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Wh...a. Transitioning fixed your social cue perception?! That is incredibly fascinating. I'm not even sure how to classify that... pragmatic psychological func

Wh...a. Transitioning fixed your social cue perception?! That is incredibly fascinating. I'm not even sure how to classify that... pragmatic psychological function (oookay that's probably not a thing), neurobiology, or what else. IMO this is a gigantic breadcrumb for Something™. The question is what the axis point was, and what got fixed as a result. Cooool. I am very curious what else shifted that you'd be happy to share.

Aloha 6y ago
Not the poster, but I too am curious about their thoughts, however I have some of my own. Men and Women experience socialization in fundamentally different ways, because of this I suspect the changing hormonal balance reawakens pathways not used normally, basically. In addition, you basically have a chance while transitioning to relearn socialization from scratch basically, with those new pathways awakened.
- exikyut 6y ago
  Hm, that honestly sounds about 90% of the way to a reasonable explanation. In my own experience I've found as that as a majority of my own marbles have figured out "OH, that's which way is up", my own pragmatic learning capacity has transformed from "transmutation ray that turns everything into indecipherable, unmovable rubble" and... what almost feels like a happy grid of FPGAs that bustle about classifying and organizing without me really having to make much effort. After leaving ideas and subjects for long enough (10+ years in some cases) that old broken memories/associations have just about completely died out, yeah, I definitely can look at things with new eyes. Discovering that HRT can trigger or you might even say accelerate this process is very fascinating, because it sort of maybe points in the direction of the root causes that break everything in the first place.
chousuke 6y ago
Intuitively, it makes sense for something like this to be possible, though I wonder what the trigger is. Drastic change in hormonal balance caused by the transitioning process activating / connecting parts of the brain that were "malfunctioning" previously? Or "just" a result of increased happiness stemming from having dealt with a large problem?Sounds hideously difficult to replicate.
- exikyut 6y ago
  Oh yeah... the dismorphia effect and similar anxieties. Of course. Never experienced any of it myself, didn't realize how big of a potential factor it could be until reading your comment. I was mostly considering the fact that the female hormone, uh, configuration is naturally pro-social, and that dumping that set of hormone balances on the brain promptly elicits the associated responses - ie, that the response (or rather the tendency for those responses to function properly) becomes a partial function of hormone state. But those sort of general factors (including elevated mood) would definitely be a part of the end result.
  - chousuke 6y ago
    I'm wary of making assumptions about "natural" differences between males and females, since it's easy to confuse them with cultural stereotypes, ie. what you've learned to think of as "normal" vs. what actually is "normal". It may well be be that some component that's typically more prevalent in females plays a key role in the development of prosocial tendencies. If such a component were identified, it would be interesting to study its involvement in the development of both males and females.
novok 6y ago
Autistic MtF programmers is something that happens enough to be a trope, joke or meme.
- orthoxerox 6y ago
  This usually doesn't fix their issues beyond dysphoria, though.
  - novok 6y ago
    Somewhere in the comments here, one of them said "estrogen fixed my social autism". That is really surprising.
- dgellow 6y ago
  What is an MtF programmer? I read it as Microsoft programmer but that doesn't really make that much sense in the context.
  - cpach 6y ago
    MtF = Male to Female
- roflc0ptic 6y ago
  No citation in this, but being trans correlates with being autistic
  - owl57 6y ago
    Would seem logical. I was alien enough to boys to land at the "girls table" in school canteen when I was 11. Pieces of experience like this could probably help to start considering the possibility.
    - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
      This is an extremely dangerous and absolutely insane line of reasoning that is causing incredible harm to young people. You don’t have gender dysphoria because you hung out with girls as an 11 year old.
sterlind 6y ago
I have no idea why it happened, I'm just so grateful it did. It was like suddenly seeing color for the first time. When I looked at someone, I could read their intentions and actually feel their feelings. I wasn't a sociopath before or anything, but I couldn't feel empathy. This definitely does not happen to every aspie trans woman, but I've heard of it happening to one or two others. I was worried about losing my intelligence, since I attributed a lot of that to ASD, but actually all my major breakthroughs came after transitioning. My first algorithm that got me noticed was like, 6 months in. The only real downside was that switching to estrogen unmasked my Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and I've become physically disabled. I'm still able to work and think and feel so it's a good trade for me!
- Aloha 6y ago
  The only thing ASD gives me is a measure of clarity - because all of the hidden rules of society are not hidden to me, they're things I need to learn with intent, it gives me a measure of clarity into which rules are required, and which ones are not, when they can be broken and when they can't be. I'm not gonna say I'd like to be normal, because I have no real construct of what normal would be like - but ASD also gives me one more insight, normality is an illusion foisted on people by society - all humans are some measure of weird, its just a question of how much, and in what way. Ehlers-Danlos may have shown up anyhow, so that doesnt strike me as a downside even, if that makes sense, if anything you got a benefit by finding it sooner.
  - restalis 6y ago
    "all humans are some measure of weird, its just a question of how much, and in what way" This is true. However, from a similar (mild form, partially dealt with) ASD observer point of view, I also noticed that the said peculiarities in one's character are like food ingredients. It's about the way one manages to blend them in a recipe and to cook them into something tasteful (for others) that makes or breaks the social connections. Having ASD is like having no smell or taste of your own and you have to rely on the observed reactions in others for measurements. Obviously, it's a challenge to be a cook in such circumstance and the best strategy (if you care) then probably is just to assume damage and operate in damage control mode all the time.

Aloha 6y ago

Not the poster, but I too am curious about their thoughts, however I have some of my own. Men and Women experience socialization in fundamentally different ways, because of this I suspect the changing hormonal balance reawakens pathways not used normally, basically. In addition, you basically have a chance while transitioning to relearn socialization from scratch basically, with those new pathways awakened.

exikyut 6y ago
Hm, that honestly sounds about 90% of the way to a reasonable explanation. In my own experience I've found as that as a majority of my own marbles have figured out "OH, that's which way is up", my own pragmatic learning capacity has transformed from "transmutation ray that turns everything into indecipherable, unmovable rubble" and... what almost feels like a happy grid of FPGAs that bustle about classifying and organizing without me really having to make much effort. After leaving ideas and subjects for long enough (10+ years in some cases) that old broken memories/associations have just about completely died out, yeah, I definitely can look at things with new eyes. Discovering that HRT can trigger or you might even say accelerate this process is very fascinating, because it sort of maybe points in the direction of the root causes that break everything in the first place.

chousuke 6y ago

Intuitively, it makes sense for something like this to be possible, though I wonder what the trigger is. Drastic change in hormonal balance caused by the transitioning process activating / connecting parts of the brain that were "malfunctioning" previously? Or "just" a result of increased happiness stemming from having dealt with a large problem?Sounds hideously difficult to replicate.

exikyut 6y ago
Oh yeah... the dismorphia effect and similar anxieties. Of course. Never experienced any of it myself, didn't realize how big of a potential factor it could be until reading your comment. I was mostly considering the fact that the female hormone, uh, configuration is naturally pro-social, and that dumping that set of hormone balances on the brain promptly elicits the associated responses - ie, that the response (or rather the tendency for those responses to function properly) becomes a partial function of hormone state. But those sort of general factors (including elevated mood) would definitely be a part of the end result.
- chousuke 6y ago
  I'm wary of making assumptions about "natural" differences between males and females, since it's easy to confuse them with cultural stereotypes, ie. what you've learned to think of as "normal" vs. what actually is "normal". It may well be be that some component that's typically more prevalent in females plays a key role in the development of prosocial tendencies. If such a component were identified, it would be interesting to study its involvement in the development of both males and females.

novok 6y ago

Autistic MtF programmers is something that happens enough to be a trope, joke or meme.

orthoxerox 6y ago
This usually doesn't fix their issues beyond dysphoria, though.
- novok 6y ago
  Somewhere in the comments here, one of them said "estrogen fixed my social autism". That is really surprising.
dgellow 6y ago
What is an MtF programmer? I read it as Microsoft programmer but that doesn't really make that much sense in the context.
- cpach 6y ago
  MtF = Male to Female
roflc0ptic 6y ago
No citation in this, but being trans correlates with being autistic
- owl57 6y ago
  Would seem logical. I was alien enough to boys to land at the "girls table" in school canteen when I was 11. Pieces of experience like this could probably help to start considering the possibility.
  - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
    This is an extremely dangerous and absolutely insane line of reasoning that is causing incredible harm to young people. You don’t have gender dysphoria because you hung out with girls as an 11 year old.

sterlind 6y ago

I have no idea why it happened, I'm just so grateful it did. It was like suddenly seeing color for the first time. When I looked at someone, I could read their intentions and actually feel their feelings. I wasn't a sociopath before or anything, but I couldn't feel empathy. This definitely does not happen to every aspie trans woman, but I've heard of it happening to one or two others. I was worried about losing my intelligence, since I attributed a lot of that to ASD, but actually all my major breakthroughs came after transitioning. My first algorithm that got me noticed was like, 6 months in. The only real downside was that switching to estrogen unmasked my Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and I've become physically disabled. I'm still able to work and think and feel so it's a good trade for me!

Aloha 6y ago
The only thing ASD gives me is a measure of clarity - because all of the hidden rules of society are not hidden to me, they're things I need to learn with intent, it gives me a measure of clarity into which rules are required, and which ones are not, when they can be broken and when they can't be. I'm not gonna say I'd like to be normal, because I have no real construct of what normal would be like - but ASD also gives me one more insight, normality is an illusion foisted on people by society - all humans are some measure of weird, its just a question of how much, and in what way. Ehlers-Danlos may have shown up anyhow, so that doesnt strike me as a downside even, if that makes sense, if anything you got a benefit by finding it sooner.
- restalis 6y ago
  "all humans are some measure of weird, its just a question of how much, and in what way" This is true. However, from a similar (mild form, partially dealt with) ASD observer point of view, I also noticed that the said peculiarities in one's character are like food ingredients. It's about the way one manages to blend them in a recipe and to cook them into something tasteful (for others) that makes or breaks the social connections. Having ASD is like having no smell or taste of your own and you have to rely on the observed reactions in others for measurements. Obviously, it's a challenge to be a cook in such circumstance and the best strategy (if you care) then probably is just to assume damage and operate in damage control mode all the time.