Rex Kerr
2 min readDec 2, 2022

--

There is a really serious problem with trying to figure out the rates of a very rare mental condition with extreme social stigma associated with it. That is: you can't observe mental states from the outside, and people usually won't tell you something that will lead to them being ostracized.

So you should always take these numbers with a grain of salt. An enormous grain, like, we might be wrong by orders of magnitude.

Furthermore, since we don't really understand what causes gender dysphoria to begin with, we have to account for the possibility that rates are changing.

And with many things, there is no sharp dividing line. So depending on just how dire the dysphoria is, we might come up with dramatically different numbers.

The Netherlands handles gender identity better than anywhere, or at least has over roughly 40 years until 2015. The evidence that they handle it better than anywhere is that outcomes of people undergoing treatment stay stable over time--very low regrets, very similar levels of progression through different forms of treatment (see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29463477/). This is only possible if they really understand the underlying psychological issues well enough to properly distinguish fads and whims from deep-seated conditions.

Their numbers as of 2015, where social stigma is considerably reduced compared to 1975, show rates of 0.026% and 0.019% for AMAB and AFAB respectively, well over the numbers you cite.

So I think you should update your numbers, especially since the Wikipedia link you give doesn't actually give a clear figure.

(Also, there are possibilities beyond XX and XY. I'm not sure why you say there aren't--are you just trying to discredit yourself? Though rare, and though the sex determination pathway often reads the unusual chromosomal set off as male or female since the key factor, in the absence of other genetic abnormalities, is the SRY, others are certainly not unknown, and if you add up the prevalence of all of them together, you exceed 0.1%. So maybe it's a good idea to be a bit more precise here?)

--

--

Rex Kerr
Rex Kerr

Written by Rex Kerr

One who rejoices when everything is made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Sayer of things that may be wrong, but not so bad that they're not even wrong.

No responses yet