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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   1734 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 30, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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I'm finally going to write an overview of the whole trans cult/ideology because I'm tired of otherwise seemingly intelligent and well meaning people arguing with me about it.

Could you all send me your best deep dives into the topic of transgenderism, both pro and con?

I hope you look into the trans medical perspective as opposed to just debunking the modern progressive viewpoints.

Gender dysphoria is a genuine medical condition and even you write a the perfect rationalist takedown of the “trans cult”, it wouldn’t change anything for the average trans person. No one who has profound distress at having breasts and can’t bare to look at themselves in the mirror will cancel their top surgery (or stop wearing a binder, or go abroad if you made the surgery illegal locally) after a convincing philosophical argument about the definition of “woman”.

Like others mentioned, Zack M. Davis has written tens of thousands of words on the subject from a rationalist point of view, and it’s clearly a desperate coping mechanism for a psychiatric condition/neurological problem that he’s unwilling to have properly treated.

For some medical deep dives, I like Dr Power’s subreddit and its wiki for a bleeding edge take, and this classic from 1966 which shows the medical necessity of treating transsexuals from a time before there was any “gender ideology”.

Gender dysphoria is a genuine medical condition and even you write a the perfect rationalist takedown of the “trans cult”, it wouldn’t change anything for the average trans person.

You put several claims into one sentence:

  1. There is a genuine medical condition called "gender dysphoria"
  2. It's the same condition "trans cult" is concerned with
  3. The concerns of "trans cult" are purely medical and only go as far as medical necessities for the above-mentioned condition go.
  4. "Average trans person" is the person who has the genuine medical condition above, and in fact, every person that declares oneself "trans person" is automatically suffers from that condition by virtue of that declaration
  5. There is no other way to treat this condition except by accepting the demands of "trans cult"
  6. The treatment above is a necessity for an "average trans person" and without it they would suffer objective grave harm

Obviously, some of these claims could be true without others being true at the same time. I could probably grant you 1 and maybe a part of 2, but others are in no way a given.

You put several claims into one sentence:

I don't think so? I read it more like: even if claims 2-6 are false that does not disprove claim 1. I happen to be pretty skeptical of claim 1 myself, but I'm not seeing any underhanded conflation here.

I doesn't disprove 1, it does disprove the claim that GD being a medical condition has relevance on the discussion of "trans cult" and "average trans person".

Ok, another way I would formulate their point is "the 'trans cult' is not relevant to the average trans person, so please don't limit your discussion of the issue to internet crazies, goofy academics, etc.". This would give you half a point on claim 4, but only half, because "and in fact, every person that declares oneself 'trans person' is automatically suffers from that condition by virtue of that declaration" is not stated anywhere or even implied. Trans-med's are kinda on the outs of the progressive movement precisely because they disagree with that claim.

another way I would formulate their point is "the 'trans cult' is not relevant to the average trans person

Trans cult is relevant to the society and thus to the trans person as part of that society. Yes, "internet crazies, goofy academics" etc. are not the only part of the debate - but also the "trans cult" is way bigger than a couple of crazies and some goofy professor in some obscure classroom. It's something that dictates day to day policy on the ground - and very successfully at that, I am not seeking that stuff out specifically and yet I read about various scandals related to trans issues pretty much every week. If I were a female, the question of "if I go to a locker room, will I encounter there a bearded man with his penis out looking at me undress" would be a very practical question for me now, and a question of "if I am a female athlete, is the second place the best I can hope for now, and how soon before it becomes fifth place or I get seriously hurt" is a practical one too. And none of these questions are really answered by "yes, there's such a condition as gender dysphoria".

It's not meant to answer them. All they're doing is asking OP to give some time to the best pro-trans argument, which in their estimation is transmedicalism.

You can dispute that trans-med is representative of the average trans person, and say that the Queer Theory wing of the trans movement has most of the power and influence. Hell, you can even question the validity of the diagnosis itself like I do, but I don't see how you can say they conflated any of the claims you listed with the main claim they actually made.

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