I relate because I've been there, I think. Before I transitioned I had pretty strong ASD and couldn't figure out how to answer simple questions like "what's up?" or if I should wave to someone I've met twice if they're 15 feet away walking towards me.
Transitioning did something to my brain chemistry and let me read social cues nearly overnight, but I got friends by delving into the LGBT community. Maybe furry cons is a good approach?
Wh...a. Transitioning fixed your social cue perception?!
That is incredibly fascinating. I'm not even sure how to classify that... pragmatic psychological function (oookay that's probably not a thing), neurobiology, or what else.
IMO this is a gigantic breadcrumb for Something™. The question is what the axis point was, and what got fixed as a result. Cooool.
I am very curious what else shifted that you'd be happy to share.
I have no idea why it happened, I'm just so grateful it did. It was like suddenly seeing color for the first time. When I looked at someone, I could read their intentions and actually feel their feelings. I wasn't a sociopath before or anything, but I couldn't feel empathy.
This definitely does not happen to every aspie trans woman, but I've heard of it happening to one or two others.
I was worried about losing my intelligence, since I attributed a lot of that to ASD, but actually all my major breakthroughs came after transitioning. My first algorithm that got me noticed was like, 6 months in.
The only real downside was that switching to estrogen unmasked my Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and I've become physically disabled. I'm still able to work and think and feel so it's a good trade for me!
The only thing ASD gives me is a measure of clarity - because all of the hidden rules of society are not hidden to me, they're things I need to learn with intent, it gives me a measure of clarity into which rules are required, and which ones are not, when they can be broken and when they can't be.
I'm not gonna say I'd like to be normal, because I have no real construct of what normal would be like - but ASD also gives me one more insight, normality is an illusion foisted on people by society - all humans are some measure of weird, its just a question of how much, and in what way.
Ehlers-Danlos may have shown up anyhow, so that doesnt strike me as a downside even, if that makes sense, if anything you got a benefit by finding it sooner.
"all humans are some measure of weird, its just a question of how much, and in what way"
This is true. However, from a similar (mild form, partially dealt with) ASD observer point of view, I also noticed that the said peculiarities in one's character are like food ingredients. It's about the way one manages to blend them in a recipe and to cook them into something tasteful (for others) that makes or breaks the social connections. Having ASD is like having no smell or taste of your own and you have to rely on the observed reactions in others for measurements. Obviously, it's a challenge to be a cook in such circumstance and the best strategy (if you care) then probably is just to assume damage and operate in damage control mode all the time.
So, stereotypically, women are more socially aware than men. Personally, this is something I've definitely noticed strongly with boys vs girls, even from a young age the girls seem to be more aware of others around them and their emotional state, whereas the boys usually seem more oblivious (on average, obviously, not saying this applies to every single girl or boy).
I know many social progressives would argue this is due to socialization...but the effect seems too strong at too early an age to blame solely on socialization to me.
> "The hormones made me more impatient. I had lots of female friends and one of the qualities they loved about me was that I was a great listener. After being on testosterone, they informed me that my listening skills weren’t what they used to be. Here’s an example: I’m driving with one of my best friends, Beth, and I ask her “Is your sister meeting us for dinner?” Ten minutes later she’s still talking and I still have no idea if her sister is coming. So finally, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I snapped and said, “IS SHE COMING OR NOT?” And Beth was like, “You know, you used to like hearing all the backstory and how I’d get around to the answer. A lot of us have noticed you’ve become very impatient lately and we think it’s that damn testosterone!” It’s definitely true that some male behavior is governed by hormones. Instead of listening to a woman’s problem and being empathetic and nodding along, I would do the stereotypical guy thing — interrupt and provide a solution to cut the conversation short and move on. I’m trying to be better about this."
Would seem logical. I was alien enough to boys to land at the "girls table" in school canteen when I was 11. Pieces of experience like this could probably help to start considering the possibility.
This is an extremely dangerous and absolutely insane line of reasoning that is causing incredible harm to young people. You don’t have gender dysphoria because you hung out with girls as an 11 year old.
No. I actually don't know a real thing about gender dysphoria. I just presumed that if you look square and feel round, you are more likely to recognize and embrace your roundness if your other traits make society less consistent in squeezing you into square holes.
It comes from a reasonable place: It shouldn't be generalised. You may have issues with specific things that were said (or how they were said), but that isn't clear from your response. Perhaps you could add that, so the author can learn.
I take issue with every part of it. The claim that the other person’s experience is dangerous, that it’s insane, that it’s harming children, and that they didn’t experience it.
You didn't really engage with what I said at all, except at the most superficial level. It's really not a very nice way to have a conversation, especially given that regardless of whether or not I agree I was absolutely trying to help you.
I’m sorry but I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to get from me here.
You said:
> You may have issues with specific things that were said (or how they were said), but that isn't clear from your response. Perhaps you could add that, so the author can learn.
I addressed those specifics, as far as I can tell all of the specifics of substance. I was engaging your suggestion in good faith. I did take and accept it as helpful. I’m open to the possibility there’s some nuance I’m missing?
The nuance that I think you are missing is that the OP is talking about how the experience shouldn't be generalised and turned into a rule: The person responded to said that sitting at the girl's table should be an indicator that starts consideration of "maybe this is gender dysphoria". The OP thinks this is dangerous and harmful to children in it's proposed form.
I'm missing a lot of cultural context here (What is a "girl's table"?), but I can definitely see the point OP is trying to make. I'll agree with you it was worded problematically.
Thank you for explaining your perspective, I understand the disconnect much better now. I went back and read the comment (the “girl’s table” one, not the “dangerous” response), and even trying to apply your clarification I still don’t read it as generalizing. I see that commenter applying to themselves and their own experience a more general statement from the comment above. In other words I see them identifying with it personally, not applying it to anyone else.
Intuitively, it makes sense for something like this to be possible, though I wonder what the trigger is. Drastic change in hormonal balance caused by the transitioning process activating / connecting parts of the brain that were "malfunctioning" previously? Or "just" a result of increased happiness stemming from having dealt with a large problem?Sounds hideously difficult to replicate.
Oh yeah... the dismorphia effect and similar anxieties. Of course. Never experienced any of it myself, didn't realize how big of a potential factor it could be until reading your comment.
I was mostly considering the fact that the female hormone, uh, configuration is naturally pro-social, and that dumping that set of hormone balances on the brain promptly elicits the associated responses - ie, that the response (or rather the tendency for those responses to function properly) becomes a partial function of hormone state.
But those sort of general factors (including elevated mood) would definitely be a part of the end result.
I'm wary of making assumptions about "natural" differences between males and females, since it's easy to confuse them with cultural stereotypes, ie. what you've learned to think of as "normal" vs. what actually is "normal".
It may well be be that some component that's typically more prevalent in females plays a key role in the development of prosocial tendencies. If such a component were identified, it would be interesting to study its involvement in the development of both males and females.
Not the poster, but I too am curious about their thoughts, however I have some of my own.
Men and Women experience socialization in fundamentally different ways, because of this I suspect the changing hormonal balance reawakens pathways not used normally, basically. In addition, you basically have a chance while transitioning to relearn socialization from scratch basically, with those new pathways awakened.
Hm, that honestly sounds about 90% of the way to a reasonable explanation.
In my own experience I've found as that as a majority of my own marbles have figured out "OH, that's which way is up", my own pragmatic learning capacity has transformed from "transmutation ray that turns everything into indecipherable, unmovable rubble" and... what almost feels like a happy grid of FPGAs that bustle about classifying and organizing without me really having to make much effort. After leaving ideas and subjects for long enough (10+ years in some cases) that old broken memories/associations have just about completely died out, yeah, I definitely can look at things with new eyes.
Discovering that HRT can trigger or you might even say accelerate this process is very fascinating, because it sort of maybe points in the direction of the root causes that break everything in the first place.
> or if I should wave to someone I've met twice if they're 15 feet away walking towards me.
To be honest, nobody knows for sure. I call these "Seinfeld moments", as in you could make an entire Seinfeld episode out of talking about it: should I have waived? If yes, I did waive, why didn't the other person waive back? Was it because he/she didn't see me? Was it because he/she did in fact see me but didn't like me? etc.
Transitioning did something to my brain chemistry and let me read social cues nearly overnight, but I got friends by delving into the LGBT community. Maybe furry cons is a good approach?