Transmedicalism Conflict and the Battle for Self-Identification

Is true transgender identity contingent on medical intervention, or can it be self-determined? 

Join Shane Ivan Nash, Blossom C. Brown, and Brennan Beckwith as we unpack the contentious debate between transmedicalism and self-identification within the transgender community. 

We dive deep into how prominent figures like Blair White, Buck Angel, and Calvin Guerra have fueled the transmedicalist narrative, advocating for medical transition as a necessity for true transgender identity. 

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Transcript

Transmedicalism and Online Identity Evolution

Speaker 1 0:00

Transmedicalism yeah, it was a very popular ideology among the Blair Whites, the Buck Angels, the Calvin Geras of the world. It's just this ideology that you can't be trans or you're not truly trans unless you're seeking and receiving medical gender affirming care, right, and it was just this very popular push back ideology, kind of counter culture to the gender fuckery, gender queer ideology of self-identification You're trans if you say you're trans. There's no right or wrong way to be trans. Non-binary identities and gender queer identities and gender fuckery identities, gender non-conforming identities, all kind of you know, flow between what it is to be trans, right, and it's kind of like this self-identification, like you actually decide what it is to be trans. So transmedicalism is just like the opposite of that ideology.

Speaker 1 1:05

Transmedicalism follows this, this narrative that in order to be considered truly trans, whatever that means, you have to be seeking in the trans mass case, like top surgery, hormone replacement therapy, other surgeries, right. But it was just a very popular ideology to just like hate on trans people you don't get. You know, that's really what it, what it boiled down to and what Calvin Guerra used that ideology to justify, just like making fun of, like cringy people he doesn't like but you got.

Speaker 2 1:40

You got him off the internet. Yeah, I did. I did. My question is how did you go from you know, being in that position where you're a young kid, you're dealing with all this hate comments, and you obviously took some time and grew and fueled. You came back with a vengeance.

Speaker 1 2:01

So you know what what happened was. So what happened was oh, even, oh, yeah, Really good Shane, yeah, yeah. You know I had to leave. I had to leave the internet for a little while, for about two years. I finished college and I just had to leave. It was one of those things where, like everything, I posted whatever I said no matter how I said it.

Speaker 2 2:28

Oh, we have no idea what that's like. You know I was. I have no clue. I have no empathy for that situation. Not every post where it has nothing to related but their fans are following us everywhere I can have no idea what that's like.

Speaker 1 2:42

I had a lot of horrible you know, calvin Garris, stanis, uh, you know, had me on notification, so whenever I posted they would come running and and I just didn't know how to deal with it at the time. And and I mean, who does right? Right, I'm a grown ass man.

Speaker 2 2:58

I'm like what the hell is going on, so I understand.

Speaker 1 3:05

So I just left the internet for a little while and, like I said, I had to. I had to, you know, do my own thing finish school I was in. I was in Pensacola, florida, you know. I was the president of several clubs, I was an RA, had my great group of friends and then in 2020 was when I graduated and I had to move back to LA where my parents live and, um, all of that was kind of very shocking Wait.

Speaker 2 3:30

as a trans person, you've left LA and went to Florida. It's for school.

Speaker 1 3:33

No, so my parents lived in Florida.

Speaker 2 3:35

Okay, um cause I was like you, left our rights for less rights they left me actually.

Speaker 3 3:40

Oh wow, wow me actually. Oh wow, wow, that happens a lot more than what people know.

Speaker 1 3:45

No, no, no, I love them so much, but yeah. So I moved back to LA and I didn't really know what to do because I was supposed to finish my bachelor's degree and go to get my graduate degree. I was going to go straight to graduate school. And then I was like At home, all of a sudden, like I did, I even planned to transition without involving any of my family or anything Like I planned to just start T and get top surgery and then, just like you know, when they saw me, they saw me.

Speaker 3 4:25

We have a similar experience and when I tell you I can relate to that as a trans woman, like I tried to hit my entire transition from my mother.

Speaker 3 4:34

It was just really, really challenging being in a household where you're expected so much of you and when you need to transition because you don't feel like who you are on the outside is aligning with how you feel on the inside. It's hard to navigate that. And going back to like what I said in a previous episode about detransitioning, I did that a lot, yeah, but what people like Calvin and some of these other people have done is turn that into propaganda for transmedicalism.

Speaker 1 5:05

Yeah, with the detransition narrative Okay.

Speaker 3 5:09

Let me cherish myself.

Speaker 1 5:12

Figuring out the family aspect was difficult, but it wasn't ever that they were unaccepting, it was kind of just I wanted to do it myself without hearing what they had. I didn't want to walk. You knew what you wanted and you didn't want.

Speaker 2 5:26

Yeah.

Speaker 1 5:27

But then the pandemic put me back in my parents house and I it was like, okay, I guess I'm doing this um with with them. You know more involved. But that turned out to be great, like my mom nursed me back to health after top surgery. Same yeah, like I, you know. I think you know, for some parents it's just like once you're like this is what's happening, they're on board, right.

Speaker 1 5:51

Yeah, and they know when you're not going to be able to change their minds yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly exactly once they're the element, but anyway, so yeah, so I moved back to to la and I started doing tiktok actually, and I started meeting a bunch of tiktok loves trans guys yeah, I started and it was really refreshing because, uh, I started to see a lot of people using the terminology that I was using on YouTube and getting totally hated for and like people identifying the way that I identified and like, had you know, been kind of conditioned to like really like feel weird about those parts of myself and like, just you know, hide those parts of myself on the internet, be really careful about how I spoke about my identity on the internet.

Speaker 1 6:38

And then, you know, here was TikTok and people you know, people with pink hair, again, you know, just being a hundred percent themselves, and like I was like, okay, maybe I can come back, like maybe I can do this, maybe I can talk about this stuff again. And so I ended up getting like a group of friends, uh, um, of all content creators. Right During the pandemic, I think a lot of people experimented with like, uh, you know, zoom activism, where they just, you know, got a bunch of queer people from around the world in a zoom call and uh, you know, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 7:11

And so I met a lot of trans and queer people through that and I kind of started preparing. I think I was like I talked to a few of my friends and I was like, do you think that I should talk about Calvin? Like do you think that I do, you think that you know, I'm ready to do it? And then, oh, what happened I remember now is Calvin deleted the video about me or he privated it. He privated the video and I was like wait a second, he can't just erase it. He can't just erase something that was like the bane of my existence for two years, um and kinda like world of War.

Speaker 2 7:49

Warcraft never look at the same right yeah, exactly, I was like. I was like wait a second yeah, I saw you don't understand this kid. When do you mind if I tell this? Yeah, yeah, so this calvin guy kid went on. What was her name? Who was? Who is? Who is the?

Speaker 1 8:06

the streamer. The streamer riley grace rashong.

Speaker 2 8:08

Okay goes on and plays world of war. That girl love her like playing a video game. While having this serious conversation, let me not digress.

Speaker 1 8:18

I feel like I'm I'm messing up the story because like I was like why are they playing video games?

Speaker 3 8:23

because I was gonna bring fortnight today, honestly, and you and I were gonna play fortnight and we were just gonna talk shit about calvin.

Speaker 2 8:28

We're gonna be like dude, drop me yeah, I just um.

Speaker 1 8:34

so, yeah, riley Grace Fashong was involved, uh, but she doesn't make content anymore either. She kind of went on her own little crash and burn moment for her, but uh, yeah, so she had Calvin on and was kind of doing debate with him and kind of it was a little strange. The weirdest video. Um, it was a little strange conversation and I was like I don't want calvin to be the only person talking about this and I don't want him to have, uh, I didn't think that he was going to have a redemption arc or anything, but I I was like I, I need to, I need to say what I need to say about this, yeah, and so I got my support, I got someone to help me write it, I got someone to help me do the research.

Speaker 2 9:14

Okay, storyboarding and scripting.

Speaker 1 9:15

My lovely writer at the time, Alice. I really, really, actually. I think she goes by a different name now. Oh yeah, Anne.

Speaker 2 9:24

Erased it. We didn't hear it.

Speaker 1 9:24

Anne, now yeah.

Speaker 2 9:27

Even though it's alive.

Speaker 1 9:31

But no, she's great. I really really, really, really care about her so much. She was great, she's trans and she really really helped me kind of build the confidence and do the research I needed to post that video.

Speaker 1 9:48

And then, uh, yeah, and I just talked about like my experience and how it affected me, how, like having a bunch of trans men uh, you know, out to get you really really uh negatively affected me and uh, you know, and I found with that video and I made some TikToks about it as well, like I kind of found that, you know, a lot of people felt the same way as me. A lot of people felt like that ideology, that presence, calvin's presence, kind of intimidated them out of feeling certain ways about their identities, intimidated them out of feeling certain ways about their identities. Um, a lot of people who identified with me um felt more like they had to identify with Calvin.

Speaker 2 10:34

A lot of people came he had that much influence on. Yeah, oh, I didn't know who the kid was. A hundred percent.

Speaker 1 10:41

He was very, very popular.

Speaker 2 10:42

He created like a generation of trans guys. Yeah.

Speaker 1 10:44

He made had maybe like 300,000 subscribers. They were all trans young trans guys. Yeah, he had maybe like 300,000 subscribers. They were all trans young trans guys, just like him.