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Jandila comments on What information has surprised you most recently? - Less Wrong Discussion

11 Post author: FiftyTwo 09 December 2012 04:43AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 15 December 2012 05:55:28PM 1 point [-]

I'd guess it's of limited utility -- there's very little good information about all of the effects of this sort of HRT (a very common conversation among trans folks is what effects the doctors never mentioned).

A lot of human sex variation is down to your hormones, particularly during puberty -- the x-vs-y chromosomes control much less than you think (the phenotypical development of the penis/testes combo is controlled by the SRY gene; sometimes you get phenotypically "male" folks with an XX pair where the SRY gene has translocated, or XY phenotypically "female" folks without the SRY gene, as well as XY and a functioning SRY gene but who develop as phenotypic "females" anyway. Genetic traits that aren't themselves sex-linked can nonetheless be strongly affected by the difference hormones make -- this is why trans women grow breasts and trans men often find theirs shrinking; it's also probably why my sense of smell shifted, since that can be rather strongly hereditary and my mother has a very strong sense of smell (enough she'd frequently get headaches in the vicinity of perfume).