Transmedicalism

Transmedicalism is the idea that being transgender is primarily a medical issue related to the incongruence between an individual's assigned sex at birth and their gender identity, characterized by gender dysphoria.^[1][2][3] There are divides and debates within the transmedicalist community on the exact definition of who is or is not transgender.^[4] Many transmedicalists believe individuals who identify as transgender without experiencing gender dysphoria or desiring to undergo a medical transition through methods such as hormone replacement therapy or sex reassignment surgery are not genuinely transgender.^[5][2] They may also exclude those who identify themselves as non-binary from the trans label.^[6]

Transmedicalists are sometimes referred to as transmeds^[7] and truscum,^[2][8] a term coined by a user on microblogging website Tumblr, meaning "true transsexual scum", which has since been reappropriated.^[9][10] Those who believe that gender dysphoria is not required to be transgender are sometimes called tucute, meaning "too cute to be cisgender".^[10] Transmedicalists sometimes refer to those who identify as transgender without medicalized criteria as transtrenders.^[11]

Some critics view transmedicalism akin to the medical model of disability in that it medicalizes an attribute that contains both medical and social components.^[12]

See also

• Causes of gender incongruence
• Gender essentialism
• Medicalisation of sexuality
• Neurosexism
• Psychic determinism
• Social construction of gender
• Respectability politics
• The Transsexual Phenomenon