In Defense of Transmaxxing

An unexpected way for incels to disgorge the black pill

“Drag racing through the canyon, singing ‘Boys Don’t Cry’

Do you see us getting scrapped up off the pavement?

I don’t know why I am the way I am

Not strong enough to be your man

I lied, I am just lowering your expectations”

boygenius - Not Strong Enough

Transgender people are politically controversial in 2025, particularly in the United States where I live¹. We are a major culture war topic with wedge issues like trans women in women’s sports and children transitioning being used to drive swing voters away from the Democratic party and towards the Republicans. If I get off my lazy ass and get typing, I hope to offer some perspective on some of these issues. Today, however, I’m going to go in a different direction. I’m going to talk about transmaxxing.

Transmaxxing is when a male-sexed person² who does not believe himself to be transgender undergoes a feminizing (male-to-female/MtF) transition in order to gain perceived advantages from living life as a woman, especially in sex and relationships.³ While transmaxxing appears to have started in the mid to late 2010s, it’s gained popularity and notoriety in recent years as trans people have simultaneously become more common, more accepted, and more controversial. Transmaxxers are gawked at in tabloids. They disgust conservatives. Pro-LQBTQ groups generally don't like transmaxxing. It’s even reached mainstream media outlets. Coverage is almost universally negative. However, I’m mildly supportive of transmaxxing. I find in it a powerful message of hope targeted at a community so self-loathing and depressed that they gave us the term “black pill.” That’s right, I’m talking about incels.

Transmaxxing is an answer to the incel worldview

IMO the most important thing to understand about transmaxxing is that it is done by incels and its messaging is intended to reach them. The most prominent piece of transmaxxing literature⁴, the Transmaxxing Manifesto⁵ (an interesting read replete with scientific data, but also quite NSFW), contains classic incel thinking:

Let's face it, if you present as male, there's exactly one personality that will earn you social approval: Chad. Assertive, dominant, successful. Nobody will be impressed by a male that is meek, submissive and struggling. Such males are not considered gender trailblazers; they're just derided as incel NEETs. Nobody is offering an actual solution to this. Tradcons tell you to just man up. TERFs tell you to just abolish gender. Liberals deny this reality altogether. By embracing girlmode, you actually become free to be your authentic self without shame. Society at large requires men to keep grinding and struggling to keep the lights on, so obviously no serious and respectable person will encourage you to just drop down the pink vortex, but it's possibly the only thing that will actually help you if you're stuck being a shitty male with no prospects.

This is the standard incel worldview: men’s prospects (especially sexual) are highly dependent on their ability to be Chad (tall, strong-jawed, attractive, confident, outgoing and manly). Men who can’t be Chad due to height, facial structure, voice, personality, mental illness or autism-spectrum disorder will find happiness impossible. A key part of the incel worldview is that incels can do nothing to solve this problem.⁶ This belief creates despair and through this despair, we see incels get depressed, commit suicide, and sometimes even engage in terrorism. I don’t think this is good! As someone born a man who chose to transition and live life as a woman, I’m the wrong person to talk about men’s struggles, but I’m gonna try anyway.⁷ Being a man is really hard and it really sucks sometimes. I was told to be tough as a kid and I couldn’t do it. I was supposed to be strong, stoic, confident and hard-working and I failed at all of it. I never had a girlfriend growing up. I never got that awesome, high-paying job that could provide for a family. I feel like I was supposed to be Chad too and I couldn’t pull it off any better than the incels could. I think I understand how they feel and I don’t think I’m all that different from them. I wholeheartedly support ways to lead people out of the dark spaces in their mind. This is difficult, however. The incel worldview can be totalizing, it resists attempts to challenge it and it becomes difficult to break free from. It declares a large swath of men to be doomed, forever alone and unhappy. While this strong black-pill doomerism sounds strange to people not used to incel spaces, the ridicule and scorn incels receive from the outside world makes them insular and even less likely to take outside advice that may improve their lives such as mental healthcare or personal improvement. As someone sympathetic to the plight of incels, I want to see them find a way to help themselves. Transmaxxing does that.

Transmaxxing offers a way out of inceldom

If you can’t be a Chad, be a Stacy!

Incels associate being a man with struggle and suffering. They associate being a woman with an easy life and constant sex. Their worldview is pretty warped and ignores difficulties women face, but it’s not as crazy as many seem to think. The term “incel” is short for “involuntarily celibate” and their worldview focuses a lot on sex so I think it’s safe to assume most of them would benefit from getting laid. It is well-known that women have a much easy time on dating sites then men. Being trans icks out a lot of potential partners and usually subtracts a few points from a person’s overall attractiveness, but there are plenty of people (both men and women!) who are perfectly happy to bang a trans girl. The Transmaxxing Manifesto contains several testimonials of transmaxxers whose sex life improved after transitioning.⁸ While the idea of transitioning to get laid feels very strange to most people, I think it fits well within incel ideological frameworks.

I suspect most transmaxxers are actually just trans women

The most common criticism I see of transmaxxers is that they aren’t actually trans. This can be used against trans people by suggesting that maybe all trans people are faking, not just transmaxxers. It can also be used by trans activists who say transmaxxers bring really bad publicity and attention with their blatantly stated self-interested reasons for transition.. It can also be used in a more moderate way by Jesse Singal types who are concerned about transgender ideology⁹ spreading to cisgender people, causing them to transition and later regret it and detransition. Transmaxxers’ sexual reasons for transitioning also worry people concerned about men in women’s spaces and its potential for abuse by malicious men. None of these concerns are crazy,¹⁰ but they are moot¹¹ if transmaxxers are just trans women with an unusual justification for their reason to transition.

Notably, transmaxxers seem to lose their incel beliefs over time. While incels justify their worldview through rationality and evidence¹², I think a lot of it stems from a more emotional space (I think this is true about many beliefs). Incels’ resentment at their unhappiness and sexual frustration is reflected in their misogynistic beliefs. If those negative feelings can be lifted, the harmful beliefs they promote are much easier to shed. Transitioning may be an extreme response to the suffering incels face, but sometimes it’s easier to change biology than change society.

A testimonial in the Transmaxxing Manifesto from a former incel

What happens to transmaxxers long-term? I’m not aware of any academic studies of incels who transition and many former transmaxxers don’t talk about their incel pasts so good information is difficult to come by. Still there’s evidence that transitioning improves quality of life. Perhaps things go differently for transmaxxers, but I believe they assimilate in the broader trans community over time. Even if they don’t actually believe themselves to be trans, it’s pretty difficult to live one’s life with the cognitive dissonance of seeing oneself as a man pretending to be a woman for sex. It’s an awkward space to be in and I suspect that self-perception is unstable.

I suspect most transmaxxers stop calling themselves transmaxxers within a few years of transitioning. I’m not aware of any transitioners who call themselves transmaxxers years later (although I haven’t researched this closely). A key part of being a transmaxxer is to not believe oneself to be genuinely trans and there are a few things that make that difficult over time. If a transmaxxer’s transition goes poorly, they will detransition and no longer be a transmaxxer (notably, I’ve never read a testimonial from a transmaxxer who detransitioned). If their transition goes well, they will adapt to their new life as a woman. If they find themselves happier as a women, particularly in self-perception and self-worth, the idea that they are only transitioning for sexual, social, and economic benefits becomes less plausible the longer they stay trans. While I’m not a transmaxxer and never considered myself one, I never had a moment in my transition where the uncertainty and doubt over my gender identity disappeared. They just decreased slowly over time and next thing I knew, two years had passed and I realized I was probably trans after all. I suspect many transmaxxers experience something similar where they slowly settle into their new life as a woman. Deep down, I see transmaxxing as a way for eggs¹³ to transition, make their lives better, and come to understand themselves as the trans women they probably always were.

Transmaxxing is a bridge, not a goal

“I love him whose soul is deep even in the wounding, and may succumb through a small matter: thus goes he willingly over the bridge.”

- Friedrich Nietzsche from Thus Spoke Zarathrustra

No matter how much I try to be empathetic and explain where transmaxxing comes from, it’s still a pretty weird idea that many people find revolting. I get where this disgust comes from. If you support trans rights, you’re likely horrified that transmaxxers embody the “man in a dress” stereotype that transphobic people are obsessed with. If you oppose trans rights, you’re probably hate how transmaxxers exemplify the worst traits seen in trans people. If you aren’t particularly interested in transgender culture wars, you still probably think that taking one’s sexual frustration and self-hatred and using them as an excuse to transition is bonkers. I understand each of these views. Most people, cis or trans, see transgender as an adjective or a noun. That is, they see it as something that someone is. I think about it a little differently. I think being transgender is more a verb. I think being trans is more about transitioning and living one’s life as their preferred gender. A lot of people are really obsessed with the question of who is Actually Trans, but I don’t subscribe to that ontology. I don’t think there’s a true gender identity we all have deep down in our heart of hearts. I’m also not gender critical. I believe that gender and gender identity are real and matter. I see myself as transgender, but not because of brain anatomy, hormone exposure in utero, daddy/mommy issues, sexual frustration, or delusional thinking.¹⁴ I think I’m transgender because I transitioned, liked it, and assimilated into society as a woman. My life is far from perfect and I still struggle with my mental health issues. Still, I think I made the right decision seven years ago when I changed my name, my voice, my hormonal balance, and the way I interact with the world. I’m not an SJW like a lot of trans people (you probably figured that out by now lol), but I do believe that transitioning helps a lot of people and we should allow it and help those considering it. I agree with the gender critical take that some people have been pressured into transitioning by their social circle and that gender ideology has been pushed too far. However, I still support trans rights and want to see them protected.

As for transmaxxers, I’m really not all that concerned with how they see their gender identity. I think that’s far less important than helping incels in their first steps to fix the parts of themselves they don’t like. I know incels are an almost universally hated demographic and I know they’re often not very sympathetic. Still, I see part of myself in them and I know how they’re hurting. I don’t know if any incels considering transmaxxing will ever read this post, but on the off-chance that they do: you have my support whether you transition or not. Don’t let other people’s ideas of gender and their definitions of transgender or transmaxxing stop you. Do what will make you feel better, whether that’s transitioning or not. You deserve it.

Transgender girlboss aethestics

A series on contrarian trans takes?

This is my first post on Substack after over a year of spinning post ideas around in my head. I think I know what I want to talk about now. In 2025 and the years prior, we’ve seen a decrease in sanity in trans politics as we’ve become a culture war issue. I want to offer a different way of thinking about gender, gender identity, and transgender people. I don’t want to be a partisan hack or dunk on The Other Side. I want to free trans people from oppression and from dead-end SJW politics. I think in our high-intensity, always online, short attention span, politically polarized world, we’ve lost the object we’re looking for and I want to help find it. Thanks for reading. Subscribe to get my next post in your inbox! I have a day job and don’t expect to post frequently so I have no plans to monetize this Substack or paywall anything. Take care of yourselves! :)

1. It is relevant to mention that I am a transgender woman who does not subscribe to the views of transmaxxers, nor did I when I transitioned back in 2018.

2. AMAB (assigned male at birth) for those more familiar with transgender terminology.

3. Transmaxxing only includes feminizing transitions. The Transmaxxing Manifesto actually argues that feminizing transitions are more efficacious than masculinizing (female-to-male or FtM) transitions and discourages going FtM.

4. lol

5. The Transmaxxing Manifesto is the source for much of the quotes and links in this article. Despite its central idea that incels should transition to live easier lives as women is strange to most people, the Manifesto itself is very well researched and sourced. Vintologi, if you’re reading this, I’m not dunking on your work. I think it’s good and it’s helped a lot of incels find hope. Honestly, reading it has helped me too. I know you haven’t transitioned yourself and that’s OK, but I hope you can find happiness in your own way. <3

6. Many commenters more eloquent than I have criticized the incel worldview so I will not do so here. My goal in this post is to understand transmaxxers on their own terms. For my favorite analysis of incels: see Contrapoints’ video on them

7. See The Gray Area’s episode Are Men Okay? for my favorite discussion of men’s difficulties

8. I’m tempted to include one to show how they see things, but I’m trying to keep this post SFW and these testimonials… are definitely not.

9. While this term is a pejorative, I think there is a pretty clear, defined worldview held by trans people regarding our perceptions of gender. Long-term, I’d like to talk about what this worldview actually is.

10. Except the idea that trans people don’t exist which isn’t supported by historical and anthropological evidence and another topic I hope to write more on later.

11. A pun for those familiar with 4chan, where many incels reside. ;)

12. Much of these justifications stretch logic and are simply catastrophizing, but I feel formal rational arguments are generally an ineffective way to challenge harmful beliefs. IMO it’s better to go after the feelings and emotions that drive the motivated reasoning that creates harmful beliefs.

13. The trans community’s term for trans people who don’t yet realize that they are trans. When a trans person finally realizes that they are trans, their egg has cracked.

14. Various explanations I’ve heard for why trans people exist