this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2024
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I don't agree. It's ok to say "dysphoria is central to my trans experience, though I understand this isn't universal." That doesn't gatekeep anyone. In fact it's the opposite. But it's not ok to tell others that dysphoria or medical treatment is required to be trans.
Sure, in many locations, having a diagnosis is required before doctors will allow you to even begin HRT or consider having surgeries if you want them. But that's just a symptom of a broken medical system that enforces cisheteronormativity, and prevents self-ID and informed consent. It's not what actually defines what being trans is all about. It's just a hoop people are forced to jump through.
There's a difference between having honest and good-faith discussions about the role dysphoria, surgery and HRT play in the overall trans experience, and making broad definitive statements. That's what actually erases others' experiences.
Gender dysphoria is central to all trans experience though, even if it is experienced differently by different people, even if they don't get an official diagnosis.
If a person hasn't experienced dysphoria in any form, feels no discomfort with their bodily sex characteristics, that's simply being cis. It doesn't matter how they like to dress, what terms they use or invent, what their interests are or how they speak. All of that has nothing to do with gender identity, because gender identity is about how you relate to the sex characteristics of your body, nothing else.
The idea that a person can be socialized into being trans is directly contradictory to the idea that a trans person is born trans and that their gender identity is an unchangeable biological reality of who they are (which causes dysphoria when mismatched with their body).
The two ideas can't both be true, for the same reason you can't say being gay or straight is a social creation but also an unchangeable reality of that individual. If being trans was a social condition it could be undone through socialization (aka conversion therapy), which is a really damaging belief. If we still believed being trans was a socialization issue like the 1950s no one would be able to get medical care.
This is about the time that people (typically) stop the conversation and try to get you banned by calling you truscum and transphobic.
You are collapsing too many ideas into one here.
There are people who through some combination of nature and nurture find themselves wanting to be treated in a way which aligns much closer to how one gender gets treated in a particular society. They may choose to transition to get this treatment despite having no dysphoria about themselves or their body. Being upset about how someone treats you is not necessarily dysphoria. Do not erase these individuals.
Arguing that dysphoria is central to the trans experience is a trans medicalist (truscum) viewpoint and exclusionary rhetoric isn't nice and therefore isn't allowed around here.
How people of different gender treat one another is completely cultural though. It's arbitrary. You could have a culture where genders treat one another completely the same yet trans people would still exist because of dysphoria. It's not about culture, it's about their relationship to their bodies. It's why a trans person would still be trans even if they were socially isolated and alone, they might not have a way to understand why they feel dysphoria and it may manifest differently, but they would still feel it because it's a biological reality of who they are.
No one is erasing anyone -- I'm saying that wanting to behave a certain way, or dress a certain way, sleep with a particular kind of person, or be treated socially a certain way is all perfectly fine but it's not ultimately related to being trans. Otherwise you could claim a crossdresser were trans or people who claimed they were "attack helicopters" would have to be accepted as trans because there would literally be no argument you could make against it. You are defining trans people out of their own experience to avoid simply acknowledging that some things are a result of being trans and some things are not.
It is okay if we accept that not everyone is trans. It doesn't make people's experience or desires less valid, whether they end up being trans or not, if anything it helps them live with a more clear sense of themselves. Same way people shouldn't feel "excluded" because they're straight instead of gay. But it would be harmful for a straight person to squish and stretch the definition of being gay so that it included them because "I like dressing flamboyantly, so that makes me gay even though I don't like people of the same sex. And if you disagree with me you're erasing me". We would all recognize it as nonsense and it would be offensive for that person to speak on behalf of gay people's lived experience, even undermining the basis of their established rights.
You're literally erasing me, lol. I'm agender and trans. I did not start transitioning because of gender dysphoria. I don't even experience gender dysphoria. If you don't think I have the right experience to identify as trans, that's on you my friend, but I'm not going to change my labels because you don't think that I exist. I'm sorry if you feel that my existence jeopardizes your existence or invalidates it in any way, because there are many compatible world views in which it does not.
Ultimately it doesn't matter either way - I only intervened here because you got reported for not being nice. So please, stop it.
I'm literally in the process of losing my right to life saving medical care in my country because of that philosophy. Because people think being trans is just a made up social thing. What is your skin in the game that entitles you to not only to represent me but to force me into silence? To tell people that it's just made up after trans people have fought for decades and decades to get the most basic recognition and medical care? How is that nice?
And this is the core of the problem, I can't be silent on this because allowing people to perpetuate the belief that being trans is a made up social construct is actually effecting trans people in a real material way.
Do whatever you want with that. I won't be back either way.
At no point am I arguing that it is a made up social construct. I'm just letting you know about my existence. If my existence threatens you so much that you must throw me into a box that is not you, then go ahead and do so. I'm not out here shouting at the world about how people like me exist, I'm merely replying to your attempt to erase me. There are compatible world views which don't erase me - which many other people have pointed out here.
I'm sorry that your country is taking away your right to life saving medical care. The same thing is happening in my country. I'd rather spend my time and energy on preserving access to medical care for everyone than fighting with folks online. Best of luck, I hope things improve for you. 💜
Are you sure it's because of that particular philosophy, and not of some people's philosophy stemming from some "sacred" book, or a desire to control the sexuality of others?
this just sounds like a skill issue on your part, i'm sorry--this is not an issue if you have a postmodernist understanding of gender, which most trans people (myself included) subscribe to.
at the end of the day when you drill down? there really is not a material difference between the "real" and "fake" genders--gender is entirely socially constructed, and the designations of "male" and "female" that most people fall into are as arbitrary as any xenogender (real or frivolously created by right-wingers). you only "lose" by entertaining frivolous designations if your understanding of gender is already so narrow that you can't conceptually accommodate anything beyond a handful of stock gender identities to begin with.
No, that's an impression people in your position create by silencing those who disagree. Which is exactly the issue.
The reason xenogenders and transgender genders are not the same is because one is based on our dimorphic sexual physicality, and the other is based on metaphysical invention. It's the whole reason that the attack helicopter meme has no actual power -- because humans are not and have never been "part helicopter" but we are part male and female.
So you're not only transmedicalist, but somehow also a gender essentialist?
This is gatekeeping via transmedicalist talking points.
Dysphoria is not central to the trans experience. It's central to some trans experiences.
Even if your belief that dysphoria has biological/medical routes were true, that still doesn't mean that it's the only way to be trans.
Whatever else it is, gender is also a social construct, and our relationships with social constructs shape who we are in very real ways.
And hell to take your gatekeeping ever further, even if you're right, and some trans folk can "stop being trans" as a result of their social environment or whatever, they're still trans until they're not.
Yep, for good reason
It does though. In the same way that being attracted to the same sex is not a social construct, you can't simultaneously claim that being trans or being gay is intrinsic to a person but also that it's a result of socialization. The whole discussion becomes incoherent if you try to claim both are true.
This is what evangelicals and terfs claim. But it's not true. It's why you cannot convert a trans person, or a gay person from what they are. It's why the medical community has acknowledged that the best treatment is affirming care. If you believe being trans is a social issue you're putting trans people into a position to lose their access to medical care.
It's not gatekeeping, it's acknowledging the very basic concept of what it means to even be trans and using that to clarify if a feeling or belief or whatever else is or isn't a part of that concept. It doesn't delegitimize any of those feelings or beliefs, but it does separate out unrelated ideas that create confusion and misinformation about the trans experience.
But yeah, this is exactly what I'm talking about, people refuse to accept that they are making a contradiction that's harmful to trans people, and instead try to turn it back on the very people who are arguing for trans people's legitimacy and rights. Rather than try to follow their own logic to its conclusion they shut down the conversation and try to make sure no one can talk about it.
You took this quote completely out of context and inverted the intended meaning to suit your argument. The statement Ada made was
Yes, it is. You are saying that anyone without a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria isn't trans. You do not get to make that kind of statement.
You are the one erasing others' experiences
You are the one arguing against trans people’s legitimacy
No one here is saying being trans isn't real. But *you are when you say that it's only valid if you have dysphoria.
You also have to think this through: if you believe that you can only really be trans if you have a medical diagnosis, then you have created vast swathes of gatekeepers for being trans: doctors, insurance companies, politicians, governments at every level. In our bigoted, cisheteronormative society, if we say you can only be trans with a diagnosis, and that society doesn't want trans people to exist, then they can just stop diagnosing people. Doctors can refuse, and decide instead that you're depressed, bipolar, BPD, etc. instead, and that anyone who thinks they're trans is just "mentally ill." Governments can pass laws preventing state run insurances (Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, etc.) from paying for anything related to dysphoria. They can also pass laws saying private insurances either don't have to cover it, or that they can't. I know for a fact this is already happening because I live in Florida. I'm watching this scenario happen right in front of me. You're taking away the ability for a person to know their own mind and their own body, and their right and ability to understand their own identity, and handing that judgement over to people with a vested interest in denying it.
And I can see why you'd think this would be a path to walk: if we say "a medical diagnosis means we're objectively, scientifically trans, then the bigots can't deny it", but that's not how things work. That's just pandering to the oppressors. You will never appease them.
No one is saying that you can just call anyone trans you want, like crossdressers, drag queens, or "attack helicopters" (I honestly can't believe you even threw that one around). Only the bigots do that.
No one is saying your experience isn't valid. It's exactly the opposite. If you feel dysphoria is central to your experience, that's fine! You're just as trans as the next trans person, just as valid. But that's your experience. You don't get to generalize your experience and then decide that's the yardstick by which everyone else must be measured.