Hunter Schafer, Transmedicalism, And The Real Responsibility For Anti-Trans Laws
They were the four !!!!'s heard around the trans world. How do we react to this latest bit of discourse?
It happened quickly - before anyone knew what was going on, the transgender world was struck by immediate social media discourse. Hunter Schafer, famed HBO transgender woman actor in Euphoria, reacted to a long post blaming non-binary people for stepping over trans women’s voices and for provoking societal backlash against transgender rights in Florida. Hunter Schafer responded with a simple message: “!!!!”
Alright. If you’re wondering now what the big deal is… enjoy your moments of bliss before delving into the discourse of the day. Very quickly - people focused on Hunter Schafer’s seeming endorsement of this bit of transmedicalism. This elicited an equally strong reaction against those people, mostly from binary-aligned transfemmes. In no time at all, Hunter Schafer began trending on twitter, and the fight over her four exclamation points was ferocious.
But that’s not what I am going to focus on here today. You’ll be able to find any opinion on Hunter Schafer on twitter at the time this article is being written just by typing her name. The discourse over her is, in my opinion, highly misguided at best - focusing on a single young trans woman’s reaction to what may have been her first brush with this topic does no one any good.
Rather, I am here to focus on something a little deeper - the original post, transmedicalists blaming non-binary people for anti-trans legislation. And I am here to say, emphatically, that non-binary people are not the reason why we have seen 300 anti-lgbtq+ bills, mostly focused on trans youth, flourish in the United States this year. No, transmedicalism is much more at fault for anti-trans legislation in 2022. Let’s dig deeper…
First, what is transmedicalism? There are a lot of "definitions" of it. At its most extreme: You need major dysphoria to be trans, and you should desire full medical transition to be valid, "transtrenders" exist. In practice, they seek to gatekeep transition HEAVILY.
Of course, some transmedicalists will say I’m mischaracterizing this philosophy. It’s a bit hard to pin down though, because fundamentally, transmedicalism is about drawing lines in the sand between who is trans and who is not trans enough to transition or be a part of the trans umbrella. Some draw the line at major dysphoria, some at any dysphoria, some at presentation, some at how well you pass - and there are examples of all these sorts of transmedicalists stretched far and wide all across the internet.
Transmedicalism used to be the only viewpoint on whether or not you were allowed to transition. Originally, transmedicalism used to separate trans people into categories like "AGP" (autogynephillia, fetish, not valid) or "HSTS" (homosexual transexual, you were "exposed to more estrogen in the womb" and likely present feminine gay). Again, some (but not all) transmedicalists will take issue with this characterization. Not all follow a AGP/HSTS hierarchy - some have moved on to other hierarchies ranging from brain scans and genetics (not used in practice, but advocated for) to simply measuring dysphoria (a “lighter” form of transmedicalism that still accomplishes the same thing).
These were pushed by a pretty vile human being and psychologist, Ray Blanchard. More on him later.
There have been several other famous transmedicalists: Caitlyn Jenner has sided with transmedicalism, Blaire White is a transmedicalist, Dr. Anne Lawrence was an early pioneer of research around accepting AGP/HSTS as legitimate, and Buck Angel has promoted transmedicalism heavily - all of these names are just a few in transmedicalist discourse.
There are entire organizations that center on transmedicalism, claiming to be "for advancing transgender care," such as Genspect and SEGM. Just look at SEGM's mission statement:
Here is Genspect's mission statement. Again, note the gatekeeping language and the attempt to make being trans about literally anything else but actually being transgender:
But... in private conversation, Genspect has promoted 100% desistance. That is, a complete elimination of trans people. They also call hormone therapy opposite sex imitation medicine. While they may advance transmedicalist ideas in front, in reality, they are part of the complex designed to eliminate trans people and pass anti-trans legislation… this is important to note, because the original post that Hunter Schafer was reacting to spoke from a transmedicalist perspective, and blamed non-vinary people for this.
Likewise, SEGM is part of the group that helped CREATE Genspect, and lobbies for conversion therapy:
So remember the transmedicalists I mentioned earlier? Ray Blanchard, Anne Lawrence, Buck Angel? What if these people were working with the above organizations, which seek to pass anti-transgender legislation like what just passed in Florida? It is no surprise that many of the previous names who are huge in transmedicalism have lobbied with these organizations. All of them have also appeared on Genspect's podcast or twitter feed.
And... The law in Florida? Who did they cite the most and who were the board members a part of? Genspect and SEGM. These organizations had people on the board making these decisions. They were the ones behind the anti-trans laws that the original instagram post blamed non-binary people for. These are not non-binary organizations leading the charge against transpeople - these are transmedical organizations that seek to institutionally capture medical organizations and panels in order to ban transition.
So look - I am a binary-aligned trans woman. I have a lot of transmedicalists that follow me for some reason. I want to be very clear - transmedicalism does not save us. In fact, its the transmedicalist leaders that are pushing the hardest right now for anti-trans laws.
And as for Schafer - addressing this is far more important than cancelling a young trans woman. I know it feels good to jump down Hunter Schafer’s throat - she very easily could have felt swayed by something without knowing the history behind it. But our efforts are much better spent on stopping this transmedicalism as a philosophy. Spend your energy debunking the stuff like what the original post put out because that’s what’s actually hurting us.
Thank you for talking about the real problem! The last think we need is division among the trans community
THANK YOU for cutting through the "discourse" to get to what really matters. How perpetually-online do you have to be to blame non-binary people for anti-trans laws?? The cis conservatives are our common enemy.