Transsexualism and transgenderism: Unravelling sex and gender, and abstractions of the sexed body

Abstract

ABSTRACTAlthough transgenderism is accorded an increasingly important place at the heart of studies concerning problems of gender nonconformity, it remains a phenomenon that is poorly known, and difficult to define, in particular in its relationship with transsexualism. In fact, in spite of an undeniable kinship between them, these two phenomena can be distinguished one from the other, and each represents a way of relating to the subject of the difference between the sexes. To clarify this subject, this article initially presents their emergence, their commonalities and their differences from a historical point of view. Next, both ways of relating to the difference between the sexes are analysed through two clinical case studies, one of transsexualism and one of transgenderism (from extracts of non-directive clinical interviews, as well as data from the Rorschach test and the Thematic Apperception Test [TAT], analysed by the French psychoanalytic method). At the end of this investigation, it is concluded that the distinction between these two phenomena refers to two abstractions of the difference between the sexes, leading to a transformation that can be pictured as a fulfilment driven by this perception.