Gender Confusion, Gender Myths

Excerpts and comments on Michael Huemer's "Transgenderism"

In his book Progressive Myths Michael Huemer opens his chapter on transgenderism with:

Myth

All transwomen are women. Transgender people are simply people who were born in the wrong body, i.e., their gender fails to match their biological sex. They are never or almost never mistaken about their gender, and they never or almost never change their minds. Anyone who disagrees with this is a bigot.

What is the reality of this myth? Is any of it myth?

Could it be, that every sentence in this “myth statement” is myth?

I’m still pondering some of these questions as I write this post. I’m not sure that all of this “myth statement” is myth.

To simplify, let’s ask just one question: Are some trans people, sometimes mistaken about their gender, or do they always get it right? Huemer shows us they sometimes — and maybe often — get their gender wrong. I already knew about detransitioners, but I didn’t know about desisters. Knowing about desistance is important, especially if you’re a child thinking about transitioning or taking action that will permanently change your body.

Understanding gender dysphoria is important. Perhaps, it’s impossible to fully understand why certain people get confused about their gender, but Huemer points to “things” that correlate transitioning. Understanding these correlations is important, as some of them might be causations.

Huemer’s writing on this topic is exceptionally clear. After stating the myth, he gives eight examples of transgenderism from the progressive point of view. Here are two of those eight:

[G]ender is different from sex: Gender is the sense of and expression of where one lies on the gender spectrum, whereas sex relates to biological anatomy.

- University of San Francisco information page

[...]

[O]nce someone realizes they are different from the gender they were assigned at birth, they don't tend to flip flop or change their mind.

—Martie Sirois, transgender rights activist

Then he provides two examples of transgenderism from the conservative view:

But "transgender women," that is, men who pose as women, are not real women. They are men wishing they were women, perhaps putting on effeminate affectations, but still not women.

—Christopher Tremoglie, conservative commentator

A woman is an adult female human.

—Wikipedia

When it comes to transgenderism, Prof. Huemer doesn’t just argue in favor of the typical conservative view.¹ Nor does he just argue against the typical progressive view. Huemer sees a bit of truth in both views. His goal — as I understand it — is to help the reader see a fuller truth regarding this complicated topic.

Huemer begins with the fundamentals; with clear definitions of transgender people. He defines transwomen and transmen. I won’t share his definitions because I think you should buy his book and read this chapter (and others) from beginning to end. If you stop reading this post now, buy his book, and read this one chapter, my job is partially done.

But I will add that his chapter is nuanced. I’m rereading his trans definitions again, noticing subtle word changes from his myth statement. After reading his chapter you might want to come back here and disagree with me.

I will however excerpt much of his chapter in order to encourage you to read the whole thing yourself. My highlights and comments are below. […] stands for a chunk of (his) missing text, i.e. important text you should read.

Dr. Huemer explains reality (truth) about transgenderism in five parts. Here’s how his reality section begins:

Reality

(1) This is a debate.

[…]

Yes, this is a debate. Huemer is sincere about this, and I believe this is an important debate to have. We should not accept simplistic notions of gender or transgenderism. Like sexual orientation, climate change, and the role of government, this is a complicated topic. Even if you feel that you have it mostly figured out, odds are (I believe), Huemer will provide you with a new perspective, exposing you to new arguments, new concepts, and new evidence about transgenderism.

His Chapter 14 “What is Gender?” prepares the reader for Chapter 15, “Transgenderism.” In part (2) Huemer provides us with facts and logic, such as:

(2) Early-onset gender dysphoria

Given the understanding of gender described in the previous chapter, there are indeed some people whose gender fails to match their biological sex. Gender dysphoria has traditionally been very rare, occurring in fewer than 1 in 10,000 people. Traditionally, most cases have occurred in natal males (people who were born male). Gender dysphoria comes in at least two kinds: early-onset and late-onset.

[…]

Whether or not such individuals are "really men" or "really women" is a semantic question. We could use the terms "man" and "woman" to describe a person's biological sex, or we could use them to describe a person's gender. Ordinary usage does not clearly settle the matter, since ordinary usage was created to describe common cases. Throughout history, sex and gender have coincided in 99.99% of cases, so that most people probably never met a single transgender person in their lives.

We therefore never developed clear linguistic distinctions between sex and gender categories. In some contexts (e.g., medical contexts), biological sex might be more relevant, while in others (most social contexts), gender might be more relevant.

Again this is reality as best as Huemer knows. Gender dysphoria is rare, but real. We lack language to describe differences between sex and gender. Part of our problem is just semantics.

In part (3) Huemer begins to illuminate the confusion that some trans people have regarding their gender.

It is a fact that some people desist and detransition. What does it mean to desist? Huemer explains:

(3) Desistance and detransitioning

[…]

Desistance is the phenomenon in which people who had gender dysphoria at one time come to identify with their natal sex at a later time. Detransitioning is a more specific phenomenon, in which someone transitions to living as the opposite sex, then later transitions back to living as their natal sex.

The frequency of desistance and detransitioning is uncertain. One can find estimates ranging from 7% to 98%. Figures in the neighborhood of 80% for desistance are most commonly quoted, though these have been disputed. Desistance, however, appears to be much more common than detransitioning; that is, once a person goes as far as transitioning to living as the other sex, they are much less likely to later identify with their natal sex. This may be because those who transition are those who had more severe gender dysphoria to begin with, or because transitioning causes one to more firmly identify with the new sex, or for some other reason.

Whatever their frequency, desistance and detransitioning are real phenomena, and they show that people can, in fact, be mistaken about their own gender. They also show that not all transwomen are women: The transwomen who are later going to desist or detransition (and who will then say that they were never women) are presumably not women. Similarly for the transmen who will later desist or detransition.

How could a person be mistaken about their own gender? Very easily. Your gender…

[…]

What I love about this chapter is how well researched and how clearly written it is.² I’m not sharing the footnotes with you, but believe me, the footnotes contain important citations that support the main text. Notice how large the range is, with frequency of desistance and detransitioning — from 7% o 98%. What does this mean? It means that some studies show desistance to be less common and other studies show it to be very common. Who’s right? Likewise for detransitioning.

Here’s a new word I learned from Huemer.

(4) Autogynephilia

In recent years, increasing numbers of people report gender dysphoria beginning in puberty or later (late-onset dysphoria). This has been spreading particularly among teenagers. However, some people come out as trans, especially transwomen, even in middle age, after half a lifetime living as seemingly normally masculine males.

Among natal males with late onset dysphoria, most are gynephilic (sexually attracted to women). This is surprising if they are of feminine gender, because the overwhelming majority of women are androphilic (sexually attracted to men), not gynephilic.

Some psychologists have advanced the theory of "autogynephilia" to explain the prevalence of late-onset transwomen who are attracted to women. The theory is that some males are…

[…]

I won’t give away all of Huemer’s text, but I will tease you by saying, “Many transgender activists are outraged by the autogynephilia theory, claiming…”

One of the best features of this chapter is that it teaches us about different “types of gendered people.”

1. Intersex

2. Those with early-onset gender dysphoria

3. Desistors and detransitioners

4. Those that avow autogynephilia

5. Those with rapid onset gender dysphoria

I’m not the only one to point out these categories, but perhaps I’m the first to write down these categories in this way. Knowing about these categories helps us break down the myths surrounding transgenderism. Again this chapter helps us understand a fuller truth about this complicated topic.

In part (5) Huemer hammers the progressive myth of transgenderism with the following:

(5) Rapid onset gender dysphoria

The last decade has seen an explosion of trans identification. In 2013, the DSM cited estimates of the prevalence of gender dysphoria in the neighborhood of 0.01% of the population or less. A 2022 report, however, found 0.6% of Americans identifying as trans. Among people aged 13-17, 1.4% now identify as trans (doubled from just five years earlier). The prevalence varies across states; among youths in New York, the rate is up to 3%, or 300 times greater than the general prevalence in society in 2013.

Gender dysphoria used to affect mostly natal males. After the recent increase, it now affects mostly natal females. There has been a particular increase among adolescents with no previous signs of gender dysphoria (what some call "rapid onset gender dysphoria").

Upon noticing this, medical researcher Lisa Littman decided to try to learn more about the phenomenon. She surveyed 256 parents whose children had undergone rapid onset gender dysphoria. The survey revealed several striking patterns:

• Trans identification runs in friend groups. In 37% of friendship groups that parents described, more than half of the group came out as trans. In one case, four girls were taking group lessons with a popular coach. The coach came out as trans, and within a year, all four students announced that they were also trans. The probability of this happening by chance is about 1 in 26 million.

• In 87% of cases, shortly before coming out as trans, the youth either had a recent increase in social media use or had one or more friends come out as trans.

• In 80% of cases, the teen had had zero symptoms of gender dysphoria in childhood.

• 48% of the teens had experienced a traumatic or stressful event shortly before becoming trans.

• 69% suffered from social anxiety.

• In 69% of cases, the parents thought that the teen, when coming out as trans, was using language taken from the internet. Many parents found websites containing verbatim matches to the words their child had used. As one parent put it, "it was like hearing someone who had memorized a lot of definitions for a vocabulary test."

• 61% of parents said that their child became more popular as a result of coming out as trans.

• 60% reported that their child's friend group mocked non-LGBT people.

You might wonder whether Littman's respondents were perhaps just prejudiced against trans people and were misdescribing their children's condition as a result. However, there was no evidence of this. For instance, 86% of respondents supported gay marriage, and 88% said that trans people deserve the same rights and protections as everyone else; these figures are similar to those for the wider society.

All of this suggests that the rise in transgender identification among teenagers is not simply due to better diagnosis. It is not merely, for example, that with increasing social acceptance, we are now becoming aware of cases of gender dysphoria that people would previously have hidden. Rather, it appears that some teens are misdiagnosing themselves, due in part to peer influence and in part to other emotional disturbances which they have been encouraged to interpret as signs of gender dysphoria.

Littman lists examples of internet posts encouraging transgender identification. Some advise youths to lie to clinicians in order to get puberty blockers and hormones, e.g., to look up the symptoms of gender dysphoria from the DSM and pretend to have them. Others list vague, common adolescent experiences as symptoms of gender dysphoria; for example:

“Signs of indirect gender dysphoria: 1. Continual difficulty with simply getting through the day. 2. A sense of misalignment, disconnect, or estrangement from your own emotions. 3. A feeling of just going through the motions of everyday life, as if you're always reading from a script. 4. A seeming pointlessness to your life, and no sense of any real meaning or ultimate purpose. 5. Knowing you're somehow different from everyone else, and wishing you could be normal like them...”

Can people really be so easily fooled about their own gender? Given the difficulty of gender transitioning, is this really something that people would undertake as a result of peer pressure, persuasive internet content, or general malaise?

Yes it is. We have seen similar phenomena in the past. It is well-documented that peer influence and social contagion play a major role in the spread of anorexia nervosa, particularly among adolescent females. If girls who are literally starving can become convinced that they are fat, it is not such a stretch to believe that they can become convinced that they have a different gender from their actual gender.

And finally we come to Huemer’s conclusion.

Conclusion: It is possible to be mistaken about your gender. Not everyone who identifies as a man is a man, and not everyone who identifies as a woman is a woman.

Bold emphasis is mine. Part (5) should allow the open-minded reader to see that gender dysphoria can be caused by your peer culture. Just as anorexia nervosa can be spread via peer influence, so too can gender dysphoria.

So perhaps the most important take away here — if you agree with Huemer’s arguments — is that you and your family can — at least in some cases — avoid gender dysphoria by avoiding certain situations and certain people. This should be consistent with street smarts: If you want to avoid becoming more like certain people, avoid those certain people.

When I say that a person can come to believe just about anything, I mean that you can come believe those things if you surround yourself with people that believe those things. This might mean believing that it’s good to murder millions of Jews; or that black people should be enslaved; or that a person can communicate with an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient being named God.

Gender dysphoria is, as far as I can tell, a real phenomenon. In some cases people can avoid gender dysphoria by choosing their company wisely. In some cases people can desist. Not all trans people are the gender they identify with. As Huemer says, “Not everyone who identifies as a man is a man, and not everyone who identifies as a woman is a woman.”

Michael Huemer finishes this chapter with three important questions and objections.

Questions and Objections

(1) People should be free to live however they want and identify however they want. It's their own lives!

Reply: Yes, they should, with two qualifications: (a) Minors should not necessarily be allowed to do whatever they want; adults may need to stop minors from harming themselves. (b) Individuals may do what they want as long as their choices do not risk causing harm, or reasonably appear to risk causing harm, to others. So, as long as we're just talking about adults modifying their own bodies, clothing, and appearance, I agree that they should be free to do as they wish, regardless of whether they are correct or mistaken about their gender.

(2) Aren't you promoting hate against trans people?

Reply: No. No one should be hated because of their gender identification. To say that some people are mistaken about their gender is not to advocate hate or abuse toward those people. People who suffer gender dysphoria or gender confusion deserve our compassion, whatever the cause of the dysphoria.

(3) Then why won't you affirm everyone's chosen gender identities?!

Reply: Note first that individuals only have a right to live their own lives as they wish; this does not entail a right to require other people to express agreement with your beliefs (even beliefs about yourself). Second, it isn't necessarily compassionate to fake agreement with someone's beliefs. If someone holds deep, mistaken beliefs about themselves, the compassionate thing may be to tell them the truth.

My favorite part of the whole chapter are these last two paragraphs.

More generally, lies are usually harmful, and the truth is almost always more important than short-term emotional comfort. Society needs to make decisions about gender-related issues, racial issues, and so on, and making the right decisions almost certainly requires knowing the actual truth about these subjects. For example, covering up the facts about desistance and detransitioning will not help society make the right policy regarding gender transitioning for minors. The people advocating for such coverups are the real enemies of trans people.

People who lie to avoid causing offense are not your friends. They are selfish individuals who put their own emotional comfort and social status ahead of the good of others.

1. By the way, ChatGPT is telling me he is vegan. Do you know any vegan conservatives?

2. I put this book down a few months again thinking, “I don’t need to read the rest of that book. I probably already know what it says.” Wrong. I learned new stuff about transgenderism from this chapter.