From Transmedicalist to Trans Empiricist | TaraElla & Friends #2

TE: It's so hard being a transmed sometimes. We are so misunderstood. This is for several reasons. Firstly, there are just too many myths against transmeds out there. If you say you are a transmed, some people may assume things that are simply not true of you. They are going to be biased towards you from the start. You know, like how transmeds don't support non-binary people. How transmeds like to judge others as not trans enough. How transmeds are gatekeepers who invalidate others. Some even call trans rights reforms 'demedicalization', with the implication that the transmedicalism worldview is against trans rights. Which is stupid, because I totally support reforms that would allow trans people an easier time with employment, housing and so on.

AT: It seems like many people don't understand the point of transmedicalism at all. From there, they naturally think, like, why have this worldview when it wouldn't necessarily gain you any acceptance, validation or rights. From here, some start to speculate bad things about transmeds, which loops back into the first point. To resolve this, I think we need to go back to the basics. What's the point of the transmedicalist model in the first place? Why do you believe in it?

TE: I'm certainly not interested in any of the gatekeeping stuff. In fact, I don't even think in terms of do you need gender dysphoria to be trans. For me, I guess the transmedicalist model is the only logical choice for a trans person who is opposed to postmodern philosophy. Basically, there are two main ways people use to explain the world these days. There's the empirical, scientific way, in which we are committed to the objective truth, and base our claims on observable evidence. And then there's postmodern philosophy and its associated 'no objective truth', 'everything is a social construct' way. I guess I'm too committed to empirical science to have any room for postmodernism in my thinking.

Now, let's apply this to models of transness. There are four main models of how 'sex', as in genetic or reproductive sex, and 'gender', as in the social and behavioral aspects, are related. The first is the traditional model, where sex and gender are both biological reality and are strongly bound together, with gendered behavior explained by neurological differences.  This model can be split into where sex and gender are always correlated, which is how many religious conservatives believe, for example, and where there could very occasionally be a mismatch between sex and gender, which is the transmedicalist model. The next model is the second wave feminism model, where sex is a biological reality but gender is a social construct, i.e. gender behavior is entirely due to social expectation and modelling. The final model is the postmodern model, where both sex and gender are seen as social constructs or at least linguistic constructs, and neither is inherently natural or biological. Hence people should be free to redefine sex and gender as they see fit, and anything less would be oppression.

If you examine these models, two of them are incompatible with trans identities being valid at all. The model where sex is always consistent with gender is self-explanatory in this regard. The model where sex is real but gender is a social construct also leaves no room for trans people being a natural occurrence, and would suggest that it is a mere lifestyle choice. Indeed, this is the model of gender critical feminists who are trans-exclusionary. There is no way I would accept these two models, because they go against my own lived experience, as well as that of the many, many trans people who have ever existed. An honest scientific empiricism would have to reject these models.

So we are left with two models: one where both sex and gender are biological but there is allowance for mismatch, and another where sex and gender are both social constructs and people should be liberated from all of it. However, the second only makes sense if you accept postmodern philosophy, and all its metaphysical consequences. Which means an anti-postmodernist trans person, or a facts over feelings, science over philosophy type trans person, can only believe in the first model, that is, the transmedicalist model.

There is also another good reason to choose one model over the other: the transmedicalist model provides a very plausible explanation about why there are trans people, and justifies the reasonable societal accommodation of trans people. The postmodernist model is much weaker here, in that it ultimately does not explain transness, does not differentiate it from a pure lifestyle choice at all, and merely demands societal accommodation in the name of liberation. It is no different from demanding societal accommodation for any lifestyle choice, whether reasonable or not, and is therefore rather weak in terms of arguing for trans acceptance, unless the whole world also adopts postmodernist philosophy.

In conclusion, we can see that, at least in my case, I identify with the transmed model simply because it is the only one that makes sense to me, and because it provides a firm reasoning for transness, which would also be an argument for trans acceptance and reasonable accommodation.

AT: Sometimes, if a label becomes a mental roadblock to understanding, then maybe we need to find another one. What would you think about that? Is there an alternative label for the 'transmed' model?

TE: Given that it is an argument that comes from a medical and scientific reasoning point of view, it rejects postmodernism in the name of upholding the principles of scientific empiricism, including a demand that all claims be based upon observable evidence, I think that we may as well call this model the Trans Empiricist model from now on. Therefore, perhaps from now on, I think I will say that I am a Trans Empiricist.

AT: Sounds like a good idea!