STOCKTON, CA—Cackling as the steps of the dastardly plan crystallized in her mind, local trans teen Brie Chandler told reporters Tuesday that she had hatched a nefarious plot to undergo years of medical treatments and counseling to win at swimming. “It’s oh, so simple: several years of sweet-talking medical…
Wait I thought people could be trans without medical treatments and counseling because gender identity is a construct and not reliant on one’s secondary or primary sex characteristics but rather reliant on their decision to identify with a gender they were not assigned at birth. Like I get it is the onion, but I thought people who think you have to have gender dysphoria or medically transition are called “transmedicalists,” and much like “terf” I’m fairly sure “transmedicalist” isn’t a compliment.
I’m not trans though so I could be wrong, but this is how it was clearly described to me by a nonbinary individual, a trans man, and a trans woman, all of whom I am friends with and one of whom I was dating at the time, so if I misunderstand so do they, I didn’t make it up myself.
It is true that you don’t need medical treatments and counseling to be trans. However, specifically within the context of gendered sports, the places that do allow trans athletes to compete with other members of their gender tend to require testing of hormone levels. When I’ve seen trans people talk about the sports issue, they’ve been fine with this, often using it as an argument why it’s OK for trans people to compete with cis people of the same gender. Most of the stories reactionaries are trying to scare people with are about trans kids who have undergone medical gender affirming care.
So, yeah, I think there’s some nuance lost here, but given that it’s satire with punchy writing, I don’t think it’s terf-level. But I’m cis and I’d be happy to be corrected.
Ah ok, that makes sense.