Lia Thomas, the trans woman swimmer, and perceptual illusions
Perceptual (and cognitive) illusions plague us in all aspects of life.
On the one hand, we all know men are, on average, bigger than women.
BUT because of that predictable difference, we all adapt to that, and… we no longer perceive it.
For example, if you’re a woman who’s around, say, 5 foot 7, you seem to ME to be roughly my height, despite me being 6 foot 2. That is, you’re not tall, and not short. I just don’t perceive any siziness to you.
I have, by virtue of perceptual adaptation, gotten used to the average woman height in my life (relative to me), and no longer perceive you as tall (ahem, taller than normal) if you’re at that average.
And when I do rarely encounter a woman who is 6 foot, I could *swear* she’s taller than me, even though she is 2 inches shy of that.
When I meet a *man* who is 5 foot 7 — the height of a woman that seems neither short nor tall — HE seems… very… short.
Same in reverse for women. Most women don’t perceive me as a huge dude. They perceive me as slightly big.
Yet, I am positively HUGE compared to nearly every woman.
Because of these perceptual adaptation mechanisms, when we look at a crowd we cannot help but perceive their sizes in the context of their sex. Glaring differences in size are ignored when we perceive a sex difference that explains it.
But… things are totally different in images such as the one here where the trans swimmer, Lia Thomas, is perceived by you as a woman.
If you DO perceive Lia as a woman in this photo, then rather than the photo looking like a slightly larger than average guy with some women nearby, it instead looks like a freakishly giant person next to three other people.
His being treated as a woman by your brain short circuits those adaptation mechanisms, and you see — raw — the real size differences between men and women in your everyday life that are typically invisible.
This is really insightful, Mark. Now if only we could know what a woman is ...
Thanks for the insight! Now that you point that out, it seems very obvious A woman has to be around 5ft to look really short and a man over maybe 6’2 to look really tall. I’m 5’3 and I know I’m either short or short side of average, but my perceptions on height are the same as yours.