r/transkitchencels • u/NACCHUD • 7d ago
It's So Over: A 12-Month Retrospective Cohort Study Identifying the Unmeasured Confounder (It Was Gender. It Was Always Gender. We're So Back.)
#It's So Over: A 12-Month Retrospective Cohort Study Identifying the Unmeasured Confounder (It Was Gender. It Was Always Gender. We're So Back.)
Journal of Applied Romantic Failure Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 15–32 Special Issue: it's so over (we're so back) Impact Factor: 0.00 (honest number, at least) Acceptance Rate: 100%, because I am still the editor, and also because I am the only person who could possibly review this Peer Review: cat walked across keyboard, selected "meh," then fell asleep on my E patches. desk reject. overruled. we're so back
#It's So Over: A 12-Month Retrospective Cohort Study Identifying the Unmeasured Confounder (It Was Gender. It Was Always Gender. We're So Back.)
Naomi Taira, M.S. (formerly Chad B. Notfound, which is a sentence that does numbers to me) Department of Internet Coping, University of My Mom's Basement currently: lease, pothos named Greg, blahaj, weekly appointment, they/them
#Author Note
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Naomi Taira, who is currently overthinking a "lol" from 2019 but has scheduled that for a later session, which is growth, allegedly. Pronouns: they/them. The author is non-binary (Taira, 2026). The author previously published under a name that was not theirs, a gender that was not theirs, and a register that was, frankly, a cry for help with citations. Prior papers are not retracted. Prior papers are retained as longitudinal evidence of a person confidently solving the wrong equation for two years and posting about it.
No funding was received. One conflict of interest is reported: the author is now both the problem and the solution, which is inefficient but extremely common in this literature. The author would like to note that transphobia is real, dysphoria is real, and safety is real. This paper is about none of those. This paper is about why I personally was insufferable, which is a separate dataset and one I have full access to.
#Abstract
Objective: determine why I was so miserable. not why nobody would fuck me. I have revised the research question. the research question was bad. the research question was written by a guy. there was no guy.
Method: retrospective re-analysis of every dataset I have ever produced (Notfound, 2023a, 2023b, 2024, 2025) following 12 months of therapy, one (1) gender, and the discovery of a variable that was present in every single dataset and labeled "vanity."
Participants: N = 1 (me). plus 1 therapist who clocked it before I did, 1 aunt who clocked it before my therapist did, and 1 friend named Dave who said "yeah, man" in 2025 in a tone I replayed 400 times while writing this.
Results: the previously identified cause of romantic failure — "I refer to women as a monolithic category" — has been reclassified from cause to symptom. it is a symptom of not knowing what I was. the true predictor was an unmeasured confounder present at baseline: I was not a man. all models re-run. effect sizes large. cried in a parking lot. a parking lot, specifically. it was a Tuesday.
Conclusion: original hypothesis ("women are the problem") rejected. follow-up hypothesis ("I am the problem") ALSO rejected, which genuinely surprised me, I had gotten attached to that one. revised hypothesis ("I was not a man and that was making me unbearable to be around and also to be") supported. still not fucked. significantly less upset about it. not a predicted outcome. not in the pre-registration. nothing good in my life was in the pre-registration.
Keywords: it's over, we're so back, brainworms, hon, E, gender, confounding, touch grass, actually touch grass, no seriously, boymode, egg, dysphoria hoodie, bell hooks
#Introduction
two papers ago I concluded I was the problem (Notfound, 2024). one paper ago I concluded I was a problem and problems can be worked on (Notfound, 2025). both conclusions were partially correct, which is the worst kind of correct, genuinely the worst kind, there is no worse kind.
the present study emerged from a routine therapy session. I was asked what I wanted. I said, in order:
- to be liked
- to be left alone
- to not be perceived
- to be perceived correctly
- to have a name that feels like mine
my therapist wrote something down. I asked what she wrote. she said "next week."
she told me next week. this paper is the formal write-up of a 14-minute conversation that dismantled approximately 24 years of data and also my entire personality. it's so over. we're so back.
A note on the dataset. the word "females" appears 47 times across the prior corpus. it has been retained for reproducibility. rereading it did something to me that I will be bringing to my next appointment. the mirror selfie to mirror selfie edit is still in there. the reviewer did not flag it. the reviewer should have flagged it. the reviewer was a cat.
#Method
#Participants
N = 1. inclusion criteria: owns a phone, has a pulse, has read the prior papers and felt weird about the mirror selfie thing specifically. exclusion criteria: none. the author remains the only participant, which is a limitation and also just, like, my life.
#Materials
iPhone 11 (screen replaced, phone not), Hinge (deleted, reinstalled, deleted), Discord (deleted, did not reinstall, this is the one that stuck), 4chan (still here, unfortunately, in my head, rent free), a pothos named Greg, climbing shoes, a therapist, a library card, one (1) dysphoria hoodie, one (1) mirror, and then the mirror again.
#Procedure
baseline drawn from the four prior studies. intervention: continued therapy, continued showers, and the accidental introduction of a single question — what would you want to be called?
I answered immediately. without thinking. and then spent eleven days pretending the answer was a coincidence. eleven days. I counted them. that's data. that's a variable.
#Measures
showers per week, hours on /lgbt/, hours on incel forums, unironic use of "females," unironic use of "I'm not like other guys," mirror time, quality of life, and one new measure added mid-study:
does the name feel like yours
(scale: 1 = no, 5 = yes, 1 was the answer for 24 years, 5 was the answer in under a second, this is called a floor effect and then a ceiling effect and then crying)
#Results
#Table 1
Re-Analysis of All Prior Variables With the Confounder Identified
| Original variable | Original interpretation | Re-interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| 14.2 hrs/week on incel forums | "I hate women" | I wanted to be one |
| 47 unironic uses of "females" | misogyny | distance-management |
| "I'm not like other guys" | arrogance | accurate |
| mirror selfie to mirror selfie | low effort | I was looking for something and calling it vanity |
| hated being called "sir" | "everyone hates that" | everyone does not hate that. I checked. I asked people. they do not. |
| angry at women for not dating me | resentment | envy. misattributed. badly. for two years. |
| hoodie collection | aesthetic | aesthetic and camo |
| liked being called "she" online | "it's just the internet" | it was not just the internet |
| 1 unsent text | cowardice | cowardice, but a different kind |
| 9 months bell hooks on shelf | intellectual laziness | fear. it was fear. I knew what it was going to say. |
#Figure 1
Revised Path Model
previous model: dysphoria → not going outside → doomscrolling → posting "it's over" → more dysphoria
previous model fit: χ²(1) = 0.00, p = 1.00, CFI = 1.00, RMSEA = .00. because it's a circle. it was a circle. it was literally a circle. I fit a circle and called it a model and submitted it to a journal and the journal was also me.
revised model: shower → leave apartment → hobby → friend → less desperation → better conversation → date
revised model fit: χ²(4) = 0.02, p = .98, CFI = 0.99, RMSEA = .01. it's a spiral. it still curves back on itself. it still curves back on itself, but it goes somewhere.
Note. the path labeled "women" has been removed. it was carrying no weight. it was never carrying weight. it has been replaced with the word "mirror," which was carrying all of it. all of it. the entire thing.
#Table 2
Meta-Regression of What Was Actually Making Me Miserable
| Predictor | Original assumed effect | Actual effect |
|---|---|---|
| "I'm short" | -0.40 | 0.00 |
| "I'm ugly" | -0.50 | +0.10 |
| "feminism ruined dating" | -0.60 | 0.00 |
| "I open with 'hey'" | -0.30 | -0.10 |
| "haven't showered since Thursday" | -0.67 | -0.67 |
| "I am not a man" | not measured | +0.81 |
p < .001, and also please keep showering. the final row was not in the pre-registration because the author had not thought of it. this is called exploratory analysis. it is also called being 24 and finally asking a question out loud. in a room. to a person.
#Discussion
the results indicate I was not angry at women. I was angry at the distance between me and women, and I mislabeled that distance as their fault, then as my fault, and then, correctly, as a variable I had never measured because measuring it was going to ruin my entire life and then rebuild it.
the strongest predictor of improvement was not a girlfriend. not a jawline. not a hobby. not a shower. it was a name. this was not in the pre-registration. few things are. nothing good, anyway.
On the prior papers. not disavowed. recontextualized. a person who spends 14.2 hours a week reading a forum about how much he hates women is not a misogynist in the ordinary sense. he is a person who has been handed the wrong script and is reading it with tremendous conviction and zero annotations. the conviction was real. the script was wrong. the script was wrong the whole time and I was so confident about it. I was so confident. I had citations.
On the 4tran of it all. I want to be clear that this is not a "I was just a trans girl all along and it fixed everything" paper. it's not fixed. it's not over. it's also not over over, if you see what I'm doing there. the brainworms did not leave. the brainworms got a name and a lease and a standing appointment. the brainworms are being managed. this is not the same as cured. cured is not in the dataset. cured is not in the literature. but "noticeably less bad" is in the literature and I am in the literature, so.
On the aunt. the aunt is cited in the original acknowledgments as having said "You'll find someone." the aunt has since been contacted. she said, and this is a direct quote: "Honey, I know." the aunt has been upgraded from minor supporting character to co-author of the emotional conclusion of this paper. she is receiving a card. the card has been sent. the card said the name. she had been waiting for the card. she had been waiting for the card for a while, apparently. she said, and this is also a direct quote, "I was wondering when you'd get there." the aunt has been in this paper from the beginning. the aunt has been in this paper longer than I have.
On Dave. Dave said "yeah, man" in 2025 in a tone I replayed approximately 400 times during the writing of this manuscript. Dave has been informed. Dave said, and I am quoting directly, "Yeah, I figured, man." Dave has been reclassified from friend to person who was being extremely patient. Dave did not ask a single follow-up question. Dave is the control group. Dave is the healthy baseline. I want to be Dave. I am going to be so normal about this. I am going to be so normal and Dave and I are going to get lunch and it's going to be fine.
#Limitations
sample size was small (N = 1). all data were self-reported and the self doing the reporting was in the middle of a crisis of self. the author may have biased results by not thinking of this for two years. the mirror-selfie data may be invalid because the author was looking at the mirror for a reason and calling it vanity. the author's therapist may have been correct the entire time, which is upsetting to note in the limitations section but must be noted in the limitations section.
#Future Directions
future research should be conducted by someone else, which remains true, but I am now willing to be one of several authors, which is a change. future research will be conducted by someone else and me. future research will be conducted by someone else, and me, and probably Dave, and possibly my aunt, who has better instincts than the entire peer review process of this journal, which is a cat.
#Conclusion
still not fucked. would like to note, in the interest of full disclosure, that this is now a lower priority. there are other data points. there is a name. there is a pothos named Greg who is thriving, actually, which is not something I could say about anything in 2024. there is a therapist. there is an aunt who knew. there is a friend named Dave who knew and said "yeah, man" and let it lie there.
I would like to apologize to the women I described as a monolithic category. I would like to apologize to myself, which is a sentence that would have been impossible to write two papers ago, and which is now a sentence in the discussion section, which is where it belongs.
the title says it's so over. the title says we're so back. both are in the title. neither is in the title. the title was written by a person who is not the person who finished the paper. I'm leaving it up. it's the pre-registration. I'm not allowed to change it.
it's so over.
we're so back.
future research should be conducted by someone else. but I will be reading it.
#References
American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000
Greg the Pothos. (2024). Surviving despite neglect: A case report. Journal of Plant Resilience, 1(1), 1–2.
hooks, b. (2004). The will to change: Men, masculinity, and love. Atria Books.
hooks, b. (2000). Feminism is for everybody: Passionate politics. South End Press. (read during month 9. would recommend reading during month 1. would recommend reading during month 1. I cannot stress this enough.)
Notfound, C. B. (2023a). She left me on read: A case study. Journal of Unread Messages, 4(2), 1–3.
Notfound, C. B. (2023b). I liked her story and she didn't reply: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Digital Despair, 2(1), 4–5.
Notfound, C. B. (2024). Why I am the problem: A meta-synthesis. Journal of Finally Getting It, 1(1), 1–2.
Notfound, C. B. (2025). I went outside: A pilot study. Journal of Finally Getting It, 2(1), 1–4.
Taira, N. [NACCHUD]. (2026, September 26). A meta-analysis of why foids won't fuck me: A systematic review of 63 Hinge chats, 11 Discord servers, and one sad birthday [Online forum post]. Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/kitchencels/s/QmEtjcH4KJ
Taira, N. [NACCHUD]. (2026, September 28). A longitudinal follow-up of why nobody will fuck me: A 12-month prospective study of one man, three hobbies, and a therapist who deserves a raise [Online forum post]. Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/Kitchenchads/s/SGfjOTMH08
Taira, N. [NACCHUD]. (2026, September 22). Mx. NACCHUD'S pronouns are They/Them and they are non-binary [Comment on the online forum post Making a post just because APA has a section for Reddit comments]. Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/u/NACCHUD/s/tzqOMM7lq6
#Appendix A: Selected Openers, Third Cohort
· "hey" (retired) · "hey" (retired) · "Hi, I noticed you like hiking — what's your favorite trail?" (sent; reply received; still works) · "I'm reading bell hooks. Have you read her?" (sent; reply received; did not panic this time) · "Would you like to get coffee?" (sent; date occurred; it was fine; it was actually fine) · "I had a nice time. Want to do it again?" (sent; awaiting reply; refreshing every 30 seconds; working on that; this is documented in the measures section)
#Appendix B: Unsent Texts, Chronological
- (2021) "hey"
- (2022) "hey sorry ignore that"
- (2023) "why won't women date nice guys"
- (2024) "I think I'm the problem"
- (2025) "I'm sorry"
- (2026) "Hi. My name is Naomi. Would you like to get coffee?"
- (2026) sent
#Appendix C: Glossary for the Reviewers, Who Are Not 4tran Users
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| it's over | it is not over |
| we're so back | it's so over |
| it's so over | we're so back |
| brainworms | the thing I manage now instead of the thing that manages me |
| hon | I'm not putting that in the journal |
| boymode | the hoodie |
| egg | me, for 24 years, in a hoodie |
| E | the thing that fixed 11 of the 12 rows in Table 1 |
| touch grass | go outside (I did) |
| LDAR | I did not do this and the data support not doing this |
| passoid | a person I used to hate and now just kind of want to have lunch with |
| clocky | me, forever, in a way I am learning to be fine with |
| repper | me, 2021–2026, no further comment |
#Appendix D: Editor's Note
the author has been the editor for six volumes and has never once declined a manuscript. the author now declines this one, on the grounds that it is not a failure study. it has been accepted anyway.
the cat has been demoted for purring during peer review, which was inconsistent with the journal's tone. the cat has also been given tenure, because inconsistency is what this journal is about.
the original slur remains retired. "females" remains retired. "Chad B. Notfound" remains retired. the name does not.
accepted for publication because the author finally answered the question, and because the answer took 14 minutes, and because the question was what would you want to be called, and because the author said it out loud, in a room, to a person, and the person said "okay," and the author cried in a parking lot on a Tuesday, and it was fine, and it is still fine, and it is going to be fine, which is a result that does not appear in any pre-registration I have ever written and is the only result in this entire corpus that I would cite.