hey, iâm saying this as a guy who is extremely dysphoric and as binary as it gets, and who used to proudly call himself âtru/scumâ about 3-4 years ago,
thereâs really very little that separates that ideology from terf ideology, no matter how much you might think otherwise.Â
it starts out with the notion of âyouâre not really trans unless youâve medically transitionedâ, to which they get asked, âso youâre saying that for all the years you wanted to transition medically but couldnât afford to, you werenât actually trans?â
so they backtrack. and then itâs âwell okay, youâre not trans unless you at least PLAN to medically transition if you havenât already.â the response to THAT is, âwhat about people living in countries where that just isnât possible? or people with health issues that would arise if they took hormones or got surgery?â
which is generally still pretty reasonable to them, so,Â
âfine, you have to at least WANT to transition. you have to HAVE gender dysphoria in the first place.â
and once youâve gotten to that point, you have exactly 2 choices:
concede that each trans person is different, therefore each trans person is going to conceptualize dysphoria differently, and therefore it only follows that SOME may not actually consider the disconnect between their identity and assigned gender to be dysphoria at all. understand that even binary trans people defy a cis binary, and therefore by attempting to uphold it, youâre only harming yourself in the process. abandon this ideology altogether.
try to personally decide what dysphoria and Being Trans should mean for EVERYONE.
picking the second one comes from a place of desperation, honestly. it comes from insecurity in your own transness and a desire to justify it. you take the resentment from being told by a transphobic society that youâre not the gender you say you are, and you decide to turn around and say the exact same thing to others. âif you havenât suffered as much as me, i donât want you in here.â at its core, thatâs understandable, and itâs something to pity, because you somehow REALLY donât realize that youâre not doing any better than cis transphobes.
 especially because you donât even realize that if youâre stuck in that mindset and that community for too long, youâll only be subjecting yourself to more transphobia.Â
because you WILL be on the recieving end of it, sooner or later.Â
no matter how dysphoric you might be, even openly so, someone in that community will find something to nitpick about you and claim it as proof that YOU are âfaking it.â best case scenario, that incident changes your mind about this whole thing. worst - and unfortunately more likely - that incident will push you into upholding a Trans Persona that isnât even you.
i donât expect this to be the post that changes anyoneâs mind immediaely, bc it even took ME a while to just. Accept that every trans experience is different. and to shed enough internalized transphobia to also accept that Opting Out Of A Cis Binary should in fact be encouraged for anyone whoâs uncomfortable with it and not be behind a wall of prerequisites.
but i hope it can at least be a push in that direction for anyone currently stuck in that mindset - bc even if you arenât harassing people or an active part of that community, i promise youâll feel a lot better in general once you fully come to believe that NO ONE, including yourself, has to do any one thing to âproveâ that theyâre trans.