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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1426 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 8, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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One of the minor weekly dramas in my corner of X, the everything app, had to do with this tweet by Flesh Simulator, where he states that

"if there was a “magically become a girl” button, a solid 25% of men would probably press it. Of that 25%, 95% of them are basically still fine with living as a man and don’t experience any noticeable gender dysphoria even though they would press the button immediately. The issue with “egg cracking” and convincing people to transition is that, because of the nature of transitioning, that 5% dysphoria rate turns into effectively 100%"

(Flesh Simultor is a somewhat popular youtuber who specializes in talking about existing conspiracy theories and seems to be one of the few actually heterodox leftists, combining stuff like rabid support for socialized healthcare and the Palestinian cause with reluctant support for ICE even after the MN shootings, but that is not directly relevant to the current micro-drama)

In response he got hundreds of quote tweets and replies from people who called the 25% estimate comically unrealistic, mixed with MTF-run accounts suggesting that he is a "repressor" (someone who, in trans slang, feels gender dysphoria, but chooses not to transition due to various fears) because, again, no way a normal cis man would think that 25% of fellow men would press the "magically change one's sex" button. That seemingly caused FleshSim to backpedal a bit, stating that his estimate assumed that the button could be used to change your sex back, but my impression is that the original tweet was supposed to mean a one-way ticket to womanhood.

I was very surprised by that reaction to the tweet, because I'd give around the same estimate. My impression always was that if a "magically change biological sex" button was on the menu, the world, or at least the developed parts of it, would be at a 35:65 M:F split within a year or so. Basically, the real world would turn into what you see in most MMOs – almost all women would stay women, but a significant minority of men would choose to become women as well.

Now, I'm far from unbiased here, given that, I, for one, would absolutely press such a button. While I have no plans of transitioning IRL and belong to the 95% that are "still fine" living as the sex I was born as, my post history has me admitting to being a weeby sperg who does not feel much of a connection to his IRL body and physical reality and spends most of my time on the computer, so me choosing to press the button is probably not exactly surprising. But still, I just fail to see FleshSim's 25% conjecture as particularly outlandish. Surely, the quote tweets are all just signalling, and the share of people who'd press the button's gotta be at least in the double-digits, right?

So I ask you, minds of The Motte, what's your best guess about the percentages of men and women that would press the magical "change biological sex" button (for the purposes of the experiment, the button, due to being magical, also solves minor accompanying issues such as getting the new legal name on documents, etc.) if it was freely available?

Not sure about percentages, but the Transgender Social Ecosystem (TSE) offers a lot of social reinforcement to transitioners, especially to the alienated “weeby sperg” (your characterization). By clicking the transition button, you receive: a peer group that believes you are innately valuable and beautiful; a peer group that will talk affectionately and supportively about your body; an in-group that makes you feel as an intimate member of the tribe, replete with shibboleths; a political coalition which provides a sense of mission and morale; an excuse for past and future failures; a colorful subculture (color=engaging); and a subculture where being a loser is considered at least acceptable and at most honorable. The female stereotype that exists ambiently in American media culture and is greatly exaggerated in anime only amplifies this: women can be cute and ditzy yet incompetent and still retain ultimate social value; I believe this is why anime is a risk factor in transitioning.

Verbal social reinforcement is an extenuation of the physical body-grooming that primates engage in as a social need, required to feel socially secure and bonded to members. There is still a relic of this link in our instincts: men still embrace with hugs, coaches pat on the back, and in the past it was normal to sit on your friend’s lap or hold hands (the early Christians had “laying of hands”, and would smooch their brother on the lips before prayer, this kiss ritual mentioned five times in the epistles). So TSE is highly desirable: you get the verbal “grooming” and it is linked to your own body, satisfying a deep evolutionary need.

The transgender epidemic also appears right at the advent of “toxic male gamer” discourse. It’s easy to forget how <2012 entertainment culture catered to men who were mediocre. A chubby guy in a dirty room lifting a middle finger to his improbably attractive girlfriend was an acceptable form of gamer media. You had Weezer, Shaun of the Dead, etc where being a male loser in a bromance was a romanticized social identity. Perhaps this is related, too: maligning “loser male identity” means those guys have to find identity elsewhere, unlinked from being male.

Basically, the real world would turn into what you see in most MMOs

One piece missing from this conversation seems to be an unstated assumption related to this. Most MMO female characters are hot, statistically speaking most MMO players are not. Attractiveness of biological females with bad nutrition, physical activity, and other habits usually suffer more than males with equivalent habits.

Suppose you maintain life habits that guarantee physical fitness, looks remain a question to ponder. I suspect it is much nicer to live as a man with average to below average facial and other genetically determined attractiveness than as a woman with average to below average equivalents. Unattractive men who have no clear deformations are usually unremarkable and forgettable, unattractive women often stand out.

If the magic button turned men to hot women, perhaps I could see relatively high rate of men doing it. 25% sounds ridiculous if it is permanent. 5%, perhaps. Would drop after the first wave who really want it, get it immediately, then dwindles down after the first reports of menopause, periods, and other unpleasantness of female biology come in. If it is reversible and guaranteed attractiveness, it might develop into a 25%+ tier popular kink.

How many would press the button if they had to get the mind of a woman? Which men who aren't already interesting in gay marriage like makeup, clothes shopping, crying about their feelings, and skin care?

If the button was as trivial as a character select toggle on a computer game I don't see much reason why anyone wouldn't press it. Five minutes, switch back, what have you lost? If you're talking about it being a magic, transgender fantasy, one way, fully seamless and socially integrated instant sex change button with no returns I don't think anyone other than the current transgenders would press it because they're the only ones that want what it offers.

There are a thousand computer games where people push a button and play being a soldier but most don't push the same buttons to enquire online about enlisting even though it's a perfectly real opportunity.

I don't think anyone other than the current transgenders would press it because they're the only ones that want what it offers.

I feel like there's gotta be some population along the lines of 'Would be down to change genders if they had a painless instantaneous actually-effective methodology but don't think the current sex-change meta does anything to actually help them', though I can't imagine that'd be an overwhelmingly large population

Maybe. It implies either a sincere interest in permanently abandoning their current sex, or a sincere interest in joining the other sex, but not an indifference such that changing would be no benefit, because it would follow that remaining would be no worse. But also an interest that isn't strong enough to accept the substitute of even temporarily changing gender.

It's a little like trying to think of someone who would enlist but wouldn't wear any camo that wasn't issued.

I suppose the men who want to transfer to women's prisons might qualify. I can't think of any others. Faildaughters of nobles in primogeniture jurisdictions, perhaps?

Man (pun not initially intended), I've never felt like "being" a man, nor have I ever felt tempted to become a woman. I wouldn't hit the magic button, I'm content the way I am.

I have a masculine personality and stereotypically male interests. I'm very good at the touchy-feel stuff when I can be arsed (I had a bunch of female friends, even if I had more male friends overall), but I prefer the way men talk to other men. Being a woman also comes with severe inconveniences in the form of periods. And here I was feeling bad for myself after getting migraines once every few months.

When I contemplate changing my body, I envision becoming taller, stronger or more handsome (and escaping from the prison of my flesh)—more masculine—I've never even desired to be twinkish, let alone feminine.

At the end of the day, I don't feel like I have some kind of pointer in my head that affirms my male personality. If I turned into a woman by means either magical or Indistinguishable From It Science, I'd just do the same things I already do. There's no gender dysphoria or euphoria, there just is.

You forgot to include a link to "Cis by Default".

I think 25% is too low for a two-way ticket. Most men would try this out just for the sheer novelty of it, to visit women-only spaces and ogle, to see how much they can goon with a different package.

For a one-way ticket? 25% is too damn high, especially if you gave these men time to think. If you're a run-of-the-mill heterosexual man, why would you turn yourself into a run-of-the-mill lesbian? There are lots of drawbacks (I assume you somehow manage to retain your personality): weakness, periods, most men (including your friends) now do that "would?" calculation as soon as they notice you. The only potential benefit is that other nu-lesbians might have sex with you out of solidarity.

Two-way ticket? Yes, I'd treat it like a vacation. I'd have an itinerary & everything.

One-way ticket? Hard no. I think daily life would be different, but I don't think it would be better.

Basically, the real world would turn into what you see in most MMOs – almost all women would stay women, but a significant minority of men would choose to become women as well.

I have always assumed the reason for that not to be trans-curiosity, but the well-known fact that men like visual stimulation. "If I'm going to spend hours staring at a wizard's backside, she might as well be leggy and plump. And if I'm going to have to worry about which amour to play dress-up with, there better be cleavage."

So, unsurprisingly, my estimate for the magic button pressing would have been 1%. 25% is unfathomable, even if the button also magically turns you 16. Because if it doesn't (which we have to assume, since age was never part of the discussion), the button would just trade sweet testosterone for a few short years of menstruation and then the horrors of menopause for a significant fraction of "all men", without any of the perks all those guys fantasize about.

So, unsurprisingly, my estimate for the magic button pressing would have been 1%.

The current share of transsexuals among the US population seems to be >1%, and with a button that makes transitioning much easier and more "complete", we should probably expect those numbers to rise rather than fall.

I have always assumed the reason for that not to be trans-curiosity, but the well-known fact that men like visual stimulation. "If I'm going to spend hours staring at a wizard's backside, she might as well be leggy and plump. And if I'm going to have to worry about which amour to play dress-up with, there better be cleavage."

Likewise if you had to actually play female avatars as having typically female behaviors, I'd wager few men would persist at that for very long.

What are typically female behaviors in this context?

Plus, if you play long enough, you just get bored of seeing male characters and want something different.

I think it's one of those questions that really depends on how exactly you phrase it. Obviously in the real world there are no magic buttons, so we have to use our imaginations.

Like, is this a button that's constantly available, every single day, but once you press it there's no going back? In that case i could see a lot of men pressing it in a moment of recklessness (possibly while drunk) just like how people get bad tattoos or other questionable body modifications.

Also, does it just work superficially, or does it affect their brain, too? Will they suddenly wind up with a drastically different personality? I don't think a lot of people would want that.

Also, is there an equivalent magic button for women turning into men? Otherwise, the world might end up with a huge surplus of women, which changes the gender dynamics quite a bit.

Also, is there an equivalent magic button for women turning into men? Otherwise, the world might end up with a huge surplus of women, which changes the gender dynamics quite a bit.

I've talked to a couple of straight non-dysphoric women who said they would press such a button for some interesting reasons (although I don't know if they actually would). Some of these reasons are around avoiding periods and apex-fallacy misunderstandings of men and their lives. Even perceived male camaraderie compared to female consensus making and 'bitchiness'.

The whole thing is probably performative and a case of 'be careful what you wish for'.

Sure. Easy enough to say this sort of stuff when it's just hypothetical, much harder when it's a real decision that you have to make and it's permanent.

Aha, yes, that's exactly the sort of thing I was talking about below. It's easy to romanticise the other sex and believe that it's so much easier for them, but everything seems easier from a distance. You don't understand how hard it is until you've actually lived it.

Whether women or men in general experience greater happiness or life satisfaction is difficult to measure. Most surface polls show women reporting greater satisfaction, but that link suggests that women tend to use a higher scale than men and may actually be less satisfied. I don't want to make a general statement about which sex is, on average, happier, at least, not without a lot more research, but I would at least say that there probably isn't a vast difference.

I don't want to make a general statement about which sex is, on average, happier, at least, not without a lot more research, but I would at least say that there probably isn't a vast difference.

Yes, and for a lot of the intrinsic problems that men and women face, the coping mechanisms are discovered through hard learned experience. I think it's probably better to deal with 'the Devil you know..' then trade it in for perceived greener grass on the other side.

The transman I linked above for example. Most men have a gradual change from being a child, through teenage years, to being an adult man. They can slowly transition from being valued intrinsically as a child towards being more disposable as the years pass and develop emotional resilience to cope with that in a controlled manner. It must have been rough to go to sleep being valued and then wake up and realise suddenly no one cares about you at all expect perhaps for the value you can provide them (I'm exaggerating here to make a point, but guys will get what I mean).

Yes, I notice this with both trans women and trans men. In the normal course of development, you're socialised into your own sex and you learn a whole array of tools for how to be an adult man or an adult women. Trans people, even if they pass very well as their preferred gender, usually don't have all those tools. It's one of the reasons why they often look a bit uncanny-valley-esque, or can make natal members of that sex uncomfortable.

In the case of the person in that video, I think part of the issue is not knowing how men make friends, or how we express close, deep friendship. We don't do it the same way women do. There's a seemingly-endless genre of observational humour about how men and women have different languages for this sort of thing, and while the jokes are silly, they get at something real. Trans women have the reverse issue - they don't know the script for how to behave in female spaces. Thus that joke about how if a trans man is devastated, he hides and cries in the bathroom, and if a trans woman is devastated, she kicks a hole in the wall.

Anyway, resilience is definitely part of it. As a young man you learn things from your father, other older male relatives, role models, and so on, and one of them is how to suck it up when times are tough. When you've been a man your entire life, you probably don't realise how many things like that you do know. And the same for women in reverse.

I've always liked to distill complicated arguments like these, in an oversimplified way. So I tend to point to the 4-to-1 suicide rate between men as women as the final word on which gender has it worse.

My understanding was that women attempt suicide more often than men, but men are vastly more likely to succeed, since they tend to prefer deadlier or more direct methods.

My hypothesis is that girls/women do 'cry for help' methods more often, because they can rightly assume that they'll get more sympathy and care when they are discovered or tell others about it. Society is more willing to support sick women than sick men.

Not to mention men's attempts prior to "success" are significantly less likely to be recorded as such for much the same reason.

Quite. To paraphrase a statement that's stuck in my head since the first time I stumbled across it, attempted suicide for a woman is a cry for help. Attempted suicide for a man is calmly taking out a loaded gun, staring at it for an hour, and then quietly putting it away.

I think some women do have surprisingly debilitating periods that are difficult to medicate properly, so it might be worth it in that case.

Edit: I watched the linked video, and what's the trans man talking about, with forming friendships with women in the bar restroom?? No wonder some trans women apparently think women's restrooms are worth fighting for... Different worlds, I guess.

forming friendships with women in the bar restroom?

Not an expert but that sounds a bit odd and off putting, and it seems like women gossip with their pre-existing friends in the bathroom, not strike up conversations with strangers.

For what it's worth, I'm in the camp that, if I had a two-way button, would try it both ways around and see what felt better for me overall. If I had a one-way button, I would give it a lot more thought and I think would not ultimately choose to press it.

So, that out of the way...

Firstly, I suspect this does depend a lot on your bubble and your particular subculture. I'd guess the rate would be much higher among heavily-online or nerdy people, partly because being extremely online often detaches people from their body a bit more, partly because very thoughtful or intellectually-inclined people are more interested in hypotheticals or other ways their lives might be, and partly because nerds are often a bit bullied or have low self-esteem, which contributes to wanting to change themselves. I could imagine 25% of the kinds of people who play online games being interested in the button; I suspect that normies would be much less interested.

Secondly, this is inevitably a question that involves a lot of idealisation or romanticisation. It's a "the other man's grass is always greener" situation. You will imagine yourself as a fit and attractive member of the opposite sex, and you will probably overestimate all the ways in which being the opposite sex might be appealing, and underestimate all the ways in which it would be frustrating or difficult.

You mention MMOs, for instance, but in MMOs the choice is purely cosmetic. I play MMOs and have both male and female PCs, and the thing is, in an MMO they are entirely interchangeable. NPCs treat male and female PCs identically. Male and female PCs have the exact same physical capabilities. This is not like real life, obviously! If I had the magic genderswap button and pressed it, just on the biological level I would become shorter, weaker, and in general less physically capable. Well, that doesn't sound appealing. Then there's the cultural and social level. A huge number of things are acceptable for me as a man that would not be as a woman. Men's dress is both more simple and significantly more comfortable than women's dress. Men are almost never socially obligated to use cosmetics. Men don't have a menstrual cycle or suffer any of the inconveniences that implies. Just living and existing as a man, day to day, is cheaper and more comfortable than living as a woman. And then in terms of how other people treat you! People treat men and women differently; maybe people treat women with more courtesy in some contexts, but people are also more patronising toward women, or women are more likely to victims of various kinds of minor harassment. The MMO comparison isn't much like men or women in real life.

You see this sometimes from real trans people, right? I know I've read accounts from trans men saying that they didn't realise what it's like when people see you as a man and treat you as a man. Behaviours that were socially licensed for women aren't licensed for men, or at least, not in the same way (e.g. the ways you can display emotion). In general people care less about men; you have to assert yourself more, and I've seen trans men shocked and made uncomfortable by that.

In a world where the one-way button exists, I'd guess that a bunch of people would press it, both ways, and then stories from button-users would spread and social norms around it would quickly develop. In the hypothetical, we're guessing about what it would be like, but once qualitative data from real button-pressers is available, we'd be able to go into it with a lot more detail. Once real accounts of button-pressing exist, a lot of its allure would probably fade, as it becomes clear that it does not fix much of anything.

I'm very bad at guessing this sort of thing, but also I think it would be nigh impossible to get reliable empirical data on the proposal without actually inventing the necessary technology/magic and then seeing how it played out. But I don't think 25% is an unrealistic guess, and I think the MMO check is an interesting way to approach the question. If anything, I suspect 25% is probably a bit low, depending on some further details about this supposed "change biological sex" button. In particular, I think the percentage goes down drastically if the button does not ensure that one becomes a sexually attractive member of the opposite sex.

My sense it that this is all quite complicated. A lot of the trans people I know--but especially the females--are drawing from the well of "gender eliminativism," where they are trying to break down unnecessary social norms, free themselves from the "oppression" of imposed expectations, "queer" (as a verb) things, etc. Some other trans people I know--and this group is exclusively males--are more squarely in the autogynephile mold of "gender essentialism," where the highest success is not passing but being perceived as an extremely hot girl. They lean so far into idealized femininity that they mostly just end up looking like grotesque parodies of women, though some work through this by then embracing the grotesqueness in ways that generate new, weird subculture standards of "beauty." (In particular, the whole "drag queen" aesthetic is just utterly mystifying to me. Every last one of them seems so deep into their own psychiatric bullshit that attending drag shows strikes me as exploitation on par with spectating bum fights or picking on people with Down syndrome.)

Obviously, gender eliminativism and gender essentialism are not intellectually compatible. Feminists know this and have been wrestling with it for decades; the trans movement just inherited and imported all that. But as complicated as all those arguments can get, I find myself increasingly sympathetic to some of the things Foucault argued about all of these things just being power struggles. People aren't (mostly) arguing for principles they believe in for good epistemic reasons, but backing whatever argument seems most likely to get them what they want.

One thing a lot of people--but especially, men--really want is sexual gratification.

From the individual perspective of a heterosexual male, the most powerful person in the world is usually an attractive female. The gnashing of "incel" teeth on this speaks for itself. The blame they place on women is because they really do see themselves as powerless to get what they want--while attractive females are not only withholding what those men want from those men, attractive females can, if they so choose, secure for themselves an essentially limitless supply of what those men want. (At least until they age out of attractiveness!) Give them a choice to actually become a sexually attractive female, and they would likely take it, even though they have zero "self conception" of themselves as "really" being a woman.

But if you gave those same men a choice between a button that would make them an extremely attractive female, or a button that would definitely make them a sexually irresistible male (whatever that ultimately means!), I think a larger number might choose to remain male. Last time I discussed this thought experiment with someone, it had been specified out to details like "your family's memories will be edited so that they don't even realize you've changed," and "your professional life will not be impacted in any way" and "your interest in and ability to experience sexual gratification will not change, nor will your taste in sexual partners, except to the extent that you may want it to," and all sorts of other caveats that arise when you really, seriously think about what it would mean, to live inside a different body. I think those are all significant details, and I don't think they scratch the surface of all the questions one would want answered before pushing the button.

This is related, I think, to something I often observe concerning abortion. Abortion is a young woman's game. The centrality of abortion to the culture wars is, I think, a direct outgrowth of mass media making "youth culture" the dominant culture of America. Likewise, the trans movement is mostly young people doing young people things. A lot of people simply grow out of their sex and gender obsessions; most adults have more pressing business to attend to. So when someone hypothesizes a true "body swap" magic or technology, people tend to imagine transforming into an ideal, and ideally young, specimen of the opposite sex. Essentially nobody's going to push a button that turns them into an ugly woman, unless they have first devoted themselves to a culture that inculcates an "ugly woman" aesthetic (in which case, from their perspective--they aren't an ugly woman after all).

I think this gets to the heart of the argument that the original tweet is making: the "egg cracking" movement also carries the same sort of implicit assumption that transitioning will turn you into someone attractive. It only takes a bit of scrolling through /r/egg_irl/top listings to find memes about how trans is when you want to be a hot anime waifu or pretty video-game princess.

This fallacy works even if people's perception of what a "woman" is is more realistic. If you're in the half of men that are below average attractiveness, and you imagine that transitioning will make you more like some composite image of what a typical woman is like (i.e., average attractiveness), that's still a positive change.

Those same men would also buy a button that magically transformed them into a man, if not for the fact that they are already men, and thus the expected outcome of the button is "nothing happens" rather than "I become what you'd get if you look up 'man' in a stock photo library".

The one thing missing from this analysis is that it doesn't need to be a fallacy at all (in the context of the unrealistic hypothetical button); for most values of n, the nth percentile of attractiveness woman is more attractive than the nth percentile of attractiveness man.

Half-joking idea: Ugly people do not get the dignity of a gendered pronoun, and instead are referred to as "it" rather than "he" or "she".

Men who are not attractive or useful certainly stop being read as "people" and fade into the background.

That already happens in some (usually crass) all-male circles when ugly women are mentioned.

This is related, I think, to something I often observe concerning abortion. Abortion is a young woman's game. The centrality of abortion to the culture wars is, I think, a direct outgrowth of mass media making "youth culture" the dominant culture of America.

I am not American, but my impression is the opposite - that abortion politics (on both sides) is, like almost every other political movement in the west, dominated by boomers fighting the last war. The exception is Very Online Feminism, which is a Gen X thing. (Jessica Valenti was born in 1978 and Amanda Marcotte in 1977). In the UK, the loudest pro-life voice was Nadine Dorries (born 1957) and the women Labour MPs who put full decriminalisation of abortion on the agenda in 2025 were mostly in their fifties.

But if you gave those same men a choice between a button that would make them an extremely attractive female, or a button that would definitely make them a sexually irresistible male (whatever that ultimately means!), I think a larger number might choose to remain male.

Here's an even harder choice:

  • button A turns you into a perfect man as defined by the average revealed preferences of het women
  • button B turns you into a perfect man as defined by the average stated preferences of het men

Here's the hardest choice, but it's for women:

  • button C turns you into a perfect woman as defined by the average revealed preferences of het men
  • button D turns you into a perfect woman as defined by the average stated preferences of het women

I feel like the male attractiveness button has a bunch of non-physical aspects like earnings and social cachet that can't really be transmitted the same way.

From what I've read, women's revealed preferences are actually shallower than they say.

Isn’t part of the point of the hypothetical that it makes you rich and not just 6’2?

What do you believe the differences are?

I forget the comic who said it, but I recall a line that went "you know, being an ugly woman is a lot like being a man. You're gonna have to get a job."

The point about age is a good one - if you ask me to picture 'a man' or 'a woman' in the abstract, I picture a fit, attractive person in their 20s or 30s. Culturally I think we do tend to idealise 20-something women, even more than we do 20-something men. I can thus imagine the woman there being an appealing thing to become.

But ask someone, "Would you rather be a 50 year old man or a 50 year old woman?" and I'd bet the woman starts to do a lot worse. What about if it's age 60? More than that? Culturally I think we have a model for middle-aged or elder men still being charismatic, authoritative, and even attractive, whereas that is not the case for older women at all.

FWIW I feel the same as you. I've been open that I would certainly have pressed that button when I was younger, and might now, and part of my resistance to trans stuff is that it's an infovirus that would have really fucked me up if it'd come ten, fifteen years earlier.

Even with the trans social contagion I'd personally have a lot less issue with a magical button or procedure that could actually accomplish gender transition. Current surgical interventions might want to do that but are at best a crude simulacra.

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