I recently wrote a blog post with a model of how people end up becoming trans, and in response I received an email asking about the foundation of the common “gender dysphoria” variable that all the different causes contributed to. I thought I would write a blog post about what the meaning of this is:

In economics, the simplest model we use to understand people’s behavior is the utility-maximization model. Under this model, people have a set of preferences, which is defined by their utility function, which assigns outcomes a number that represents the desirability of said outcomes. When people have a choice, they are then assumed to pick the option which leads to the highest expected utility.

We can apply this model to transgender topics. The core defining property of transgender people is that they transition, and ultimately transition is a decision to be made. If we apply the economic model, then we get the conclusion that people become trans when utility(transition) > utility(staying cis).

These utility functions are relatively complicated objects, especially because for our purposes, they represent expected utility, which means that they also include an element of belief about what is going to happen in each situation, and not just what is actually going to happen. Thus, utility(transition) is likely going to contain terms related to autogynephilia and passability, but also things related to whether one believes that transition is a good option for trans people in general. They also don’t just include one’s own psychological traits; for instance, utility(staying cis) might be higher if one has a successful established life (significant other, job, …) as one’s natal sex.

Thus, we might imagine that we can approximate utility(transition) = autogynephilia + passability + femininity – transphobic environment + …, and that one can approximate utility(staying cis) = masculinity + relationships + attractiveness as natal sex + …; with the different factors influencing one’s decision being included in the model.

The specifics of how these preferences work (e.g. whether they are based in pain or yearning, etc.) don’t matter from an economic point of view. There is perhaps a sense in which one can say that utility(trans) is likely to represent “positive emotions” related to transition, while utility(cis) is likely to represent “negative feelings” about being one’s assigned sex, but ultimately they’re treated symmetrically, and so the distinction is not very important. This may make it seem like the economic understanding is missing critical information, but depending on the purpose, this may be perfectly acceptable.

In the liability-threshold model used in behavioral genetics as well as other fields, it is assumed that for some binary condition (such as being trans), there exists a latent “liability” to develop this condition, such that when the liability exceeds some threshold, then one ends up with the condition. However, notice what happens when we combine this with the economic model above: utility(trans) > utility(cis), which is the condition for ending up trans, is equivalent to 0 < utility(trans) – utility(cis). This gives us a rather complicated variable, utility(trans) – utility(cis), which leads to transsexuality when it exceeds a certain threshold – exactly what the liability-threshold model needs! So, we can define liability(trans) = utility(trans) – utility(cis). In reality, this is going to be a bit more complex than what I’ve described above, as there may be nonlinearities, change across time, irrationality, etc., but it’s a good starting point.

Another thing to notice is that this notion of liability(trans) is very close to how gender dysphoria can end up defined in clinical settings. For instance, in the factor analysis of the GIDYQ-AA, items related to intention to transition, such as wanting HRT or SRS, have incredibly high factor loadings at around 0.95. From a psychological standpoint, it might be reasonable to try to figure out some narrower sense, which can apply to someone who decides not to transition despite discomfort, and which might not apply to someone who wants to transition while having relatively little discomfort, but there’s also a real sense in which the decision-oriented approach makes sense.