On sticky encounters with transmedicalism: A trans nonbinary autoethnography

In this article, I build on my master’s thesis research on transmedicalism and truscum boundary construction around the category of trans (Amm 2022). Transmedicalism is a strand of trans discourse that draws on the biomedicalization of transsexuality to delegitimize non-normative and gender expansive trans experiences. Truscum, an online iteration of transmedicalism, combines “scum” with “true transsexual” and is both an epistemology of boundary making and a subject position. Written as a trans autoethnography, I recount the temporalities of my sticky encounters with transmedicalism and truscum. I present my shifting affective engagements with truscum across different time spans: before, during and after the formal completion of my master’s thesis research. I use Sara Ahmed’s (2004) “stickiness” to explore how my truscum encounters have continued to affectively reverberate during these different time spans. To help me balance both the ethical and political discomfort I experienced in relation to my sticky truscum encounters, I also draw on Hil Malatino’s (2022) discussion of María Lugone’s (2003) “ginger reflections”. Through my trans autoethnographic practice, I arrive at the ethical/political position of both/and. Ethically, I remain committed to those I spoke with for my thesis. Politically, I continue to be committed to trans studies as a discipline of openings and blurring. The tensions that come with striving to inhabit a position of both/and offer valuable insights to conversations on relationality and ethics in trans studies. Ultimately, I remain in a sticky relationship with truscum.