Aggression and Criminality Differences: Androphilic vs. Gynephilic

One of the first transsexuals I met at the Stanford Gender Dysphoria Clinic in 1976, an older transwoman who made very envious comments about my appearance, later was caught and convicted of multiple insurance fraud scams. It would not be the last time that someone I personally knew would convicted for some crime. Once, a houseguest, someone I was hosting while they healed from SRS before returning to their regular life, took the key to my small airplane, stole it in the middle of the night, crashing it in a hay field when she ran out of fuel. Then there are the depraved animals like Dana Rivers, who in 2016, murdered three people in their own home while staying as a houseguest.

These and other instances are used by transphobic activists to paint transwomen as dangerous monsters. But what is the real truth? In actuality, like non-transsexuals, most people are not such anti-social people. They are good, decent, and law obeying citizens.

Consider the Dhejne study which has been used by transphobes, claiming that it showed that transwomen had the same rate of criminal behavior as men in general, which indeed the paper did verbally suggest.

Male-to-females had a significantly increased risk for crime compared to female controls (aHR 6.6; 95% CI 4.1–10.8) but not compared to males (aHR 0.8; 95% CI 0.5–1.2). This indicates that they retained a male pattern regarding criminality. The same was true regarding violent crime. By contrast, female-to-males had higher crime rates than female controls (aHR 4.1; 95% CI 2.5–6.9) but did not differ from male controls. This indicates a shift to a male pattern regarding criminality and that sex reassignment is coupled to increased crime rate in female-to-males. The same was true regarding violent crime.

My long time readers will know my oft repeated mantra that one should not accept statements of conclusions in papers as facts, but look at the actual data. The data showed that transwomen had a 20% lower crime rate than men. However, given other evidence from other studies, I hypothesized that this was an artifact of failing to differentiate between gynephilic and androphilic transsexuals; that the rate is pulled down by the inclusion of androphilic (homosexual / HSTS) transwomen who have a significantly lower criminal rate.

Why do I say this? Because the data shows that androphilic males exhibit lower physical aggressiveness and criminal behavior, starting in childhood and extending into adulthood than gynephilic males. Further, androphilic (HSTS) transwomen show even lower physical aggressiveness than gay men.

We don’t have good data on androphilic vs. gynephilic transwomen with respect to criminal convictions. But knowing that androphilic transwomen have lower aggressiveness than even gay men, we can extrapolate that they will also have lower criminality. Fortunately, a study came out just days ago which provide solid data on the criminal arrest rates of heterosexuals vs. homosexuals, of both sexes.

To determine the sexual orientation of the subjects, they used marriage records of the Netherlands, which provides for both Opposite Sex (OS) and Same Sex (SS) marriages. Note that straight men have a ~60% higher overall criminal rate than gay men. For violent crime, straight men have essentially double the crime rate as gay men. Admittedly, the gay men still have a much higher rate than straight women. But again, recall, that androphilic transwomen exhibit yet lower physical aggression than even gay men.

Regarding transmen, Dhejne found that they had crime rates much higher that straight women, while van de Weijer found that lesbians also had a higher crime rate, but not nearly as high as Dhejne. This suggests, just with the ‘opposite sex-like shift’ for androphilic transwomen, that transmen are also further shifted to being like the opposite sex than non-transsexual homosexuals of the same natal sex.

Thus, this supports my hypothesis that androphilic transwomen exhibit far lower criminality than straight men… possibly to be near to the low rates as straight women? I look forward to such a study to determine that (provided that the researchers use proper means to determine sexual orientation, given the well documented tendency of gynephilic transwomen to misrepresent one’s sexuality).

Further Reading:

Safety First

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dana_Rivers

Dhejne, et al. “Long-Term Follow-Up of Transsexual Persons Undergoing Sex Reassignment Surgery: Cohort Study in Sweden” (2011) https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0016885

Blanchard, R., McConkey, J.G., Roper, V. et al. Measuring physical aggressiveness in heterosexual, homosexual, and transsexual males. Arch Sex Behav 12, 511–524 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01542213

van de Weijer, S.G.A., van Deuren, S. & Boutwell, B.B. Same-Sex Relationships and Criminal Behavior: A Total Population Study in The Netherlands. Arch Sex Behav (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-024-02902-9

Association Between FBOE and Anal Sex Role Tested

The great tragedy of Science—the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact – Thomas Henry Huxley 1870

A paper published just days ago, tested, attempted to replicate Wampold’s observation that the Fraternal Birth Order Effect was predominantly found only in “bottoms”. The hypothesis didn’t hold, a beautiful hypothesis slain by an ugly fact. I had previously cited Wampold’s paper, along with other observations. This was only one piece of data that showed that there was a correlation between “bottom” gay men and Homosexual Transsexuals (HSTS).

“Contrary to some earlier reports, however, our data did not establish the FBOE as exclusive to gay men with the receptive AERO.”

But there are other statements in the paper that I would point out and address. The authors cite and discuss many of the same papers and evidence regarding the potential multiple etiologies of male androphilia beyond the FBOE including familiarity and excess left-handedness that I have covered in past essays. It is heartening that these studies are being taking seriously and explored carefully.

“Yet there is another complementary possible explanation (not necessarily contradictory to the MIH), which has not received much theoretical attention so far. As Haig (2014) outlined, there is a potential that older siblings may influence their younger siblings’ physiology through fetal microchimerism. Fetal microchimerism is a naturally occurring state in which fetal cells, after crossing the placenta, engraft into various tissues in the maternal organism (Cómitre-Mariano et al., 2022). In many cases, the physiological function of these engrafted cells of fetal origin is not clear–they may probably serve as a beneficial factor in maternal health but are also believed to contribute to autoimmune diseases (Cómitre-Mariano et al., 2022). In the development of human sexual orientation, cells of older brothers engrafted in maternal tissues might (1) contribute to the continuous production of antibodies against male antigens or, which is highly speculative, (2) even re-cross the placenta, enter the younger siblings’ bloodstream and alter their physiology directly (see also Haig, 2014). Obviously, other ways these cells could exert their influence are conceivable. Still, the cardinal background assumption, i.e., mothers of homosexual men having a higher amount of male microchimerism in comparison with mothers of heterosexual men, remains to be tested empirically.”

Hmmm… I seem to recall that someone else wrote about this very possibility BEFORE Haig’s 2014 paper, in 2013… oh yeah! That was ME!

However, that is not the only comment in the paper which I would caution a casual reader to examine the data, the evidence, before accepting it on face value,

“The FBOE in gay men is usually explained by the maternal immune hypothesis (Blanchard & Klassen, 1997), which was proposed as a sex-asymmetrical immunological cause of male homosexuality. It assumes that cellular, protein-containing material from embryos or fetuses of the male sex can permeate the placenta, enter maternal bloodstream, and lead to an antibody-mediated immunological response to male-specific antigens. When the woman is pregnant again, these antibodies cross the placenta, invade the unborn child’s circulation, and alter some of the child’s physiological functions. The levels of maternal antibodies are supposed to increase with each subsequent pregnancy with a male fetus. The validity of the maternal immune hypothesis was partly corroborated by the only direct test to-date (Bogaert et al., 2018), which found that the blood levels of anti-NLGN4Y (neuroligin 4 Y-linked is a male-specific cell-adhesion protein present in neural synapses) antibodies are higher in the mothers of gay sons than in the mothers of straight sons or no sons. Nevertheless, the study did not find a significant difference between the mothers of gay sons with older brothers and mothers of gay sons with no older brothers (for anti-NLGN4Y isoform 1 or significance-bordering results for isoform 2 or isoforms 1 and 2 combined), which presents a challenge for the maternal immune hypothesis (Valentova et al., 2023).”

The statement that Bogaert, “did not find a significant difference between the mothers of gay sons with older brothers and mothers of gay sons with no older brothers … which presents a challenge for the maternal immune hypothesis” is misleading on several grounds. I wrote an essay on this very study and take issue with the largely unspoken assumption that the FBOE mediated by maternal immune factors would only effect later born sons. The data shows that it effects even the first born son. That is, the nine months of pregnancy is long enough for the mother to have developed such immune factors that directly effect first born sons and thus their sexual orientation.

This exemplifies and illustrates something that I’ve said for years, “Don’t accept statements of conclusions as facts in science papers.” Remember the motto of the British Royal Academy of Science, ‘Nullius in verba’ (Take no one’s word for it). Or as we say in America, “In Data We Trust – All Other’s Bring Evidence”.

Further Reading:

Common Correlations in HSTS and Gay Men

On The Etiology of Homosexual Transsexuality

Etiological Conjectures, Part 3 (Essay on microchimerism as an alternate explanation of the FBOE)

Fraternal Birth Order Effect Applies to First Born Male Children Too

Reference:

Fořt, J., Kunc, B., Valentova, J.V. et al. Examining the Fraternal Birth Order Effect and Sexual Orientation: Insights from an East European Population. Arch Sex Behav (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-024-02892-8

I’m Sad Today – My High School Friend “Beep” Is Dead

I’ve alluded to Beep (for B.P.) in a number of my autobiographical remarks. Beep was a close friend in high school. She remained so since then. She was kind and smart. Her mother was a physicist and a role model for the girls in our crowd. Beep studied mathematics and was a technologist in Silicon Valley. She was into sci-fi, cosplay, and horror make-up. She will be missed.

Funny story: decades ago, we had both dated the same boy from our school, not at the same time of course… he treated us both badly afterwards. When I related my experience to her, she said, “Eww yes! He’s a pig!” Old friends are a treasure.

I Have a Favor to Ask of You…

Many writers, especially on other platforms, may ask for money. I will not. I write out of a sense of duty to our community and to the truth, as best as that can be discovered. For 15 years I’ve written close to three hundred essays and three books, diving into the science, the politics, the history, and using personal anecdotes to explore who we are and why we are. For that reason, I believe that this material is important and should be shared with a wider readership.

So, the favor I ask is that you identify your favorite essay on this site and post a link to it on your social media. Or, barring that, that you send a link to it in an email to others, explaining why it is important.

Please help spread this knowledge.

Transsexuals Are Transitioning Younger – Right?

Not so fast. The story is more complicated than that.

I distinctly recall conversations in the mid-1970s from transwomen at the Stanford Gender Dysphoria Clinic that they universally wished that they had transitioned young as a teenager like I did, often expressed with both admiration and envy. Most of them were over thirty years old, while a very small number had transitioned in their mid-20s. As a corollary to these wistful sighs, was the common prediction that now that it was legally and medically possible, due to clinics like Stanford’s, that all transsexuals would be transitioning young.

It didn’t happen.

Now, in the mid-2020s, I’m hearing that very same prediction, that soon all transsexuals would be transitioning young.

It won’t happen.

It won’t happen for the simple reason that “late onset” gender dysphoria is progressive. It takes time to proceed from secretive cross-dressing in private to reaching the crisis point where it becomes necessary to transition.  The majority of non-exclusively-androphilic males who become gender dysphoric and come to identify as women report autogynephilia in adolescence which seems to mellow even as their need to cross-dress and their gender dysphoria increases, reaching a threshold, a crisis point, most commonly in their mid-30’s.  As Prince (herself an autogynephile) and Doctor documented, “Among our subjects, 79% did not appear in public cross dressed prior to age 20; at that time, most of the subjects had already had several years of experience with cross dressing. The average number of years of practice with cross dressing prior to owning a full feminine outfit was 15. The average number of years of practice with cross dressing prior to adoption of a feminine name was 21. Again, we have factual evidence indicative of the considerable time required for the development of the cross-gender identity.”

We can see the two type taxonomy and age of transition in more recent studies as a bimodal distribution of both age of onset of severe gender dysphoria and of seeking SRS.

Then, there is the curious real world data from Sweden in which the age of transition from 1972 to 2002 changed. According to the prediction I heard in the 1970s, the age should have gone down. But instead,

“The results showed that the incidence of transsexualism was not stable during the study period of three decades. The sex ratio changed from almost 1:1 in the late 1960s to almost 2:1 in favor of male-to-female (MF) transsexuals in the 1990s. The number of SRSs performed rose considerably after the mid-1980s. On average, MF transsexuals are now 6 years older than female-to-male (FM) transsexuals when they apply for SRS, and MF transsexuals are currently about 8 years older at the time of application than they were 20 years ago.”

The age went up!

How do we explain this? It’s actually rather simple. It is not that the age of transition of members of each of the two taxons, HSTS and AGP (“early” & “late” onset respectively) went up, it is that the number of late onset individuals seeking transition services went up, both absolutely and as a percentage, pulled the average up.

But when looking at more recent data from a clinic in the United States,

“Through June 2017, a total of 421 transgender individuals were seen who initiated hormonal therapy after 1990. Over the past 25 years, there has been a significant increase in the number of individuals seen. The mean age at initiation has remained higher in MTF than in FTM but has decreased steadily in both groups with the overall average dropping <30 years since 2015 (27.5±10.6). Since 1990, there has been a steady increase in the percentage of FTM such that it is now equivalent to MTF.”

This number 27.5±10.6 includes both MTF and FTM and the percentage of FTMs has increased, which since they seek medical transition services at a younger age, have pulled the average age down faster than the MTF age alone.

So, it appears that in the late 1960s, “early onset” / homosexual transsexuals, of both sexes, were holding down the age of transition. This makes sense when one reviews the attitudes of the clinics against non-homosexual transsexuals during the ’60s & ’70s. This changed in the late ’70s, early 80s due largely to Dr. Fisk introducing the term “gender dysphoria”. Then the number of “late onset” / non-homosexual transsexuals went up, while the number of early onset MTFs remained stable, pulling the average age up for a while. Since the 1990s, it seems like the number of non-homosexual FTMs went up, pulling down the average age once again.

Further Reading:

Essay on attitudes of clinicians in the 1960s and ’70s.

References:

Zavlin, D. et Al., “Age-Related Differences for Male-to-Female Transgender Patients Undergoing Gender-Affirming Surgery”, Journal of Pediatric Surgery (2019)
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esxm.2018.11.005

Olsson, SE., Möller, A.R. On the Incidence and Sex Ratio of Transsexualism in Sweden, 1972–2002. Arch Sex Behav 32, 381–386 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024051201160

Leinung, M. et al., “Changing Demographics in Transgender Individuals Seeking Hormonal Therapy: Are Trans Women More Common Than Trans Men?” https://doi.org/10.1089/trgh.2019.0070

I Wantonly Committed A Felony

Those that know me well, know that I assiduously avoid breaking the law, never giving the government an excuse to put me in prison. Yet, in December of 1975, I committed a felony, with a co-conspirator I had only just met that afternoon. A month later, I committed the same act, with a different man, but this time I broke no laws at all.

In feminist literature, there is an aphorism, “The Personal is Political.” I often turn that around and say, “The Political is Personal.” Politics and personal life often intersect. Please allow me to provide a bit of California history as a lengthy out-take from a biography of one of my personal political heroes, Willie Brown, pages 237-239,

“One of his biggest legislative triumphs of his career came in the spring of 1975. As he had done in nearly every session since coming to Sacramento, Brown introduced legislation to repeal California’s century-old law prohibiting “crimes against nature”. This time, with a new governor sympathetic to the civil rights of gays, the newest version, Assembly Bill 489, stood a chance of becoming law. Jerry Brown privately told gay leaders he would sign AB 489 but would not campaign for it because of persistent question about his own bachelorhood. The heart of the growing gay community was in the Castro district, once the stronghold of the Irish in the days of Ed Gaffney. However, following the 1971 reapportionment, the neighborhood was no longer in Willie Brown’s Assembly district. Even so, he kept his pledge to fight for the repeal of the antihomosexual law. As an added benefit, the bill gave Moscone in the Senate high visibility back in San Francisco, where he was running for mayor.

Willie Brown’s bill easily passed the Assembly in March on a 46-22 vote and headed to the more conservative Senate. There the bill immediately ran into heavy opposition from fundamentalist Christians, “Sodom and Gomorra probably had the same type of leadership as Willie Brown is presenting the Assembly,” said the Reverend James Wilkin, pastor of the Landmark Baptist Tabernacle church in Sacramento. A group formed called the Concerned Christians of California, which swore it would qualify a ballot initiative repealing Brown’s bill if it passed.

Moscone brilliantly guided Brown’s bill through the Senate’s committee structure and brought it to the Senate floor. The climactic moment came in the Senate on May 2, 1975. Opponents read from the Bible and denounced Brown’s bill for more than an hour. The opposition was led by Republican Senate leader George Deukmajian, who was rapidly becoming the most visible conservative officeholder in the state now that Reagan had departed. After the Senate roll was called at 1 P.M., the vote stood at a 20-20 tie. Under the state constitution, the lieutenant governor, as president of the Senate, could cast the deciding vote. Not since 1967 had a lieutenant governor been called upon to break a tie. But at that moment newly elected Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally, the highest-ranking black in statewide office, was in Denver. He was immediately summoned home, and grabbed the first plane he could.

Meanwhile, in the Senate, Deukmejian suggested that the bill’s opponents should leave so that the Senate would have no quorum and the bill could die. Senate President Pro Tempore Jim Mills quickly locked the doors, holding the remaining thirty-two senators in the Senate Chambers. Mills sent the highway patrol to round up those who had already slipped out. During the lock-in, one senator’s wife suggested that her husband should immediate resign from the Senate rather than see the bill pass.

Dymally’s airplane touched down in San Francisco, and he quickly boarded a highway patrol helicopter that rushed him to Sacramento. Dymally arrived in the Senate chambers at 7:47 P.M. “The president of the Senate votes aye!” he announced in his native Jamaican accent.

Brown hovered in the Senate chambers waiting for the vote, and then embraced Dymally at the Senate podium once victory was ensured. Dymally’s vote sent the bill back to the Assembly for approval of minor changes. A week later the Assembly passed the final version of AB 489 by a 45-26 vote and sent it to Jerry Brown’s desk. … Jerry Brown signed AB 489 with no comment. The law, which took effect on January 1, 1976, eliminated criminal penalties for adultery, oral sex, and sodomy between consenting adults over the age of eighteen.”

Back in personal events in late ’75 and very early 1976:

In the summer of 1975, I found a place to stay after my mother kicked me out of her house, in a spare bedroom of a single woman with two kids. Two other rooms were being let to other young women, also students at the local community college like me. It was good at first.

Then my world collapsed… I went to my father’s for Thanksgiving Dinner, had a wonderful time. My father was actually treating me as a young lady. But when I got back home that night I was asked to leave. One of the women figured out that I was TS and told everyone else. I had one month to find a new place. They made me so uncomfortable during that month. I spent most of my evenings crying alone in my room. At school a woman from my English class said, “You’re doing it!!” “What?” “You’re doing it. You’re crying. The other night, Thanksgiving, I had a dream about you. In it you wearing a pretty green dress, you were on your bed, crying and saying over and over again, ‘they don’t understand, they don’t understand'” “But that is what I was doing that night!!” “Weird… Why were you crying?” Since this woman was obviously sympathic and seemed almost magically linked to me I told her. She was so cool. She then clued me into how to find housing in that town using the Alternative (read “Gay”) Resource Center in Santa Cruz. Bless her!

On one of my trips on the bus to Santa Cruz and the resource center I met a young man, Roger, 25 years old, just six months out of the Navy. He was so cute, and buff. He was seated in the row in front of me. I hadn’t expected to be meeting anyone, much less going out, so I was wearing powder blue brushed twill pants and a simple blouse, very little make-up. We got to talking and flirting that he and I just decided to make a date of it. We spent the entire Saturday, late into the evening. It was late afternoon when we ended up at his place. A small studio apartment in Watsonville. He was very solicitous, and his kisses were intoxicating. But when he starting unbuttoning my blouse, I stiffened. He asked what’s wrong. It took him half an hour of probing and reassuring me that it was OK to confide in him. I told him in stages. By the time that he understood, I knew that he wouldn’t freak. He said, “hey, it’s OK. You are still a girl to me. You don’t need to be afraid of me. And we won’t do anything that will make you uncomfortable.” His kisses were wonderful! He made me so comfortable! Eventually we became quite intimate… and committed what was then a felony. It was my sexual debut, no longer a virgin. We agreed to meet again the next week. But when I got to his place as arranged, he was logy from having been awake all night before on LSD and acted as though I wasn’t even there!! Not liking drugs and feeling hurt, I just left. I never saw him again.

I found a place just before Xmas. It was in a lesbian household. I lucked out in that the head of the household, Curly Hummingbird, was very, very butch. I did not want a repeat of my first house, so I broached the issue of my being male. She said, “No problem,” during the interview. She was very masculine looking… tall, wiry, and muscular… if it wasn’t for having breasts, she could pass as a good looking man. She later told me that she had even lived essentially as a man in New York City for three years, binding her breasts. So she understood. That place was wild. The women living there were not told about me, just Curly knew. The women knew that I was straight but loved to “tease and flirt” with me anyway. I loved it! Curly loved telling me what her lesbian friends were saying about me. One commented on how pretty I was, another said it was a damn shame I was straight, “are you sure she’s not bi?”, yet another said in rueful appreciation, “How come all of the femmes are straight?”.

On new years eve Curly went out to party at a gay bar to celebrate not only the new year, but the fact that the antihomosexual law would be gone as of midnight, as did everyone else in the house, leaving me at home alone, as I was under-age at eighteen. She came back just after one in the morning with a man who had given her a ride back from the bar. When he walked into the house I just about creamed my panties! He was tall, broad-shouldered, had long wavy black hair, full mustache, and hazel eyes, typical of ‘Black Irish’. He was incredibly handsome… and obviously tipsy, with an unopened bottle of champagne still in his hand! Curly grabbed me and pulled me aside, “Look, you gotta help me! This guy is hitting on me. Can you distract him or something?” (Oh come on Curly… a straight man hitting on a butch dyke that could pass as a man? You’ve got to have a better story that that!) I looked back at him and smiled, “I would love to!” His name was Kerry, 28 years old. And he in fact was Irish. Curly quietly slipped out of the room. Yummy, his kisses were nice. Kerry and I drank a bit of that bottle, had a good time telling stories, laughing and cuddling. But then it was my turn to call out for help! “Curly, get back in here!” Kerry had picked me up, as easy as you please, and thrown me over his shoulder in order to carry me out to his car to take me home to his place. Curly came back into the common room and gently chided Kerry saying, “Now, now, time for that later! Come on you’re drunk. You can’t be taking her home with you. She belongs here.” He put me down. He stayed a while longer ’til he had sobered enough to drive.

Kerry remembered that night perfectly, which surprised me. He called up and apologized to both Curly and I. He then asked if I would come over for dinner at his place. I readily agreed. He was living in an old victorian house that was half torn apart. He and his buddy were living in it free in exchange for restoration work. I date my interest in restoring old houses to that night. I found it fascinating. I don’t remember the dinner very well after this many years… but that night I spent in his bed, cuddling, kissing, and yet again became intimate, but this time, it was legal.

Years later I suspected that Curly had set me up. That she thought this guy was perfect for me so arranged to get him to come to our house. But I can’t be certain. But surely she knew how to keep a straight man off of her? Or was it conspiracy? Did Kerry just play along? Too many unanswered questions!!

Further Reading:

Detransitioners Are Not The Enemy – Essay on meeting Curly Hummingbird

https://sillyolme.wordpress.com/category/autobiographical/

Reference:

James Richardson, “Willie Brown, A biography”, University of California Press, (1996)

Lynn Conway Is Dead – Let The Hagiography Begin

Already, trans activists are lionizing her, spreading misinformation about her life.

I first heard of Lynn Conway from Dr. Joy Shaffer’s father in 1982. He was a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Florida, Gainesville. He had met Conway at a conference and instantly read her as transsexual. Conway claimed that she was successfully stealth until 1999 when she retired and then went public. Nothing could be further from the truth. She was well known in Silicon Valley, both for co-authoring a seminal textbook on VLSI semiconductor chip design and well… for being a transwoman.

In the late 1990s, I was researching and teaching a class on TransHistory at the Harvey Milk Institute in San Francisco. At the time, knowledge of our history was almost non-existent. It seemed like every other week some newly transitioned individual would make the claim that they were the “first transsexual to XXX” when I knew for a fact that they were not even close to being such. As well as teaching the class, I had placed some of my class notes and power point slides online to supplement and expand the class reach. Conway contacted me because of that website. She wanted me to know about and include her in that history as she was then intending to go public. She wanted me to include her on my website as a “successful transsexual woman”. I politely declined.

The simple fact was that she had done nothing that impacted our history in any notable way other than to have co-authored a textbook. (Just for reference, so have I.) But still, Conway and I became acquaintances, as she visited me on multiple occasions over the next few years. She treated me to lunch on one occasion when I gave her a tour of my workplace. (One of my co-workers fawned over her as he had learned chip design from her textbook, a copy of which was in a place of honor in his office. He was amazed that I knew her personally.) On another occasion, my husband Jeff and I treated her to dinner at a local restaurant.

On this occasion, while eating dinner, she insisted upon describing in graphic detail her recent participation in a research study on post-op transsexual masturbation, while instrumented in a clinical setting, and strongly insisted that I should also enroll and participate. She utterly failed to heed my pointed hints that I was uncomfortable with this discussion, especially in a public restaurant, in the company of my husband!

Also, at that same dinner, she repeatedly discussed her recent Facial Feminization Surgery and fished for compliments, largely from Jeff. I wanted to scream, “Get your own husband!”. (She later did.) From then on whenever her name came up, Jeff would opine that she was the most vain woman he had ever met.

On yet another occasion, while visiting at my house, sitting in my parlor, we had a frank discussion on the science of transsexuality in which I fully explicated the Two Type Taxonomy. (Recall that it had been originally explained to me, over dinner at my house, by none other than Dr. Anne Lawrence and Dr. Joy Shaffer some years prior.) Lynn totally agreed that this fully explained much that she had seen in the community. But she then made the most astounding nonsensical claim that she was an “early transitioner” because she had transitioned at age 28. “No Lynn, that’s LATE.” (There was also that little detail about having married as a straight man and sired two children. She was clearly NOT HSTS!)

Conway fans will claim that she attempted to transition at age 19 while a student at MIT. This is an utter falsehood. She merely occasionally cross-dressed in private, taking photos of herself doing so. She talked with a classmate about wanting to transition who mistakenly opined that if she did, she would likely be locked up in an insane asylum. That was the full extent of her teenaged attempt at transition. (It should be understood that many HSTS were transitioned full time during those very same years, and more than one AGP had transitioned before that point, e.g. Christine Jorgensen in 1952).

Conway had not given up on her obsession with being a “successful transsexual woman” but gave up on trying to convince me to be her publicist, instead becoming her own by creating a website in which she had a starring role, along with other “successful transsexual women”. She wanted to include me, but as I was then raising funds for a highly visible high tech start-up with international partners, I strenuously declined permission to include me. That didn’t stop her from proudly blogging about visiting me and claiming that she was advising me, which I did allow.

Now, let’s go forward in time to 2003. Professor Michael Bailey publishes a book that discusses the Two Type Taxonomy. Conway calls me out of the blue complaining about the book and wants me to join her in a crusade against him and the book. I could not understand why she thought that I, of all people, would wish to do that, given our discussion about that very topic several years earlier. She knew that I was already familiar with the science and that I agreed that it was correct. Far from wishing to participate in protesting the book, I would more likely support it. I politely, but firmly declined to participate in her protest effort.

I’m glad I did. But am ashamed that I did not follow up and support Dr. Bailey. I sat on the sidelines, not paying attention to it, focusing instead on my start-up company. I didn’t know at the time the shameful things that she did in the name of her protest.

Fast forward to 2008 when I read Alice Dreger’s expose on Conway’s shameful behavior, along with several others… I highly recommend reading it, and her later book that also touched on the subject and its aftermath. Because of that expose, I wrote an essay of my own using the pen name “cloudy”. Conway and especially Andrea James spent a year trying to diss this author, alternating between trying to figure out who wrote it and claiming it was a hoax. They figured it out, then Conway gave James my contact info so that she could call me and threaten me. Her response to my not being cowed by her was to produce a scurrilous webpage on her site.

To me, far from being a hero of our community, Lynn Conway disgraced herself, and us by association.

Further Reading

Queen…

What The Next Wave of Transsexual Activists Need To Know

Flipping The Bird

The Invisible Transsexual

Triumph For Whom?

Further External Reading:

Bailey, J. Michael – Triea, Kiira. “What Many Transgender Activists Don’t Want You to Know: and why you should know it anyway” – Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, Volume 50, Number 4, Autumn 2007, pp. 521-534 DOI: 10.1353/pbm.2007.0041

Alice D. Dreger, “The Controversy Surrounding The Man Who Would Be Queen: A Case History of the Politics of Science, Identity, and Sex in the Internet Age” – Archives of Sexual Behavior, June 2008, Volume 37, pp 366-421 DOI: 10.1007/s10508-007-9301-1

Autism In “Trans”: A Meta-Review

A paper from 2022 covered a “systematic literature review and meta-analysis” of previous studies of the co-morbidity of autism/autistic traits and “gender dysphoria/incongruence”. It’s available online and not behind a paywall (link below). I’m always suspicious of such papers, as they can often turn out to be produced by paper mills for a hack that needs to “publish or perish” as they don’t contain any real new science research. But in this case, the review looks to be genuine and honest.

There are a few things in the review that came out very forcefully that support a point that I have been making for years about many of the papers that purport to be about gender dysphoria, the lack of consistent operational definitions. In this case, this lack is metaphorically “squared” in that both the definitions of autism / autistic traits and of gender dysphoria / incongruence interact to create a very “heterogeneous” pattern of data and conclusions when analyzing the papers,

“The high heterogeneity observed in the current meta-analyses was not surprising, as it is common in meta-analyses that focus on ASD or GD/GI (e.g., Arcelus et al., 2015; Lai et al., 2019; Loomes et al., 2017). It likely reflects some fundamental limitations of the literature pertaining to the prevalence of ASD diagnoses/ASD traits in GD/GI individuals. First, the targeted population cannot be considered homogeneous, as it includes transgender people, nonbinary individuals, people formally diagnosed with GD, and people who do not conform to the societal expectations of their birth-assigned sex and may or may not present GD feelings. Future studies might usefully apply stricter eligibility criteria to elucidate which of the aforementioned categories are most influenced by ASD. Of equal importance is another limitation identified through the current study. That is the paucity of studies that have employed standardized diagnostic measures of ASD to identify autistic GD/GI individuals.”

The paper also supported another issue I have long discussed concerning the use of surveys and self-report,

Results showed that the study design and participant type were the only significant moderators. The prevalence of ASD diagnoses was lower in clinical-based studies than in population-based studies. Also, the prevalence of ASD diagnoses was lower in people who met the diagnostic criteria or had a diagnosis of GD/GID/GID-NOS and people referred to gender clinics than in GI people. We should mention here that in clinical-based studies and studies that included people with a diagnosis or symptoms of GD information about the diagnosis of ASD was collected through medical records and in most of the studies the diagnosis was verified, whereas in studies that included GI people from the general population information was collected mainly through self-reports. This suggests that the prevalence of ASD diagnoses in GI people might be overestimated when ASD diagnosis is self-reported and that clinical-based studies might provide more precise estimates. 

Quite simply, we know that self-reported “gender incongruence” vastly over estimates the number of such individuals and that those very same individuals who falsely claim to be “trans” or “non-binary” are also prone to falsely claim to be on the ASD spectrum, so as to feel “special”.

Almost as a throw away comment by the authors, the type that actually can be the most enlightening as giving us insight into the behind the scenes thinking of the researchers (i.e. gossip) is this tidbit, discussing one of the best studies, not coincidentally from the Netherlands clinic,

“Interestingly, among adolescents diagnosed with GID, 6.5% received a co-occurring diagnosis of ASD, whereas 1.9% of children with GID were diagnosed with ASD. Turban and van Schalkwyk (2018) argued that since ASD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is usually detected early in development, the high rates of clinically diagnosable ASD found in adolescents and not children with GID indicate that the diagnostic tool de Vries at al. (2010) used did not tap “true” ASD characteristics. Instead, psychosocial issues, such as anxiety and depression, that are particularly common in adolescents with GD/GI might have artificially inflated adolescents’ scores on DISCO-10.”

Here we can see that Turban, often lauded as a champion of the transkid community, is showing his denial of the two type taxonomy, as ASD comorbidity is far more common in “Late Onset” transsexuals than in “Early Onset”. “Late Onset” individuals would only show up at the clinics in adolescence or adulthood.

The final result of the meta-analysis supports the conclusion that there is a higher than expected (from the general population) comorbidity of ASD in the transsexual population. However, their estimate of 11% is very likely too high, having been pulled up by the studies that used self-report.

Further Reading:

How many “trans” people are there, really?

Falsely Claiming to be “trans” is Cool (NOT) !

Autistic Sky

Reference:

Kallitsounaki, A., Williams, D.M. Autism Spectrum Disorder and Gender Dysphoria/Incongruence. A systematic Literature Review and Meta-Analysis. J Autism Dev Disord 53, 3103–3117 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-022-05517-y

Autistic Brains in Transsexuals?

A recent brain imaging study in transsexuals looked at the correlations between autism markers and brain morphology. The team was led by Ivanka Savic, whose work I’ve often cited in my essays on the science. True to form, she once again fails to differentiate between the two types of MTF transsexuals, which in brain studies as been found to be notably different from one another. This failure is disappointing because using such mixed populations reduces the signal strength of any putative finding and makes it impossible to know from which population the signal is found. Further, if they each have differential signals, the two will be conflated, reducing the value of the study.

Going beyond this basic error, the study is further compromised by the fact that we already have strong evidence that autism is mostly occurring in the non-exclusively-androphilic MTF transsexual population. We also have evidence that in the FtM transsexual population, autistic traits are common in the androphilic transmen and rare in the non-exclusively-androphilic population. For MTFs this is very much in keeping with the hypermasculinized brain hypothesis that is used to explain why men are four times as likely to be autistic than women.

Fortunately for those wishing to read the original paper, it is available online, not behind a paywall (linked below).

In the past, it was possible to determine that Savic’s MTF subjects were almost exclusively “Late Onset” (and thus almost certainly non-exclusively-androphilic / autogynephilic) based on the mean age and standard deviation of the subjects as being well over the age at which “Early Onset” no longer transition (the mean being age 20 and none doing so after age 25). The subjects had not yet begun HRT when the study was conducted. The mean age of the MTF subjects was 26.21 (SD=4.82). This means that over half of the subjects were over the age of 25, but many were younger. The minimum age was 19, the oldest was 37. This means that the majority, since there is an overlap between the two types between the ages of 20 and 25, are “Late Onset”. Thus, if there is a strong statistical signal in the study, it is more likely to be from such “Late Onset” transwomen, not “Early Onset”. However, given the mixed populations, we would expect the statistical signal to be severely weakened.

Rather than digging into the results, since the paper is available and frankly doesn’t show much of interest due to the mixed populations, I invite you to read the paper for oneself. However, there is one tidbit of some interest,

“The observed negative regional correlations between autistic traits and cortical thickness are patterns more consistent with ASD than gender dysphoria and could suggest that this cortical thinning could be secondary to the feeling of gender incongruence difficulties with social adjustments.”

Reference:

Khorashad, B.S., Wang, Y., Holmberg, M. et al. Gender Incongruence and Autistic Traits: Cerebral and Behavioral Underpinnings. Arch Sex Behav 53, 1873–1884 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-024-02809-5

Baby Dolls and Barbie Dolls

I once read a thread concerning Early Onset transwomen (“homosexual” transsexuals: HSTS) that discussed the observation that HSTS themselves came in two personality types, those that were more interested in baby dolls and those those that were more interested in Barbie(tm) dolls as children. This led to the two becoming “Mommie” or “Fashion Models” types. As with all such dichotomous stereotypes, there is both a grain of truth, and a lot of overlap. I myself have been both. Yes, seriously, when I was ~20/21 years old, I modeled lingerie for a boutique shop’s catalogue in Los Angeles. But it is being the “Mommie” type that most filled my dreams when I was a youngster.

I have memories of playing with both Barbie and baby dolls as a small child. I didn’t own any, as my family absolutely forbid me to own any girl’s toys, etc. But I was often over at my friends’ (always and only girls) houses and we played with them together.

When I was twelve my mother suggested to me that I could become a “Water Safety Aid”, sort of a Jr. Life Guard. There was a training program being offered jointly by the Red Cross and the City of Mountain View. We lived in Sunnyvale, a neighboring city. I thought the idea was wonderful. It was here that I discovered my passion for taking care of children.

There were no boys my age, as they weren’t interested in teaching little kids. There were a few older boys working as full lifeguards though.

I usually wore cut-off jean shorts and tee-shirt, even in the pool. I felt funny not having a top on, felt naked. All of the girls cut their hair very short for the summer. The chlorine in the pool trashed your hair anyway. My hair looked very much like the other girls. One day, the first summer, as we lay sunning ourselves during a break, none of the few boys were around and the girls were all talking girl talk’. The conversation drifted over to breast development and discomfort with the changes and what to do about them. I started holding my breath, wondering when they were going to realize I was there when the tables turned and it was me that had the realization. They knew I was there!. They just didn’t care!!

I spent two summers working with that group, teaching little kids to swim. The first year I was under the direction of an older girl, sixteen years old. But the next summer I was on my own.

Do you know the set up for summer swim classes? They had half hour lessons for three hours in the morning. The pool was closed during the lunch hour, then opened for the afternoon for open swim. We had tee-shirts that identified us as Jr. Life Guards which we were to wear during the afternoon to lend us authority to stop dangerous horseplay.

I loved working with the little kids. I found so much pure joy holding them up in the water as they learned to kick with their feet to propel themselves. I loved talking to the moms about each kid and how they were doing. There is really something special about seeing a child reach the decision to trust me and really begin to work with me. The kids seemed to become attached to me as the lessons progressed. Kids would crowd around me to get my attention. I just lapped it up. I was having the time of my life.

I wanted to do a third summer of teaching swimming but I had nearly flunked Algebra my first year in high school, getting a “D”. My folks insisted I had to go to summer school to repeat Algebra, yuck!!! I got a “B”. I was once again to teach swimming my Senior year in high school, as a means of getting out of having to take Boy’s PE, with the help of Coach Tom Bottom (see link below).

I started to get baby sitting jobs around the time I was thirteen. I very quickly got a reputation among the moms for being able to handle the kids, even multiple kids, and even the ‘difficult’ kids (in babysitter cant, “monsters”). No child ever gave me trouble, not even a hint of it. I had a set routine. I came over to the house earlier than needed, was introduced to the children. I made it very polite and formal. This got their attention. I was “different”. Next, I would carry on a very pleasant, adult centered, adult level, conversation with the parents, always being very polite and properly respectful of my elders but with an air of being accepted as a peer as well. Believe me the children noticed. This babysitter was not a kid!!! As soon as the parents had left I pulled the plug on the TV!!! I had discovered that children who would normally give trouble to babysitters would find themselves being much calmer if we played board games rather than watch TV. It also gave a few very troublesome kids someone who would pay attention to them! I also had a policy: I would break any social engagement if offered a babysitting job. This meant that a family could depend on me for emergencies. Eventually I would charge twice the regular going rate but still had as many or maybe more jobs than other girls who were babysitting. Since I could take on any number of kids I got to be the sitter of choice for bridge parties. All of the kids would be taken to one house to be watched by me. I would set up board games and sometimes party games for the kids. Both the kids and the adults had a good time!!!

When I was seventeen, summer of ’74, I applied for a job as a nanny after reading an ad in the paper. The ad read that they were looking for a girl, preferably a Senior or a Junior. I was about to go into my Senior year in high school so I thought that I would be perfect. Well almost perfect… I hoped that they wouldn’t be too picky about the sex of the nanny. I applied for the job but discovered that they had meant a college student. I was crestfallen. But to my good luck the prospective employers were none other than Mr. and Mrs. T. Mrs. T., the head librarian at the city library!! She recognized me from my previous summer when she had helped me research resources for transsexuals. She also checked on my references. I got the job!!! I loved that job. I took care of two boys, ages 4 and 10, from 7:30 in the morning until 5:30 or so in the afternoon. I fed them, took them to activities, helped them with summer studies, and played games with them. They were wonderful kids. I became very attached to them. The younger was so cute!!!

One morning when I arrived, the boys’ parents laughingly told me that the previous evening, when Gavin, the four year old, was asked why his toys hadn’t been put away for bed time, he had done a perfect imitation of my mannerisms and voice, perfectly recognizable, as he put his hands on his hips and said, with attitude, “Because ice cream doesn’t have bones!” I covered my mouth in surprise and chagrin. Gavin had parroted my favorite comeback to the perpetual question asked by small children, “Why?”

Mrs. T did a wonderful thing for me later around graduation time. I asked if she would write a letter of recommendation as I was moving away. She wrote the most wonderful letter with my new name and gender. She was so understanding, no long explanations needed, as she had long ago surmised what my sexuality and gender identity were. Mrs. T, you were an angel!!! I used that letter to get my first room and further babysitting jobs while going to college. My first year away from home I would occasionally get a babysitting job to supplement my meager remittance from my family.

When I was 17 years old, in early 1975, during my Senior year in high school, I managed to “trick” my father into enrolling me into the Stanford Gender Dysphoria Clinic. When I was interviewed / evaluated / diagnosed by Dr. Fisk, he asked about my hopes and dreams for my future. I told him that my most cherished wish was to get married to a straight man and adopt children. I shared with him the above history, which my mother corroborated in a later interview. I’m forever grateful that he didn’t laugh at that hope and believed in me. I eventually managed to do just that, even if I had did have to “trick” the foster care system.

Further Reading:

Just Not Fair

Baby Hunger

Backfire Effect