Insights Gleaned From “Detrans” People
A new study in the January 2024 issue of the Archives of Sexual Behavior, but published online the previous month, NOT behind a paywall, looked at “Detransistioners”. It was written by some very well known sexologists who who have studied transsexuals and transgendered people, Littman, O’Malley, Bailey… From it we can glean some interesting tidbits of knowledge, some of it likely NOT what some of authors would have wanted to find.
First, is the incredibly small number of subjects at only 78 individuals in spite of having trolled the internet to find them, most having come from the “detrans” subgroup on Reddit. This is snarkily amusing in that I can recall being told that there were “thousands” of “detransitioners” on that subgroup by transphobes insisting that most people who transition later detransition. To this, I would point to my essay, in which I list a number of studies that show that such is actually quite rare. Even the authors of the paper tried to explain that away, as being “old data”, before the recent explosion of “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” (a term that the first author of this study coined a few years back). Further reducing the number of subjects that we can honestly label, “detrans”, is the fact is that 25 of that 78 had never even “transitioned” in the first place, leaving only 53 actual detransitioners. Of those, only 18 had had any surgical procedures.
Given that we have studies, some published in the past year alone, involving literally many thousands of post-operative transitioners, looking at the number who regretted surgery and detransitioned shows that incidence rate is only 0.15%, finding only 18 subjects who had detransitioned after such procedures after scouring the internet in the most likely places is quite reasonable and does NOT represent a huge rate. In fact, it supports the conclusion that such post-op regret and detrans is indeed rare.
The next bit of data is the huge natal sex disparity ratio found in which only seven (7) of the 78 individuals were natal males, and all of them were primarily heterosexual or (self-reported) bisexual and 6 of that 7 reported sexual arousal to cross-dressing. This percentage (85%) is identical to that found among gynephilic transsexuals in a number of other studies. That is to say, that all seven were etiologically autogynephilic. This supports other observations that Male-To-Female (MTF) Homosexual Transsexuals (HSTS) simply do NOT detransition.
Interestingly, and likely much to Bailey’s chagrin, the data also showed that 15 of the 71 natal female subjects reported sexual arousal to wearing men’s clothing. Further, as expected by the theory that such autoandrophilia (AAP) would be found in heterosexual subjects, the correlation between sexual attraction to men was r=0.39. Bailey, even in this paper, tried to argue that such does not exist, yet here is more evidence that it does.
Interestingly, in support of the notion that most of these individuals, natal female, were not HSTS (Childhood Onset Gender Dysphoria), the authors report,
“Figure 1 presents the frequency distribution of summed scores across the eight items. The most common score (24.4%, N = 19) was 0, indicating endorsement of none of the items. Only 7.7% (N = 6) obtained the highest possible score, 8. The remainder of the sample was spread evenly across the scale, with points of rarity at 1 (only one item endorsed) and 7 (all but one item endorsed). Because we did not ask about two diagnostic requirements (duration of at least six months and distress or impairment), at most 16.7% (N = 13) of participants could have met diagnosis of DSM-5 Gender Dysphoria in Childhood (endorsement of at least six of eight items).”
Most of them, given that around half were mostly gynephilic girls, presented as tomboys, preferring boyish toys, etc. But a goodly number presented as gender typical in all respects. This is very much in keeping with the complaint of HSTS transmen, that many of these individuals weren’t the least bit gender atypical nor even very gender dysphoric in real life, how ever much they may have claimed to have been before they “detransed”. (Recall that 25 of them never “transitioned” in the first place.)
The study also found that the majority of these individuals come from very liberal family and community backgrounds, which would support their assertions that they were “trans”.
Overall, this study fully supports all of the conclusions that I and others have made regarding detransioners: 1) That among MTFs, it is universally autogynephiles (AGPs). 2) Among FtMs, it is largely “TransTrenders” from liberal families. 3) That these individuals have a high comorbid mental health diagnoses rate prior to claiming to be “trans”. 4) That in spite of these findings, such actual regret and detrans is rare.
Further Reading:
Where Are All These “Detransitioners” Coming From?
Transsexual Post-Op Regret Is Rare
Autoandrophilia in Androphilic FTM Transsexuals
Natal Females Falsely Claiming to be “Trans”
Reference:
Littman, L., O’Malley, S., Kerschner, H. et al. Detransition and Desistance Among Previously Trans-Identified Young Adults. Arch Sex Behav 53, 57–76 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-023-02716-1
Boys Don’t Cry
Crying is a fraught subject; so many possible cultural myths and stereotypes to wade through to get to the real truth about why we cry and whether there really is a difference between men and women with respect to crying. On the one hand, we have social constructionists claiming any differences is purely because all gender differences are socially constructed, that “male socialization” tells boys that “boys don’t cry”. On the other hand, we have cross-cultural studies that show while the acceptability of public crying vary, the trend exists even there that women still cry more often and for longer when they do cry. But in no culture have they found that men never cry.
The causes of crying seem to be different as well. Attend any wedding and one can see a number of women crying tears of emotional joy, but rarely will you see a man doing so. Women even choose to read and watch stories that induce such. I know I do. I distinctly recall crying one afternoon as a teenager from the sad ending of a story about a boy, who in the dies by accident because his curiosity about how things work led him to get too close to moving machinery. I still cry at the end of my favorite Rom-Coms, like You’ve Got Mail. The morning after our parents announced that they were getting divorced, I couldn’t eat breakfast for the uncontrollable weeping, which my siblings and mother found embarrassing and unseemly. When I was kicked out of the house by mother at 18, I cried and cried. When I was evicted from my first rented room a few months later, I spent the night crying. When I was dealing with tough issues about adopting Liz, and her emotional troubles, I cried many a night. I cried at work when I was fired for being transsexual, from a job which I had invested four years of life and had risen to a respected position. I can’t tell you how many times I cried over a break-up with a boyfriend. The most intense crying bout I have had was when I took a phone call while in the clean room, standing next to the wall, being told that my beloved grandmother had passed. The other women in the clean room (pink collar job) had to lead me to a chair as I was totally blind from the tears and sobs.
I only knew of three times that my father cried, once when he was dealing with severe pain from illness. (In spite of that, he lived to 92), then next when he told me one night that his wife, my mother, had asked for a divorce. the third time I could hear him crying on the phone the night he called me when I was in the hospital, having had “sex change” surgery that morning, saying that I had “ruined” my life, that I “could never go back”.
Strangely, I have NO memories of my mother crying, ever. And she absolutely despised it when I did, often making disparaging remarks, saying in a deeply reproving tone, “You heart is one your sleeve”.
So, casting personal anecdotes aside, we turn to science and data to learn more about why we cry.
First, one learns that human tears contain prolactin, the hormone that induces lactation. Women, especially those in their fertile years, produce far more prolactin then men. There seems to be a connection between prolactin levels and the amount of tears produced. This might explain some of the difference between men and women in the length of time spent crying once a bout had been induced.
The second finding is from a very recent paper showing that mammalian female tears, including humans, reduces male aggression, from the abstract:
Rodent tears contain social chemosignals with diverse effects, including blocking male aggression. Human tears also contain a chemosignal that lowers male testosterone, but its behavioral significance was unclear. Because reduced testosterone is associated with reduced aggression, we tested the hypothesis that human tears act like rodent tears to block male aggression. Using a standard behavioral paradigm, we found that sniffing emotional tears with no odor percept reduced human male aggression by 43.7%. To probe the peripheral brain substrates of this effect, we applied tears to 62 human olfactory receptors in vitro. We identified 4 receptors that responded in a dose-dependent manner to this stimulus. Finally, to probe the central brain substrates of this effect, we repeated the experiment concurrent with functional brain imaging. We found that sniffing tears increased functional connectivity between the neural substrates of olfaction and aggression, reducing overall levels of neural activity in the latter. Taken together, our results imply that like in rodents, a human tear–bound chemosignal lowers male aggression, a mechanism that likely relies on the structural and functional overlap in the brain substrates of olfaction and aggression. We suggest that tears are a mammalian-wide mechanism that provides a chemical blanket protecting against aggression.
A chemical signal in human female tears lowers aggression in males.
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The key is that the male has to smell the tears running down the females face or wiped onto their paws, etc. One can imagine in humans, the man has to have some close contact in order to smell this chemosignal. I have to wonder what would happen if a man who is attacking another he perceives as male and smells this signal. Will it reduce his aggression? Would it help protect feminine males such as homosexuals or homosexual transsexuals? Or would it backfire and make them more aggressive to the point of beating and murdering them?
The next question we need to ask, is this difference in crying between men and women based upon an organizational or activational effect of hormones. Does Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) for transsexuals cause changes in the number or intensity of crying? There have been many anecdotal reports that it does, but frankly, these are suspect due to the differences between reports from autogynephiles (AGP) and homosexual transsexuals (HSTS), the latter of which report no changes in weepiness upon starting HRT. (I certainly did NOT notice any such change, having always exhibited high levels of crying before HRT.) The other anecdotal evidence comes from straight men who are treated for prostate cancer in which it is claimed that the reduction in testosterone increases emotional labiality, including crying. However, when I tracked down the data, they were all from men who were extremely ill. As we know, pain, illness, and loss of sexual function in men can be very stressful, leading to depression, sadness and the need to express such through tears. Thus, the confound casts the anecdotal evidence in doubt.
Further Reading:
This is your brain; This is your brain on hormones
Further External Reading:
https://www.thecut.com/2015/01/why-do-women-cry-more-than-men.html
References:
Agron S, de March CA, Weissgross R, Mishor E, Gorodisky L, Weiss T, et al. (2023) A chemical signal in human female tears lowers aggression in males. PLoS Biol 21(12): e3002442. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002442
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The Catholic Church’s War On Women and LGBT Families
Today, the Poop in Rome (not a typo), has fired yet another salvo against women’s reproductive choice and control of her own body, and at the very same time, attacked gay male and androphilic MTF transsexuals families, by calling for a universal ban on surrogacy.
The church has long insisted that any form of birth control, and especially abortion, is verboten, not just for their own adherents, but for all women. The goal was clear, control of women’s bodies and their sexuality. Indeed to “punish” women if they have sex such that they will likely become pregnant. For women having heterosexual sex outside of marriage, this would lead to an unwanted pregnancy that would shame them in their communities and force them, to enter “homes”, institutions, for unwed mothers such that the church could then steal their newborn babies and give them to infertile heterosexual married, “good Catholic” families.
Then, along came more readily available birth control methods and the “sexual revolution” freeing women from the worry of an unwanted pregnancy. Along with that freedom came the demand from LGBT for equal rights and in the past two decades, marriage equality.
Surrogacy had been around for centuries, in which families would help out an infertile female relative by volunteering to carry that relative’s husband’s baby and allow that relative to raise that child as her own. So called “commercial” surrogacy has been around for decades such that laws and customs have grown up around it to address various concerns. As long as it was about helping infertile heterosexual married couples, the Church had nothing to say about it, treating it much like they had their own practice of stealing infants from unwed mothers.
But with the growing social acceptance and legal recognition of gay and lesbian couples, something that that the Church fought against, the availability of both in family / altruistic surrogacy and “commercial” surrogacy has now led to gay male couples and androphilic MTF transsexuals married to straight men availing themselves of this practice, much to the dismay and disgust of the ‘phobic Xtians and now the Poop himself, in a despicable speech.
This, like the Church’s push against reproductive choice, birth control and abortion, we must fight against this latest assault on women’s rights to bodily autonomy to be a surrogate and the right of gay men and transsexuals to such.
Further Reading:
Further External Reading:
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New California Law to End Abuse of Transsexuals From Pharmacies
In the early 1980s, about a year after I had SRS, I went to my local pharmacy, on the boarder of Mountain View and Los Altos (“Silicon Valley” California) to get a refill of my HRT. The pharmacist saw the prescription and demanded, very loudly so that everyone in the area could hear him, that I explain what medical condition I had that required such a prescription. I told him it was none of his business. He got even louder and said that no woman needs such a high dose of estrogen and progesterone as I was taking, twice daily. He then demanded, again, very loudly, that I tell him what medical condition I had. I knew what he was trying to do. He was trying to out me to my neighbors at the pharmacy. Again, I told him it was none of his business, but I told him I had had the same prescription since I was a teenager and I needed my prescription refilled. He refused unless I told him what medical condition I had. I walked out of the pharmacy in tears.
I was informed by a friend that I could simply go to any other pharmacy and ask them to call the first pharmacy to get the prescription transferred. This I did, though the process meant a delay in getting my HRT. My friend, then a medical student at Stanford, also recommended I write up the episode and put in a formal complaint to the Board that oversaw pharmacies. This I did. But literally, nothing came of it.
Now, literally forty years later, something did come of it (though not directly), because my experience was not unique. Bigoted pharmacy employees have mistreated transsexuals for decades. California has created a law the pharmacists and technicians must take a trans cultural awareness course to renew their license. The behavior of that pharmacist back in the ’80s is now actionable.
Further External Reading:
Webinar on Transsexual Cultural Awareness
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On the Science of Changing Sex 
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