Analysis: Legal Gatekeeping, the Activist Bubble, the Doctor-Patient-Activist Triad and the Professionalism Approach

Abstract

Overall, this book showed that the main processes and actors involved in these processes of shaping transgender subjectivities are in a far more entangled relationship that existing literature suggested. Trans people are not all victims―it is necessary to differentiate between regular patients, those trans people for whom their trans status is only temporary until the moment they have fully transitioned both medically and legally, and trans activists, who purposefully keep the prefix ‘trans’ to raise public awareness about existence of the trans spectrum, and who actively engage in advocacy for their rights. The findings showed that trans activists are equal parts of a triad composed of doctors, patients, and activists, and in many cases take a lead in shaping the processes by controlling the access to information for both trans patients who turn to them for help and support and for medical specialists, who often depend on trans activists for up to date knowledge on their health needs, as well as latest health-related developments in the wider medical world. It is important to understand and recognize the agency of trans people in the processes that shape transgender subjectivities, although certainly, their agency is not the only composite part of this process. There is also state regulation, which my research showed to have greater gatekeeping power than medical specialists, who are usually considered to be gatekeepers both in literature and in activist circles. While indicating the importance of state legislation on trans identities, this research was not able to secure definitive answers from representatives of the responsible ministries as to the foundations of these regulations. It is possible to extrapolate that these foundations may be based on societal understandings of gender and sex as rigid categories, considering that state officials and lawmakers outside of their professional positions are also members of the general society. Developing this thought further could be one of the potential vectors for a deeper investigation of the processes that shape transgender subjectivities.