Talk is cheap, hormones ain't
Costly medical interventions convey more information about the gender of someone than cheap(er) talk
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(Sometimes) Costs Convey Information
There’s an old adage: actions speak louder than words. The idea is that actions are often more costly than words—they require more effort, entail more risk—and because of this, they often reveal more. Someone willing to bear the costs of doing something, rather than merely saying something, tells us more about who they are. For example, it’s easy to say you believe in a friend’s business plan. It’s much harder—and costlier—to invest a chunk of your savings in it. The latter is a stronger signal of belief precisely because of the cost. This article applies that adage—and the signaling theory behind it—to gender acceptance. First, a few everyday examples show how costly signals can say more than cheap talk.
Examples abound of how high-cost actions better convey information than low-cost gestures. Take proposals: traditionally, proposing marriage involves an expensive engagement ring. Astute observers might note that engagement rings are extravagant and impractical—less useful than a car or appliance, yet often more expensive. But that’s precisely the point. Imagine proposing with a five dollar ring. That signal wouldn’t be nearly as strong. Even someone not intending to commit might spend a few dollars to appear sincere. But someone would be far less likely to drop a large portion of their annual salary unless they genuinely meant it. That expense—precisely because it’s impractical—is a signal of serious intent.
College is another example. A bachelor’s degree typically takes four years and costs a great deal—tuition, living expenses, and, crucially, the opportunity cost of not working full-time for the duration. Often the subjects studied aren’t even relevant to future employers. Does your boss really care that you studied Shakespeare or metaphysics? Likely not. But impracticality is part of the point. A college degree signals intelligence, reliability, and a baseline willingness to comply—traits employers find useful. There’s behavioral evidence for this too:
Students are pleased when professors cancel class.
Many classes have little labor market relevance (e.g., Shakespeare).
Graduation year explains most of the wage premium.
High-quality education is freely available online (e.g., [free MIT courses]).
Failing a class is worse than forgetting the material.
Students prefer easy classes.
Undetected cheating is as good as real success.
These behaviors are puzzling—until you realize college isn’t mainly about knowledge transfer. Instead, it’s about sending a reliable signal. If college were cheap and easy, it wouldn’t mean much to graduate. The cost is part of the message.
So what’s the point? Sometimes, costs convey information that would otherwise be opaque. And this applies to gender acceptance, too: costlier medical interventions signal more than cheap talk.
The Varying Costs of Gender Acceptance
Let’s apply these ideas to gender acceptance: roughly, the extent to which others affirm someone’s gender identity. Consider a Ricky Gervais joke from one of his comedy specials:
In real life, of course I support trans rights. I support all human rights, and trans rights are human rights. Live your best life. Use your preferred pronouns. Be the gender that you feel that you are. But meet me halfway, ladies: Lose the c**k. That's all I'm saying.1
Controversial, sure. But let’s set that aside. What’s interesting is the underlying intuition: someone who incurs real costs—like surgery or hormone therapy—sends a more robust signal than someone who just says they identify differently. The idea isn’t that people should undergo these costs. Rather, it’s that costly signals often more reliably reflect sincerity.
Surgery and hormones, compared to verbal identification alone, impose greater burdens:
a. Physical and psychological transformation
b. Serious potential side effects or complications
c. Often irreversible or difficult to reverse
d. Out-of-pocket medical expenses
e. Social discrimination, stigma, or harassment
While simply identifying as another gender may involve (e), the other costs typically apply only to those undergoing medical transition. The point isn’t to deny that verbal identification can be costly—it can—but that medical interventions are, on average, more so.
This cost difference helps explain the intuition behind Gervais’s joke. And that intuition fits neatly with signaling theory, which we’ll now turn to.
Costly Signaling Theory
So why do costs matter? The short answer: they show someone is willing or able to bear the costs necessary to pursue a goal, express a value, or embody an identity. This is the key insight of costly signaling theory—developed independently in evolutionary biology and economics. It has four basic components:
The signaler has a trait that is hard to directly observe.
Others would benefit from accurate information about that trait.
The signal is costly in a way that benefits the signaler (if they’re the real deal).
The cost prevents deception by signaler.
Apply this to gender reassignment surgery. It’s expensive, time-consuming, and risky. It often comes with irreversible consequences. Undergoing it is a powerful signal: “This identity matters deeply to me.” That helps others—friends, family, strangers—respond more authentically. And for the individual transitioning, the reward is social support and affirmation, which matters a lot.
Now, some will protest: shouldn’t we just take people at their word? That would be nice. But we don’t live in that world. People often say things they don’t mean—sometimes intentionally, sometimes out of self-deception. Talk is cheap. We only have partial access to others’ minds—and even to our own. If we were fully transparent to ourselves, therapists would be out of a job.
We also tend to make bad predictions when there’s no cost to being wrong. Add a cost—like betting money—and people get a lot more accurate, and more selective about what they claim. Cost incentivizes caution, sincerity, and effort.
As a species, humans are highly social and cooperative. But since we can’t read minds, we need ways to reduce our uncertainty about others. That’s where signals—especially costly ones—come in. Someone willing to bear real costs to transition is sending a signal that’s hard to fake. It’s not a perfect signal—no signal is—but it informs nonetheless.
Someone might note: what if someone wants to transition but lacks the resources? That’s an important point. Signals aren’t perfect, just better than nothing. As economist Bryan Caplan explains:
Signaling models have three basic elements. First, there must be different types of people. Types could differ in intelligence, conscientiousness, conformity, whatever. Second, an individual’s type must be nonobvious. […] Third, types must visibly differ on average […]. A signal doesn’t have to be definitive, just better than nothing.2
People use costly signals all the time—college degrees, altruistic gestures—to convey hard-to-observe traits. Gender transitions are no exception. With that in mind, let’s return to where we started.
Circling Back to Gender Acceptance
Much of what drives signaling happens below the level of conscious awareness. Still, people who choose costlier interventions—when they can—may do so partly to send a stronger signal about who they are. And one reason for sending that signal is to secure social acceptance.
For those transitioning, being seen and respected for who they are can be deeply meaningful. Costly signals help make that possible. Just like in other domains, sometimes actions really do speak louder than words.
Endnotes
Ricky Gervais, Humanity (Netflix comedy special, 2017).
Bryan Caplan, The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money (Princeton University Press, 2018), 115.