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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   38429 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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The Williams Institute study says 1.3% of the pop 18-24 are trans

I dispute this number. Not that I have quantified values on hand contradicting this, but I just don't believe it. I'm going to interpret this number as "youths enormously over-report being trans".

It's maddening that all statistics about this are self reported. We're talking about a demographics that takes prescription drugs, we should be able to know the exact number within a small margin of error.

Not every person who identifies as trans takes hormones. In principle that would be a great way of weeding out the malingerers from the people really experiencing gender dysphoria, but argue that and you'll be accused of "gatekeeping" and being a "truscum".

Sure, and then you make a survey where you ask "are you trans? do you take HRT?" and you get a pretty good idea of how accurate your numbers are.

My impression is that the marginal trans*-person is a tomboyish woman who uses they/them pronouns and dresses androgynously but doesn't take any other positive steps to transition. In my day these people were just called "women".

I'm going to interpret this number as "youths enormously over-report being trans".

This might be correct, but also not contradictory to Williams Institute's claims. There's no strict definition of "trans," and I don't know what Williams Institute considers "trans," but one mainstream view among people who consider themselves as "pro-trans" is that reporting oneself to be trans means that one is trans. Under this framework, youths enormously over-reporting themselves as being trans would be equivalent to youths being trans at a higher rate than if some other (transphobic, by the POV of the people who push this standard) standards were used, such as experiencing gender dysphoria or socially/medically transitioning.

For ecgtheow's analysis, I don't know what definition of "trans" would be most relevant, though.

Yeah my guess is that the number of people who self-ID as trans is a bit higher than the number of people who are on HRT and/or have socially transitioned.

If you think testosterone levels rather than XY chromosome or male socialization is the key driver of aggression/violence/criminality than the # of trans identifying vs. # receiving HRT is important. But I also think the Williams Institute's 25-64 binning is annoying and the number of 25-40 year old trans people vs. 40-64 trans people is probably pretty different.

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