transmedicalism is the reduction of the experience of being trans to a series of medical operations that alter the individual from one sex to the other. this is a nonsensical bigotry that is confounded in social consciousness partly because of a few high profile trans advocates of transmedicalism like buck angel. being trans is of course a complex expression of gender relative to social norms and one's assigned gender at birth. so-called "biological sex" is also not a thing that exists to cleanly separate male and female.

My assumption is that this is an accusation of boiling down transgenderism to sex-characteristics as expressed through the brain, and the possibility of "testing" that would deny transgenderness if the person doesn't have these correlating sizes previously identified in research.

you would be correct, that's 100% the concern!

To broaden the other definitions offered, it also describes a deification of medical staff and presumes that they have legitimately better ability to define an individuals gender identity and internal feelings, and that therefore people should not be allowed to be trans and access basic tools of transition if not for having been allowed to do so by a doctor.

brain regions

All the research on this is basically popular junk with huge replication issues, exclusion of data and massive reliance on averages with no predictive value whatsoever

See: literally all other brains scan articles

The only way in which it's okay is in providing a clear case for one way (among many others) in which it's valid to be trans. This can be helpful for getting people who might be reachable to go, "oh there's a biological basis and it isn't hurting anyone okay I'll be pro-trans".

This is a limited form of support and can quickly get problematic if someone tries to do more with it. And of course libs do exactly that and it's what trans medicalism is known and rightly criticized for, pigeonholing gender identity into a box that the nerds themselves struggle to even define. The act of trying to tie it down into simplistic categories leads, among other things, to reproducing social constructions that are then claimed to be objective realities. And to also then exclude every other consideration, implicitly or explicitly, despite the fact that basically every trans person will tell you some way in which that's incorrect.

The same approach was used for gay people as well and with similar issues (and a limited positive side). There are people you can get to move away from homophobia through medicalization arguments, like saying someone is born that way so you shouldn't treat it like some kind of choice or "lifestyle" to criticize it. I'm glad this has helped people shed homophobia. But it's also... basically wrong. It's also cool and good to be all kinds of gay/bi/queer even if it's something that develops in you over time, or even deliberately. There are people who have always felt a hard preference/sense of gendered attraction as well as people who have not. There have been many different societal understandings of human sexuality, including what we'd put on the gay spectrum, and that variation in understanding is surely more social than genetic. Folks in my country have gotten gayer over time (which rocks) and it's not because we're a bunch of mutants lol and it's not even just because folks are less closeted. Being able to accept and explore and challenge is also an act of creation - an act of societal co-creation. This also applies to understanding gender.

So while I'm highly critical of medicalization I do give critical support to the fact that a very limited use of it has made some people less transphobic (overall, ironic).

I dunno about the specific science you're referring to but I've typically heard "trans medicalism" used to denigrate people who think that you can only be trans if there's a medical explanation. So if you believe that someone has to experience gender dysphoria to be trans, then that's trans medicalism and that's bad because the truth is there's a lot of different trans experiences out there that don't all conform to the dysphoria narrative. AFAIK it's somewhat common for trans people seeking medical care to simply say they have dysphoria and use certain "key words" when describing their experience, even if those words are not entirely accurate, because the goal is to get care and most doctors are looking for those key words and they might not be fully up to speed on how diverse and sometimes contradictory peoples' feelings can be in practice.

There's also a logic trap you can get hung up on with the medical arguments that support the existence of trans people, which is that you might accidentally imply that it's only okay to be trans because there's a medical component. Always remember that even if we never find any "explanation" for why trans people exist, that doesn't mean that they don't - and on the flip side, even if we proved conclusively that being trans was optional and that people were "choosing" to do it, that still wouldn't make it any less valid of an identity to have because we shouldn't believe that there's anything wrong with it.

But yeah as long as you're not saying that it has to be medical then I don't think you should catch side eye researching the medical side of it, since there definitely is one. Although as some here have pointed out brain scan studies have very limited value.

A steaming pile of horse shit.

I’m often confused by its application too. I’ve seen people say that gender is biological unlike race, and it’s determined very early irrespective of one’s genitals and can be objectively compared, therefore trans racialism is an invalid comparison since there’s no biological basis for race. But others have said that gender is a social construct so one can be trans for any reason

I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:

• yewtu.be
• inv.nadeko.net
• yt.artemislena.eu
• piped.video