Based on my own transition, and a huge number of conversations I’ve had with trans folks, I don’t think that comparison is relevant. It’s true that trans men o

Based on my own transition, and a huge number of conversations I’ve had with trans folks, I don’t think that comparison is relevant. It’s true that trans men often face a “faster” hormonal transition than women, but this is predominantly due to to the impact of testosterone on facial hair and vocal pitch. But on the assumption that these agents aren’t actually being put on HRT (the whole point is that it’s reversible, right?) going in either “direction” with cosmetics and vocal training is pretty difficult. Conversely, it’s certainly true that it’s a lot easier to build up someone’s apparent height or facial dimensions than it is to reduce them, again assuming agents aren’t actually receiving cosmetic surgery. But most transitions happen after skeletal differentiation in puberty has already slowed or stopped, so neither men or women get any benefit from that difference during transition. The effect ‘blfr alludes to probably has much more of an impact, although I don’t agree about the cause. We’re used to cultures where male is the prototype, and female is the marked gender. When those markings are ambiguous, the default assumption is male. My lived experience is that once you do mix-and-match enough markings to be seen as female, folks will eagerly accept that and ignore whatever “contradictory” signs might be there. Looking at height, for example, it’s not any weirder to see a 95th percentile woman than a 5th percentile man. If you already check the “F” box, no one will look twice. Lastly, if you’re still with me, maybe take this as a reason to reevaluate how confident you should be WRT who looks like what. If you spend any amount of time interacting with strangers in a US metropolitan area, it’s quite likely you’ve exchanged words with a woman you didn’t realize was trans. We’re really not that rare; we just don’t look like the people you see on TV.