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?
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Notes -
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
(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?
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.
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