What I stand for: My transmedicalist opinions revisited in 2025
(I talk about my personal experiences here too. Warning since it’s quite detailed and maybe triggering?)
When people view my blog, they might think I’m a centrist, or even right-wing. They might believe I’m ignorant to trans experiences and the community, and so they dismiss my voice as another ‘hater’ and ‘conservative bootlicker’ with internalised transphobia.
But what they don’t consider is who I am beyond this blog. Sure, it’s because I don’t share my views outside of transmedicalism, but I think it’s unfair to judge someone so harshly when you only see one side of them on the internet.
I’m a socialist and quite far left. I engage in discussing politics in my free time, LGBT things being part of it.
Because I’m naturally opinionated, I have a strong desire to research extensively into everything and cover all bases before coming to my own conclusion.
Transmedicalism, or my own version of it, is what I have determined to be my belief after all this research and my own personal experiences. I don’t care whether transmedicalism is seen as conservative bootlicking or the ‘edgy’ phase for self-hurting trans people. It is simply the label that fits my opinions the best, regardless of what others think. And I’ve had it for 5 years.
To be clear, I do not oppose the existence of queerness. I have a very good friend who is non-binary, and many more identifying under ‘trans’ labels, and I strongly support their right of expression without persecution. I’ve seen how happy they are, and I know how my expression of self makes me happy.
However, BECAUSE gender is a social construct, it is much more influenced by dozens of external factors. I’ve spoken with and read the experiences of dozens of transmen/ transmascs and transwomen/ transfemme, who have found grievances in their gender due to how they were/ are perceived.
Lonely incels with no healthy relationships might begin to blame their gender and desire to be feminine so that they can get the attention they need. Girls in traditional households might despise being seen as a woman subconsciously. All of these are purely social issues.
The strongly disproportionate amount of YOUNG gay transmen and lesbian transwomen is something we also shouldn’t brush off. It is my personal opinion, but attraction towards the opposite sex, seeing them as more beautiful, contributes to the desire to be like them as a bandage to their insecurities.
You might argue that what I described is only the loud minority and I’m nitpicking, but a quick google search will bring you to Reddit posts asking the same questions.
“Why are so many transgirls on 4chan?”
“What’s with the straight girl fujoshi to gay transmasc pipeline?”
It’s something that these communities of people accept and even joke about constantly. And while they have their own explanations for them, of course, I disagree.
It is precisely because of what I have seen over my long-term exposure to the trans community, that makes me so confident in my stance.
Because I have not once related to them.
I have mild discomfort in being seen as a ‘woman’, but am terrified, horrified and disgusted of being understood as my sex. Always have, and always will be.
Now what I believe is that being genderqueer should be clearly separated from being transsexual. While I do not know the true reasons for sex dysphoria and hope it is a topic which will be researched more in the future, one thing is evident to me: It is much different from social gender.
Growing up, I liked to look pretty. I played with dolls and kitchen sets because they were fun, started ballet, and happily took on a ‘feminine’ gender role. I even had ear piercings which I liked, and mostly wore dresses. I was also tomboyish to an extent and played with toy cars and marbles because my family was non traditional.
I didn’t mind being a ‘girl’.
But the moment my sex was brought up, it was chaos. As a child, I struggled to tell people I had to pee sometimes because it meant they would know my sex. The word for my anatomy always felt awkward and heavy on my tongue despite my parents teaching and normalising the usage of correct medical terms early on.
While my siblings (one sister one brother) were comfortable with their sex, I was not, despite growing up the exact same way.
Imagine as an 8 year old you failed ballet classes even though you enjoyed them because your body in that outfit felt wrong, and going to classes became torture. You didn’t know how to explain yourself because it sounded so bizarre, idiosyncratic and delusional, so you cried helpless.
Imagine you as a 10 year old kid on an overseas school trip. The moment laundry was announced, you would rush to pick up your undergarments so that no one would know you wore them, even though everyone around you was a girl and didn’t give a shit.
Imagine on that same trip, you refuse to shower for 3 weeks straight because it meant you had to go to the woman’s shower.
Imagine puberty. Imagine hurting yourself.
Imagine, at your grown ass adult age, you still refuse to go to medical appointments because you had to answer certain sex-related questions.
So many painful scenarios that I cannot talk about them without wanting to throw up. Even my sexuality as a heterosexual (male attraction to women) was affected and muted, causing high distress and confusion.
I spent so long revealing my experiences not to make it a dysphoria olympics, but to show that it is quite distinctly a sex-related issue, even if it has ties to how society perceives me.
Transsexual people such as myself are affected strongly by sex dysphoria, and it is really only through medical intervention will our issue be solved.
Genderqueer people on the other hand, suffer a problem of expression. Yes, transsexual people also have problems with that, but the dissimilitude is VERY important and has to be made explicitly so that there is greater understanding of our problems, and understanding our different needs from the rest of society.
“But what’s wrong with the current system (in America at least), where it is provided to everyone regardless of how they identify?”
Over-saturation. It’s not that I want to completely gatekeep hormones and surgery, I think it should be an available ‘option’, like surgery or tattoos. But shouldn’t those with sex dysphoria be given utmost priority?
Again this isn’t a suffering olympics, but I strongly believe that there should be better and much more efficient resource allocation. This is less about hormones, and more about surgery (more invasive, expensive and time consuming procedures).
When transsexualism is medicalised, it falls under healthcare, something which is currently not seen in many countries such as where I live. Medicalisation also opens more doors to research and training of professional which leads to increased long-term understanding/ care of transsexuals (more efficient evaluation for example).
As for how evaluation should be carried out, you should be briefly monitored from your first appointment with a specialist for at least 6 months and regularly ask questions related to sex rather than gender.
I do agree that my medicalisation route might be idealistic, and many countries with a similar framework (Japan) is ineffective because it is too strict. But if genuine effort was put into actual research and medicalisation, it is a route with far more net positives in my opinion. Is there any harm in trying to work towards an ideal?
I also acknowledge it has ‘classist’ undertones because it might only give rich people access to experimental transition. But isn’t this the exact same for plastic surgery and optional beauty centred surgeries, built on the social construct of beauty? Furthermore, many genderqueers don’t even want to transition, or see it as a ‘maybe’ thing. In fact there’s an increasingly small amount of them who want to have medical intervention. You just have to pay a cost to access a luxury that you frankly do not need even if it improves your quality of life. Like vacations, good food, and many other things in life.
What I’m talking about here is providing the basic level of care and respect to different groups of people. And for transsexuals, transition healthcare is an additional requirement amongst the right to express yourself freely.
Genderqueers experience more social dysphoria and social-induced physical dysphoria (if any at all), thus their healthcare should focus more on effective therapy with an open mind.
And yes I have read the statistics of reduced depression and suicidal ideation amongst trans youths with the US model. However, those youths DO undergo stricter guidelines, which hence naturally filters out those who want to do it for experimentation/ self expression as it requires more effort compared to the easy informed consent you get as adults, and picks out those with sex dysphoria.
Reemphasising, my idea of transmedicalism focuses on benefitting transsexuals in the very long run. I don’t necessarily work off of the idea of informed consent only, and believe that to a certain extent, professionals would know what’s better for you.
TL;DR Genderqueer people have the right to express themselves freely, but should be seen as distinct from transsexuals. While the option of medical transition should be available to everyone, only guarded by costs, priority and subsidies should be offered to transsexuals.
Of course, I’m very open to discussion and always have been, as long as you remain respectful while challenging my ideas.
