I think the problem comes when it’s framed as “you can only be trans if you have a diagnosis” as opposed to “you’re trans whether you have a diagnosis or any kind of medical experience with it or not.” One can say “it took a doctor diagnosing me with dysphoria before I could accept I was trans, but I understand that this is just my experience, and I know others have their own experience” and that’s totally fine.
It should be ok to tell people, for example, that dysphoria is central to the trans condition
I don’t agree. It’s ok to say “dysphoria is central to my trans experience, though I understand this isn’t universal.” That doesn’t gatekeep anyone. In fact it’s the opposite. But it’s not ok to tell others that dysphoria or medical treatment is required to be trans.
Sure, in many locations, having a diagnosis is required before doctors will allow you to even begin HRT or consider having surgeries if you want them. But that’s just a symptom of a broken medical system that enforces cisheteronormativity, and prevents self-ID and informed consent. It’s not what actually defines what being trans is all about. It’s just a hoop people are forced to jump through.
There’s a difference between having honest and good-faith discussions about the role dysphoria, surgery and HRT play in the overall trans experience, and making broad definitive statements. That’s what actually erases others’ experiences.
Gonna have to disagree here. The social aspect of it all is just as important of the medical aspect. While there are trans issues that are mostly medical in nature, there are equally trans issues that are more social in nature.
I’m not sure what contexts you’ve seen truscum being used in, but from what I know it’s a term used for people who insist on a medical diagnosis in order to be trans. The problem with this, imo, is twofold. There’s a long history of medical gatekeeping that enforced cisheteronormativity in order to get a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, leaving out all other forms of self-identity (among a whole host of philosophical issues). And the second is just the lack of understanding and research of the broader medical community. Treatment guidelines are all over the place, often misguided, and usually inadequate to achieve the goals of the patient.
Truscum rhetoric often reinforces cisheteronormativity which is mostly antithetical to what being trans is about in the first place. That’s not to say that the trans community doesn’t struggle with medical diagnoses or that that’s not important, but to use a diagnosis as the benchmark of what being trans is, is usually needlessly exclusionary.
