him stop exercising altogether to match more female levels of performance/muscularity (and on estrogen, male performance is drastically reduced anyway).
Obviously the average man is much stronger than the average woman, and elite female athletes cannot compete at all against elite male athletes, but I think you and a few posters here are exaggerating the disparity because there’s no way the “slow boys” can compete with actual athletic women.
When I was forced to play basketball in high school PE class, there were some girls who played with the boys, and I can tell you from first hand experience, a clumsy autistic nerd who’s just getting into shape absolutely cannot just move a 5’10 elite female athlete with broader shoulders than him.
Like, I was in OK-ish shape and could do a 5k in 21min, and there were girls who did it in 17mim. Sure, there were boys who could do it in 15min, and most girls did it in 25min or more, but I didn’t stop to think about the statistical distributions, I just saw that there were both boys and girls way ahead of me.
Just look at female athlete records in any sport, compared to the mean or even advanced male performance.
rae
15d ago
Here’s a LessWrong article that goes in depth about this slightly bizarre topic. It’s pretty much certain that castration makes you less likely to die from infectious diseases, cardiovascular disease, and (obviously) testicular and prostate cancer, and the benefits decrease the later it’s done.
rae
15d ago
I’ve never heard “what’s up with all the canes” despite being pretty active in trans communities (I actually don’t know anybody that uses a cane or crutch), although I’m seeing that canes are popular in the broader American queer community for some reason? I do know that various disorders are more common among trans people (e.g. endometriosis, PCOS in FtMs, EDS in general) but they’re not related to puberty blockers. Delaying puberty for too long without any sex hormones is bad for bone health, that’s for sure.
Not quite. The original rationale for puberty blockers was passing, "time to choose" was a marketing strategy. It has been lost to debate when the reversibility of blockers became dubious / indefensible.
To have the best chance of passing, you should skip the 2 years of puberty blocker and just go straight into opposite-sex HRT. Once you are on estrogen or testosterone, you’re not at a higher risk of osteoporosis than cis women/men respectively, and it’s conceivable your risk could actually be lower than someone who goes through menopause. Trans women that are on only puberty blockers for a while will actually grow taller and have a barrel-like chest (the classic eunuch physique), even if they avoid masculinisation.
rae
15d ago
Historical eunuchs who were castrated pre-puberty had remarkably increased lifespans (and that’s with no sex hormones, having estrogen in your system would decrease the odds of osteoporosis), so if there’s major health issues arising from puberty blockers, it would be a side effect of the particular medications, not of blocking puberty itself.
There’s also a difference between the compromise protocol of “go on puberty blockers until age 16, then start estrogen/testosterone”, and “start HRT ASAP to go through cross-sex puberty at a normal age”. The whole point of the former was to let the minor have time to decide if they want to transition or not, but that seems to have been lost in the debate.
rae
16d ago
I meant that she doesn’t have anorgasmia (having started puberty blockers at 14 or 15 IIRC). But in any case you can delay the puberty blockers until tanner stage 3 or 4, or use local testosterone gel on specific areas.
I know adult cis women who never had an orgasm and that are quite unhappy about it. From a cursory search it’s around 10% of women? It’s pretty easy to talk and read about it and feel like you’re missing out.
I know two trans women.
One transitioned in her late twenties, and gets stared at wherever she goes. Anyone can instantly tell that she’s trans from her voice and appearance, she’ll need to spend a lot of money on surgery to look remotely female, and she’s at the risk of being hate-crimed just from walking in the wrong area. She doesn’t behave very femininely, perhaps from nearly 30 years of growing up as male.
The other went on puberty blockers as a teenager, she has a normal female voice, and wherever she goes, the average person just sees a normal woman. She didn’t have to spend a single dime on facial feminisation surgery, and also seems to have fairly standard straight female sexuality (no complaints about anorgasmia) as opposed to the weird fetishistic oversexualised behaviour some later transitioners have.
Without going into any studies or the difficulty of distinguishing persistence vs desistance rates, it’s unarguable that early transitioners just fit in better in society and have less chance of being perceived as “freaks” in public based on their appearance. I don’t know if that quality of life upgrade is taken into account in any studies, but that’s enough for me to support them in a broad strokes fashion, even if I don’t necessarily agree with all the details of the modern clinical practices.
rae
17d ago
I’m attracted to men so I do think I understand male attractiveness, and I agree with the posters above. Finn looks like a git, Niko is cute but not in a 1 in 100 way (I absolutely see a lot of men equally or more attractive if I go on Tinder/Hinge…), and a lot of the other men are handsome sure but kinda unappealing. Give me men that look like they have personality, not just generic pretty boys.
I don’t see why the number of likes is that important anyway unless you’re just looking for an ego boost.
rae
17d ago
That link doesn’t work btw.
For all the men I know who are perpetually single, it’s pretty obvious why they’re that way, whether it’s from an off-putting personality, impossible requirements, or just plain never leaving the house. I don’t know a single one of these mythical average nice guys that somehow can’t get a girlfriend despite their best efforts.
rae
18d ago
Yeah, the actual “average” guys I know are doing just fine when it comes to finding a steady long term relationship, even if they might have issues with casual sex. It’s the high IQ, terminally online, borderline autistic guys that tend to struggle with both, and they often tend to get stuck in cognitive black holes.
That kind of transactional relationship sounds like the opposite of normal and healthy. A healthy relationship should be based around mutual love and desire; what you described sounds like being a sugar daddy, not a partner.
Plus it’s not like women need a man’s resources to have a successful life nowadays.
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