“Gee I wonder why people might want to not draw attention to their non-binary status. It can’t be because it’s dangerous to be out, and AFAB people are raised to not make a fuss. Nope, it must be because they’re not really trans”
This genius is expecting everyone to be out and proud non-binary when the most powerful Western country is making a list of trans people, Hitler style.
Ah, transmed discourse isn’t something I’ve seen in a very long time, but this ridiculous “transsexual and transgender” dichotomy is something I do remember about it. They don’t know what to collectively believe, though, because of their vibes-based takes on gender identity.
For example, to some transmeds, enbies are valid and acceptable as trans. To some transmeds, being NB and “transsexual” are not mutually exclusive. To some transmeds, if you identify as NB but align with their definition of “transsexual” simultaneously, this just means that you’re actually binary trans in denial [conclusion arrived at through vibes, not any actual coherent reasoning. This is the essence of transmedicalism.]
They also seem to forget that there are binary trans people who do not medically transition. They conflate being NB with being non-dysphoric/non-medically transitioning and being binary with being dysphoric/medically transitioning, but none of that matters for a trans person’s validity regardless.
This is all a part of terminally online discourse that people shouldn’t obsess over to begin with. It’s not difficult to respect someone identifying differently than you, but they’d rather fearmonger and victim blame with bullshit like, “Non-binary people are the reason why trans people aren’t taken seriously!” when chuds clearly have demonstrated that they functionally don’t give a shit, and this just shows how terminally online their takes on everything are. Pair that with the fact that they don’t even have a consistent interpretation of what the difference between a non-binary person and a binary trans person is because, really, it’s all rooted in personal comfort of the person with the identity. Two people very clearly could have very similar transition goals and timelines, but one feels more content with calling themself non-binary and the other feels more content with calling themself binary. This is not a contradiction—it’s the result of viewing things through a proper lens that doesn’t validate cisnormative pathology that is upheld to keep transphobic oppression in place.
What’s actually interesting is that I’ve come to frame my take on my own gender in a totally different way, and the irony is that people like myself would get accused of “attention seeking” for being non-binary when I’d say that the only reason why I’d ever call myself “non-binary” to begin with is society making gender a thing in the first place. It’s the same way I’m “Black” specifically because of European colonizers conjuring up some pseudoscientific concept of race as a justification for imperialism and brutal oppression of people in distant lands. I wrote a whole journal entry that goes into detail about this, but to keep it short, I avoid labeling myself whenever it’s practical. I just want to exist and vibe, not feel connected to a gender identity and sexual orientation, as I don’t validate the concept of gender itself.
Also, her being a cracker is the least surprising part of all of this.
i think several of the friction points people have is because the binary is so rigid and we’re trying to add identities back into a (european christian) system that deliberately obliterated everything else over centuries.
the framework has begun to understand what to do with blatantly nonbinary NBs but it doesn’t have roles or archetypes (? idk terms, like butch is a subgenre of woman distinct in presentation and role from the hegemonic default) yet, and it just pushes binary-passing NBs into the binary which delegitimizes us.
this legitimacy thing wouldn’t come up if these people had a well-established notion of nonbinary genders, read a book, or had slightly more empathy.
God, thank you for saying this. 100% how I feel too.
This post rocks, I have nothing to add but upvoting wasn’t enough.
Took me a second to realize it was a trans-medicalist cause at first I was thinking
Really the only people I am comfortable using “transsexual” is elderly trans folk who grew up using that terminology. They’ve been fighting the good fight longer than we have, so I have no right to police the words they use to describe themselves. Younger trans folk should move away from such terms (as we are) because it’s just harmful language.
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in less fraught circumstances maybe people would get a benefit out of implying one thing or another about their bodies with terminology but that’s not the world we live in and maybe a world where it would be safe to do it like that wouldn’t care enough to bother.
Can you expand more on what you mean about the relationship between access to reproduction and gender as a classifying mechanism? Also I don’t think that something being harmless qualifies it as also being meaningless, but that’s just a personal opinion.
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Thanks for taking the time. Can I DM you if I have more questions?
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I don’t agree that it’s your place to determine who should or should not use certain words to describe themselves, and I think maybe it is important for you to consider the idea of you determining who you are “comfortable” with self-describing as transsexual. Imagine if someone said they were uncomfortable with the language you use to self-describe and that it’s just harmful (for instance, this is a very common thing that people say about neopronouns, and is offensive for obvious reasons).
I have a lot to say about this, but I will keep this short: however someone self-describes is no one else’s business, and it is rather unkind for trans spaces to have people talking about certain designations as uncomfortable or “just harmful,” and also misses that transsexual is more prevalent in particularly non-Anglo contexts (especially in the Global South), and thus there is also a chauvinistic element to imposing language that is comfortable in your cultural context on people living in a different cultural context. Especially when so much of queer terminology is already based on the feelings of comfort of predominantly white queer people in Anglo-America, and often erases, diminishes, or outright rejects the linguistic identifiers of others.
I understand that different languages and cultures have different ways of expressing gender, but I still think that you are allowed to critique how they approach their terminology, especially when those terms are in your native language.
Transsexual refers to trans people in an explicitly sexual way and puts a heavy emphasis on genitals and sexual characteristics. In my opinion it is a term that overly sexualizes us and erases our identity as a person and it’s continued usage further empowers transmedicalist ideology.
Transsexual refers to trans people in an explicitly sexual way and puts a heavy emphasis on genitals and sexual characteristics
i think most people use it without the emphasis on genitals (notice how there is not mention of genitals in the word transsexual). and even if they do, who cares? how does this erase identities or empower transmedicalism? just because you are uncomfortable with a word doesnt mean it cannot be used by anyone
The term transsexual originates solely from a medical context in regards to sex reassignment surgery. And sure, people can use it. But why would I want to encourage people to use a term which continues to be used to undermine their worth as a human? By replacing “sexual” with “gender” you expand the definition of the term past a strictly medical context to encompass cultural values. Why should I not try to explain this to them and encourage the usage of one term over another?
“Sex” is a biological classification. “Gender” goes beyond that and encompasses what somebody wants their place in society to be.
The term transsexual has become so heavily weaponized against us that its continued usage is damaging and hurtful to the overall community in my opinion. I feel the same way about someone referring to themselves as “a transsexual” as I do with someone calling themselves a t****y. While I don’t consider transsexual to be a slur, I consider it to be something that should be frowned upon all the same. I don’t want people normalizing a term that boils us down to sexual characteristics.
It’s not just about someone calling themselves transsexual. It’s about removing the term from the cultural zeitgeist so it doesn’t give the impression to cis people that they can go around calling us transsexuals, because many of us are disgusted by the term. I cannot guarantee a long life expectancy of anyone who calls me one, and I’d rather avoid an extensive criminal history.
Being trans is more than just a medical condition brought about through surgery. We’re not just some biological “thing.”
“Sex” is a biological classification. “Gender” goes beyond that and encompasses what somebody wants their place in society to be.
I feel like you are really hung up on sex as to mean “biological” but I want you to consider that this (perceived) distinction between sex and gender is precisely the part that’s harmful to trans people. By separating sex into its own “biological” “scientific” reality you are missing that sex is as arbitrary as gender. Who is to decide what are sexual characteristics and what is not?
I’m done with this conversation. If you still don’t understand why many of us are uncomfortable with using outdated terminology that originates from medical fields that have been weaponized against us time and time again then there’s no point in continuing this discussion.
I understand where you are coming from. I am offering an alternative point of view to explain why many of us identify as transsexual. I don’t think it’s super useful to police language that people use to self-id.
“overly sexualizes us” and yet you don’t identify as transsexual. This is a personal problem, where you personally don’t feel represented by a word, and yet you feel confident telling other people that the language they do feel comfortable with and use to self-describe is harmful and damaging to you. This is the height of arrogance.
Sure, say that you don’t want to be called transsexual. That’s fair. But that doesn’t make it your place to tell transsexual people, who you are not one of, that they can’t use it or it’s harmful of them to do so. And it’s absolutely gross to say that someone’s self-identification not matching your own choice is empowering oppressive ideologies, thereby oppressing transsexual people by refusing them the safety and right to self-identify in favour of the current hegemonic term transgender.
Edit: I also want to say that in your very comment you conflate transgender, transsexual, and trans as all being interchangeable and synonymous, but that is only true to you. To many people (and by the words’ very histories) these are not the same thing. To say transsexuals are harming all trans people and that they have to just use the hegemonic transgender or trans is to erase that transsexual is its own identity with its own history and its own communities of relationality.
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This comment is bullshit because any term can be “linked to the autogynephilia bs.” That’s the fault of the oppressor, not transsexuals. Queer people are bs now because queer is linked to British fascist movements that did gay bashing? Transgender people are bs because it’s linked to the transgenderism woke mind virus bs? This is a pathetic argument.
Spoken like a true transmedicalist. The way these truscum gatekeep by trying to separate the “transsexuals” from transgender people, and their barely disguised hate of non-binary people, always make them very easy to spot. In many ways they have a lot in common with TERFs, with the main difference being that their target is other trans people who don’t meet their strict archaic requirements to call themselves trans.
Ah yes, extremely arbitrarily conditional support, just the kind I want
Sounds like Avery met one enby that she found to be mildly annoying and immediately decided to be a truscum transmedicalist. Transmedicalists/truscum are so fucking annoying. I really can’t stand them. Days after I received my vaginoplasty surgery a trans woman who was acquaintance of mine approached me and congratulated me for “finally joining the sisterhood” and I was so disgusted by this comment I told her to never talk to me again. This was my first interaction with a transmedicalist irl when I previously thought they only existed online. It was a really disturbing to think I was not seen as “real” until I met whatever standard they were holding me to.
i’m so sorry you had to deal with that. “transmedicalist” is the perfect term that i couldn’t think of when i posted this, thank you
And another thing! Transmedicalism is classist as fuck.
Oh cool, you’re a rich white woman living in a country where it’s not illegal to transition? Good for you, now stop gatekeeping people.
Sometimes I wonder if these kinds of views could be addressed with them simply meeting a nonbinary person?
I typically just call myself queer as opposed to nonbinary but I’m an amab on E for 4 years. I dress in comfortable clothing (usually an oversized mens shirt with whatever jeans or leggings I have). Fuck, I don’t even shave regularly these days and I still get hit with fem identifiers whenever I go out. Surely I’d be “trans enough” for this person right?
If her line is just supporting needs, then she’d still be supporting my ability to get hormones right? She’d still be supporting the needs of nonbinary people who choose to get gender-affirming surgeries right? At that point, it just seems like a pointless gatekeep. “Oh you don’t need any kind of medical treatment? Fuck you!” Huh? Why? What does this accomplish?
If her line is just supporting needs, then she’d still be supporting my ability to get hormones right? She’d still be supporting the needs of nonbinary people who choose to get gender-affirming surgeries right? At that point, it just seems like a pointless gatekeep. “Oh you don’t need any kind of medical treatment? Fuck you!” Huh? Why? What does this accomplish?
Yes. She would consider you a transsexual nonbinary person, unlike all those non-transitioning enbies she thinks are sucking up all of the activisms or whatever.
This is some real 2010s-ass discourse.
The obvious solution is clearly to transition everyone
unclear if scum even know about NBs getting gas.
This is a cis woman saying this? Totally bizarre
Her header says afab but her post history says very online trans woman.
Could be a shit stirrer cis woman? Or is it confirmed she’s trans?
Edit: oh I see, they are def trans right? Truscum gtfo
“some people have greater material needs and challenges”
Okay, yeah. But you lost me at drawing the line between “cissexuals”/“transsexuals”.
![[cw transphobia] "Sure theyre trans or whatever"](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/ba01a976-3fa0-42a6-ad5e-390e6a7b6a70.jpeg){kind=link}