Transmedicalism

Transmedicalism is the belief that being transgender is primarily a medical issue marked by gender dysphoria and treated via medical transition (i.e., hormone therapy or sex reassignment surgery).^[1][2][3] Transmedicalists (or transmeds)^[4] believe trans people who do not experience dysphoria or desire medical assistance are not authentically transgender, and label them transtrenders.^[2][5][6] They may also exclude non-binary people.^[7] There are divides and debates among transmedicalists on the exact definition of who counts as transgender.^[8]

Transmedicalists are sometimes referred to as truscum,^[2][9] a term coined on Tumblr meaning "true transsexual scum" which they have since reappropriated.^[10][11] Those who believe that gender dysphoria is not required to be transgender are sometimes called tucute, meaning "too cute to be cisgender".^[11] Transmedicalists dismiss transgender people they consider inauthentic as transtrenders.^[12]

Some critics view transmedicalism akin to the medical model of disability in that it medicalizes an attribute that contains both medical and social components.^[13]

See also

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