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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   2006 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 17, 2024

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.

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Red hot CW, but it's a limited-scope question (I hope).

How can I find out the profile(s) for marginal MtF transitioners?

A few definitions:

  • MtF transitioner: a male who does at least one of the following:
    • Goes on HRT (cross-sex hormones) for long enough to begin to develop female sex characteristics like breast growth
    • Gets surgery related to transition (including facial feminization, vocal, genital, but not including non-invasive procedures like hair removal)
    • Changes name and presents full time as a woman
  • In particular, I'm not counting cross-dressing, deliberate androgyny, a "second identity" as a woman, etc. unless accompanied by one or more of the above, even if the person considers himself "trans".
  • Marginal meaning the usual thing, which could cash out in something like one of the following:
    • Is "on the bubble" about transitioning in the above ways, narrowly doing so (or narrowly not, but that's harder to measure)
    • Wouldn't have transitioned in similar circumstances, in the cultural climate of, say, 20+ years ago, (i.e. comparing to counterfactual of born 20 years earlier, making decision 20 years ago, not comparing to past self) but did transition in recent years (or is about to start transition now)
  • Profile meaning:
    • Demographics pre-transition, especially including age both at beginning to transition and age when first considering transition (if those are different)
    • Motivation: why, in terms of consciously experienced motivation (no psychoanalysis or "no you really did it for X reason", but also not "what theory of themselves do they subscribe to"), did they choose to transition
    • Religious and/or ideological background in early life (not immediately prior to transition, as I expect possible ideological shifts to bring beliefs in line with actions)
    • Personality / interests
    • Psychological comorbidities

I'm not asking for your personal theories (unless you uniquely have an insider or reliable source of knowledge about it); I have my own and most people's ideas about this are half-baked at best and ludicrously ideologically motivated at worst. What I want to know is where I can find one of:

  • Many such people (unguardedly) talking about themselves, in places accessible on the public internet.
  • High quality data gathered on this topic by people who are not just trying to grind their ideological axes / prove their pet theories.

So far I've read through a bunch of stuff on the sorts of subreddits where I'd expect to find such people, such as /r/mtf, /r/trans, /r/egg_irl. But I suspect that may not be a representative slice of the population I'm interested in.

It just occurred to me that there's a good chance @gattsuru might know some relevant information. Hopefully this tagging will summon him.

I'm not really sure what you want, but if I'm understanding you correctly you can look at the repressor general/repgen on 4chan's /lgbt/ board. I don't know if it's still like that, because I haven't checked it in years, but the general idea is that they want to transition but won't because they wouldn't pass, or they do take HRT but don't present as women. Some voice train to sound feminine, but only use it online. While some of them don't take HRT at all, I think a sizable amount do, so it should still fit your criteria.

There's a also something similar "boymodding", but from what I understand that's usually temporary(present as male while in the early stages of HRT/pre face feminization surgery). There's also something called "Manmodding" that's supposed to be more permanent, but I only know the terms in passing.

Looking through the archives through an archival site like this is probably the best way to do it, since individual threads won't offer much more than "woe is me". There's also the AGP threads on the archives you can check(think they're banned on the board, although enforcement is selective), agpgen is way more interesting, but they are pro transition unlike repgen. If you don't know, you can change the repgen in the subject to agpgen if you want to search the other.

As far as info goes on what you want, that's probably the most easily accessible public source. It won't be easy to sift through it to get to the information you want, but it is there, somewhere.

Wouldn't have transitioned in similar circumstances, in the cultural climate of, say, 20+ years ago, (i.e. comparing to counterfactual of born 20 years earlier, making decision 20 years ago, not comparing to past self) but did transition in recent years (or is about to start transition now)

I feel like that's the case for most of them. If it was 20 years ago, and even if you had gender dysphoria you'd suppress it, or manage it through crossdressing or other ways. If you wanted to transition back then you really had to seek it out. The average transwoman from back then is a whore or a porn actor. These days it's much more visible, you see a lot of news about trans topics, even if you don't really see anyone who is trans, meanwhile online you have entire communities which are easily found by anyone. And the process of transition is easier too, you can order HRT online easily, and there's tons of guides to regarding dosages and other stuff relating to it. I don't have any statistics, but quite a few trans people did either start through DIY and then switched to official, or stayed DIY.

Another thing to look at more specifically is the last few years, aka Covid. This is completely anecdotal, but I think that if you look back to the years 2020, 2021, and 2022 you will see a huge spike in transitions. Everyone being inside and online, meant you were more likely to spend time thinking about it and see it and wearing a mask made passing easier too which helped with the woes of early transition.

Profile meaning:

As to this, if you want the most common example you can look at a "failed males". Nerdy interests, no friends, shut in, depressed, anxious, likely autistic. There's also an incel to trans pipeline too. HRT has created irreparable changes to any community that has a lot of autistic males, like programming, speed running, video games in general. There's definitely examples of successful people transitioning, but most were depressed prior. There's reason for the 42%? attempted suicide rate, that's often spammed online as a meme.

Although looking at your past posts, I feel like this post might not really be of much use to you, but whatever. Since you mentioned autogynephilia in an earlier post, but I hope it at least offers something.

I checked out that archival link to 4chan. I have to say, there definitely is a heavy selection effect going on there, but at least it's a different one than the the other places I've looked.

I find 4chan slang and culture to be extremely offputting, but a certain subset of the population there at least has the "brutally honest" thing going. (Or maybe they're being hyperbolic or making shit up for fun. Hard to tell sometimes...)

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