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lucidfox comments on Gender Identity and Rationality - Less Wrong
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I sought answers to that question before and I heard conflicting accounts, from zero changes to significant, but it's important here to account for a causation bias. HRT often coincides with publicly coming out, which in many people can cause a rush of euphoria and a feeling of freedom while some inhibitions evaporate. In other words, many of the changing mental modes may have nothing to do with hormones at all; I've never taken hormones so far and yet I feel like a very different person from lucidfox[2008] thanks to my shifted system of values.
The way I see it, given that puberty didn't manage to shake my core identity and shape me into someone who isn't me, then it's highly unlikely that hormones will.
I think I can explain why that might be the case. Testosterone is the "male" hormone; estrogen is the "female" hormone. However, both guys and girls have some amount both hormones. It could be that those who are transgendered tend to have more of the hormone associated with the opposite sex, so adding more of that hormone would not do as much.
The question is about the percentage of transpeople with originally raised hormone levels - otherwise it's a hasty generalization. Surely if this was really the case, they'd display physical differences from their biological sex all along - for example, transwomen would look more feminine then cis men even before any hormone therapy?
I think you're right, that probably would be the case. I'm not sure about looking more feminine, but there would definitely be other characteristics that would be different.
This has already been shown in other areas, such as the digit ratio and gay men performing closer to females on certain physical and mental tests.
However, I don't know if there are any studies like this done for transgendered people.
On gender-related interests, a study by Richard Lippa found that trans people scored in between cis men and women for gender-related traits (i.e. GD, or "gender diagnosticity" of interests or occupational preferences).
The digit ratio study is generally regarded among transpeople as "a load of bollocks", and that's putting it relatively nicely. There are a lot of problems about it, and I know people who angsted about not matching its conclusions before stopping caring.
What are the problems with digit ratio research?
From Gender, Nature, and Nurture by Richard Lippa:
The Wikipedia article on digit ratio also cites a ton of research showing correlates.
I myself lack the experience to present a coherent argument against it, but ask any trans community and you'll get dozens of replies.
There are some objections that I can present on the fly, though. For one, there is no evidence that sex hormone level or this unobservable "brain gender" is the most important factor contributing to digit ratio. The very Wikipedia article you linked claims, among other things, that there is more ethnic variation than gender variation.
And while this is not an argument against the validity of the research, we must be wary of drawing backward inference between observable physical phenomena and correlated social phenomena. As I mentioned, I know transpeople who were depressed when their digit ratio "didn't match the expectation", irrational as it may be. It should be considered, at best, weak evidence.
Well, my digit ratio should have me squarely in the cisgendered heterosexual male category.
I'm trans, female identified in day to day life, queer (not especially picky about gender of partners, even less picky about what they have in their pants)... it's one anecdote, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest that the digit length criteria failed bigtime where I'm concerned.
I think (she said, speaking as a transgendered person) that the angst has a lot to do with a more pervasive sense of self-doubt among many trans people. When you have to do something fairly subversive and controversial just to feel like yourself, and can expect an enormous amount of social pressure (ranging from passive-aggressive to literally life-threatening), and you've spent most of your life likely to have no coherent idea of other people like you...yeah, it's kind of tempting to search out validation in those ways. I think this is why some trans people would love to have a diagnostic test for it -- strikes me as a bit self-defeating though.
I'm trans, identify as female (technically also genderqueer/third-gender in some contexts, but it's more an internal thing of anthropological significance than something I display), have been on hormone therapy for a number of years, and it's only in the last year that my T levels dropped from "high even for a cis male" to "really low even for a cis female." In other words I spent literally my entire pospubescent life up until recently with very high testosterone. So I doubt it's that.
That's good information, however it does give me one slight niggle.
I suspect that puberty did shake my core identity and shape me into someone who isn't me (as I was prior to puberty). But as you point out, when the hormonal influx coincides with other life-changing events, I shouldn't assume it was the hormones influence.
I'm attempting to improve my luminosity at present, so hopefully my next hormonal change I'll document properly :-)