Empirical research in this field is just asking trans people. That's all there is to it, you cannot measure how much gender dysphoria somebody feels any other way. We are talking about phenomena that are entirely internal, and exclusively experienced by us, how we feel about them and how we express them is the absolute only way to research them, and is what you'll find in any paper on reduction of dysphoric symptoms that holds up to scientific standards, whether you're looking into studies that show how social context affects trans wellbeing or how medical treatment affects trans wellbeing. It's always "ok, let's make a questionaire and ask trans people what works". All approaches to understand us while at the same time ignoring what we have to say have failed to yield results that have held upt to critical review, just ask all the idiots who tried to explain our existence away as a "paraphilia". Cis people need to come to grips with the terms that is us and us alone who are the authorities on trans issues and how to treat us. There is no alternative to this and this is simply not negotiable, not after decades of ignorance and outright hostility and demonstrable, human rights violating mistreatment from the psychiatric establishment. We demand the exclusive say on how to live our lifes, because you cissies have no understanding of this. None. I'm sorry to say this, but you people don't get it and that you don't get it has killed way too many of us, we won't have that any longer.

Sorry to harp on this, I know you're not making a big or strong claim, so it probably feels like I'm being extra nitpicky. Nevertheless, I'm going to push back a bit on what it seems to me that you're saying.

When you say "we aren't some idiots who just go off what sounds right, we do science to know what is right", I take that to mean that you want better evidence than what I've provided before you are willing to say with certainty that transness has both biological and social aspects. I wonder, then, what evidence you would accept. What kind of studies need to be done for you to agree that transness can be both biological and social, in different measures for different people? Please really think about this. If trans people saying "hormones make me feel different, and better" isn't good enough evidence that sometimes some aspects of transness are biological, what is? If trans people saying "I love having short/long hair and wearing suits/dresses" isn't strong enough evidence that sometimes some aspects of transness are social, what is?

Here's the reason I'm harping on this: we live in an extremely transphobic society and that transphobia often manifests in people implying, or even outright stating, that trans people are wrong about ourselves. Any science done to try to understand transness needs to start from a place of believing what trans people say about ourselves, and because we're not there yet as a society, I'm deeply wary of any so-called "science" that gets done about us.

but there is a lack of empirical research in this field.

how do you propose to get such a study past IRB? there was a kid who had his genitals destroyed by a botched circumcision and he was very unsuccessfully raised as a girl. I don't think you're going to find people willing to do double blind placebo controlled hormone injections on kids at random or do literally anything involving feral children, and if you do find such a person please kill them.

edit: some letters