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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   16087 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022

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Trans communities have a vested interest in avoiding dysphoria.

What does being trans have to do with dysphoria? This sounds like transmedicalism; the truscum lost that internal conflict.

To be honest, I’ve never quite figured out what a truscum is. I gather there were some tumblr flame wars over the issue.

Contrary to the other response, though, I’ve heard a loooooooot more mention of dysphoria than euphoria, even in the modern Internet. Maybe the harm-based model just dominates relatively utilitarian rationalist forums?

A few years ago (or less?), there was a...we'll call it a debate...within the trans activist community that pitted the so-called "truscum" vs. the "tucutes."

The first group maintained that dysphoria was the essence of trans-ness, since the entire point of social transitioning was to leverage the trauma of dysphoria into a minimizing-harm obligation on the part of others to avoid "deadnaming," "misgendering," and other potential triggers of a painful downward emotional spiral for the trans person. Various types of dysphoria had already been recognized as real phenomena, so leaning hard on the trauma angle would maximize how much the activists could push for in terms of changing social norms.

The second group responded that gender expression is individual, infinitely variable, and unknowable outside of the lived experience, so relying on external validation made no sense. Besides, without the limits of a dysphoria diagnosis--which had always been vanishingly rare--the "trans" community could broaden the reach of its umbrella by orders of magnitude, increasing the size of the marginalized group that the activists claimed to represent.

The second group won, comprehensively. Going forward, trans identities could not be externally policed; they were strictly a matter of identification which would not be questioned. Naturally, the activists weren't going to give up the rhetorical advantages of the truscum position--"deadnaming" and/or other forms of "misgendering" is still literally violence that drives trans people to suicide, even without any form of dysphoria being present. "Transmedicalism" is a dismissive term of the truscum argument that trans identities derived from dysphoria--that they could be affirmed or negated by a medical diagnosis.

A truscum is (roughly) a transperson who thinks gender dysphoria is necessary to be trans, and argues many 'new' trans people/nonbinary people, maybe without dysphoria, are just pretending/not really trans/stealing valor

Has the distinction between transmedicalists, truscums, and tucutes ever been articulated on here? I would have assumed that due to the dominating market share of trans-accepting places on the internet that now default to the Gender Euphoria model of transness, Motte posters would be generally unaware of the 'battle' between older transgenders/transsexuals who fundamentally view gender dysphoria as a medical issue necessary of medical care (transitioning to the other sex) and a new wave of Extremely Online trans teenagers who think anyone who experiences Gender Euphoria (for which there are multiple definitions of) counts as transgender and that they are 'Too Cute' (hence the name) to be cisgender.

As for if there's a distinction between the terms transmedicalist and truscum, I keep finding conflicting opinions. Some people claim transmedicalist is the group's self-chosen name and truscum is an exonym placed upon them, others claim the two groups have different opinions on non-binary people and whether it is necessary for someone who is trans to transition completely to the opposite sex, and yet others claim the terms differ in that everyone can be a transmedicalist, but trans people who go against the Gender Euphoria model of transness get labeled as truscum. As with most terms created and spread by the internet, the history of the terms is unclear and more time will be necessary to see if the terms are going to mean the same thing, if they are going to end up with different definitions, or it one term will overtake the other completely in usage.

they are ‘too cute’ (hence the name) to be cisgender.

TIL that there are people with a stereotype of transgenders as cute. Do they mean cute as in ‘oh my gosh, look at this kitten’ or cute as in ‘she’s cute, I wonder if she’s taken’, I wonder? Neither fits my impression of trans people at all.

Cute like a girl's friend's new outfit is irregardless of the outfit itself.

So it’s becoming trans for social approval?

I try to avoid using the word grooming in relation to the trans debate, but, well…

The trans community seems to do pathological affirmation for allied groups. I've known people who did it like a mental tick. Something would remind them that group X existed, and then they would just start saying "X are cute and valid" like "Peace be upon Him". The really wild, schitzo part was when it would just chain off in free associations, all of whom are Heckin' Cute And Valid.

I tried working through with this post a bit, one of the things that does derange me about the whole topic is that you often needs to exchange several questions before you can peg which type of trans activist you're talking to and any individual trans advocate will shift between the different camps at will despite the many contradictions.

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