There are some issues of semantics, but not what you’ve just described and not what you’ve illustrated in this example.
It’s difficult without a sense of scale, but I think most “tucutes” (most non-transmeds in general) would agree that someone with such a low mood is dysphoric.
To make things unambiguous, let’s set zero to euthymia, such that dysphoria is negative and euphoria positive in whatever units of *phoria.
Let’s say, then, we have someone whose mood changes before -> after transition:
-15 -> +5
This person has, by the medical definition, Gender Dysphoria, and their mood improves significantly with transition, but not to the point of euphoria. They are trans.
Now consider someone else:
-5 -> +15
Their mood is low as their assigned gender, but not dysphoric. The change in their mood with transition is the same, though, and they’re positively euphoric as their actual gender. Are they trans? They don’t have Gender Dysphoria, so according to the transmed argument they’re not.
Okay, maybe -5 is borderline, so let’s consider someone else:
-10 -> +1
Their mood doesn’t improve nearly as much, but they do qualify as Gender Dysphoric and their mood does improve after transitioning. They are trans.
So now let’s look at this person:
-1 -> +10
What now? No dysphoria, but the same improvement in mood as person #3. So are they trans?
What about this person:
-15 -> -5
Mood remains low, but it still improves. Are they trans? They still have Gender Dysphoria, so transmeds would say they are, yes?
But what if it’s the reverse:
+5 -> +15
Why, they’re the archetypal “tucute”—no dysphoria by any stretch, but euphoria. We know transmeds don’t consider them trans, but their mood improves just as much as our last example, no dysphoria required.
This is the chief difference between transmeds and non-transmeds/“tucutes”. If you argue that people must experience Gender Dysphoria to be trans, only some of them are; otherwise they all are. The improvement in mood, regardless of baseline, shows that their identified gender is right for them.
