Trans nerd hormone culture.

In the college town that I now live in, I am always simply shocked at the number of (nerd-y) (autism-ish) (young) women who are obviously on "T" (testosterone), what with their baby down-ish facial scraggle and wearing low-cut tanks that flaunt the hair on their chest and back and upper arms and whatnot.

I mean, there's some men like that, too, dolling up and trying the woman-thing, but it's just staggering amounts of young women versus the young men doing it -- easily 30-40 who I've seen at the restaurant where I now work, or around town.

And, it's not even obvious to me how many of these are (lesbians) who try to "flip onto the other side" for social transition so they can love women and look like a (straight) couple, versus just random-ass (nerds) who got turned on to hormones.

From everything I've gathered, you really have tended to have 2 historic populations with biological inputs who start moving in this direction:

1) Men and women with measurable same-sex arousal patterns, who for whatever reason want to try to start patterning as the opposite sex (usually to "fit in" better); and

2) The whole "trans lesbian" population where it's basically the most major instantiation of this auto-erotic target location error, where men want to look like what they love (women).

And, just like you can shoehorn any sort of biological inputs into different and new and shifting cultural categories, the whole hormones + "I've always been a man"/"I've always been a woman"  narrative thing is a new very culturally-specific thing that people can read their inchoate impulses into (here, a counterpoint would be Brazilian travestis, who can imitate women in dress and use cross-sex hormones, but don't have the overlay narrative about being natural women and being born into the wrong body etc.).

Anyhow, from things I've come across and what I see with these women around town, however, I think basically it's people -- mostly women -- with neuro-divergence who feel like they don't fit their assigned sex-category, and then read their discomfort as meaning that they must be the opposite sex.

Then, to the extent that they don't fit in, it's no longer a matter of something being wrong with them, but rather with the way that society treats trans people, and they can project what was their personal failure into something wrong with the world, and re-cast themselves as a beleaguered heroes fighting against injustice and hate.

In comparison, they could be part of any number of movements -- feminist movements enlarging the idea of what women are and can be, fat-positive movements that resist body shaming, Goth movements where you get piercings and wear black and where people love each other more than in other subcultures -- but, no, they use cross-sex hormones and read themselves into this whole other thing.

And, somehow, although this might change with younger generations, these current cohorts are going to be around with us for a very long time...  I really do wonder how vocal and present they'll be, and how long they'll be in gay spaces.

I also wonder if/when and to what extent they'll start to develop serious health problems, from all the hormones.