countarthur (u/countarthur)

countarthur commented on I Met Paul Graham Once okayfail.com/2025/i-met-p... · Posted by u/DamonHD

brandon272 · 8 months ago

A "delusion" would be looking down and seeing a penis where a vagina exists. There is nothing delusional about understanding and acknowledging a difference between your identity and biological sex and seeking alignment between the two, in fact, it's a pretty rational approach versus the alternative of living in permanent misery.

Just because we cannot see the physical manifestation of suffering or understand someone's experience when put through the lens of our own experience does not mean that their suffering does not exist or is irrational or delusional. Many chronic pain sufferers understand this.

One thing I can't understand is the assertion that simply respecting another person, usually by doing nothing other than accommodating some alternative pronoun use is such an incredible burden so as to cause apparent extreme mental anguish among the people being asked for this accommodation.

If I have an acquaintance who is transgender, using their preferred pronouns that match their outward appearance and identity is:

1) Not difficult - what is more difficult and socially strange is referring to a person who is trying to present as a woman a "man" or a person who is trying to present as a man a "woman".

2) Not a self-delusion - or any kind of determination at all, really - about their biological sex. I have encountered non-transgender people in my life who are androgynous. You either make a mistake with their pronouns, or ask. There is no way of knowing what their biological makeup is, and I don't experience any kind of internal consternation over it. You take what they say at face value and move on.

3) Is simply offering a modicum of respect.

So much of all of this is tied up in the fact that a lot of people, for whatever reason, just really want to be mean. It seems their default is to be sneering, judgemental, and offer behavior that is more indicative of the worst instincts of high school students rather than well-adjusted adults.

countarthur · 8 months ago

It doesn't cause extreme mental anguish, I just... don't have to play along with childish games like pretending someone can be the opposite sex. I just don't! However easy or respectful you think it would be for me to play make believe, or even just pay two-faced lip service.

That seems to really wind people up but since the executive order today (I'm not American incidentally), everyone is going to have to get used to it.

I don't sneer, by the way. Never have, never will! I'm more of a smirker. ;)

countarthur commented on I Met Paul Graham Once okayfail.com/2025/i-met-p... · Posted by u/DamonHD

brandon272 · 8 months ago

It sounds like we have established that body dysmorphia and gender dysphoria are not really the same thing? Two conditions can have a similar thread but not be the same or even related, nor require the same approach or treatment.

In terms of "people being convinced by others", I think this is a relatively recent phenomenon. I think it's possible to be simultaneously concerned about social contagion and social influences, especially among young people who don't have a fully developed understanding of themselves, hasty treatments without due diligence on behalf of medical providers, commercial incentives in the medical community, etc, etc... while also acknowledging that some people simply do suffer from legitimate, intractable gender dysphoria.

There is no evidence that I can find that reparative therapy is effective. A teenager being lured into something on social media for social clout is simply not the same thing as a person who genuinely, intractably believes that they were born in the wrong body.

> If I was gender dysphoric (unable to accept the truth and be comfortable in my own body)

One thing I find interesting about this framing ("unable to accept the truth", "affirm my delusion") is that it seems to ignore any kind of biological/chemical occurrences in the body and brain that could explain gender dysphoria and instead casts it purely in a judgemental "these trans people are just nuts" light, which seems odd given that this is a topic on which we clearly don't have all the answers.

countarthur · 8 months ago

I agree with absolutely everything you've said here!

Just my alternative conclusion is: you can't fix anything by compelling people to play along with someone else's delusion, whether the source is social, psychological, biochemical, sexual, whatever.

countarthur commented on I Met Paul Graham Once okayfail.com/2025/i-met-p... · Posted by u/DamonHD

ivraatiems · 8 months ago

Autogynephilia is a long-discredited theory, though I suspect from the content of your posts that you would deride any more recent work as being politically or socially biased.

Let's assume it isn't, though. The inventor of the concept, Ray Blanchard, spent decades helping people transition. He didn't use talk therapy to talk them out of it! He developed one of the first protocols for figuring out whether a trans woman needed hormones! From his Wikipedia page:

> Blanchard supports public funding of sex reassignment surgery as an appropriate treatment for transsexual people, as he believes the available evidence supports that the surgery helps them live more comfortably and happily, with high satisfaction rates.

Even Blanchard would absolutely not describe a trans person as just "liking women a lot" and leave it at that. The premise that a trans woman is "just living a fantasy" isn't true and was widely recognized as not true even by previous generations of investigators on the topic. I don't understand why you insist on it.

--

We're also speaking in another thread, but that thread got flagged (not by me), so I'll put my reply to it here.

All of this sort of handwaves past my point, though. Maybe you are right about the actual number of intersex people. My point is that it's a small but non-zero number. We can just talk about the number of "ambiguous" people, e. g. people where you can't immediately discern their physical biology from the way they present themselves to you. Would you agree that number is at least 1%?

> As to your question as to why does "woman" have to mean "adult human female" - because that's the dictionary definition.

But the dictionary definition can change, and in fact, has. Oxford, Merriam-Webster, and Cambridge have all made adjustments to the term to encompass the idea of transition, gender fluidity, etc. Your original term is the primary definition but not at all the only one.

Putting cards on the table: I don't believe that if the dictionary changed its definition, you would change yours. It seems to me you'd deride them for "being political" or "bowing to pressure" or somesuch. I think you are using your definitions for "woman" and "female" because you prefer them, not because you believe the dictionary is an arbitrator of truth.

> Notice that arguments about the treatment of "intersex" people (those with disorders/differences of sexual development) are used to buttress the position of people who feel like they're the other sex, but are otherwise biologically completely normal.

Trans people aren't always or often biologically "completely normal"; numerous studies have revealed potential biological bases for gender dysphoria, related to issues with hormones and other development in the womb. They only look normal to you, which goes to my next point:

> I totally agree with you that there are some people whose sex is hard to judge immediately, often, but not always, because they've gone out of their way to make it ambiguous. Everyone else can be clocked at 100 feet in a dark alley - we're evolved that way. [...] > A few awkward social faux pas over people who look or act androgynous - for whatever reason - doesn't justify exploding a category that works and serves everyone well almost all of the time. I don't feel guilty over my use of sexed pronouns even if I occasionally get it wrong and this insistence that I should... isn't convincing.

I don't know that you completely understood the scenario I was suggesting. Here is an image of Brian Michael Smith, a transmasculine actor: https://ew.com/thmb/vJSjLdP7CReb9n_px75hvqj5yYI=/1500x0/filt...

If you saw this person walking towards you, and you thought they were a man, and then later found out they were actually transmasculine, would you feel guilty for not referring to them with she/her? Would you correct yourself to referring to them as she/her afterwards, even in conversation with them? Why or why not?

countarthur · 8 months ago

This is a really thorough reply to what I said and very thoughtful, thanks.

Regarding "liking woman a lot", I was quoting the original author - it seemed like an autogynophilic statement to me, the idea that you are sexually attracted to something so much you want to become it. Maybe I'm misunderstanding!

Yeah it's interesting what you say about Blanchard... the fascinating thing for me about Blanchard is the measurement of groin blood pressure to test for arousal in response (rather than relying on self-reporting), I think his solutions were sexist and backwards and a great example of how blinkered medical professionals can be.

--

If we expand the dictionary definition of woman to include some men, we then need a new term to describe... well, actual women. I know a lot of people want to adopt the term "cis woman" for this, but I'm going to stick with "woman". If this is just my personal aesthetic judgement that's fine, the burden of proof is on others to expand it and I don't think the justifications are very good.

Regarding the actress you mentioned, Brian, I can totally see I might mistake her for a man as she's gone out of her way to masculinise her appearance. I wouldn't feel guilt if I used male pronouns then later realised that was incorrect (according to my own rules) - perhaps surprise? I wouldn't even feel temporary embarrassment because she's gone to lengths to look male. I would correct myself to use she/her - even in direct conversation. That might be awkward but it's fine.

If I was in a country, organisation or situation where my livelihood was at risk for using sexed pronouns, I would avoid using pronouns entirely as regrettable prudence. This isn't hypothetical: parts of my social life overlap with these kinds of people and I steer through it, often by saying less, but I won't lie to someone directly.

I don't feel guilty about saying I don't believe in god/heaven to a catholic priest, even if the logical implication is that, from my perspective, they've wasted their life and chances of a happy love and sex life. It's unfortunate but really has nothing to do with me, it's all based on a set of attitudes and beliefs I don't participate in (and personally find regressive).

countarthur commented on I Met Paul Graham Once okayfail.com/2025/i-met-p... · Posted by u/DamonHD

brandon272 · 8 months ago

I’ll say three things:

1) Someone’s body dysmorphia is not - generally - affirmed or denied by ordinary everyday passing social interactions. In polite society, you simply don’t comment on someone’s body composition. Gender is an entirely different matter as it is a constant differentiator in day to day life. Also, in my experience, body dysmorphia has nothing to do with other people’s affirmations. We’ve all seen examples of people getting repeated surgeries to change their appearance because they simply cannot see what everyone else is seeing when they look in the mirror.

2) I think in determining “how to handle it” from the perspective of psychotherapy, we should consider what treatment is considered effective. Psychotherapy is simply not effective at changing someone’s gender identity or ameliorating gender dysphoria. The established treatment for gender dysphoria is to align the person’s gender identity and gender expression.

To me, this makes sense when applied to your own life. Therapy might be able to help me realize that my perception of the size of my nose is not accurate, but therapy is not going to be effective at changing my gender identity. Do you feel that your gender identity could be changed using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy?

3) Refer back to the questions that I think should be asked if you find it too difficult to accommodate pronouns:

>What do you expect someone who is gender dysphoric to do? What do you believe the appropriate course of action is for someone in that situation? What would you expect or appreciate if you were a person in that situation?

countarthur · 8 months ago

These are good points and great questions!

Your description of getting surgeries based on a distorted view of what they see in the mirror sounds exactly like gender dysphoria to me.

I have a big nose like you and even having had romantic partners compliment me on it hasn't stopped me feeling bad about it, but I agree it's definitely more trivial than believing you ought to be the other sex, somehow. They usually say "it's handsome" rather than try to convince me it's a normal size, which is perhaps a more merciful lie!

I don't know about CBT, but I know that people can be convinced by others that they should be the other sex: it happens all the time on youtube, tiktok, tumblr and across the web. That's how this became so wide spread in the first place.

So I absolutely believe people can be helped to accept the truth of themselves and their real body and not require hormonal or surgical interventions. Here I'm mostly talking about insecure young people - the very different cohort of older men where there's a sexual element involved might be boned (pardon the pun!) but that's all the more reason not to have the rest of society change laws and social mores to facilitate it.

If I was gender dysphoric (unable to accept the truth and be comfortable in my own body) AND believing in gender identity then I'm sure I would expect people to affirm my delusion and I'd viscerally dislike those that didn't. If I was later cured, I'd hope I'd appreciate those who stuck to their guns and didn't lie to me. Maybe it's impossible to fully accept yourself (like our big noses) and one just has to live with it and cope with it as healthily as they can. I would consider getting my nose carved down to size (regardless of how big it really is) a failure for everyone involved.

countarthur commented on I Met Paul Graham Once okayfail.com/2025/i-met-p... · Posted by u/DamonHD

brandon272 · 8 months ago

A woman is an adult human female, or a person who identifies as such.

In other words, there is biological definition. Then there is malleable social terminology. We can acknowledge biology while also accommodating who choose to - or need to - identify differently.

If we can't accept that, then my next question would be: what do you expect someone who is gender dysphoric to do? What do you believe the appropriate course of action is for someone in that situation? What would you expect or appreciate if you were a person in that situation?

The odd thing is that I don't recall pronouns being much of an issue before recent (2016-onward) political tribalism on transgender matters. Transgender people are not new, they existed previously and people by and large seemed to be able to refer to them by their preferred pronouns without all of this digging-in-of-heels around "I WILL REFER TO YOU BY THE PRONOUNS ASSOCIATED WITH YOUR BIOLOGICAL SEX".

countarthur · 8 months ago

What does "such" mean here?

How should I treat someone with body dysmorphia who believes they are 130 kg when they're closer to 50? Should I agree with them and affirm them as fat as they believe they are? Or should I - if it's my place - implore them to go to talking therapy and refuse to be drawn into their self-hating fantasy?

countarthur commented on I Met Paul Graham Once okayfail.com/2025/i-met-p... · Posted by u/DamonHD

ivraatiems · 8 months ago

I see this argument all the time and I have so, so many questions about it. It just does not make a lot of sense to me. Please know that while we have fundamental disagreements, I am also genuinely trying to understand this worldview.

According to your definition, what is an intersex person? How should one refer to one? There are intersex people who who look like women but have penises, and vice versa. You can simply Google "example of intersex person" to see plenty of them, and they have always existed. Most intersex people do not have either reproduction strategy, and are wholly infertile. Even amongst those who are not, the strategy they have often does not line up with how they look, act, or feel. They are a small subset of society, but so are trans people - on a cursory search, about 1-2% of the population is intersex, and about 1-2% is trans.

The thing I don't understand is, if your answer is anything other than "I have no way to refer to such a person and could not use pronouns to refer to them," (or using the ze/zir neopronouns which I suspect nearly none of them have ever heard of) then it would stand to reason your decision about using "she" or "he" for someone is based at least partially on how they read to you culturally, and not your definition as laid out here.

And even if that isn't true, why does "adult human female" have to map to "woman", and vice versa? Who says, other than you, and what more authority do you have than anyone? I know a lot of trans people - MTF and FTM - who are not distinguishable from your definition unless you interrogate their genitalia, or in some cases, their genetics. If you see such a person, and use the "wrong" pronouns according to your definition for them, would you then feel guilty for not using the "right" ones? If not, why not?

All of this is to say that I don't see how your reduce-it-to-biology-and-never-waver definition is workable in society, and I don't understand why folks - yourself included, it seems - are so insistent on it.

countarthur · 8 months ago

The claim that 1-2% of the population is intersex is a common myth: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12476264/

"Many reviewers are not aware that this figure includes conditions which most clinicians do not recognize as intersex, such as Klinefelter syndrome, Turner syndrome, and late-onset adrenal hyperplasia." "...the true prevalence of intersex is seen to be about 0.018%, almost 100 times lower than Fausto-Sterling s estimate of 1.7%"

It's often commonly claimed it's as common as red hair, too - it isn't. https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/intersex-is-not-as-commo...

Personally I've always found the "argument from commonality" to be shaky philosophically and morally. A population's degree of minority doesn't make discrimination or mistreatment more acceptable, so why massage stats to make them seem more populous than they really are?

As to your question as to why does "woman" have to mean "adult human female" - because that's the dictionary definition.

I totally agree with you that there are some people whose sex is hard to judge immediately, often, but not always, because they've gone out of their way to make it ambiguous. Everyone else can be clocked at 100 feet in a dark alley - we're evolved that way.

A few awkward social faux pas over people who look or act androgynous - for whatever reason - doesn't justify exploding a category that works and serves everyone well almost all of the time. I don't feel guilty over my use of sexed pronouns even if I occasionally get it wrong and this insistence that I should... isn't convincing.

Notice that arguments about the treatment of "intersex" people (those with disorders/differences of sexual development) are used to buttress the position of people who feel like they're the other sex, but are otherwise biologically completely normal. These groups really have nothing in common but it's useful to conflate them.

countarthur commented on I Met Paul Graham Once okayfail.com/2025/i-met-p... · Posted by u/DamonHD

ivraatiems · 8 months ago

If it's not meant to be a snarky attack or insult, how is it supposed to be meant?

Is it so unthinkable to you that someone's spouse could support them transitioning? That reads like projection, maybe, to me.

countarthur · 8 months ago

It's not unthinkable, but in practise there's usually strong pressure in play: sunk cost fallacy, children to support, the threat of social ostracism. This is mostly true for wives rather than husbands because of female socialisation (this is sadly where gender actually becomes relevant!).

As the author himself says: "It turns out that I like women so much I’d like to be one of them"

That's not how sex works. I like women a lot too: liking them a lot doesn't mean you want to be one, that's called autogynephilia and can be treated with talking therapy.

However if it's a true expression of his attitudes and preferences then perhaps if his wife decided to masculinise her appearance e.g. injecting testosterone to deeper her voice, cause male-associated health growth, have elective surgical interventions like a double mastectomy, he wouldn't receive it as well as his wife seems to have. That's definitely speculation on my part of course!

To answer your original question about how it's supposed to be meant: it won't matter one jot what any investors he once met may think or not think about his lifestyle choices if he's trying to impose a fantasy on his wife.

countarthur commented on The unbearable slowness of being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s? cell.com/neuron/abstract/... · Posted by u/sebg

MrMcCall · 9 months ago

The only time 'bits' will ever be an appropriate measure of human processing is when we are processing or producing diginal information artifacts, e.g. a typewritten document.

Our bodies' systems are biochemical wetware that will never be aptly described using a boolean basis. That is one of the primary problems of society's obsessions with classical notions of gender.

No one is male OR female. We are, every single one of us, a combination of male and female hormones. The more "male" a person is is the result of that balance favoring the male hormones; and vice versa. What humanity is now struggling with is that there are plenty of folks with lots of both or little of either and all kinds of combinations.

Of course, my not being a biochemist means my categorization of hormones into "male" and "female" is, itself, likely to be a poorly booleanized representation of their natures.

We are much more akin to Boltzmann's statistical mechanics description of reality, than to digital logic's boolean description.

countarthur · 9 months ago

What you're saying is interesting but I think the causality is backwards here and I can provide some examples to show why.

(By male hormone I'm assuming you mean testosterone, and by female hormone I assume you mean oestrogen.) i in fact If being "more male" came from having more testosterone (and vice versa), then logically when children go through puberty and develop into adults, they would become "more" male or "more" female.

As adults become elderly and naturally produce less sex-associated hormones, they would become "less" male or female.

(Fetuses do not all begin in the womb as female, that's a common misunderstanding. We start off physically undifferentiated, and develop along a genetically predetermined pathway as we grow. Some animals use temperature or other environmental triggers to pick, humans use genes.)

Would that mean a male bodybuilder who injects testosterone is more male than a man that doesn't? His phenotype may become visibly more masculine, but that doesn't change his sex at all. Same for a female bodybuilder that injects testosterone - she may develop stereotypically male physical characteristics like large muscles and a deeper voice, but her sex is unaffected.

The causality is the other way: being male - or - female results in a physiology (adult testicles/ovaries) that produces sex associated hormones in larger or lesser degrees depending on the person (and in some cases very low amounts or not at all).

This makes sense if sex is a binary (with rare differences of sex development - detailed here https://www.theparadoxinstitute.com/read/sex-development-cha... ) that results in different levels of sex hormones in the body and resulting phenotype. So yes, everyone is male or female.

(I'm not referring to gender here - I'm talking only about sex)

If there's a spectrum then some men could be biologically "more male" than others and vice versa for women. I've not seen any evidence of this myself, but I'm happy to be proven wrong!