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Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 23, 2023

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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That's a really good point. It's harder to pass now!

In a society where 0.01% of people are trans, pretty much everyone will pass! The odds of a person being trans are so low no one would suspect it unless the person in question had a beard or giant breasts or something.

In a society where trans identity is common, people will be constantly wondering whether that woman with broad masculine features is actually a biological man.

Bayes' theorem rears its head again.

In a society where 0.01% of people are trans, pretty much everyone will pass!

What? A guy transitioning at 40 is going to have a hell of a time passing, no matter how common transitioning is. In fact, they'd be standing out even more.

I'm making about conditional probabilities.

Let's take it a step further. Let's say we live in a society where you know there is only 1 trans woman in the entire world. You see a very masculine looking person dressed in female clothing. Have you found the unicorn? Have you seen the 1 trans woman in the entire world? Or do you shrug and say, "wow that woman looks very masculine".

If he's <5'9", fat, and styles himself like an appropriately aged Matron, no one will notice him, because nobody pays much attention to ugly middle aged women who don't get too uppity.