Transmedicalism is the idea that being transgender is primarily a medical issue related to the incongruence between an individual's assigned sex at birth and their gender identity, characterized by gender dysphoria.[1][2][3] There are divides and debates within the transmedicalist community on the exact definition of who is or is not transgender.[4] Many transmedicalists believe individuals who identify as transgender without experiencing gender dysphoria or desiring to undergo a medical transition through methods such as hormone replacement therapy or sex reassignment surgery are not genuinely transgender.[5][2] They may also exclude those who identify themselves as non-binary from the trans label.[6]
Transmedicalists are sometimes referred to as transmeds[7] and truscum,[2][8] a term coined by a user on microblogging website Tumblr, meaning "true transsexual scum", which has since been reappropriated.[9][10] Those who believe that gender dysphoria is not required to be transgender are sometimes called tucute, meaning "too cute to be cisgender".[10] Transmedicalists sometimes refer to those who identify as transgender without medicalized criteria as transtrenders.[11]
^Williams, Rachel Anne (2019). Transgressive: A Trans Woman On Gender, Feminism, and Politics. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. p. 129. ISBN978-1785926471. [...] trans medicalists themselves have self-consciously reappropriated the term 'truscum' to describe their position.
^Konnelly, Lex (June 4, 2021). "Both, and: Transmedicalism and resistance in non-binary narratives of gender-affirming care"(PDF). Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics. 43 (1). doi:10.33137/twpl.v43i1.35968. S2CID237909648. Retrieved July 19, 2021. Often referred to in short, by themselves and others, as simply transmedicalists (and sometimes as truscum or transfundamentalists), those who subscribe to this view ratify medical authority in regulating transgender experience, insisting that deviating from the established medical model undermines public acceptance of trans communities and trivializes 'authentic' transexperiences. They criticize those deemed "transtrenders," individuals who 'inauthentically' claim to be transgender in the absence of medicalized criteria, particularly gender dysphoria.