Is being a trans woman (or just low-T) +20 IQ?

[[This didn't have to be so spicy!]]
***Warning**: This post might be depressing to read for everyone except trans women. Gender identity and suicide is discussed. This is all highly speculative. I know near-zero about biology, chemistry, or physiology. I do not recommend anyone take hormones to try to increase their intelligence; mood & identity are more important. I am myself a fairly high-T dude.*

Why are trans women so intellectually successful? They seem to be overrepresented 5-100x in eg cybersecurity twitter, mathy AI alignment, non-scam crypto twitter, math PhD programs, etc.

To explain this, let's first ask: Why aren't males way smarter than females on average? Males have [~13% higher cortical neuron density](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10073431/) and [11% heavier](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8072950/) brains (implying \(1.11^{2/3} - 1 = 7\%\) more area?). One might expect males to have mean IQ far above females then, but instead the means and medians are similar:


[Left](https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/developmenttalk/are-girls-smarter-boys). [Right](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289603000539).

My theory is that too much testosterone makes you dumber, particularly during adolescence. You need a little for your cells & organs to work, but past a certain point it does more harm than good (for intelligence specifically --- motivation & happiness etc aside). Apparently this is [not a new theory](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8603719/) and people have posited a [U-shaped curve](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11913330/) for how testosterone affects IQ. The key (sad) claim is that the vast majority of men are on the too-much-T side of the curve.

Maybe trans women get the best of both worlds intellectually --- a male skull with female chemistry.

How big is this effect? I will give anecdotal data. Of my six smartest male friends in high school, five had little-to-no interest in sex, and the sixth had an incredibly healthy body/metabolism (eg winning track & field). Three of them gender-transitioned since high school. I don't know the odds ratio but seems high. Consider also how few nerds have big muscles unless they do weightlifting or something. (Most moderately buff dudes do not have to try.) Apparently gifted schoolkids have low-T [in studies](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8603719/) as well.

Why is testosterone a [nootropic](https://www.reddit.com/r/Testosterone/comments/pgkdpg/has_trt_fixed_anyones_brain_fog_and_memory/) then? I think the main harms of it come during puberty and early adolescence, or occur over many years. Also note that post-menopausal women seem to [experience](https://old.reddit.com/r/Menopause/comments/yseway/does_hrt_really_help_brain_fog/) bigger benefits from taking estrogen & progestin.

Why didn't evolution give females big heads if it would make them all geniuses? Another anecdote. My sister has a big head. She was valedictorian in high school I think. She hit her head one day in middle school during gym class by running into a wall. She also fell off a bike and hit her head in high school. I have never hit my head and I think the main reason is that my arms are strong enough to catch myself. So maybe the big headed women would-be-ancestors fell and hit their heads.^[[1]](#fndtkrtr7kkvs)^

Why did evolution give most males so much testosterone instead of making low-T nerds? Obviously testosterone makes you horny and buff. But I think there is a second reason: you might kill yourself without it. Trans women have high suicide rates. Anecdotally, my smartest oldest brother had low sex-drive and small muscles and killed himself. Eliezer's brother killed himself [citation needed] and if he was like Eliezer then he probably had low-T. My low-T nerd friends seemed kinda suicidal sometimes.

Why don't cis women kill themselves then? Well they "attempt" it way more often but they somehow actually die 5x less often on net. Perhaps their testosterone/something-else is so low that they don't have the initiative/spontaneity/stupidity to actually do it. I think suicide is usually a very spur-of-the-moment thing and is misleadingly depicted as a never-ending battle situation in movies & books.

Do trans men get the worst of both worlds intellectually --- female skulls and male chemistry? Yes.


First example had birth defect. Second example is trans woman.

Does testosterone just make you more interested & able to pursue non-intellectual things rather than make you literally straightforwardly dumber? I don't think so. There's only so many hours per day you can spend having sex. And IQ scores seem to show that the T makes you straightforwardly dumber. Furthermore, inclination to use your thinking muscles can be more important than the strength of your thinking muscles.

What about all the smart buff cis dudes? Hormones & skull are not the only factors.

What about all the smart cis women? Hormones & skull are not the only factors.

Society

-------

*Wherein I use my flimsy explanation above to give even flimsier explanations of the world. **Confidence on each of these is like 40%**.*

Why is google so google? Like why is it so hard for anyone to like do anything there? Maybe by hiring exclusively by coding tests (low-T) they excluded most of the go-getters lets-do-an-actual-thing-right-nowers (high-T) and have no defense against middle management disease. (Seems the main contribution of the new guy on the Gemini team from Dwarkesh's [podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTuuTTnjxMQ) is to bring some high-T energy --- I doubt he is much smarter than the people already there. Sounds like he was hired via side-channels as well.)

Why is nobody in San Francisco pretty? Hormones make you pretty but dumb (pretty faces don't usually pay rent in SF). Why is nobody in Los Angeles smart? Hormones make you pretty but dumb. (Sincere apologies to all residents of SF & LA.)

Why is the San Francisco government broken? The big tech employees lack initiative to fix it (low-T). The startup folks would rather start a startup. And once you have some money you can move to a better neighborhood.

Why are the sluttiest people usually pretty? High hormones make you prettier and sluttier.

Why are really good tech founders so rare? You have to have very high power-seeking/initiative (T) and very high IQ. This is an incredibly rare combination because the testosterone murders your IQ. You have to be a genius before puberty hits. Helps if your brain/head is giant. Look at eg Elon Musk & Jeff Bezos.

Why are trans women dominating internet intellectualities but not the tech biz world? Not enough initiative / power-seeking. There are exceptions.

* * * * *

Why did I write this if I don't think everyone should go start taking testosterone blockers because of it? **If this explanation is correct and you invent a way to counteract the harm of testosterone on the brain then you could cheaply make ~all people a lot happier, hornier, hotter, more driven, and smarter without drawbacks.** I have no idea if separating testosterone's benefits from its drawbacks is possible at all. The effect sizes seem big though.

If that's too hard, I suspect that some simple electrical stimulation in the womb could make infant females' skulls bigger and result in lots of genius women. If they don't fall off their bikes and hit their heads.

**Edit April 26**:

-  Added "(or just low-T)" to title.

-  Thought of some more potential evidence. The smartest cis women I've known almost all had lack of butt (women's most visible muscle -- so low testosterone?)

-  Nobody in the comments has presented any first-hand counter-evidence. Do you know lots of smart people in your muscly men groups or lots of big-butted brilliant women? Have you been to a city where people are both smart and beautiful? Are you in the trans men's science league? Are you a high-T man who experienced zero brain damage during puberty? The opposite? Share!

-  Can anyone who knows a damn thing about the relevant chemistry/biology comment on the plausibility of magic upside-only synthetic testosterone? That's where all the positive sum of this game is.

 Later that day: i asked my sister. She said all her smart friends (men and women) lack butts too! She and I both have the butt, so we are speaking against our own kind here.

1. ^**[^](#fnrefdtkrtr7kkvs)**^

  Then why didn't evolution give women big muscles? I think because if you are in the same strength range as men then you are much more plausibly murderable. It is hard for a male to say that he killed a female in self-defense in unarmed combat. No reason historically to conscript women into battle. Their weakness protects them. (Maybe someone else has a better explanation.)