Clearing up truscum/tucute ideologies

I found this on a reddit post and it's really helpful so I'm gonna share it all with you!

"The 'Truscum' side, which I will call transmedicalists, consider being trans to be inherently a medical condition by definition. The more nuanced and modern view is that being trans is not a medical condition, but dysphoria is, and there is a very strong correlation between being trans and experiencing dysphoria. So when someone pursues medical transition, it is a medical treatment for the medical condition of dysphoria, not medical treatment for the medical condition of being trans.

The roots of the disagreement are almost purely semantic, but with any disagreement there are people who take things way too far and turn everything into *** show. the Transmedicalist version of taking things to far is essentially backing gatekeeping policies and insisting that everyone who has lower dysphoria levels than they do isn't really trans. I find this is usually actually about them trying to preserve their concept of a unified trans ideology and assuming everyone who disagrees with them about anything cant really be trans, therefore there is no within community disagreement, because everyone who disagrees isn't really trans. I have witnessed many cases of people with major physical dysphoria being accused of being a 'transtrender' just because they had a different opinion on something.

The other side also has people who take things way too far. Some aren't content with the division of trans = identity, dysphoria = medical condition, and insist that dysphoria isn't a medical condition either, or that it is purely the result of social abrasion. They believe social dysphoria exists because of *** cis attitudes, and physical dysphoria is just a manifestation of social dysphoria. Taken even further, they may believe that people who pursue medical transition only do so to appease bigoted cis people. Their arguments can end up undermining access to care for trans people who need it, just as the pro gatekeeping transmedicalists can. It is important to note that the vast majority of people making the 'you don't need to have dysphoria to be trans' argument are people who have dysphoria themselves, which is a point most transmedicalists tend to overlook.

To me, the argument of weather or not you need dysphoria to be trans is a disastrous side show that misses the point. The number of people who are trans, but having trouble coming to terms with it because they haven't learned to perceive their dysphoria yet, or they think their dysphoria isn't 'serious enough' to 'count' is astronomical. The number of out and proud publicly self identifying trans people who claim to have no dysphoria is minuscule if it even exists at all outside of specific cultural identities where that is expected.

Shunning people who don't perceive themselves to have dysphoria but are considering that they might be trans will almost exclusively have the effect of harming trans people with dysphoria, by preventing them from going through the steps they need to in order to recognise it.

This isn't to say that the 'dysphoria is a social construct' crowd isn't doing harm. I recently had a obgyn argue against going forward with my hysterectomy on the bases of 'you don't need to physically transition to be a real man so why bother.' Both sides have polarized edges that are making a mess and both of those edges need to get over themselves." - u/feiwynne

I hope this helped somewhat!