The discursive and clinical production of trans youth: gender variant youth who seek puberty suppression

Abstract

This article focuses on therapeutic interventions with gender variant youth and, in particular, pubertal suppression. The aim is to address the question of which kinds of subjects are enabled, and which are made invisible, through discursive and clinical practices. The analysis demonstrates the conceptual value of drawing on discursive and queer theoretical approaches. The published work of selected clinicians is used as a way in to the complexities that various clinical understandings and approaches bring with them. A key focus is on problems inherent in the construction of gender variant youth as ‘persisting’ or ‘desisting’ in their cross-gender wishes. Psychologists working in this area have substantial challenges to face, such as the challenge of negotiating understandings about what is a ‘successful’ outcome and the complexity of reporting fluidity and uncertainty in the context of a scientific forum where ‘results’ are expected. This article addresses the challenge of engaging psychological, discursive and clinical practices in ways that enable empowered, viable, gender variant possibilities, rather than representing gender variant youth as incoherent subjects.