I just don’t understand why these little details are a big deal. If people want things and it doesn’t hurt anybody then let them have it, who cares? If you want to label yourself trans because it communicates that you’d rather be something other than the gender assigned at birth, sounds good to me. The subsets of that are mostly details that explain how you’re trans to someone curious. Why does it need to be more complicated than that?
It would be nice for things to have clear definitions.
So trans either means specifically man-woman dysphoria or it means “not feeling like a gender I’m supposed to be”, then all non-binaries are also called trans. But not “whoever wants to call themselves whatever”. Because then I just gotta ask follow up questions if I actually wanna know. E.g. you’d say something like “I’m queer”. Yeah, great, so, where do we start?
Plot twist, I’m telling people I’m queer even though I’m a straight dude because I believe in gender equality, which defies gender identity as a concept, so essentially I’m non-binary, so I’m trans, so I’m oh boy so queer. True story.
Definitions change based on who they are useful for. The medical definition used to say dysphoria only, and now its starting to say euphoria too. Because thats valid.
And saying you’re queer while claiming to be a straight male to prove a point might be… Rebellious, but Im glad youre trying the labels on for size. Youre valid.
I came up with an analogy pertaining to this matter:
Imagine there exists a small lake with two groups of fish who are nearly identical except in one way. One of the two groups has scales, and the other group doesn’t. Above their waters is a fisherman who wants to catch as many of them as possible and turn them into a crispy seafood dish. The fisherman doesn’t care if they have scales or not, as they are edible in the same exact way, and scales or no scales, he will eat any of the fish he catches.
Unfortunately, the fish with scales started conjuring up imaginary ideas to enable disassociation from the fish who don’t have scales. They falsely claimed to the scaleless fish, “You’re not like me at all, and you don’t understand the struggle I’m going through! He won’t care to eat you because you don’t have scales that make yourself look tastier!” (or some illogical mental gymnastics like that lmao), so they reject the fish that don’t have scales and leave them to fend for themselves instead.
Little did the scaled fish know, the fisherman doesn’t give a shit, and this divide only hindered their ability to plot a way to avoid him, as he caught them and feasted on them all anyway.
(It also makes sense because no cisgender onlooker observing this kind of discourse within the trans community would think it makes any sense. It’s an exclusively intracommunity struggle that’s also extremely terminally online and shouldn’t exist at all, to a point where only very few people beyond the community would know it’s a divide that exists to begin with. It’s that nonsensical.)
Okay, I’ve been seeing more and more of these “dysphoria or no trans” references being made and all I’ve been able to glean is that people with diagnosed G.D. seem to be saying that anyone who…doesn’t have dysphoria can’t be trans?
I don’t understand. The people who are living a different gender identity than was assigned to them at birth are trans. Trans-itioning their outward gender…I mean, right? What am I missing?
Is it people that didn’t get diagnosed by a clinician with gender dysphoria? Or that they don’t have gender dysphoria at all and became trans?
Can you break down the controversy a little for me? I feel like I get some of what is happening, but I don’t have the whole picture, the actual reasoning for what’s happening, just what I’ve pieced together from the posts on lemmy. I mean, you don’t have to, it’s not your job. Only if you feel like letting a cishet dipshit in on the story.
One metaphor I’ve seen that I really liked is something along the lines of: When you’re given vanilla ice cream, you might not hate it. Some people do, but you’re okay with it. However, chocolate ice cream is something you want much more, so you opt to switch in your vanilla for chocolate. (I’m bad at analogies)
All in all, from what I see, bon-dysphoric trans people are just trans people who are much happier as their preferred gender, but don’t really hate their agab in a dysphoria way.
Note: it’s been a hot minute since I’ve though about trans meds and this stuff. Also, I’m dysphoric if that matters at all.
[TW: Spoilers Contain Transphobia, Abuse, Exclusion, Enbyphobia]
Transmedicalists, sometimes shortened to “transmeds” or often more negatively referred to as “truscum” (though many have reclaimed this term), often state that the transmedicalist position is only bound together by one talking point: the belief that gender dysphoria (and generally, by extension, medical transition) is the only requirement for someone to validly be transgender.
This talking point is often argued against by many transgender people who oppose transmedicalism, and that’s great because that premise in and of itself is very flawed. There are some transgender people who transition on the basis of “gender euphoria” rather than gender dysphoria, which, simply put, operates more from a mindset of “I don’t hate being a man, but I’d sure much prefer being a woman!” rather than “I dread being a man so much, it’s pure pain and suffering, and I will not be able to see even a sliver of happiness unless I undergo extensive gender transition.”.
I must say that both are valid ways to feel gender identity, but transmedicalism is often born through trans people in the latter group projecting their idea of being trans as the one and only, truly correct way to experience gender incongruence. They also tend to base being trans explicitly on suffering and leave very little room for gender euphoria themselves. I’ve faced a lot of dysphoria in my life and celebrated the moments where I’ve progressed towards alleviating it, but transmeds more often tend to see it as just “another condition to treat”, which isn’t bad in and of itself, but that mindset, as you can see, will expand to toxic beliefs in many instances.
In order to answer your questions:
The people who are living a different gender identity than was assigned to them at birth are trans. Trans-itioning their outward gender…I mean, right? What am I missing?
This is generally how the term “transgender” is defined, but I’d like to add a tiny caveat. It’s not necessarily based on “living” as such or even “transitioning” itself, nor does the “trans” prefix in the word even etymologically have anything to do with the word “transition”. Many trans people will undergo procedures to achieve the life as the gender they identify with, but that’s not necessarily what defines being trans in and of itself. It is typically more common to associate the definition of trans with just the general state of having a gender identity that does not align with your assigned sex at birth.
Is it people that didn’t get diagnosed by a clinician with gender dysphoria? Or that they don’t have gender dysphoria at all and became trans?
I have seen some transmedicalists assert that you need to go as far to have a diagnosis of GD to adequately consider yourself trans (and funnily enough, with that in mind, I definitely should be considered trans to them), but the pushback is usually about the notion that you can be trans without having dysphoria at all, as explained earlier.
To wrap this up, the issue is that transmedicalists are often liars. The whole “aLl we beLIeve Is tHAT YOU NEED dYSPhorIa TO BE TRAns” shit they try to hide behind is just a bluff they use to pretend that their views are based on “logic, reason, rationality, and science” in an attempt to masquerade the fact that their views are actually just rooted in hypocrisy, bigotry, and disgust that is fundamentally no different than the typical transphobic drivel you’d get from your average American conservative.
How do I know this? The meme I made says it all. I have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria by multiple different doctors, have gone through, and continue to go through, so much financial, social, legal, and medical struggle to further my gender transition, and on top of all that, in the process of suffering through gender dysphoria,
spoiler
I have faced a lot of mistreatment from my family. My own father called me the f-slur among other things, told me he wanted me dead, and he kicked me out of his house, all with knowing that I am a dysphoric trans person who is non-binary.
When I have tried to reason with transmedicalists who try to assert things like “nON-bINaRy pEOplE ArE NotHinG lIKE me”, they don’t have a change of heart and learn to grow some fucking empathy. They will either commit one of two fallacies:
- A goalpost movement: “You’re dysphoric and a non-binary person? Well, fuck, I guess I gotta change my criteria for being trans now.”
- A no true Scotsman: “You’re dysphoric and a non-binary person? You’re either lying about your dysphoria or you’re lying about being non-binary.”
You can’t win with these people, and they only exist to push hate which has frightened me to the point of isolating myself from trans people for a long time. Overcoming that fear of a community that I am a part of was a huge bitch. It was doubly frightening because I live in Florida, a state where I’m already at so much risk of losing access to gender-affirming care,
spoiler
so when one of these bozos tells me that I should have my right to medical transition and HRT legally taken away because I’m non-binary, it fucked with my head a lot.
And that’s the long response.
Thank you for taking the time to respond. I was busy when I initially received it and saw the length of the post and had to put off reading it, but I came back to it. I appreciate your having educated me on the topic!
And you’re right about my incorrect connecting of “trans” and “transitioning.” It’s a shame that even in marginalized groups fighting for the very right to exist, people always find a way to subdivide the subdivided group even further, exacerbating problems for the entire community. People, amiright?
I am really sorry to hear about your experiences with bigots, even those close to you. That sucks, and I wish you the best.
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As OP who is very clearly anti-transmedicalist, I still classify gender dysphoria as a mental disorder that is medically necessary to treat. That doesn’t really have anything to do with transmedicalism per se, though. On this subject specifically, what’s more important is to support a destigmatization of the term mental illness, clearly understand what it means and what are actual diagnostic criteria for it, and not weaponize it to support restricting people from accessing gender-affirming care just because of the myth that a “mental” illness inherently cannot be treated through more medical and physiological means.
BUT BUT BUT-
Because definitionally they believe ‘the diagnostic criteria for transgender is dyspgoria. The cure to dysphoria is HRT. Take the medicine.’
And I think this message was helpful to me, to read “take the medicine, you need HRT to feel better.” - I’m a trans female. This message doesn’t apply to like more than half of all trans people, and for some odd reason they also use it to exclude those trans people. Euphoria is also diagnostically trans, and HRT isnt the right treatment for most trans people. Youre valid.
I take HRT though…
and they still dont find you valid? ☹️ wtf
Yes, they told me that they believe I should have my HRT legally taken away because I’m non-binary. Some have asserted that I’m “taking away valuable resources from trans people who actually need it” as their line of thinking.
I’m so sorry you were told that. I’m glad you know its bullshit and you’re spreading the message with this meme. I thought I was aware to the extent transmeds were transphobic… Nope, you’ve shown me where the goalpost really got moved to.
yes
