Including Olivia, and Jessica, and I think Devi. Devi had a mental breakdown and detransitioned IIHC
Digging out this old account to point out that I have not in fact detransitioned, but find it understandable why those kinds of rumours would circulate given my behaviour during/around my experience of psychosis. I’ll try to explain some context for the record.
In other parts of the linked blogpost Ziz writes about how some people around the rationalist community were acting on or spreading variations of the meme “trans women are [psychologically] men”. I experienced this while dating AM (same as mentioned above). She repeatedly brought up this point in various interactions. Since we were both trans women this was hurting us both, so I look back with more pity than concern about malice. At some point during this time I started treating this as a hidden truth that I was proud of myself for being able to see, which I in retrospect I feel disgusted and complicit to have accepted. This was my state of mind when I discussed these issues with Zack reinforcing each others views. I believe (less certain) I also broached the topic with Michael and/or Anna at some point which probably went like a brief mutual acknowledgement of this hidden fact before continuing on to topics that were more important.
I don’t think anyone mentioned above was being dishonest about what they thought or was acting from a desire to hurt trans people. Yet, above exchanges did in retrospect cause me emotional pain, stress, and contributed to internalizing sexism and transphobia. I definitely wouldn’t describe this as a main causal factor to my psychosis (that was very casual drug use that even Michael chided me for). I cant’ think of a good policy that would have been helpful to me in above interactions. Maybe emphasizing bucket-errors in this context more, or spreading caution about generalizing from abstract models to yourself, but I think I would have been too rash to listen.
I wouldn’t say I completely moved past this until years following the events. I think the following things were helpful for that (in no particular order): the intersex brains model and associated brain imagining studies, everyday-acceptance while living a normal life not allowing myself concerns larger than renovations or retirement savings, getting to experience some parts of female socialization and mother-daughter bonding, full support from friends and family in cases my gender has come into question, and the acknowledgement of a medical system that still has some gate-keeping aspects (note: I don’t think this positive effect of a gate-keeping system at all justifies the negative of denying anyone morphological freedom).
Thinking back to these events, engaging with the LessWrong community, and even publicly engaging under my real name bring back fear and feelings of trauma. I’m not saying this to increase a sense of having been wronged but as an apology for this not being as long as it should be, or as well-written, and for the lateness/absence of any replies/followups.
Digging out this old account to point out that I have not in fact detransitioned, but find it understandable why those kinds of rumours would circulate given my behaviour during/around my experience of psychosis. I’ll try to explain some context for the record.
In other parts of the linked blogpost Ziz writes about how some people around the rationalist community were acting on or spreading variations of the meme “trans women are [psychologically] men”. I experienced this while dating AM (same as mentioned above). She repeatedly brought up this point in various interactions. Since we were both trans women this was hurting us both, so I look back with more pity than concern about malice. At some point during this time I started treating this as a hidden truth that I was proud of myself for being able to see, which I in retrospect I feel disgusted and complicit to have accepted. This was my state of mind when I discussed these issues with Zack reinforcing each others views. I believe (less certain) I also broached the topic with Michael and/or Anna at some point which probably went like a brief mutual acknowledgement of this hidden fact before continuing on to topics that were more important.
I don’t think anyone mentioned above was being dishonest about what they thought or was acting from a desire to hurt trans people. Yet, above exchanges did in retrospect cause me emotional pain, stress, and contributed to internalizing sexism and transphobia. I definitely wouldn’t describe this as a main causal factor to my psychosis (that was very casual drug use that even Michael chided me for). I cant’ think of a good policy that would have been helpful to me in above interactions. Maybe emphasizing bucket-errors in this context more, or spreading caution about generalizing from abstract models to yourself, but I think I would have been too rash to listen.
I wouldn’t say I completely moved past this until years following the events. I think the following things were helpful for that (in no particular order): the intersex brains model and associated brain imagining studies, everyday-acceptance while living a normal life not allowing myself concerns larger than renovations or retirement savings, getting to experience some parts of female socialization and mother-daughter bonding, full support from friends and family in cases my gender has come into question, and the acknowledgement of a medical system that still has some gate-keeping aspects (note: I don’t think this positive effect of a gate-keeping system at all justifies the negative of denying anyone morphological freedom).
Thinking back to these events, engaging with the LessWrong community, and even publicly engaging under my real name bring back fear and feelings of trauma. I’m not saying this to increase a sense of having been wronged but as an apology for this not being as long as it should be, or as well-written, and for the lateness/absence of any replies/followups.