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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

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I mean, the rationalist community, or the programming community, or similar, have a ton more trans women than trans men, and a ton more men than women. How does one square this with the claim that trans women have the biological / psychological inclinations that women do?

Well, that one is because al three are highly correlated with mild autism.

(if anyone is unsure: this is not a joke, this is my actual answer, I'm a bit paranoid about being misconstrued)

Beyond that: I don't make the claim, and I don't think that most progressives would try to defend the claim, that the population average and variance for trans women is exactly the same as the population average and variance for cis women on every possible psychological and sociological axis. T

This isn't prohibitive; obviously, most individual members of most groups will not personally be at the precise population average for most traits. And there are lots of subgroups you could make, like 'women who play sports' or 'asian women in the US' or 'women who write fanfic' or etc. that will have slightly different population averages for all kinds of things, but still be women.

Basically, no one ever said trans women aren't weird women, just that they are women. (that statement being a normative prescriptive statement arguing in favor of certain semantic and cultural lines, rather than an empirical claim, since empirical observations can't on their own make a semantic definition 'correct').

But also, note that trans people don't just get socialization as boys or as girls or as men or as women; they also get socialization as trans people. As a political football in a high-contact era of political sportsmanship, they're naturally pushed towards having to be a lot more involved in the culture wars and political rhetoric just to defend their own interests and stay on top of what is about to happen to them next. I think this makes them more common than would otherwise be the case in all types of highly-online politically-themed communities, rationalists being one of those.

Well, that one is because al three are highly correlated with mild autism.

Mildly autistic bio women don't seem to have the same attraction to e.g. rust that trans women do, once you account for the percent of the population they are. I think this is reasonable evidence against trans women having the same psychological inclinations as bio women,.

Another thing to think about, along the original line: Biological women have a strong innate desire to be around and care for children, one you can both see in choice of occupation and just casual observation, and I don't see that at all in trans women.