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+Title: Transcript: "Autogynephilia and Epistemic Despair"
+Date: 2024-07-11 05:00
+Category: commentary
+Tags: autogynephilia, Phil Illy
+Status: draft
+
+I [went on Phil Illy's show to talk about the blog!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJVXq3kJvw) There's probably not much new here for long-time readers.
+
+<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hUJVXq3kJvw?si=RU17jtNRMviGhbUK" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
+
+Here's the transcript, which has been, you know, like, sort of edited for, like, clarity. (I'm not a practiced speaker, and verbatim transcripts are famously awful.)
+
+--------
+
+**PI**: Hi everyone, I'm here with Zack M. Davis, who had a big impact on me when I was learning about autogynephilia. He writes this blog called _The Scintillating But Ultimately Untrue Thought_. It's about social science and epistemology with a focus on gender issues, in particular autogynephilia. Reading his work during my initial foray into learning about autogynephilia helped me feel a lot less crazy. I was feeling gaslit, because the science was saying one thing, and then I was facing unanimous opposition from trans women online all saying that it was wrong. So it kind of made me have a sort of dissociation feeling from being lied to. Anyway, his blog helped me a lot with that. He's put a lot of thought into this, and so I'm really glad to have him on the channel. Thank you for coming on my channel, Zack.
+
+**ZMD**: Thanks for having me. I've been meaning to do a podcast for a while, and I kept not like getting around to like writing up a pitch letter. But you wrote me a pitch letter, so it worked out—a little bit late.
+
+**PI**: This is a great start, hopefully, and I hope I hope to see you on more podcasts, because I think you've put a great deal of thought into autogynephilia and the politics surrounding it. Your blog goes into great depth, and it's a great resource for, I'd say, particularly sort of rational thinking AGPs that might really like it. It just had a big impact on me. I've heard from plenty of other self-aware AGPs that they really appreciate your blog. As far as I could tell, you're held in high esteem by those who read you.
+
+**ZMD**: The narcissism is probably not interesting to your listeners. We should get on to the content part.
+
+**PI**: Right. _[facetiously:]_ Zack, you're great. I guess a good place to start might be your history with autogynephilia, like how you first started noticing it in your life, and what that looked like.
+
+**ZMD**: So about age 13, eighth grade, I started—you know, it was a heteronormative time. I already knew that boys were supposed to like girls. But there was that moment in puberty where you start to _actually_ like girls. And around that time I started actually noticing girls, there was also just this assorted associated thought of—I don't know how to describe it, but just, wouldn't it be nice if I looked like that? And just admiring women, but in a sort of identifictory way.
+
+And within a few years, this blossomed out into lots and lots of little things. I started swirling the descenders in my handwriting, because I thought it made my handwriting look more feminine. When it was time to go to college and order bedsheets for the [beds] at college, I deliberately got the pink with flowers design on principle. I was reading about feminism ... there was just this feeling of wanting to identify with women.
+
+Someone listening to someone listening to this account in 2024 would say, "Well, the obvious explanation is you're trans. That's what's going on. You're obviously so trans, so eggy."
+
+That's not what it looked like in 2004. Because there was also this very obvious erotic aspect, which I don't think we need to go into that much detail on on the podcast. There was this beautiful, pure, sacred self-identity thing, but there was also very obviously this erotic thing. And the erotic thing was very obviously erotic; there was no reason to deny this. I didn't have a name for this thing.
+
+**PI**: Did you connect the the beautiful, pure, sacred self-identity thing, which—I love how you call it that, because I saw I resonate with that description—were you able to connect that to the erotic thing? Or did it seem like they felt separate?
+
+**ZMD**: It seemed like if I had bothered asking the question in that many words, I would have obviously said there's a connection.
+
+At the time, I didn't really talk about the erotic thing. This was not something I expected to be podcasting about 20 years later. I don't know where it came from. In middle school, my friends lent me this graphic novel series called [_Ranma ½_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranma_%C2%BD), featuring a male protagonist who transforms into a woman on being exposed to cold water. I don't know if that had an influence, but—
+
+**PI**: Did you try taking a cold shower after reading that?
+
+**ZMD**: No—I mean, no.
+
+**PI**: Okay.
+
+**ZMD**: But in the series, he's like, "Oh, no, this is a terrible curse. I want to rid myself of the curse." And I'm reading this thinking, "That actually sounds great."
+
+**PI**: Yeah, it's obviously good, right?
+
+**ZMD**: Right. And so, obviously, I did not tell anyone about this, except, very haltingly, a couple of close personal friends, because this is clearly a weird sex thing.
+
+Around 2006, I was browsing Wikipedia, and I found the word autogynephilia. And I'm like, "Oh, there's a word for the thing. That's what I am. There's a word for the thing." I was very excited. I wrote about it in my notebook. I have [a blog post like that excerpts the page from my notebook about this.](/2017/Feb/a-beacon-through-the-darkness-or-getting-it-right-the-first-time/)
+
+**PI**: Yeah, that's a good post. I like that one.
+
+**ZMD**: And so at the time, I even wrote about this in my notebook at the time, I was surprised. Of course, this is like 2006. I had heard about transsexualism as a thing. Everyone knows that that exists. But it wasn't something that was—I had definitely not met any trans people in real life that I knew about.
+
+So I get exposed to this word, I'm like, "Oh, that's obviously the word for the thing," and I'm surprised: wait, this is part of an explanation for transsexualism? I was actually surprised because as part of the whole beautiful, pure, sacred self-identity thing, I was also—at the time I called it anti-sexism—I was very into psychological sex differences denialism. The whole idea of being trans, because you're actually a woman inside—that seemed wrong to me. What would that mean?
+
+**PI**: Right, because if there's very little differences between the sexes, then what would that even mean?
+
+**ZMD**: Yeah, it's just a sexist idea. I knew I was a male because of my anatomy. That's just what the word means.
+
+Later, as I was growing up in my later teens and 20s, I read a lot more science, and I gradually backed off from what I'm now calling psychological sex differences denialism, because I gradually realized that, yeah, this doesn't actually look true. I was very committed to it in principle, but I look at the world around me, and it just ...
+
+**PI**: It's obviously not true.
+
+**ZMD**: Yeah. And so I wrote in my diary in 2004, "I would never do drag, because that represents a mockery," because the idea of trans, within the social justicey mindset of the time, where sexism was a bigger problem than transphobia, trans itself didn't seem like a politically correct idea to me, back when I still believed in the political correctness of the time.
+
+**PI**: Yeah, and I've noticed quite a few trans people do something similar, where they try to downplay sexual dimorphism, I think because they want, but maybe for different reasons, to think it's easier to cross over into the other gender if there are less differences.
+
+**ZMD**: Maybe. And so I spent 10 years from, 2006 to 2016, reading everything I could about gender and transgender and evo psych and sex differences, and I didn't realize. Of course, I had heard of Blanchard at all. It was in the _Wikipedia_ article.
+
+And so in 2007, I bought this book when it was new, Julia Serano's _Whipping Girl_, and, it's just so darkly comic in hindsight, how many clues there were that I missed that about—
+
+**PI**: The connection between autogynophilia and transgenderism?
+
+**ZMD**: Because I had assumed that AGP was a different thing, I had assumed, oh, well, trans people, trans people say they have this inner gender identity thing, so I believe them, that must be right. And I'm like, but me, my thing is AGP, it clearly has to be a different thing, because the idea that these are actually the same thing, or that they actually share it, or that one is the root cause of the other, wasn't the mainstream view, and because it wasn't the mainstream view, I had no particular reason to believe it. And it's just hilarious how many clues there were, like—
+
+_[reading from _Whipping Girl_]_
+
+> Media depictions of trans women, whether they take the form of fictional characters or actual people, usually fall under one of two main archetypes, the deceptive transsexual, or the pathetic transsexual. While characters based on both models are presented as having a vested interest in achieving an ultra-feminine appearance, they differ in their abilities to pull it off. Because the deceiver successfully passes women, they generally act as unexpected plot twists, or play the role of sexual predators who fool innocent straight guys into falling for other men.
+
+When I looked at this back in 2016, after I had my Blanchardian enlightenment, [I'm like, oh, this is the two types.](/2016/Sep/apophenia/)
+
+**PI**: Exactly. Yeah.
+
+**ZMD**: And, so, I had been exposed to this idea of the two-type typology, you know, I read, _The Man Who Would Be Queen_, but I somehow just never put my weight down on it, I guess because I didn't know any trans people in real life. And so what changed was, in 2016, I moved to Berkeley, California. I was already in the Bay Area, but I moved to what, at the time, I thought was the correct side of the Caldecott Tunnel. I've since changed my mind about that.
+
+But Berkeley, it was closer to my day job in San Francisco, and I had more friends in the area, and so I moved to Berkeley, moving out of my mom's house. And then, in Berkeley, you can't help but meet a higher density of trans people, and in particular, in my social circle, like, quite a lot of trans women, and, you start to notice the obvious similarities between me and a lot of these trans women. And this came as a huge shock, because I had been assuming for 10 years that my thing was a different thing.
+
+**PI**: Even though that Blanchard's theory was a theory of transsexualism, you still thought that AGP was a different thing?
+
+**ZMD**: Well, Blanchard is just some guy, right? I still believe this, by the way. How was I supposed to know that he was actually right? Lots of people say things.
+
+**PI**: Fair enough.
+
+**ZMD**: And so there was this period of several months of being, wait a minute, I had assumed my thing was just a weird sex thing that I would just quietly live in—not shame, exactly, but to a first approximation, quietly live in shame forever, because I had assumed that trans women are a different thing. I was a guy because, I didn't have a choice in the matter. I may have had these beautiful, pure, sacred identity feelings, such that I grew my beautiful, beautiful ponytail, and there was a disastrous period in the late 'aughts where I was trying to use my initials as a nickname, because I thought, I didn't like having an identifiably masculine name.
+
+**PI**: Right, an androgynous name would be better.
+
+Yeah, this turned out to be a terrible idea, because, like, ZM doesn't actually even feel like a name. Like, I wanted to, like, use my first two initials like a name. Like, some people can pull that off. It just didn't work. And also, like, also, like, Zachary is, like, 10 times more common than Zoe and Zelda put together. Anyway, but, like, little things like that. There's just this obsession over years about, like, not femininity, because as a proud anti-sexist, I believe that femininity didn't really exist. But, like, femaleness and, like, wanting to identify with femaleness and just, but it was always a dream. I never actually believed it. And especially as I, like, grew out of my anti-sexist phase, like, I especially didn't believe it. And so, like, suddenly moving to Berkeley, meeting all these people who, like, seemed a lot like me, but also, like, seemed to believe that they were women and seemed to believe that everyone else should believe that they were women. Like, it just, it didn't make sense to me. And it still doesn't make sense. And I, it's funny because, like, I want, like, I want to, like, okay, I'm not a progressive, but, like, the underlying psychological generator that makes, makes, like, progressive political sentiment sound like a good idea, I want to stay loyal to that generator. So when I say it doesn't make sense to me, like, I don't mean that in the crudest, like, meanest, like, stigmatizing, these people are bad and wrong and evil and unclean sense. Like, I just mean it's literally not true. That's all. Right. Yeah. What, what was it like, how did you start coming to realize that they were, that you actually did share an ideology with them, so to speak? I mean, so, like, as a, as a result of this, like, I, you know, I started, you know, I started reading more, you know, I read Kay Brown's blog and corresponded with her a bit. I, and I started having a lot of private conversations, like, what, you know, whenever I could, like, hey, you know, could we, could we talk in private about gender stuff? And, you know, people are, people are pretty willing to talk in private, but still just, but, like, people are, people are pretty willing to talk in private, but there's still this, like, this disconnect where, like, again, there's this fundamental stumbling block where, where, like, I can see there's, there's this person who, like, are, are, like, my social circle agrees, like, this is a trans woman. And I'm looking at this and saying, like, that's a guy. That's a guy with long hair like me. And not to be, and, well, and, and, like, and, like, I guess it was different. It was, it was, again, it was different after taking Blanchard seriously, because before that, like, I had met a, you know, a trans woman at a meetup, and I had assumed she was a different thing. And I was, like, sort of, like, respectfully believing, like, oh, you know, I, I, I, when it, when, when it, when it was still plausible that, that, that trans women, that most trans women were a completely different thing than me, like, I actually believed the gender identity story and, like, didn't, didn't presume to question it. But, like, after, after the idea had been made salient to me that, like, wait, my erotic thing and my beautiful, pure self-identity thing, that is the thing people are calling being trans? Like, the illusion snapped, and I'm just, like, I don't believe this. It's not, you know? And, like, again, I am, so, you know, I'm a transhumanist. I am in favor of morphological freedom. If you, like, if people want to, like, modify their bodies to, like, have a body that's more suited to them, that, that seems great to me. I think a society should accommodate that in some way. But, like, in order to figure out, like, what, what the correct way to accommodate it is, you want to, like, be very, very clear about what the actual phenomenon is and, like, what the available interventions actually do. So, like, yeah, so after, after, I mean, so I had this period of, like, going, you know, freaking out, you know, having a lot of private conversations, doing a lot of reading. At this point, I realized, like, hey, you know, I had fantasized, you know, I had fantasized, you know, years before, in 2009, I had, like, fantasized about taking hormones, but, like, you know, obviously never did anything about it, because, like, it just wasn't done. So, in, like, late 2016, I finally, like, wait a minute, I actually am eligible. So I went to the gender clinic in Kaiser and, like, actually ended up trying out HRT for five months and then sort of chickened out, because I was, like, what are the long-term health risks? What about fertility risks? I was just, like, it was, it was an experiment worth trying. Do you think you'reYou're going to try it again? Or was that enough? I think, I think that was enough. So, um, I mean, I was curious. But, um, I recall like in your post about like, I think it's called like putting cis, the word cis and putting cis in decision or something like that. Um, it, it seemed like you were hoping that it would significantly change sort of how your mind works to be in a more feminine manner and when it didn't do that. Well, because like, I mean, I wouldn't say hoping, cause again, remember that I still retain the generator of my teenage anti-sexism, even though I don't actually believe that anymore. But like I was scientifically curious about like, is, is it going to, you know, is, is this going to have a huge effect? And like, I mean, subjectively, I don't think I noticed much. Like I definitely noticed libido going down, but other than that, like, I can't say like, like I can't like definitively say it had no psychological effect other than the libido because you know, maybe it did. And I just didn't notice, but I don't think I felt very different. Other people will give you different self reports on this, which is. Yeah. So I, I, I personally suspect that your experience, um, is probably a pretty accurate in terms of the actual like psychological changes it makes. Like I expect it to make morphological changes, but I feel like a lot of the psychological changes people report are just them more inhabiting their, their feminine persona more deeply. Yeah. I mean, I kind of suspect that, but I haven't like studied it in deep. Like I don't, I don't know. I don't want to like confident, you know, rationality. I don't want to like confidently assert things that I don't actually know. Um, but yeah, there was, there was some breast growth, which was like, um, I mean, it's. I'm it was, it was, it was a worthwhile gender themed drug experiment. And at the time I was like very adamant, like, no, I'm not transitioning. This is a gender themed drug experiment. And, but it was just like this, this very like weird, just this very like, just this, it's just bizarre to me that like, so on the one hand, like, you might think like, if you disagree with everyone around you, like maybe you're the one that's wrong, but like, it's, it's, it just seems like there's, it just seems like that, like my, my theory does a better job of explaining everyone else's experience than their theory does about explaining me. Like you could try to say, you could try to come up with a story like, oh, well, you know, you actually are trans and you have a gender identity, but like, you're just repressing it. And then the, the, the erotic aspect is like, is a effect of gender identity, not a cause. And like this worldview just seems sort of like horribly gerrymandered to me. And like, oh, so like part of, I mean, part of it comes with like, anyway, so I mean, sorry, like I say horribly gerrymandered, but like in order to explain what that means, there's this whole associated like philosophy of language that like explains what I mean by that. And like, maybe, maybe for people who didn't, didn't like follow my trajectory of going deep into the sex difference of literature and like, maybe, and like deep in, deep into like the sort of philosophy I was reading, like maybe, maybe they don't have the same concepts that make this seem so intuitive to me. Which again, this, like, this goes both ways. Like, I don't want to like arrogantly say, aha, I know more. Therefore, like, therefore I'm epistemically superior to all of you. But on the other hand, like, you know, I try to, I try to like write clearly about what I think is going on. And if someone else thinks they have a better account, they're welcome to blog about it too. Yeah. I've, I've found that, after I learned about autogynophilia and the associated theory that it's, it seemed to describe what I was seeing so good compared to the gender identity. Especially when you, when you just like, look at what trans women write online when the general public isn't watching. Like, yeah, you go to RMTF, like the subreddit and like, there's like a whole bunch of like, there's like a whole bunch of trans women who write online and like, that's like the subreddit and like there, and you know, search for fetish in the sidebar. And there are like dozens upon dozens of posts where people say like, Oh, you know, I get an erection when I have gender euphoria or like, you know, or like my gender dysphoria goes away after masturbating or like all these sorts of like, very like these, like, you know, if you just look at the literal text of what people are literally claiming about the world, like, this is obviously autogynophilia. Like this, like obviously just like the straightforward explanation of what's going on. If you just look at the world and then the commenters are like, Oh no, you know, it's, you know, they, they, they somehow, there's somehow this ideology that like, you know, you're actually a woman, you're actually a woman, specifically a woman who happens to be trans. And like, this is just a symptom of that. Yeah. They, they switch up the cause and effect. Basically where like the gender identity is the ultimate cause and their perspective. Whereas the way we see it is more that the autogynophilia is the ultimate cause. Yeah. Or I mean, like, I want to be like, I want to be like, like, I want to be like, I don't want to be too, I don't want to be too like dogmatic about like, you know, there could be multiple causes. So in a sense, so in the sense that like, like introspectively, like, it seems like a pretty good guess that like my AGP was like, was like a necessary cause of the, what I've been calling the beautiful, pure, sacred self-identity thing. But like, it might, you know, you can imagine it not being a sufficient cause, like the fact that like, I'm not a macho guys guy. I'm kind of a sensitive, sensitive introspective nerd. And, and like, there could be, there could be multiple causes leading to someone to have like gender identity feelings, but it's still seems pretty obvious that autogynophilia is a major cause. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I'm open to the possibility that there's other causes. But I just haven't seen any convincing cases made for any additional causes besides, you know, the homosexual type, of course. Yeah. Well, but, but like, you can, so like, you can imagine like, so like there don't, there don't necessarily have to be discrete types. Right. I mean, like, okay, yes, it clearly looks like the late onset type of the early onset type. Like you just look at the world, like these seem like very different things, but like within, within like part of, part of what made, part of what makes this such a puzzle is that like the late onset type itself, like there's lots, lots of variety. And you could say, like you could say that, you know, you could insist that like autogynophilia is the root cause and it like manifests in various ways, or you could posit that like autogynophilia is a major cause and there are like other, other inputs that could go into it. Like, I don't actually know. And, and like, anyway, let's go back, switching back to my story in 2016. So like, I had a lot of these conversations. I did a lot of reading. And at the time I was feeling like very betrayed, very upset that like, you know, my, my, my society, my, my subculture is like very, very like very much beliefs in gender identity in a way that like, I just don't think makes sense. I don't think it's true. And so I, and you know, AGP like very clearly seems like a very prominent causal factor that like no one seems to be treating as a prominent causal factor. Like you can sort of force people, like if you corner someone in the right context, like you can get them to get them to admit that the phenomenon exists, but like the idea that this, this is a major cause is, is, and that, and that the causes actually matter does not seem to be on people's radar. So, you know, most of this freaking out was in private to start and then like gradually, gradually getting louder and louder and deciding to start a blog. And I took, I took my smart, very smart and very cowardly friend's advice to start using a pseudonym at first. So I was M Taylor Satomi Westlake, the first part of that pen name being from Ron Mahaff. And so I started a blog and I started writing about this stuff. And as I, as I, as I was writing, like at first, like at the first, I thought I was arguing for the two type typology that like there's HSTS, the early onset type there's AGP, the late onset type. And like, these are different things. Like Blanchard Bailey and Lawrence are right about everything. I was like, and like the reason I was so insistent that they were right about everything was because like no one else had any credible alternative. And, you know, as, as I started arguing, as I was like, having, having these arguments with people in my intellectual community, the, the really disturbing thing is that like it, it started seeming to be the case that like the causes and the etiology didn't actually seem to be a crux for people. So like I started, I started out arguing that like, okay, like AGP, AGP, you know, late onset gender dysphoria is not an intersex condition. You know, you can choose to do what, like, we can, you know, we can be very libertarian and transhumanist about it, but let's be clear about the facts. And it seemed like I kept getting hit with, this argument, I kept getting, I kept seeing this argument that was like, not even, not even engaging with the empirical question of like, is AGP the root cause in like all these trans women that we know, but just saying like, okay, we can, you know, words, like categories are human invention that we impose upon the world. How about we define the word women, such that includes people who want to be identified as women. And since this category bound, since this way of drawing the category boundary will make people happier, like that's the utilitarian, the correct decision. This, I think this argument is bonkers. Like this is like really, really crazy. Right. It kind of undermines the sort of the rationalist subculture is, is about using like good reasoning and epistemology to arrive at true things. Yeah. I didn't even, I didn't really want to talk about the rationalists in this, in this podcast, that much, because like, anyway, basically I'm part of a cult. Okay. It's not really a cult. There's this subculture that, you know, subculture internet-based subculture that like ostensibly cares a lot about reasoning and science and that kind of stuff. That's all, that's all your listeners need to know. And that's the context in which I was having debates with everyone. And okay. I guess it is a little bit relevant that like the, one of the subcultures, the subcultures founding texts specifically had this, this sequence about like how language works and how you want to like draw your categories that like carve reality at the joints such that like you're grouping, you group like, you know, what does it mean when we call someone a woman or call this a book or call a pencil? Like, what does it mean for something to belong to a category? And the proposed answer here is that like you, you group similar things into the same category in order to make similar predictions about them. So like you can observe, you can like observe, because like reality is complicated. You can't like know everything about the world, but you can see, you can use, use features that you observe to assign category membership and then use, once you've done that, use category membership to make predictions about the features that you haven't observed yet. So if I see a cat, you know, you know, I can probably predict, and like, I haven't seen it move yet. I haven't heard it like make any noises yet, but I can probably predict that it's going to move in a cat-like way and make the meowing sound that cats make, because like this is a very stable predictable feature of the world that I can use to make predictions, even if I haven't seen this particular, this particular animal before. And so that's how categories work. Right. And so, and you know, in, in 2009, like this was not controversial that this is how categories work among the sort of weird nerds who like actually talk about this area of philosophy occasionally. And then suddenly in 2016, the weird nerds who talk about this area of philosophy occasionally have this like brand new philosophy of language that says, ah, well we can, you know, like when, when we do that thing with cat, where like, assuming, assuming the cat is going to meow and assuming it's like, you know, we do that for our convenience. Therefore, like it's not like an inherent feature of the world. And therefore we can also like define gender categories the way we want. And like, this is really crazy. And it, but like explaining why it's crazy is actually kind of subtle. Like I spent quite a lot of time, like thinking about this in a lot of detail, writing, writing many thousands of words, like carefully explaining the problems, doing a little bit of math. And so it was funny because like, you know, at first I thought, I thought I was arguing for the two type typology. And then it turns out like these, these, these, the situation on the ground of like what, what our culture is interested in is like, it's actually, it's actually so much worse than I thought at first, because I thought people would be interested in the empirics of like, what is going on? And it turns out that that's not even the main issue. I didn't even need to get there. Cause I was still, still stuck on this much more basic issue of like, can you define, can you like redefine concepts in order to make, in order to make your map of the territory look good to you? Right. Like, can you redefine words to make people feel better? Yeah. And like, and like just the, the fact that I had to put so much effort into this very, very obvious thing and like people still pretended, I mean, I think the smart people got it, but like the, it didn't percolate out to like cultural level of common knowledge. Right. And they might not say it openly, even the people that did get it. Yeah. And so like, I'm, you know, at this point, like, and so like, because, because I'm less dogmatic, because I'm like less dogmatic about the two-type technology these days, like at this point, like I'm not even fighting. So like, I'm not, like, I don't even necessarily care that much about like, we need to popularize the two-type tech taxonomy specifically. I do want to popularize like ATP is a real thing that is clearly a causal factor. And so I'm not, I don't, I don't care that much about it. ATP is a real thing. That is clearly a causal factor in a lot of these gender problems. And also just like biological sex actually exists and is sometimes relevant, even when it makes people sad. That is my minimum ask. And like, it's a very low bar, but like people, people who, people who want to remain in good standing with, with like progressive society are not willing, are not going to say that sentence on Twitter. Like everyone believes this, but no one is going to say it that clearly. Yeah. It's, it's definitely, it's frustrating. I've had similar frustration when talking with people about gender stuff years ago, when I was first learning about autogynephilia. So the people that were disagreeing with me, couldn't tell me what a woman was, you know, with a non-circular definition. And it's like, I just fundamentally can't respect interlocutors when they can't even define such a supposedly central term. And especially if they have a gender studies degree and can't tell me what a woman is like, what did you even learn? Yeah. Well, I mean, the, the gender studies we wish we had is not the gender studies we actually have. Yeah. Um, like I remember, like, Oh, the, you know, back in 20, in 2007, like I was really excited to, this was like still back in my anti-sexism phase. Like I was really excited to take the introduction to feminism's class at UC Santa Cruz, because, you know, I was, I was, you know, I was still like very, very easy, very early in my disillusionment, disillusionment with like the cultural left. And it's because I was, I was excited, like, you know, I'm going to take introduction to feminism. So this is a great class. I'm going to like do well as a male in this class and be honorable. And just, it was just, it just felt like the whole class was like spoken in a language that I couldn't speak. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and like just felt like spoken in a language that I couldn't speak. Because you have all these assertions that like, this is such as oppression and like, yes, obviously I agree. I'm a good person, but like, how does the oppression work. And. It just seems like. There are large swaths of social science that like are not. Disagreeable. And it's like figuring out how the world works in a disinterested way. And like. That sounds mean and uncharitable. Like, no, it's fair. That's accurate. But when you talk to the people themselves, like. They don't really seem to disagree either. Yeah. I was at a contemporary sexuality class. I have a very tragic education schooling backstory that we don't need to talk about. Okay, but, but, but activism and scholarship are different things. And the professor's like, no, I don't think they are. So. Yeah, it's. I I've been bothered to see sort of the, the corruption of the academy with, with how political it's gotten. And how, how much of it is the, the, the, the, the, the, the people that are in the, in the literature that there's not actually research being done anymore. True. Again, I don't know. Again. I don't, I don't. I am wary of like the possible failure. So like the, well, the, well. The. So she'll justice people have their own ideological bubble. Like I'm wary of the fit. Like, I don't want to fall into the failure mode of like forming an anti-work bubble where we form our own, like parallel. I don't want to say that there's there. I don't want to say that there's like nothing. I recommend reading widely. Like, I don't want to say that there's nothing there, but like, there's still, there's still something missing. And. Yeah. Yeah.It turns out that that I'm not, you know, I'm not that, like, you can imagine, you can imagine, you can imagine, like, you can imagine a better world where, like, there was, the state of scientific literacy, like, was greater, and we did have, we did have more real science on this topic, because, like, there's actually just, there's just so much that we just don't know, and there's not a whole lot of people interested in, like, figuring stuff out, and, like, even me, like, I'm most, like, I'm mostly not working on this topic these days, because, you know, I have other things to do with my life. Right, you've kind of already thought through a lot of it, and might just feel like, I've already done that, been there, done that sort of thing. I mean, I've done, I've done the stuff that I needed to do, like, I've done the stuff that I needed to do to figure out my own life, like, because, you know, in 2016, this was all, like, very confusing, like, what's going on, and now, like, I think I have, like, enough of a basic picture of, like, I have enough of a basic picture of, like, how the world works, and how it differs from, like, the socially acceptable narrative world, that, like, I'm not, I'm not in this fundamental epistemic crisis anymore, and, like, now that the crisis is solved, I can, like, go do math and programming and stuff, but, like, while the crisis was going on, like, resulting, it seemed pretty urgent, but, like, it's sad because, like, even because the ideas you have, like, one of the complications, like, one of the things that makes studying psychology so hard is that, like, the ideas you have, like, the ideas you have, like, influence what your mind is like. Your mind is partially made of ideas, and so I think, I sort of wonder if, like, my, you know, you, you kind of expect that, like, on a biological level, like, my experience of AGP and, like, trans women's experience of AGT, like, it's probably pretty similar. I mean, modulo, like, hormone replacement therapy is going to change some stuff, but, like, you interpret it differently. Yeah, the way I interpret my experience is, like, so, like, for me, like, because I learned about, I learned about AGP first and, like, lost my belief in psychological sex differences denialism, like, when I'm, when I'm thinking about, like, oh, wouldn't it be nice to have a female body, like, it's very clear to me, like, even within, even, like, while writing, like, while writing erotica for myself or getting GPT-4 to write erotica for me, the, I'm very clear that, like, this is, this is a story about a male-brained person wanting to have a female body, like, I'm sort of, I'm sort of mostly on the anatomic autogenophilia rather than the interpersonal dimension, and, like, rather than, like, oh, like, magically just being a woman, because, like, there's a, there's the, there's a question of the implementation details, like, given that there are sex differences in psychology in the brain, like, do I actually want to have a female brain, like, if you, if you, if you could actually do that, would that be desirable? And, like, the, when I think, when I, like, introspect on my own desires, I think my answer is largely no, because, I mean, other than, like, scientific curiosity, like, being a transhumanist and wanting to experience everything, but, like, just the, you know, I sort of have, if I take, if I take it seriously, I sort of have to imagine that if I could magically have a more female-like brain, it seems like that would, like, by necessity, like, take out the part of the necessarily male part of my sexuality that finds this very scenario, like, exciting, right? If you were actually a woman, if you were actually a woman, you would not be, like, so, like, erotically obsessed with this idea of being a woman, or at least that's how, that much, that, that's always seemed obvious to me. A lot of people seem to dispute this. I don't think we have time to, like, get into the AGP and women, AGP and cis women debate on this podcast, but, like, I don't find it, I don't, I've never found that very plausible. Yeah, I, I don't find it too plausible either. Like, I, maybe it happens a subset of lesbians, but I wouldn't expect it to be that common. Yeah, I could, yeah, I, I read a couple, a couple self-reports from lesbians that, like, okay, maybe that, maybe, maybe that, but, like, that's usually not what people are talking about when they say cis women are AGP too, which I think is mostly true. Right, absolutely, yeah. Um, okay. When, um, how did people, um, when you started writing your blog and people started reading it, what sort of reactions did you get from it? I mean, I mostly, like, I get, like, my, my social circle is, like, they're pretty good at, my social circle is pretty good at speech, free speech norms, so, like, I think, I think it was mostly just a lot of, like, free speech norms, such that, like, I'm allowed, like, I don't, I'm not getting, like, hounded out of the city or, like, active, actively shunned, but, like, they're not, they're not good at, like, using the power of free speech to get the right answer, but they're not going, they're not going to ostracize you either. Yeah, I think, I think, I think, I think, I think, I think, I think, I think, I think, but they're not going, they're not going to ostracize you either. Yeah, well, that's not so bad. I mean, yeah, it's not, still not the best, but it could have been a lot worse, at least emotionally. I mean, okay, I mean, I did, I did actually have that nervous breakdown and did get hospitalized, but, like, it could have, it could have been worse, like, there was, there was a moment, like, there was, did my video go out for you? No, maybe you're just, maybe the connection just slowed for a bit. Okay, the, I mean, there was a dramatic episode that I mentioned in part one of my memoir, where, like, I was arguing about this stuff on Facebook and, like, staying up too late and, like, eventually the stress and the sleep deprivation, I went a little bit crazy for a while there. So, like, on the one hand, like, it, it, the, the, the, it was pretty, it was actually pretty bad for me, but, like, I also, like, I also, I don't want to, I guess I want to, I want to accept my share of the blame for that and say that, like, my friends are pretty good at free speech norms, even though they're not very good at, like, actually being sane. And I'm sorry if that sounds arrogant, but I've also, like, in non-podcast form, I've, like, written in thousands of words and lots and lots of detail, like, why, why I think that. And if someone disagrees, like, please, please let me know in the comments. Right. Because, yeah, you definitely, if someone disagrees with you, you'll definitely be willing to listen to them and update your beliefs if you see that they have a good point. Well, yeah. So, the, I mean, the philosophy of language thing was actually, like, on the one hand, like, I'm resentful that I had to go into that much detail and rigor to, to, about this, like, very, very, very obvious, drop-dead obvious thing. But, like, it actually was a pretty good exercise in, like, being better at philosophy of, like, actually nailing down all these, because it gets pretty subtle. I wrote this, I ended up writing a 11,000 word post, unnatural categories are optimized for deception, in which I'm arguing that, like, the reason, like, the reason that, that you might, the only reason that you would want to, like, draw category boundaries for non-predictable things is because you're not, like, draw category boundaries for non-predictive reasons is because you want, like, you, you want to fool someone or you want to fool some part of yourself into making a, making a prediction that will, like, make the map look good at the expense of reflecting the territory. And I don't know if that made sense to your listeners, but, like, you can, you can read the post. We'll link it in the description. Yeah. It's, how, I remember, I think I first started reading your blog around the time you had that, that sort of detour into the, the philosophy of language stuff. And I got what you were doing, because I'd already read the stuff on autogynophilia. Yeah. Did the people in your subculture recognize what you were doing? Uh, I mean, the people I was having gender discussions with did, like, I guess, I guess the people, like, I don't know. Yeah. I can, I can imagine it, I can imagine it looking weird to some people, like, why are you so bent up about the philosophy of language? But, like, I think people knew. Because, like, I was, I was trying to do, because I was trying to do this thing where I was trying to keep the philosophy stuff separate. So, and, because, you know, I hadn't even dropped the M. Taylor Satomi Westlake pseudonym yet. So, like, for quite enough, for a couple years, I was, my writing was actually in this awkward state where, like, I have my gender and politics blog, and I'm also doing real life blogging about the philosophy of language. And, like, these things are obviously, like, like, one is obviously the result of the other. And, like, people knew. So, I eventually ended up dropping, dropping the pseudonym, because it was just eventually too awkward that, like, every, I wasn't, you know, I took my cowardly friend's advice to, like, start with a pseudonym. But I just temperamentally, I'm just not well suited to keeping secrets, which is actually probably, probably causally related to why I'm doing autogynephilia blogging in the first place. That, like, I want, I want a world that makes sense, and I want a world that makes sense in public, and I don't want to hide. So, eventually, so, like, the pseudonym, you know, I started with the pseudonym, but, like, I, it wasn't, it was never very, I never took anonymity very seriously. You know, I'm not worried. I was, like, the, the level of privacy I was going for was, like, the first name, the first name of my Zach and Davis Google search results should, like, hopefully not be my politically sensitive blogging, just for the sake of future job searches. But eventually, I don't, I'm not even worried about that anymore. I'm going on your podcast with my real name and face. Yeah, I, I know, I remember you dropped your, you decided to drop, you said you were gonna drop the pseudonym, like, around the time that I was finishing the manuscript for my book. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was glad to see that you finally felt comfortable coming out. And I, that sort of point you made about basically a desire for, like, a prior prioritizing honesty, sort of is causally related to talking about autogynophilia. I, I definitely feel that that applies to myself as well that like, I didn't feel that it was right that I would have to lie because other people with my same sexuality didn't like what the science said about them. Yeah. And like, again, like, you know, I've said this a couple times, but like, you know, if someone has doubts about the science, like, that's, that's, that's fine. Like, you know, it is possible to have, like, skeptical good day, good faith doubts about like, about like the detail, because, you know, like, you know, the, the, like, the whole, like, autogynophilia theory, you know, it's not just like one atomic claim that, like, stands or falls on its own. Like, there's this whole bundle of claims about like, oh, well, what about, you know, what about bisexual trans women? And there's a proposed explanation. Well, that's meta-attraction. And like, you know, you could reasonably have doubts about, you know, some people might say, like, well, maybe some AGPs really are bisexual. And, you know, maybe, and so, like, you know, I'm not wedded to, like, every specific detail of, like, you know, all, but, you know, all, all supposedly bisexual trans women are really just only AGP. And, you know, like, I haven't, I haven't, I mean, you've actually got into, I mean, you're actually in a better position to have an informed opinion to me than me, because, like, for your book, you went deep into the sexology, the literature. Yeah, I, I was reading, before I even started writing the book, I was obsessively reading about the stuff for, like, about a year. And then it got to a point where I knew too much to not share it. And I started writing the book. I mean, like, I've read, sorry, I've read a lot of the stuff, too, obviously. But like, I've just, like, again, like, I, all, I, I'm just heartbroken about that, like, we, I can't, I'm just heartbroken about that, like, we, I couldn't even get to the, like, biological sex actually matters thing. Like, I don't even care. I don't, like, I'm not actually that, like, these days, I'm just not even that curious about the details. Because, like, I figured, I, like, I know enough to solve my own issues. And I'm not, like, I don't know. I was thinking, I was thinking, like, a good title, a good title for this episode, podcast episode would be AGP and epistemic despair. Okay. Because I'm just, like, at this point, I'm just in despair of, like, despair of, like, having a world, having a world that makes sense and, like, figuring out what, and, like, I don't know. It, it seems like that people's desire to have beliefs that feel good is trumping the desire for truth. Yeah. Sort of seems like the fundamental thing that is happening as far as I can tell. Right. But so, like, sorry, like, um, like, you and I have both, like, oh, by the way, you've, you and I have both had interactions with our friend, uh, tail call, who, I mean, maybe he's not your friend. Um, so, like, you know, he started out, he started out, you know, he started the Blanchardianism subreddit. And then later, like, he, he got to, you know, he got disillusioned. And by the way, I think you should have him on, have him on the show. Like, yeah, maybe he's cutting it cross purposes for, like, for, like, your political campaign, but I still think it would be a great episode. Anyway, but, like, so, like, he, you know, and, like, he did a lot of, he did a lot of surveys and, like, trying to figure out, like, what's, what's actually going on with, with trans and, like, you know, he got, he ended up getting disillusioned with, with the Blanchardianism side because, you know, he thought the science wasn't rigorous enough. And, you know, he had doubts about, you know, the details of ELT and meta-attraction and so on and so forth. And, like, I think, I think Tail does great work. And, like, it's sort of just, like, a tragic, tragic commentary on, like, the state of the world that, like, I think there was a dynamic that, like, you know, he was frustrated that, like, we, you know, our, our intellectual circle, the Blanchardians, are not being rigorous enough and not being scientifically curious enough. And, like, I sort of, I almost, I kind of want to plead guilty to that in some sense because, you know, the reason, the reason I did so much writing was not, not because I was, like, desperately, desperately curious to figure out all the sexological details about, you know, how does meta-attraction work or whatever. It was because, like, I had this personal need that, like, when I look at the world around me, it sure seems like trans women are men and trans men are women. Or male and female, respectively, if you prefer that. And, like, it seems like this matters. It seems like this has implications. Right, it does matter. I'm curious about at least some of the detail, you know? Yeah, where are you on autoandrophilia? Do you think it's a thing? I mean, I mean, it, I mean, it looks like it's a thing. You, you had, you had Laura on the show, right? Right, yeah, I know. I, well, I mean, obviously there's, I find there to be compelling self-reports, like case studies, but I guess I was curious. I mean, I don't, I don't want, I don't want to, like, confidently have an opinion about things I haven't studied in detail. Okay, yeah, fair enough. So, like, like, yeah, I don't know. There was just a sense of, like, I learned, I learned enough to, like, I learned enough to, like, break with the progressive zeitgeist and, like, I'm mostly focused on other things now. Yeah, I, I also have learned enough about gender stuff and other related things to where I've, the worldviews, what I've learned is too dissimilar from the progressive zeitgeist for me to really believe in it anymore. But, and yet it moves, like, we're still in this, we're still in the situation where, like, you know, because it's, because, you know, so, like, I, when, like, trying to figure out my own self, like, you know, I wrote about, you know, I wrote about my experiences, I, and, like, I read, I read about other people's experiences, I read the scientific literature, like, I sort of, like, I feel like I have myself figured, I have myself basically figured out, and I don't want to be, like, I don't want to be super confident about, like, I don't want to be super confident and dogmatic about having all of sexology and all of psychology figured out, but, like, you know, when I look at, when I look at the younger generation, the, you know, I see, you know, people, people, people who are, you know, in their early 20s are, you know, people like me who are in their early 20s, you know, it's, it's, it's not 2006 anymore, these people are transitioning, and, like, I talk to them and be like, hey, have you considered, have you considered this autogynephilia thing, and, like, a lot of them can be, like, like, acknowledge similar experiences, but, like, the culture isn't, but, like, it's still interpreted through this lens of, yeah, but I'm trans, like, that's what, like, people have this, people have this gender identity first ontology, and that is, like, so baked in to respectful progressive culture that, like, it's almost, like, the facts don't matter, arguing doesn't even work, because, like, there's this entrenched cultural institution of, like, being a trans woman, and, like, the, the map, the map has influenced the territory in, like, forming this new gender role, and, like, because, again, like, you can talk to people in, like, in private, people can be pretty reasonable, like, you can have people, people acknowledge in private, like, yeah,I, you know, I agree that, I agree that, like, gynephilic trans women don't seem to be sampled from the cis female distribution. I agree that it sort of makes, it makes sense to, you know, think of trans women as sort of a third, de facto third gender role. But, like, it's weird to have this culture where, like, a lot of people know this. A lot of people are, like, a lot of people have this view, but it is not the common knowledge consensus view. Like, a lot of people have this view privately, and they coexist and share the same social circle with a lot of other people who will say things like, yeah, well, back when I thought I was a straight guy. And then, you know, I'm silently, you know, because I've sort of learned. You learned to be silent. Well, no, no, no. Well, because, like, I'm not, I sort of, like, assigned myself a diplomacy budget where, like, people in my social circles, like, know of my opinion. And so I don't have to bring it up all the time. Like, you don't have to start, you don't have to start, keep fighting the same fight every time. Like, as an atheist in a Christian society, you're not going to start a fight every one time someone, you know, praises God. It's just not workable. But, you know, I'll sit there thinking, like, okay, but you are a straight male. Like, just literally, you are literally, in fact, biologically male. And you are literally, in fact, gynephilic. That's what those words used to mean. Straight guy. Yeah. And, like, that's not what those words mean now. But, like, this is kind of a weird and unstable situation where you have this social, you have this, like, de facto third gender that everyone is, like, bought into respect. And me too. Like, you know, I use people's correct pronouns even when they don't pass. But just, like, I wish, I don't know, I don't, without even committing in detail to what a better world would look like, this, the current state of affairs does not seem that great to me. And I'm sort of despairing of, despairing, you know, I, you know, I wrote my blog. I'm doing this, you know, I speak up where I can. But, like, I'm just a very small, small part of the world spirit. And it seems like the world spirit has other ideas. And I don't think the thing that we have is very sustainable. Like, even just, but, like, there's that old saying, like, the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. Like, it seems like, you know, gender identity culture, it seems like it can endure for, it seems likely that it can endure for, like, a surprisingly long time before, like, some, like, rather than collapsing under, rather than strictly collapsing under the cold light of reason, you can imagine it collapsing because, like, something else game-changing happens instead, like superhuman artificial intelligence or fertility collapse or something. Yeah, I mean, I think it will eventually collapse just because it, it had, since it, my perspective on it is that since it's not an accurate description of reality, it, it's being held in force by sort of authoritarian measures, like people, people are taught a very specific way of thinking and there are consequences for saying otherwise. But I think as trans people, their population continues to grow, more and more people are going to have everyday experience with transsexuals. And sort of, I think more people will encounter a dissonance between what they're perceiving and what they're being told to think. Yeah, but, like, but, like, the, the, the, there might be a sort of path dependence where, like, the equilibrium that we end up with is, is, you know, could be pretty different from, like, what would happen if, like, you know, the kinds of discussions that you and I are trying to have, like, had happened, like, earlier in political time and been louder and more dominant in the public sphere. Because, like, we could end up, we, I mean, in a lot of places you are ending, ending up with this, like, de facto third gender role thing where, you know, people still notice who's AFAB and who is AMAB. And, like, people are still noticing, people are still noticing these things, but, like, you also still have this entrenched, entrenched institution of being a trans woman or being a trans man. Whereas, like, you know, you can imagine a different world where, like, you know, biological sex was always primary and, you know, some, some AGPs become femboys or something like that. And in some ways, I think that could, like, you know, I don't want, like, with all due respect to my trans women friends, I think that would be a healthier, healthier world in some ways. Yeah, I think it would be more ontologically sound. Yeah. But I, I think what we have now, the gender identity, sort of the ideology associated with it, I think it was kind of inevitable given just the individual, it seems to me like an egregore that arises out of the autogynephilic wish to be a woman to the greatest extent possible. And then once enough people have that wish, it created this cultural entity. Yeah. And which is just so heartbreaking because, like, there's, because, like, the way, like, you know, people who know me in Berkeley, like, no one, no one seems to, so, like, you know, if, if someone was, like, trying to, like, protect, protect gender identity culture, there's one particular tact you could imagine taking where you say, like, oh, fine, you, you, Zach, you're just a weird fetishist. That's totally a different thing from actually being a trans woman, which is, again, basically what I thought for 10 years. And it's kind of funny that, like, among people, among people who know trans people, like, in, you know, in Berkeley, no one actually seems to believe that. Like, when I say, like, I think I'm in the same, I think I'm in the same taxon as trans women, like, no one, no one particularly seems to doubt this. Right, yeah, because they'll notice the similarities. Like, you can notice, yeah. And I mean, it's also funny because, again, like, you know, it, it breaks my anti-sexist heart, but, like, you know, sex difference in, like, interests and personality, like, if you go to, like, there's, you know, a very particular kind of geek that's, like, interested in, like, things instead of people. So, like, there are particular subcultures where, like, it's very, it's surprisingly, it's surprisingly easy to get into a situation where, in a particular context, where there are more trans women than cis women. And that sort of, like, breaks a lot of illusions. Right, like, I recall you writing about that happening at, like, a Rust convention, if I'm... Yeah, yeah, well, maybe, yeah, yeah. But just basically, yeah, basically, like, in sort of the programming spheres that are tilted towards males so much, basically, trans women are a significant proportion of the, the women. Yeah, I mean, so there is, there's this very common thing when I see, you know, I see online, like, like, like an interesting programming blog post by someone with a female name, you know, I'm, like, oh, are they trans? And, like, you know, not always, but, like, a significant... But usually. A significant fraction of the time. Yeah. Very significant fraction of the time. And, oh, I, like, I think I examined, like, the Haskell, the Haskell community survey data, and, like, the trans women to cis women ratio was about one to one. So. Right. Which is, it sort of backs up that point you were saying about trans women being sampled from a different distribution. Yeah. Than the cis women. Yeah. And, and again, like, if you have this, if you have this philosophical insight about, like, what it means for something to belong to a category, being, like, being, being modeled, being, like, being more accurately modeled as being sampled from a different distribution is sort of, like, what it means to belong to a category. So, like, when, like, when I say that I'm male, like, it's not because, like, I'm, like, identifying with masculinity or maleness or, like, my, some vision of, like, fulfilling male gender roles. It's just that, like, I, you know, unfortunately, or, or not, or I am, in fact, biologically male, and, like, you probably can make some inferences about my behavior and psychology from this. Like, I, I've accepted this now. I didn't, I didn't want to believe this in, in 2004, but, like, it is what it is. Yeah. Was it hard to accept that? And, and, like, once you did, was there a difference in how you felt? I mean, it was, it was pretty like, these things are pretty gradual. Yeah. Um, oh, yeah, like, and so, like, the, the other, like, in terms of, like, despair, despair turning the culture around, like, you know, you, you have, so, like, you know, I'm, I'm grateful for, to you for writing the popular level book, so I don't have to. And really, I couldn't have, because, like, you know, I'm a sense, I'm a sense maker and not a popularizer. Like, I'm trying to get, like, you know, when my curiosity is aroused, like, I want to, like, be as rigorous and detailed as possible, which is not the same thing as, like, writing a popular level text that you can, like, you know, hawk at conferences and stuff. But, like, I heard you had a pretty, pretty interesting experience at, like, Genspec last October. Yeah. Yeah, I wore what is, for me, typical garb. Obviously, not typical garb for women, you know, sampled from a different distribution, as we've talked about. And they, actually, at the conference itself, it was perfectly fine. There was, I exhibited no conflict, got along with people, not an issue at all. But then, a few days later on Twitter, Kelly J. Keane struggled Genspec. And it started this conflict between the two different schools of feminists that, between the liberal feminists and the, sort of, the radfems. Yeah. And with me as the ostensible target, right? Like, I'm, I'm, like, the focal point of the discussion, but it's not actually a conflict with me. Yeah. Yeah, when you were seeing that, what, what are some of your thoughts on? Well, just, like, I don't know, just, just, like, I mean, I don't know, like, I do, I do actually have a little bit of, I think I have more sympathy for the radfems than you. Because, like, they're not, like, because, you know, a lot of, like, Kelly, Kelly J. Keane, Karen Davis types, they're not, they're not, like, they're very clear, like, they're not, they're not, they're not, they're not, like, they're very clear that they're not trying to do sense-making. They're, they want, they want a society in which women have their traditional protected spaces, and they are fighting for that. And, like, insofar as, insofar as, like, insofar as people like you and me are, like, more amenable to a compromise solution, where, like, trans women can, like, get their body mods, but we also, like, don't destroy the public concept of sex, like, they're not happy with that compromise. And, like, I can see why they're not, like, I just wish, I wish, like, I can see why, I can see that there are reasons why it isn't, but, like, I wish the whole conversation could take place at a higher meta level, where, like, first we establish, like, shared, a shared map of the territory of what's actually going on, and then also, and then separately, in addition to that, like, we have the policy debate about what to do about it. But, like, given that that's, like, so hard for humans to pull off, like, I have a little bit of sympathy for the people who are, like, worried that, like, ostensible, ostensible attempt, like, they want to go back to the world where sex is a top-level category that has these top-level protections. And, like, I also want, like, I think we're both kind of sympathetic to that to some extent, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, unfortunately, because, anyway, I don't know. Yeah, it's, I, I mean, I, I actually used to, I think, around, like, 2016 or so, I got exposed to radical feminism, and it seems really plausible to me for a bit. It seems like a lot of HPs find it plausible, because we're kind of primed to put women up on a pedestal, and radical feminism is kind of female supremacist in sort of its vibe. You, you froze, are we still recording? My audio, I'm not hearing you. Okay, yeah, I'm, it's, I think it's still going. Sorry, you froze up for me for a second. Yeah, am I back? Yeah, you're back now. Okay, yeah, I, I was just saying that, I think that, like, I originally got exposed to radical feminism, and it seemed plausible, but after I learned more about, you know, psychological sex differences, for example, I came to realizing that it was not a simple matter of, while, while sort of the male oppression of females is kind of an ancient thing, it even occurs in other primates, it's not just in humans, it's, it's not as simple as that sort of Marxist-derived version of it. But I mean, you could, there's also an angle you can, there's also, like, it is, you know, naturalistic fallacy angle, you can take on it and say, like, yeah, this happens in other primates, but it's still terrible. And like, you could still, like. Oh, yeah, no, I don't like it. I would, like, I do have some egalitarian sentiments. I mean, I live on the West Coast, in Portland. So, however, I think we do have to recognize that, that males and females are, on average, different psychologically, and, and this is apparent to us in everyday life. And I'm not sure what the quite, quite what the right policy is, like, I agree with you that, at least with regards to transsexualism, that, that adults, the morphological freedom thing, that adults should be able to have access to alter their body. And it may just never be reconcilable between the radical feminists and people that want that freedom. Yeah. So, I don't know, I think we've covered most of the stuff I wanted to cover. Yeah. I noticed you also wanted to talk about, that the sort of thing I'm doing, like, the cause of raising, say, like, autogynephilic identity as sort of a social category, that, that you're pessimistic about it, to some extent, and I'd be curious to hear about. Well, just, just empirically, just, just empirically, like, the, because, you know, I know, I know, like, you know, people, people in their early 20s who have transitioned and, like, and, like, you know, even people who are, like, you know, socially adjacent to me and, like, and, like, like my writing in some cases. You know, if they're not buying it, then the rest of, like, the chances for, like, the rest of society just seem, like, incredibly bleak. Like, if, if I, you know, if I can't, if I can't win, if I can't win definitively, like, in my own native subculture with, where, like, I have so much home-field advantage, then, like, the prospects of, like, winning a broader cultural battle just seem, just seem hopeless. Yeah, I, I do feel that I'm in somewhat of an underdog situation, you know, that there is a lot of... And again, okay, I mean, it also, like, sorry, I also want to highlight that, like, it may seem, it may seem, like, uncouth to talk about winning in, in, like, like, because, like, I, like, ideally, like, you want, you want, you want to, like, figure out what's actually true and not just, like, fight a zero-sum war between, like, different ideas where, like, the ideas you ended up with, you're just, like, blindly loyal to them without any particular reason, but, like, it looks like they're actually, like, you kind of, like, you know, the science and politics do actually interact, unfortunately, and so there is actually, there, so, like, separately from the fact that I think I'm right, there, there's also, like, the project of, of, like, sharing, sharing those ideas with other people does have some similarities with war and competition, even though that feels like it seems like it shouldn't be the case. Anyway, go on. Right, yeah, no, I mean, it's, there is a political element to it, for sure, which is, like, why I might describe it as, like, trying to win something, but I, even though there does seem to be a lot of headwinds to people accepting autogynophilic, autogynophilia theory, I, I, I still am optimistic about the ability to spread the ideas and grow the proportion of the, the autogynophilic and autoandrophilic population who understand these ideas. Yeah, on the margins. I think, yeah, on the margins, and particularly among the autists, I, I think it, as far as I could tell, it, these sort of ideas, the autistic autosexuals seem the most able to separate sort of what is true from what might feel good, and they are the most promising subgroup. And I think when you get a large enough group of autists together working on something, great things can happen. And I, I think that even though in everyday life, there may not, that, thatThe incentives might not be there for people yet for people to be out as autogynephilic or autoangrophilic, at least at least to the degree that say like homosexuals are able to be out. I do think that so much of life happens these days in the disembodied domain of the internet and even people who haven't transitioned, they might want to be able to participate in gender discourse and talk about their own experiences and sexual identity just as people with more well-established identities do. My hope is that over time through building it within community discourse, we'll collectively sort of improve each other's knowledge and when we have false ideas, sort of disprove them. My hope is that over time we'll iteratively arrive at more of our kind understanding the sort of type of sexual orientation they have and also more of them accepting it in a chill way where it's not this huge damage to their self-image where it's really just like not a big deal because they know other people like that, that they respect and it's fine. Yeah. To the future, whatever future we can get. Yeah. I understand feeling a little bit hopeless, but I think I'm trying to take a really long view on this that if autogynephilia is true, then eventually that sort of meme will win out to some extent and it might take a very long time. I mean, people are still struggling with evolution by natural selection. It used to be Christians that were bothered by it, and now it's the egalitarian left that has issues with its implications. But I think eventually ideas that are true, well, they have a certain staying power to them. Hopefully. Yeah. We can hope. Yeah. I can hear your voice, like I can understand feeling dispirited after what you went through with trying to talk about autogynephilia and then having that reality. Well, again, I could understand the nuanced specific doubts of like every little, like, you know, because like Blitzard and there's like lots of detailed claims here about like, so I could also understand, like if someone has read the Erotic Target Identity Inversion paper and has like specific doubts about like, you know, like I get like, I don't know. Like I don't, I don't, I don't want to be defending a fixed dogma, but like, I do want a world where facts matter. And it seemed like the crux I ran into with people was not like, not like, not about science. It just seemed like people don't, don't think that non-social facts matter. Yeah, it's, I understand it's frustrating. It, yeah, I do want to say that it did really help me when I was struggling with sort of this, this, when upon learning that I was autogynephilic and then having people doubt me and I was struggling with it, it did help me a lot to see that I wasn't the only one that had gone through this sort of struggle before of having the reality doubted even after reading the papers and everything. And so you're wrong. I mean, I don't, I have reservations about that phrasing of like, oh, like, I don't want to copy their phrasing of like, oh no, you're doubting my, my reality, therefore, therefore you're, you're oppressing me. Like you know what I mean though? Like just in like an emotional sense. Yeah. Yeah. And like in the, just the, the realistic experience of like, you've put in due diligence to know what is true, or at least to read a bunch of papers and do your best to like try to find out what's true and then just have everyone still doubt it. It's kind of crazy making and, and it like it, seeing that that had happened to someone else made me feel less crazy. And it also made me realize how serious the problem was that it was, it was happening in a subculture that is supposedly super, super rational. And so they're, they're totally lying about that. Yeah. I know it. Well, cause they're human ultimately, right? Yeah. Yeah. So it was part of the impetus for me to write my book. I didn't want that to continue happening to people. And I didn't think it was fair what happened to me or you. And also there wasn't yet a popular level book. Yeah. The closest thing was Anne Lawrence's book, but the title seems like designed to hurt AGPs in the fields. I love the title. No, I loved it. I loved it at first. I thought it was great. No, I don't mean wrong. I loved it at first, the transgressiveness of it. I thought it was like, I love the edginess of it. I thought it was like, it's not even, I don't even think it was about edginess. I think it's just like descriptively accurate. Yeah. But like, because it's accurate, it hurts emotionally, right? I guess so. A little bit. Well, yeah, that was, again, that was like this, this, this shocking thing, like talking to people in private in 2016, like, you know, like I bought, I bought extra copies of men trapped in men's bodies to like give to people and like, you know, I, you know, I, like, I like, I snuck it. So I snuck it into like more than one queer center library. Like you go to the community's queer center and they have a bookshelf. I just like sneak the book in there. The, but you know, I made my local library system, buy it. And then they did, it had for a couple of years, but someone wants to complain and they removed it now. Oh, so the, the, you know, I, you know, I, you know, I gave someone this book and like get complaints of, I got complaints along the lines of like, well, it seems like, you know, Lawrence is, you know, someone complained that like Lawrence used the, like use the word transgender. I don't even remember, but like, just like grammatical complaints, like saying men instead of AMAB or whatever. I'm just like, okay, but like, can, has it occurred to you for just a moment that someone like someone who is not part of your ideological subculture and use like exactly the same terminology as you might, you know, have things to say about reality. I think people that are trapped in that ideological subculture have a poor time modeling other subcultures because it's, it's the progressive zeitgeist. It's so all encompassing. Yeah. But yeah, it was. That's interesting that you also had gotten extra copies because like I bought an extra one to like be able to share with people and then I realized like at a certain point that most people weren't going to make it past seeing the cover and I was like, damn, there needs to be another book that sort of explains this in a simpler way that doesn't. That isn't like such a bummer, so to speak, to some of the AGPs that are propaganda, right? Exactly. I needed to, in a descriptively neutral sense, like the word propaganda, it needed a more mimetically viable delivery than was being done. And so I did, yeah, I tried to do that where it made more emotionally palatable, but also shorter sentences, clearer sentences. Yeah, you lose some of the detail when you can sort of do that. Huh? I cannot write like that. No, I know. I know. Like some of my favorite posts of yours are actually like the ones that are just like a few hundred words, like like your psychology is about invalidating people's identities post is like excellent. Thank you. Um. Yeah, I know you can't write like that, but I. And I don't naturally write like that, I just kept editing until it looked like that, I read books about how to write short in the American style and I did it. And yeah, time will tell, like how influential. The book is. Yeah, I just think that. The sort of argument I make in the book that it's it's an epistemic injustice that people with this orientation don't get a fair shot at learning about it, say, like in sex ed, as as you've proposed on your blog. It just. I think those of us who go through these feelings, we deserve to be treated as humans that can handle hearing the truth, especially because there's such if you do transition, that is a very serious kind of adult decision, like, yeah, we we deserve to be treated seriously and told what is real so that we can make sense of reality and decide how we want to live in it. And like this other tragedy of like like this culture, like I think it makes people into like worse people. Yes. Of like of like being committed. Being committed, being like because, again, like, you know, in the words of J.K. Rowling, you know, call yourself what you want, wear what you like. I would add, you know, modify your body how you like. But like being committed, committed to this particular ontology of gender and like in a way that like. Shuts out like the various situations in which people need to use the sex, have like legitimate reasons for wanting to use the sex based ontology without worrying about whether it might trigger someone's dysphoria, like that's just no way to live. Like maybe maybe, you know, there's a way to live in the world as it exists with the technology that we actually have. Yeah, I I hope for that sort of an outcome to where. Like, I obviously want transsexuals to be able to live in society as the gender they aspire to and to be able to have access to the medical care. I mean, there's also I mean, there's also this this. There's also kind of this funny aspect of like, you know, I keep I keep like wanting to like put emphasis on like, look, I'm not you know, I don't do policy if you want to transition and like you you you know what you're getting into. Like, I don't want to say that I don't want to I don't want to. I don't want to like have definitive policy decisions on how other people should live their lives because. Because, you know, that's not what I'm trying to do, I'm just trying to. Just trying to get the facts, but like there is like clearly this element of like. Like, if you have to round me into the trans activist camp or the gender critical camp, like it's pretty clear that like. I don't know. Like ontologically which camp you're in. Yeah. Yeah, like, I mean, there does seem to be this phenomenon among among like. Like people like people who transition first and then learn about the two type typology and then like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. Like it seems like if you I think there's a real I suspect there's a real effect that if you teach those people about the typology first, they don't end up transitioning because like given given current technology where you can't just like magically grow a new body in the in a vat and swap your brain into it, like transitioning makes a lot more sense if you actually believe in gender identity, whereas like if you don't have that belief in the first place, I think a lot of people are more likely to do the thing that you and I are doing, which is like, OK, just live with it. Just like. I would agree that, like. If more people had heard the typology before transitioning, it might lead to overall fewer transitions, but I think there would be there would still be some people who hear about the typology and then realize that their sort of transsexual feelings aren't going to be able to go away and they might transition earlier. Yeah. And. But. Yeah, I do think there's probably a thing where people who learn the typology first. More, they're probably more likely to decide not to transition than people who only hear about the gender identity. Theory. And. Yeah, but to be clear, like the reason I don't transition, it's just because of my physical situation. If if I don't transition, I don't feel like I'm going to feel like I'm going to be able to transition. It's just because of my physical situation. If I thought I'd be able to be somewhat passable, I'd probably be doing it. But yeah, it's just like a realistic, pragmatic appraisal of my situation. Yeah. How tall are you? Six four. OK. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I'm taller than the average man to the degree that the average man is taller than the average woman. Like, yeah, I'm the true third gender. Right. So, yeah, it's just about being realistic for me personally. But. Yeah, why, if you don't mind me asking, like, why have you? Did we already cover that, like why you chose not to? I mean, I was I sort of chickened out for like just medical uncertainty. So like, OK, sorry, I'm a transhumanist in theory, but like in practice, there's just like. I'm just wary that. I'm wary about permanent I'm wary about unnecessary medical interventions because like so much like so much. There's so much we just don't know about biology. Yeah. Like we know enough. OK, we know enough like like vaccines. It's not like someone it's not like someone like actually like knows how to engineer nanobots that specifically kill that specifically kill the disease. Like vaccines are like injecting a weakened form of the disease into your body and like letting nature letting your immune system figure it out, you know. And so like there's just sort of just sort of generally unease that like, OK, we can make artificial hormones. You insert like artificial you inject artificial female hormones into a male body. Is that going to break stuff? If you keep doing it over a long period of time. Yeah, no, that's a fair, fair concern. That's that's also another concern. And like again, like I know that like this has been studied somewhat, there are definitely people doing it like we know it doesn't we know it doesn't immediately kill you because there are lots of people who do it, who have done it and are living happy, happy lives for decades and decades. But like, could it be could it be doing could it be breaking things steadily in a way that like makes it not makes the benefit not worth the cost? You know, like I'm pretty worried about that. And also, yeah, and also just not passing like I'm I'm only I'm only five eleven. But like, OK, medical conservatism and not passing and just like. I just don't believe any of this shit. Right. Well, I mean, even if you didn't believe it, you could still think, oh, I'm going to take this because I want to look more feminine. Yeah, and I mean, like I do like I do. You know, I did I did get laser on my face, the laser wasn't that effective. But like I did try to get facial hair reduction, I like my beautiful, beautiful ponytail, even though that, you know, hair length is not actually sexually dimorphic and that's just a cultural condition. I'm kind of like the the effects that hormones did have on my body that was permanent, like I feel OK about it. So like. I'm I have accepted, I have accepted the world, what is available to me in the world as it is. Yeah, which is, I think, a great place to come to. And, you know, if you know, if, you know, we get like. You know, if like superhuman artificial intelligence invents a way to like actually grow a new female body in a vat, then I think I would go for that. But like, you know, at that point, like humanity has much, much bigger problems. Which is which is not the subject of this podcast. Right. I mean, at that point, they probably will have already figured out how to alter the the sort of internalization mechanism that seems to happen with with autosexuality and sort of. Yeah, but well, but you don't. Yeah, I don't I don't want to be cured, though. Right. Like if you if you could cure autogynephilia, like like, OK, I would rather have the magical body transformation than be cured and just be an ordinary man. But. Like if there were a cure, I wouldn't take it, I think I like. I like being I like, I like. I like being the way I am, even though being the way I am in this world, like necessarily entails like knowing that there are some possible nice things that you can't have. Yeah, well, yeah, it sounds like you've come to a pretty good place of acceptance of your situation, which I, I would love for more, you know, like I would love for more autogynephilic individuals to arrive at that, you know, regardless of their state of transition, but just like understand their situation and reality. I think that's a good place to wrap it up. Yeah. Yeah. I was just thinking the same thing. So, yeah. Thanks for coming on my channel. Thanks for having me on the show. And I would like to mention again to the viewers and I'll put it in the description that he blogs about this stuff at UnremediatedGender.space and it's a great blog. In retrospect, it may not have been the best idea for like the blog title and the URL to be so different because like no one remembers the title. No, only your diehard fans. Yeah. Thanks. Bye. Bye.