Abstract
We analyze how the interactions between the trans population and the Chilean healthcare system shape specific processes of malaise associated with gender transition ("tránsito de género"). Adopting psychoanalytic and transfeminist conceptual approaches, as well as a biographical methodology, we examine autobiographical narratives of three trans subjects. We discuss three topics: childhood as a critical period for gender transition and malaise; the role of institutions; and the ways through which subjects manage malaise. We argue that trans subjects face specific sociocultural conditions that lead to unique processes of malaise associated with gender transition. We show how politicization and the construction of an institutional framework, bodily aesthetical modifications, and the self-administration of medical knowledge emerge as some of the paths to navigate the gender transition process. Besides, we foreground the notion of "transitioning" ("transicionar") by considering the criticism voiced by the participants. By using this notion, they interrogate the rigidity and psychopathologization of identity that is implicitly present in the notion of gender transition, as well as they enrich the transfeminist discourse in favor of their agency/autonomy.
Highlights
The Chilean State has implemented a set of health and legal institutions, policies, strategies, and practices over the last decade to address the so-called “trans question”[1]
Institutions and user groups have claimed that these actions have not guaranteed conditions for protecting trans population’s physical and mental health during the gender transition in the public healthcare system[2,3]
We seek to analyze how the interactions between the trans population and the Chilean healthcare system shapes specific processes of malaise associated with gender transition
Summary
The “trans question” has begun to play a central part in social life over the last decades by interrogating some of the main assumptions of western culture regarding the notions of body, sexuality, gender, subjectivity, and social bonds[1] Challenging these certainties – which are mainly grounded in biomedical and psychiatric practices aimed at reducing transgender subject to a set of structural and psychopathological traits – feminist and transfeminist approaches have questioned essentialist and cis-heteronormative conceptions of sexuality and gender. Studies conducted over the last decade have revealed that trans subjects who receive medical care linked to gender transition – e.g. psychological assistance, hormone therapy, and surgery – display substantially improved quality of life and psychological well-being[4,27], the “T Survey”[23] revealed that only 22.9% of the trans population report having received medical assistance between ages 11 and 25. According to Donoso et al.[7], these centers still lack a legal framework to organize their available treatments
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
