Lecter

There is a misconception that nonbinary people are "fake trans", don't transition otherwise than socially, or detransition. Here's what I can say on this issue.

This is the only study that focused on brain differences between binary and nonbinary people that was conducted, and it validates their existence:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/22364652/

Here's something on how they transition:

"Chest surgery for nonbinary patients comprises a considerable proportion of transgender surgery practice"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/30007346/

"assigned female at birth non-binary people, who do not feel themselves to be men, are, in increasing numbers, using exogenous testosterone."
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334777012_Reworking_Testosterone_as_a_Man's_Hormone_Non-binary_People_using_Testosterone_within_a_Binary_Gender_System

"Finally, the only study analyzing the effects of medical interventions on health of NBGQ individuals (i.e., third research question) found that NBGQ FAAB individuals, contrary to the belief that they would not need to medically affirm their gender, improved their quality of life and health after chest surgery (Esmonde et al., 2018). This result is in line with previous studies which found that both hormonal treatment (e.g., Newfield et al., 2006) and chest surgery (e.g., Agarwal et al., 2018) commonly improved the quality of life and well-being of female-to-male transgender individuals."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6603217/

"Overall, non-binary youth (13%) were significantly less likely than binary youth (52%) to access hormone therapy, but they were more likely than binary youth to report experiencing barriers to accessing hormone therapy when needed."
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322364079_Non-binary_youth_Access_to_gender-affirming_primary_health_care

"49% of non-binary individuals also desired hormone therapy, although only 13% of these individuals had received it, relative to 71% of binary individuals."
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335459665_Comparing_the_health_of_non-binary_and_binary_transgender_adults_in_a_statewide_non-probability_sample

Apparently nonbinary trans people are accepted by theoretical science, but still face difficulties with practical medicine and everyday life.

"Non-binary adolescents experienced myriad forms of invalidation within multiple social contexts, which contributed to negative affective and cognitive processes, including confusion, self-doubt, rumination, and internalized shame. For many participants, the cumulative stressors related to invalidation contributed to poor mental health outcomes. Data from this study suggest that identity invalidation is a unique form of minority stress that may especially affect non-binary individuals, with significant implications for their social and emotional well-being."
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332994345_Invalidation_Experiences_Among_Non-Binary_Adolescents

The stereotype that nonbinary people don't transition is a kind of a self fulfilling prophecy, because it leads to their medical needs being invalidated and denied. But in general, linking one's validity as a trans person to their transition is a toxic practice, since many binary trans people can't transition either. "Trans" isn't short for "transition". The word "transsexual" initially was reserved for people with a desire to have different sexual roles and/or anatomy, that included gay people (https://www.etymonline.com/word/transsexualism), and it was coined a decade before first sex change operation was conducted. Applied strictly to gender, "trans" means identifying outside of your assigned status (that's true for both "transgender" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transgender#other-words and "transsexual" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transsexual). Which can include nonbinary people too.

I noticed that on this site I am the only one who listed "truscum" or "tucute" as an interest, and it made me think about my difficult relationships with these terms and their objective value (or lack of such).

When I for the first time seriously tried on the transgender label, I was 18. It's not like I never thought about being another gender before, but I was convinced it is supposed to go with much larger discomfort than I experienced. So I was relieved to find out nonbinary genders exist, and I classified myself as genderfluid, as it matched my periodical strong discomfort with my body and periodical feelings that I can actually enjoy it. I had no idea about the complexity of trans inner politics, but I guess my earlier position was tucute-like - learning about gender being a spectrum made me stop believing any dysphoria is necessary.

Gradually I educated myself. I shared political space with people who did not believe in trans at all, and I needed scientific sources to back myself up. I learned about sex differences in the brains and about how trans people appear as a result of mismatch between brains and genitals, and how it all expresses itself via dysphoria. This is how I developed my first conscious view on trans issues, and I called myself a transmedicalist, while still identifying as genderfluid. It did not present much of a problem on deviantart, but I faced some backlash on tumblr. Fitting in the tumblr transmed community was difficult, I was too left leaning, and quite a few were "skeptical" of my gender. At that point my dysphoria got worse. Looking back, I can see that I subconsciously tried to prove myself I'm valid, and I wanted to feel worse. Even though the transmed community on tumblr was vocally against linking dysphoria to self hate, there was still a lot of pressure towards trans men who found some parts of their bodies enjoyable of engaged in feminine activities. Selfies on guys with make-up posted in trans male tags always gathered negative comments, calling them "trenders", cis girls. Popular transmed artists drew comics picturing true trans men as traditionally masculine and "trenders" as gender non conforming and flamboyant. Like this:

It all created an unhealthy environment that pushed mentally weak people (such as myself and most of my transmed friends at that point) towars hurting themselves and others. I'm not saying it all to paint transmeds as evil, now my opinion is that they are both the perpetrators and the victims. But now I'm happy I left.

I left soon after publicly announcing that I'm male. I couldn't handle my colleagues all gathering to protect an actual transphobe (a person who claimed trans women can't be lesbians, etc) from fair criticism just because she did a good job angering SJWs and was what they called a "free thinker". For a long time after that I still held transmed views. I thought about rebranding it as transmaterialism, a movement that would basically be the same, but without any other politics influencing it, but our number never went farther than 4. For a long time I dropped trans discourse altogether.

Now I'm beginning to question my previous beliefs even more, and I seem to lean closer to my original position. There is some solid, well documented proof that transgenderism is a neurological condition linked to brain sex. But I haven't yet seen anything that would state it must cause gender dysphoria in 100% of the cases. Transmeds often start war at DSM, APA, and other official papers and organizations for being too pro tucute and not putting a heavy enough emphasis on dysphoria. But time taught me that in most cases doctors are actually right. Transmeds like saying that with new, less severe criteria for medical transition there is a growing problem of trenders going on hormone replacement therapy, and then having to detransition, but there is no medical records of such a process.

Is transmedicalism just a collective illusion of hurt and insecure people? From what I know, might as well be so.