Thank you for your insightful comment. It’s nice to see when people are discussing concepts rather than other people. You are likely familiar with the famous quote, “below average minds talk about people, average minds talk about things or events, and superior minds talk about ideas.“ It is often attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, but is likely much older, maybe going back to the time of Socrates.
One of the things I have noticed in recent years, especially among many younger people who are a little vague as to exactly why they feel like they are trans, is a high level of defensiveness about their status. These seem to be the most vocal proponents of the idea that I can be trans just because I say so. This ignores the question of if there’s something going on that actually makes people trans. It comes across more as a whim or choice that they think no one should have a right to question, but seems to be based upon very little but muddy logic and poor understanding of themselves. The danger, as I have frequently stated, is that we are playing into the hands of the general critical crowd who view trans people as being mentally deranged and therefore whose authenticity can be discounted or whose “disorder” can be cured. This does a lot to undermine the progress made within the mental health community in accepting trans people as a legitimate human variant rather than defective people. My search since the very beginning has been to find out why trans people are different than cis normative people. I merely posit that there must be something biologically going on that affects all of us to a greater or lesser degree. The question is how to describe it. The presence of gender dysphoria has been the classic way to do so.
As one commentator so astutely noted, maybe the problem is in how we use this particular term. I use it in a very broad sense rather than narrowly as being associated with unbearable pain or distress. Most of the people who say they have no dysphoria are people who do not suffer from distress. OK. Fair enough. However there is still something going on that motivates people to do something to transition. It may be that the challenge is in simply finding a more neutral term that everyone can live with. I have recently started thinking that a better description might be gender dissatisfaction. This moves us away from the history of dysphoria which originally treated being trans as a psychological pathology.
A simple example maybe illustrative of what I am trying to communicate. Recently I read a rather lengthy article by someone in their early 40s who spent their whole life as a woman, got married and had a child, and whose husband ultimately died. Afterwards the individual began to realize that they did not feel comfortable socializing as female. They cut their hair and started wearing more masculine clothing. They are quite adamant they have no gender dysphoria, but have spent years trying to find the right binder to give the right physical appearance in public while trying to maintain a modicum of physical comfort. The person has also dabbled off and on with testosterone. Recently the person has seriously considered some kind of gender affirming surgery even though historically they have said they have no interest in doing this. My simple question is, how can you say you are trans but have no gender dysphoria? Why do you go to such lengths to change some things about yourself? Something is going on here. If you find the term dysphoria offensive, let’s agree upon a term that does not trigger you as much, but at the moment it sure sounds like this is what you have. Their position seems to be a bit illogical. I see this often.
When I first started transitioning, I was absolutely certain of my identity. Nevertheless I retained two therapists to verify my conclusion. I wanted objective third-party input to make sure I was not deluding myself. I considered this healthy self investigation, not gate keeping. There is a difference between using objective third-party experts in the process of self discovery and having an arbitrary (and perhaps bigoted) attitude imposed upon you. This seems to be what the anti-transmedicalists are mostly concerned about. But to ignore the issues and broadly dismiss people engaged in an honest search as being truscum, is both insulting and infantile. People need to be a little more circumspect. We are actually all in this fight together. Rejecting people who are trying to help is ultimately counter-productive.
