This is inspiring

Thanks for posting. I would not have seen this otherwise.

I like the rough thoughts way though. I'm not here to like read a textbook.

This seems correct and important to me.

Then where are the smart trans men hiding?

There are plenty of stupid and/or distracting behaviors testosterone can push you for without any kind of "chemical brain damage", not only sex. Testosterone is likely to make you seek social status and status-seeking is notoriously incompatible with intellectual pursuits.

This is the strongest alternative explanation by far. I wonder what to look for to check this...

Yes my point is the low T did it before the transition

Did any of them have big muscles before the transition?

seems in tension with your smarter friends transitioning after high school.

They seemed low-T during high school though!

Yeah could be a third factor though. Maybe you are right.

Someone on a subreddit said "free testosterone" is what matters and they usually just measure uh "regular testosterone" in blood or something. I have no idea if that's true. Know what those studies measured?

Wildly guessing here, but my intuition is that estrogen would have a greater impact on neuroticism than testosterone. Although I can't even say which direction.

Like what exactly? That seems unlikely to me. I suppose we will have results from the ongoing gender transitions soon.