~We are the Truscum Gems~

Though I still have “truscum” somewhere in the about page of my personal blog, I think the reason a lot of people have dropped the label is because everyone is just too tired of dealing with the trans discourse on Tumblr.

I personally still and will always believe you must experience some level of dysphoria to be transgender, as that’s the technical way to quantify that identity, like being attracted to the same sex makes you homosexual and so on.

As for gender roles, I have never felt all that personally restricted by them, as I’ve been raised in a fairly open-minded household, but then I know that some don’t have it as easy.  The whole gender role debate really is up to personal tastes, but I agree that they shouldn’t be something that’s enforced.

I’m glad you like the blog, dear anon.  I’m sorry we aren’t quite as active anymore, but I hope you come by any time you need a place to talk.

afaik maverique means non-binary and non-feminine and non-masculine. it sounds like there is no set way this dysphoria could manifest, therefore there is no set way one could respond to their dysphoria or transition. being maverique seems to be different for every person that is this gender.

agender dysphoria commonly manifests as a desire to be rid of one’s sex characteristics, and there are surgeries possible to remove genitalia and alter secondary sex characteristics. personally i’m now neutral towards the truscum debate, but usually they believe dysphoria makes a person transgender because otherwise you are basing gender identity on gender roles, something which should be abolished entirely.

Hey again!

Don’t worry about it - it’s pretty hard to get the exact intonation you want over text, especially on this blue hellsite.

As for what we think - well, I can only speak for myself, but you seem like a kind person. A lot of truscum on this site are reactionary assholes who only focus on putting other people down. You’re allowed to believe what you want, and say what you want, but putting others down in the name of “discourse” is... really looked down upon pretty much everywhere else that isn’t Tumblr.

And, like I said, the whole truscum vs. tucute debate is really more of a non-issue at this point.

The truscum that’re telling you that are obviously stupid. As long as you believe you need dysphoria to be trans/that being trans is a medical condition, you can consider yourself truscum/transmed. There are radicals and liberals to every side of every opinion on this giant planet, why would being a more liberal truscum mean you aren’t truscum? That’s like saying a Republican that believes in same-sex marriage isn’t Republican.

In the end, it’s up to you to decide what to believe in. You should try to be less concerned with what other people think about you, and more about the actions you want to take in order to better the trans community.

At the very least, you can approach the debate with an open mind and a respectful attitude.

I’ve heard the term ‘binarist’ being used?  I am not certain that’s the all-accepted term, however.

I feel that there’s some mischaracterization on both sides there.

As mentioned before, not all truscum are necessarily against neopronouns: I’ve met truscum who use them, usually non-binary ones. As for the argument of “true trans people” it’s more an issue with wording but I’ve mostly seen the word “real” instead of “true.” I think the difference is that “real” implies legitimacy based on (what they would call) sound evidence, where “true” implies more honesty which a lot of truscum don’t tend to see in other trans people right off the bat due to their beliefs. It’s nitpicky I know but despite the name “truscum” the word “true” really isn’t used very much to describe dysphoric trans people in the debate. 

As for tucutes, in theory, yeah, that’s around what would happen, but not really in practice. While tucutes don’t consider dysphoria to be a factor in one’s gender identity, there are a lot of other things that they will make a fuss over based on someone’s gender identity. Some examples being looking down on masculine afab trans folk (trans guys in particular, but I’ve seen tons of non-binary trans masculine people spat on for their masculine gender identity), there’s also a lot of gatekeeping in that there’s the “you need to be x to identify with x” which does have a place in the conversation such as with intergender, but more often than not they cross lines or speak over people just to make sure that everyone is living up to the quota. 

Tucutes are as heavily flawed in my opinion as truscum, mostly because they’re two sides of the same coin at the heart of it all. They tend to be very judgmental people who put their nose where it really doesn’t belong, and intentionally antagonize other people over very minuscule and mundane topics, yet they both think that they’re a godsend for trans people. They both demonize each other heavily, and do recognize that there are bad people in their community but are usually not willing to do much about it. Both groups are also really cliquey from what I’ve seen, the cliques circulating around one popular blogger For example, two infamous cliques in this drama would be Mari, otherwise known as agender-offender, who leads a very extreme group of truscum, and then you have Kat infamously known as idislikecispeople (IDCP), who I believe left tumblr, but she founded and lead a similarly extreme group of tucutes. In both communities really everyone outside of their cliques recognized that they were terrible and toxic people, but never did a whole lot to try to change that. The biggest thing that comes to mind is when the truscum community tried to separate the terms truscum (which would mean essentially the extremists that follow Mari) and transmedicalists (Who tended to follow the approach of other larger, yet more liberal blogs). It never really caught fire, mostly because nobody outside of the community recognized the difference. 

But really, neither of them really do much of anything in the way of helping or hindering trans people on more than the individual scale. 

Both sides tend to have extremists who go over the line often. In my time in the debate, I’ve seen truscum invalidate people, ask incredibly invasive questions regarding genitalia, and I have seen more extreme truscum go to such lengths as to actually call their victim’s therapist to ask for confirmation on their dysphoria. As for tucutes, I’ve seen no shortage of harassment, suicide baiting, manipulation, and calling more than two peoples’ work to try to get them fired for what they post online. While these extremists are not the majority, the hollow barrel makes the loudest noise. They get attention, and as far as the other side is concerned, speak for their entire group. 

So, to answer your initial question... It’s complicated. It’s really on a case-by-case basis, because both sides will demonize and exaggerate what the other has done. There are truscum who are wonderful people and who I count as friends, and I have friends that are tucutes as well. There’s also horrible truscum and tucutes who go the extra mile to ensure that their bullying is as distressing as possible.The behavior of the group varies greatly because at the end of the day they’re both really only tied together by loose definitions while people try to constantly make unofficial rules for each faction. 

Most things you mentioned in the scenario could go a lot of different directions based on who is looking at it and what their beliefs are. A liberal truscum might think nothing of it, assume that the kid probably has dysphoria but doesn’t know how to recognize it and move on without approaching. A moderate might approach, but I don’t think they would attack pronouns so much as the “then what makes you trans???” and a radical truscum would be the all-out “YOU’RE ACTUALLY CIS STOP APPROPRIATING TRANS PEOPLE!” As for tucutes, they also vary. There are those who will just silently endorse, others who might try to strike up a conversation, and the lovely stereotypical ones who are like are those pronouns and gender okay for them to use considering their race/agab/mental health/medical history/abuse history etc.? God help them if it’s not, because then it’s callout post and “kill yourself” time. 

Tucutes are only slightly more united because their founder Kat released an official rule set for them, where truscum are a faction created also by Kat to demonize people who didn’t agree with her and essentially start this war. I would link it, but her account is on password and I can’t find any archives of the page she had for it. 

Something to keep in mind, however, is that this debate is really nothing new. It didn’t start on tumblr, and it won’t end on tumblr. Before truscum/transmedicalists and tucutes, they were called transexuals and transgenderists. The debate has been taking place really since the trans movement was started way back when. 

I tried to keep this as neutral as I could, though if you could tell I really don’t care for either faction. I only really “count” as truscum anymore because I believe that being trans is a medical condition at its heart, even if it means much more than that to me personally. 

There’s a lot of ways to be an ally to trans people. Some ways that come to mind are:

Use their pronouns. If, for some reason, you can’t use them, like if you don’t feel comfortable using it/itself pronouns or the like, ask for an auxilary. If none is provided, then try to avoid pronouns (Ex: I was talking to Joey and was told that Joey really likes baseball instead of I was talking to him and he told me he really likes baseball.) 

Acknowledge their gender and preferred language. So if someone tells you that they think they’re agender and they’re really not comfortable with gendered phrases, try not to use gendered phrases around them. You can give plenty of great compliments that are gender neutral (Stellar, amazing, dazzling, dynamic, inspiring, energizing, etc.) Really just listen to them.

It’s not your place to question them on the validity of their gender. At the end of the day, it’s just not your affair if they say that they’re a gender you don’t understand. Shrug your shoulders and move on. Let me tell you, they’ll probably take it as a personal attack and your relationship will become very strained because of it (This rings true even if they go “You know I think you’re right,” trust me as someone who’s gone through it). 

Ask questions. If you don’t know if something is okay or not, pull them aside and ask them respectfully.

It’s not about you. Their transition, their pronouns, their presentation, and really anything else relating to them being trans is not about you. Don’t make it about you. If it’s so hard having a friend who is trans, or who doesn’t pass, or who uses hard pronouns, or anything along those lines is hard for you, imagine how hard it is for them. Then imagine being told by people you trust that you make life harder for them. It really doesn’t do wonders.