Are TRUSCUM Evil? | Re ContraPoints "Transtrenders" | BreadBusting #9

Welcome to BreadBusting, where we attempt to examine the problematic ideas that come out of BreadTube, and the ideology of Breadism more generally. Basically, it's like Myth Busting, but for Breadism. Please note that, while I do have my personal political beliefs, all this is done in the name of intellectual discussion and seeing things from different perspectives. This is the second part of my response to the latest ContraPoints video, titled Transtrenders. Last time we looked at the conflict between assimilationist vs anti-assimilationist LGBT people; and this time we will take a look at the transmedicalists vs anti-transmedicalists conflict.

But then... Truscum Trouble?

Technically, 'transmedicalist' refers to trans people who believe that being trans has a firm basis in the medical condition called 'gender dysphoria'. 'Truscum' originally meant a transmed who acts exclusionary towards trans people who don't agree with them, but nowadays many people just use the term as a smear for transmeds in general. Based on the way Tiffany treated Baltimore in the video, Tiffany would fit both definitions of a 'truscum'. But then, as I explained last time, putting down people who disagree with your worldview is an attitude problem, not a belief problem, and since I have already dealt with Tiffany's attitude problem last time, I won't explore that again. Instead, I'm going to focus on the difference in belief between Tiffany and Justine, and that difference is the acceptance vs the rejection of the transmed idea. In the rest of this video, I will see if this incompatibility is the make or break for this potential couple.

Are TRUSCUM Evil? Let's Look Deeper.

So, the main conflict we are presented with is that, Tiffany, like all transmeds, believe that being trans is a medical condition, and Justine, like all anti-transmeds, is opposed to this idea. Well, then, people have different ideas about various things, and they disagree all the time. So what? But then, this is actually personal for both Tiffany and Justine, because they are both trans. Therefore, Tiffany's theory about trans would apply to Justine too, and Justine's theory about trans would apply to Tiffany too. This is why the argument between transmeds and anti-transmeds have gotten so toxic, and people on both sides have taken it so personally. But then, to be fair, if people like Justine hate being described by Tiffany's transmed theory, people like Tiffany hate being described by Justine's theory just as much. And what was Justine's theory? It's that gender is performative, a theory originally described by Judith Butler in her book Gender Trouble back in 1990. And from what I know, this view of gender is hated by the vast majority of trans people across the political spectrum. I am certainly very opposed to it myself, as I have described in my previous video, 'Are Transwomen Women'. So then, both Tiffany and Justine are promoting a theory of trans-ness that some other trans people hate. They need to recognize that, they have at least this in common.

If theories about being trans are dividing us, why can't we just not have them? Why do we need those theories anyway? As Justine said, there's no theory about being gay. But then, being trans affects one's identity and interaction with other people much more extensively than being gay does. It requires family and friends to get used to some serious changes when they interact with you, every single time. It can't just be put aside for a while, it is always there. Hence, most trans people feel the need to explain their circumstances to many people in their lives. And this is where theories about being trans come in. Tiffany believes that the transmed story is the one that represents her. Justine believes that the Butlerist performativity theory story is the one that represents her. It's like two people who have different religions, or two people who support different football teams. And within each camp, we can have further divisions. For example, I am a transmed too. But then, I don't share all of Tiffany's views, nor do most transmeds I know. For example, most of us have certainly evolved to be accepting of non-binary people. I don't like the label 'transsexual' and I prefer to reclaim HBS instead. I would classify gender dysphoria as an endocrine condition rather than a mental disorder. I also think the idea that seeking medical transition being what makes trans people valid is fundamentally wrong, because medical diagnosis should always be separate from what treatment choices the patient makes. Nevertheless, the thing we all agree on, as transmeds, is that being trans can be traced to a medical cause of some sort, and is not explainable by sociological theory.

And trans theories are very personal for many of us. In the video, Tiffany seems to say that she favors the transmed theory because it can be more readily accepted by others, but I don't think this is the reasoning for most transmeds, but rather, just Natalie's idea of how we think. For most of us, it isn't about which theory gets acceptance at all. For me, the transmed narrative accurately represents my story, and I feel that other narratives such the Butlerist performativity theory or the gender as a social construct idea don't speak to me at all. For me, only the transmed narrative adequately explains my onset of gender dysphoria the very first time I learned that the world was divided into genders, my feelings of missing out on things throughout childhood, my experience of awkwardness with puberty and so on, and any sociology-based narrative wouldn't represent my history adequately. Sociology theories also can't explain physical dysphoria. For me, I feel as though the sociology based narratives invalidate a large part of my past 30 years. It feels like some so-called expert in an ivory tower, often a radical feminist theorist, tries to fit my existence around her own view of what the world should be, and not caring that it invalidates me as a person in the process.