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In 1979, Playboy published a 15 page feature/interview with musician Wendy Carlos. Carlos had been a minor celebrity for a few years around 1970, known for being a pioneer of musical sound synthesis (she and collaborator Rachel Elkind recorded the "Switched-On Bach" series of albums and much of the soundtrack for Kubrick's film adaptation of "A Clockwork Orange" and Carlos had performed with the St. Louis Symphony, as well as doing a handful of televised demonstrations of sound synthesis), before becoming a recluse. The motivation for Carlos to sacrifice her privacy and Playboy to devote 15 pages to a relatively obscure musician was sharing Carlos's experience of gender dysphoria sexual transition, something few had previously done. (A transwoman named Christine Jorgensen had shared her experience with a magazine in 1953 and published an autobiography in 1967, but she did so after being involuntarily outed by the New York Daily News and having difficulty supporting herself. Playboy assumed their readers to be so unfamiliar with the topic that two of the introductory questions are "Let's start with a basic question: What is a transsexual?" and its followup question, "So transsexuals aren't necessarily former homosexuals?") I recommend reading it as a now-historical primary source.
Carlos is an interesting case, because she has traits that would trigger incredulity among critics of transgender medicine, if she were transitioning today (exemplifying many elements of the male nerd archetype), but she was born in 1939 and had transgender feelings as a child (page 4, though I strongly recommend reading the full interview). Historical cases aren't dispositive of present-day sociogenic gender dysphoria, but how do skeptics of "endogenous" transgender feelings explain historical cases? A "critical mass" of cases sufficient for self-sustaining sociogenesis may be possible, but how could it come to exist, absent any "genuine" cases?
(Here's a pdf of the book Carlos mentions on page 5, in case anyone is curious about it.)
Do you have someone in mind, here? Like, I vaguely recall an essay by Alex Byrne suggesting that the notion of "feeling" a certain gender seems incoherent, under the rubric of socially constructed gender. But that kind of thinking, with gender distinct from sex, is very mid-20th century (Simone de Beauvoir) on. Historical cases don't really deal in gender differences without also addressing sex and sexuality; individual cases differ, but the text confirms my expectation that a 1979 Playboy reader would naturally assume transsexuals to also be homosexuals. Why imitate the dress and behavior of a sexually available woman if you were not trying to attract sexual attention from men (or, perhaps homosexual women)? The endogenous feeling there would be homosexuality, of which transsexuality would be a symptom. Autogynephilia would also qualify as endogenous without being a gender feeling. Historical examples aren't hard to explain with just-so stories either way. Noticing, say, the boom in rapid onset gender dysphoria in adolescent girls is not the same thing as committing oneself to the position that transsexuality is strictly a social contagion. So it seems like you need to be more specific about which argument you think you're undermining, here.
I have never heard anyone make a claim like this in a way that seemed really believable to me--much like my expectation that people who claim to have seen miracles are more likely to be either foolish or lying, than to have actually seen miracles, no matter how honest they seem to be. I find it far easier to believe that "I had trans feelings as a kid" is a retrospective gloss, or even deliberate self deception, than that a child has specifically "transgender" feelings. Children often reject the gender roles imposed upon them, but part of the problem here is--how do you know you "feel like a girl" if you've never been one? Wanting to fill a cultural role assigned to the opposite sex is something many, maybe most people experience on occasion. Cranking that all the way to "no, I just am fe/male" simply elevates such feelings to the level of an insistent delusion. The addition of social "support" for that kind of thinking probably makes it easier to sell the obvious lie to oneself, or to sort of emotionally sanitize homosexual or autogynephilic drives.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but sexual psychology is really screwy. Humans have sex with animals. Humans have sex with trees. Jeff Bezos, a human billionaire, left his attractive and long-suffering wife for sex with a second-rate journalist made mostly of plastic. Why wouldn't there be people out there who get off on cross-dressing or whatever; that may be one of the least weird things humans have done, sexually. The trans advocacy community works really hard to insist that gender isn't a sex thing, but I think that is ultimately just empirically false. Your brain does not contain separate wiring for sex and gender. It's all one big, thoroughly interconnected mess. That is how "trans" cases can come to exist even in the absence of social contagion: the same way every other psychosexual phenomenon comes to exist! Through the interaction of reproductive drives (normal, pathological, or otherwise), personal circumstances, and cultural norms.
I was motivated by this comment, but I don't want to target a specific user with a question.
How confident are you that you're not falling into a typical mind trap? (Scott references phantom sensations and "body maps," and phantom limb syndrome researchers found ~60% of transmen reported experiencing phantom penis sensations, when surveyed. I can't comment on brain scan interpretations, but there's a fair amount of evidence there's something neurological going on.) I can't relate to the experience described, but I disagree that it's more worthy of disbelief than any other internal experience.
How was it empirically disproven?
And why would you think that these self-reports prove anything to someone sceptical of gender self-reports? Do you think trans people dont understand that such phantom sensations would make them sound more "valid"?
I don't consider any one piece of data "proof," but the more evidence there is that's consistent with a claim, the greater the probability you should assign to the claim being true. I'm underwhelmed by that study, but transmen reporting phantom penis sensations in roughly the same proportion as post-penectomy cismales (as opposed to an overwhelming majority or small minority) is noteworthy, and could only be explained away as trans people fabricating evidence too sound more valid, if you thought the survey respondents coordinated to figure out which questions in the survey were testing the hypothesis, what would be a "positive" finding, and answer in the correct proportion.
You didnt mention the matching, I agree that is some evidence. Though they also find that 30% of mtf have phantom penises after bottom surgery, what do you think is happening here? If the phantom penis is caused by a body image where it should be there, then shouldnt the mtf be at ~0? They dont report any other results, but in my experience these things get a lot more complicated.
Again, I'm underwhelmed by the study/paper (which is a shame, because it's an interesting topic, which hasn't gotten much systematic study), but A) one also wonders why phantom limb or cismale phantom penis sensation rates aren't either 0% or
100% and B) I'm guessing that stumbling blocks in the brain "remapping" nerve endings after anatomy is transformed is different than the brain's response to amputation, making post-vaginoplasty phantom penis sensation worthy of study, but not dispositive of some sort of "latent female internal body image." (After all, the claimed rate ishalf that of cismen.) Low rates of transmale post-mastectomy phantom breast sensation (10% of transmen the study, vs1/3 or more in ciswomen) would be more significant.For another perspective on vaginoplasty and phantom penis sensations, here's a case report from the same year (pdf - includes surgical photos), in which Japanese vaginoplasty surgeons claim phantom penis sensations are sometimes experienced in the first few weeks after surgery, but one patient needed a revision surgery to remove excess erectile tissue. Ramachandran and McGeoch didn't include how long their MTF survey responders experienced phantom penis sensations, increasing the possibility of that finding being a red herring.
Im not sure I understand the things remaining after strikethrough, or at least the justification for it. "one also wonders why phantom limb or cismale phantom penis sensation rates aren't either 0% or... half that of cismen." Why is the half expected? "Low rates of transmale post-mastectomy phantom breast sensation (1/3 or more in ciswomen) would be more significant." Was that number supposed to have a cite?
We also dont know how long cis males getting penectomy experience them - if it fades over time, then its presumably a different phenomenon from the pre-op trans version, and the similar number just coincidence.
The strike-through is unintentional, due to me using the "approximately" symbol.
I don't know, but I'd default to guessing that post-penectomy phantom penis sensations are as persistent as any other post-amputation phantom sensation, absent a reason to think otherwise.
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