Transsexual Phenomenon Research Articles

„The Gender Reassignment” Controversy - Between Affirmation and Kind Restraining

The review article presents the phenomenon of transsexualism through the prism of the etiology, scale and dynamics of the phenomenon as well as the most controversial social consequences concerning "sex change" and the acceptance or non-acceptance of voluntary personal forms adopted by children and adolescents. Review of contemporary literature, analysis of positions on the issues of the so-called gender changes (gender reassignment, gender matching). The text shows the evolution of understanding of gender identity disorders in the ICD-10 and DSM-5 classifications as well as the controversy related to the tendencies depathologizing gender inconsistency in the ICD-11. Looking at the etiological issues we present an attempt of in-depth psychological analyzes as opposed to the dominant, reductive medical approach. In the text, we also recall the basic developmental regularities of children and adolescents, often overlooked in discussions on transsexualism. The basic developmental regularities of children and adolescents, often overlooked in discussions on transsexualism, were also reminded. As the review of the data shows the rapid increase in gender identity disorders in recent years, their pronunciation leads to emphasizing the growing role of pop culture influences on young people. There is also a lack of research on the use of puberty blockers in children/adolescents - their introduction appears to be an experiment with, in fact, unknown consequences. The analysis of developmental regularities, the transience of dysphoric tendencies and the lack of reliable scientific data on the use of puberty blockers and the consequences of taking hormones of the opposite sex lead to the conclusion that accepting voluntary personal forms proposed by children/teenagers is premature.

REPRESENTASI KONSEP DIRI SEORANG TRANSSEKSUAL DALAM FILM THE DANISH GIRL

Film has a role as a representation to reflect and reality in society. One of these realities is the transsexual phenomenon and the self concept that transsexual people themselves go through. Self concept can be defined as people’s image of themselves. In this study, the researcher wanted to see the self concept of being transsexual in the film The Danish Girl. The approach used is qualitative, Media Text Analysis (MTA), with the John Fiske semiotic method and the constructivist paradigm, also the Queer ideology. In analyzing the representation of self concept in being a transsexual person, the researcher applied three certain levels, namely the level of reality, the level of representation, and the level of ideology. The results showed that there was a self concept representation of being a transsexual person who featured the main character in the film The Danish Girl. These findings refer to a number of signs, both verbally and nonverbally, including the concept of self concept ideology itself. Kata kunci: Konsep diri, representasi, transseksual, semiotika, John Fiske

The Medicalization of the Transsexual: Patient-Physician Narratives in the First Half of the Twentieth Century.

This article explores the history of what the German-American endocrinologist Harry Benjamin labeled in 1966, "the transsexual phenomenon." By mid-century, a growing number of individuals in both Europe and America were approaching physicians such as Benjamin searching for answers and means to change their bodies to match their gender. This phenomenon had started in Europe in the 1930s, when the Danish painter Einar Wegener underwent a series of operations that transformed a body defined at birth as male into the female body of Lili Elbe. The news of Elbe's transformation ignited interest and discussion among physicians as well as the public on the capacity science had to alter bodies to fit their intended selves. The case of Elbe combines the three main aspects studied in this article-the medicalization of the homosexual, the birth of the transsexual, and the physician-patient relationship in transsexual narratives. The study of physician and patient narratives allow us to see how the transsexual phenomenon was in fact created out of the intersection of interests from both physicians and their transsexual patients.

Aspetti della transessualità. Dalla consultazione alla costruzione della relazione analitica

Il DSM-5 e l'ICD-11 hanno non solo sostituito il termine transessualità/transessualismo con altre parole, ma anche derubricato questa problematica dal contesto patologico in cui era stata inserita nelle precedenti edizioni. Tale revisione può essere considerata uno stimolo importante nel guardare con occhi diversi il fenomeno trans. L'articolo segue questa linea, proponendo che anche nella terapia psicoanalitica si debba affrontare e intervenire in modo diverso, ossia non agendo sul paziente per ricondurlo sulla retta via della cosiddetta normalità, per quanto riguarda sia l'identità di genere che l'orientamento sessuale. Al contrario si tratta di offrire a una persona sofferente la possibilità di incontrare un curante libero dai pregiudizi più o meno consapevoli che la cultura, l'educazione e la formazione professionale hanno depositato in lui.

Avances en el reconocimiento del derecho humano a la identidad de género auto-percibida en México

El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo primordial identificar varios aspectosinteresantes sobre el origen del fenómeno transexual en la historia contemporánea; de notoria influencia en la labor jurisdiccional nacional e internacional a través de la resolución de ciertos casos que han impactado la regulación de varios países. Desde el 2012, Argentina se convirtió en el primer país en el mundo en adoptar el criterio no patológico de las vivencias trans (que se registró por primera vez en los principios de Yogyakarta de 2006) con la publicación de la Ley No. 26743 de Identidad de Género, marcando una tendencia vanguardista en la garantización de los derechos de las diversidades de género en otros países del mundo que han elaborado disposiciones similares, incluyendo a México.

Axiomatic: Constituting ‘transexuality’ and trans sexualities in medicine

This article argues that medicine misunderstands the necessarily complex ways trans people experience sexuality. Despite revisions to treatment guidelines and diagnostic descriptions, transgender medicine continues to be based on a paradigmatic narrative of ‘being born in the wrong body’. This narrative performatively reproduces sex, gender and ‘gender dysphoria’ as static, predetermined and independent of medical encounters. It also constructs trans sexualities as limited by and dependent on gender/genital ‘alignment’, which necessarily neglects many trans people’s sexual lives. By mobilising critiques of singularity from science and technology studies (STS), which emphasise how discourses and practices produce both what is knowable and materially possible, this article explores how medicine understands and constitutes ‘transexuality’ as a singular phenomenon that limits trans sexualities. By analysing contemporary medical guidebooks alongside the foundational text of trans medical treatment – Harry Benjamin’s (1999 [1966]) The Transsexual Phenomenon – I argue that medicine constitutes transexuality and understands trans sexualities via four axioms: 1) Transexuality is a disjuncture between mind and body; 2) Transexuality is hating having the wrong genitals; 3) Transexuality is painful and debilitating; and 4) Transexuality is resolvable with hormonal and surgical body modifications. In so doing, medicine flattens out the complexities of trans people’s experiences of gender and sexuality, and simultaneously disavows many trans people’s sexual lives.

Kontekstualitas Islam Tentang Identitas Gender Waria

This article aims to find out the answer of gender identity polemic of transsexual in Islamic thought. Therefore, tracking the foundation of Islamic thought in the Qur’an about transsexual’s gender identification is required due to the fact that someone’s Islamic attitude is always determined by one’s interpretation. The results found indicated that the Islamic contextuality of transsexual’s gender identity can be propped on QV. Al-Hajj [22]: 5 and QV. Al-Nur [24]: 31. From those two verses, it is understood that: (1) The transsexual phenomenon is “natural reality” as imperfect created beings since in the form of a fetus (mudlghah ghairi mukhallaqah); (2) The transsexual are exception for women to cover her aurat, because of the condition as men who do not have sexual desire on women (ghairi uli al-irbat min al-rijal). This conclusion is validated from the meaning of the hadith of the Prophet who cursed transvestites as intentional behavior (bi al-qashdi/ bi takalluf), not because of the nature that cannot be avoided (bi al-khalq/ min ashl al-khilqat). In the circumstances of this kind mukhannats khalqi, the existance of transsexual’s gender identity is not cursed and even received in Islam.[Artikel ini hendak menemukan jawaban atas polemik identitas gender waria dalam pemikiran keislaman. Untuk itu, pelacakan landasan pemikiran keislaman dalam al-Qur’an tentang identifikasi gender waria diperlukan mengingat sikap keislaman seseorang senantiasa ditentukan oleh cara “bertafsir”nya. Hasil yang ditemukan menunjukkan bahwa kontekstualitas Islam mengenai identitas gender waria dapat disandarkan pada QS. Al-Hajj [22]: 5 dan QS. Al-Nur [24]: 31. Dari kedua ayat ini dapat dipahami bahwa: (1) fenomena waria merupakan “kenyataan kodrati” sebagai makhluk yang tercipta tidak sempurna sejak dalam bentuk janin (mudlghah ghairi mukhallaqah); (2) karena kondisinya sebagai laki-laki yang tidak berhasrat secara seksual terhadap perempuan (ghairi uli al-irbat min al-rijal), waria menjadi pengecualian bagi perempuan untuk menutup auratnya. Kesimpulan ini dikuatkan dari pemaknaan atas hadits Nabi yang melaknat waria karena perilakunya yang disengaja (bi al-qashdi/ bi takalluf), bukan karena kodrat yang tidak mungkin dihindarinya (bi al-khalq/ min ashl al-khilqat). Dalam keadaan mukhannats khalqi semacam ini, kenyataan identitas gender waria tidak dilaknat dan bahkan diterima keberadaannya dalam Islam.]

The Transsexual Phenomenon: A Counter-History

Within a relatively short period in US history, transsexuality, a category that had once not existed, became a widely recognized term. It was named and described in the 1960s in influential publications, including Harry Benjamin’s The Transsexual Phenomenon (1969). The national picture changed from one of no significant institutional support for transsexual therapy and surgery in 1965 to a situation in 1975 where about twenty major medical centers were offering treatment and some thousand transsexuals had been provided with surgery. Historians of transsexuality have been somewhat dazzled by this demonstration of the making of sex. One of the most perceptive observers of the twentieth-century historical sociology of sex has written of transsexualism’s “widespread public and professional acceptance” by the 1970s, “an accepted syndrome, buttressed by a vast medical armamentarium of research, publications, and treatment programs.” The result is not exactly a case of hidden history but rather inattention to an important period of critique, and the implied success of systems of technology and therapy that I am going to suggest were far more tentative, contested, and fragmentary. This neglected story both rethinks the early history of a new medical diagnosis and entity and sheds rather negative light on US psychiatric and surgical practices in the 1960s and 1970s.

Where medicine meets the boundaries of manhood and womanhood

Manhood and womanhood, and all shades in between, are part of medicine. While solutions are mostly technical and based on insights into biomedical science, issues in medical care arise that cannot currently be satisfactorily solved on the basis of biomedical science alone. Disorders of sexual differentiation and the phenomenon of transsexualism require a different approach. The self-experience of belonging to one sex or the other weighs on the medical decisions to be made for the well-being of subjects in these situations. This marks the point where medicine becomes an art as well as a science. Some may conceive statements of this nature as woolly. It goes without saying that no treatment procedure is beyond verification by biostatistical methods. Increasingly, studies prove that the above approach helps people to live fuller lives.7, 21, 22, 23, 24

A transsexual patient searching for adjustment

Transsexual phenomenon is very complex, which is confirmed in everyday practice with these patients. There are many reasons why we have chosen to present this patient's case report. The aim of this case report was to indicate how our female-to-male (FtM) transsexual patient tried to change her own sexual drive with the purpose of showing high adaptation in social environment as her personal representation of mental health. At the same time, this was an attempt to escape from gender dysphoria by becoming heterosexual escaping from her basic sexual drive. Our patient could not put her erotic attributes in sexual relations, so she had numerous heterosexual, bisexual and homosexual relationships. By this case report, we want to present how conviction of belonging to the opposite sex can affect erotic contact with the same and different sex.

Retrotranslations of Post-Transsexuality, Notions of Regret

From the time Harry Benjamin's Transsexual Phenomenon appeared in 1966, psychiatrists and legislators have used clinical studies of the recipients of Sexual Reassignment Surgery to strengthen their franchise on the legitimate translation of sex. Within these translations, the speaking positions of post-transsexuals — those who no longer identify as transsexual, but who resist a return to an a priori sexual designation — have become shrouded in notions of regret. Drawing on the work of Judith Butler, Homi K. Bhabha and Michel Foucault, this article analyzes several legal, clinical and theoretical mistranslations of the post-transsexual enterprise, and the notion that post-transsexuals can only translate forward by going back.

Re Kevin in Perspective

This article discusses the evolution of the common law concerning the phenomenon of transsexualism while seeking to identity the place occupied in that process by the decision of Justice Richard Chisholm (as he then was) in Re Kevin: Validity of Marriage of Transsexual [2001] FamCA 1074 (‘Re Kevin’) and the affirming decision of the Full Court of Family Court of Australia in respect of the appeal of that decision in The Attorney-General for the Commonwealth v "Kevin and Jennifer" and Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission [2003] FamCA 94 (‘Re Kevin-Full Court’); collectively referred to as ‘the Re Kevin decisions’. The article examines the phenomenon of transsexualism, associated language, terminology and causation issues as well as discussing the legal rights of young people in respect of medical treatment for transsexualism aided by a critique of the Australian decision Re Alex – Hormonal Treatment for Gender Identity Dysphoria [2004] FamCA 297.

BPS Lesbian & Gay Psychology Section 2002 Postgraduate Prize Winner A critical review of the psychological literature relating to transsexualism

This article presents a critical review of the psychological literature relating to transsexualism. There is a wealth of literature on transsexualism, particularly evaluating the outcomes of ‘sex reassignment’ surgery. However, there remains a distinct lack of a psychological conceptualisation of the transsexual experience. This review begins by exploring the historical and current context of transsexualism and the findings of two extensive reviews published in the 1980s. The methodological and theoretical inadequacies highlighted in these reviews are discussed, particularly concerning the ignorance of obvious investigator and subject biases and the lack of a coherent theory to be tested. The subsequent research is then addressed and its continuing failure to remedy these shortcomings is reflected upon. The article concludes with a consideration of the effects of these social pressures, flawed theoretical assumptions and investigator biases, which have hampered the research. Suggestions are offered for the development of new approaches, which may offer a better understanding of the complex socio-psychological phenomenon of transsexualism.

A Selective Bibliography of Transsexualism

ABSTRACT Transsexualism, codified in DSM-IV-TR as Gender Identity Disorder, first appeared in DSM-III in 1980 with the name Gender Dysphoria, but its history in the psychiatric profession dates back more than 100 years. During the first half of the twentieth century, little was published on gender identity variability, but the high-profile sex reassignment of Christine Jorgensen resulted in immediate negative reaction from elements of the psychiatric community. Inquiry began into the nature of the newly discovered and not-yet-named syndrome of people who wanted to change their sex, and accelerated after the publication in 1966 of Harry Benjamin's magnum opus, The Transsexual Phenomenon. The entry of the prestigious Johns Hopkins University into the arena of transsexualism led to the formation of other university-affiliated gender clinics, of which there were soon more than 40 in the U.S. The late 1960s and the 1970s saw the publication of hundreds of journal articles, varying from reports of surgical technique, outcome studies, descriptions of clinical populations, and tips for treatment. In 1979, Meyer and Reter published a study that purported to show “no objective improvement” in male-to-female transsexuals who had undergone sex reassignment surgery. The effect of this publication was immediate and far-reaching. The Hopkins gender clinic closed in the furor which followed, and other clinics folded in its wake. Of the more than 40 university-affiliated gender programs in the U.S., only three survived. The closing of the U.S. gender clinics created a treatment vacuum which resulted in the slow development of a market economy for the treatment of transsexualism. Long kept out of communication with one another by privacy requirements of gender clinics and by the insistence of the clinics that to be “proper” transsexuals, they must blend into society and disappear, transsexuals began communicating with one another, seeking and providing information and comparing notes. By 1985, there were a number of support groups and regional conferences which welcomed both crossdressers and transsexuals. Around 1990, transsexuals, who had been conspicuously absent from the literature, began to publish, adding their voices to those of feminist scholars. In 1991, Boswell suggested that many trans-gendered people are neither transvestite nor transsexual, but have an essential transgender nature. Transgendered individuals need not take hormones or have genital surgery in order to express their gendered selves; sex reassignment was not necessarily a requirement, but an option. The collision of the psychomedical and postmodern models of transsexualism provided fertile ground for a paradigm shift. An alternative model had been proposed which changed the locus of pathology: transsexuals were not mentally ill men and women whose misery could be alleviated only by sex reassignment, but rather emotionally healthy individuals whose expression of gender was not constrained by societal expectations. Research on transsexualism proceeds apace, with advances being made in surgical and hormonal treatments, and new treatment models are being developed. Transgendered people have become politically active and have been successful in gaining some legal protections. This century promises a continued and growing understanding of gender identity variability, one in which transgendered people will themselves contribute significantly. Toward that end, this annotated bibliography is provided by a transgendered author, mental health professional, and activitist.

Algumas reflexões para estabelecer a cronologia do "fenômeno transexual" (1910-1995)

O "fenômeno transexual" (Benjamin) é um indicador muito seguro das modificações históricas da percepção científica, mas também cultural e política da identidade sexual no século XX. Para apresentar uma cronologia e uma bibliografia escolhida desse fenômeno, este artigo propõe um fio condutor: a recusa sistemática das interpretações psicanalíticas do transexualismo pelos sexólogos, endocrinologistas e sociólogos que estudaram o problema.

Changing Sex: Transsexualism, Technology, and the Idea of Gender

Changing Sex takes a bold new approach to the study of transsexualism in the twentieth century. By addressing the significance of medical technology to the phenomenon of transsexualism, Bernice L. Hausman transforms current conceptions of transsexuality as a disorder of identity by showing how developments in medical knowledge and technology possible the emergence of new subjectivities.Hausman's inquiry into the development of endocrinology and plastic surgery shows how advances in medical knowledge were central to the establishment of the material and discursive conditions necessary to produce the demand for sex change--that is, to both make and the transsexual. She also retraces the hidden history of the concept of gender, demonstrating that the semantic distinction between natural sex and social has its roots in the development of medical treatment practices for intersexuality--the condition of having physical characteristics of both sexes-- in the 1950s. Her research reveals the medical institution's desire to heterosexual subjects out of intersexuals and indicates how operates semiotically to maintain heterosexuality as the norm of the human body. In critically examining medical discourses, popularizations of medical theories, and transsexual autobiographies, Hausman details the elaboration of gender narratives that not only support the emergence of transsexualism, but also regulate the lives of all contemporary Western subjects. Changing Sex will change the ways we think about the relation between sex and gender, the body and sexual identity, and medical technology and the idea of the human.

Bioethical Issues in the Management of Gender Dysphoria

The term "gender dysphoria" ( I) describes a heterogeneous group of individuals who express varying degrees of dissatisfaction with their anatomic gender (hence "gender dysphoria"), and the desire to possess the secondary sexual characteristics of the opposite sex. Only a minority o f these patients can be considered on the extreme end of a spectrum of subjective dissatisfaction with assigned anatomy and societally sanctioned gender role (i.e., "transsexual"). The number of such patients presenting to psychiatric clinics has greatly increased subsequent to the 1966 publication of Harry Benjamin's seminal work, The Transsexual Phenomenon (2), and extensive media coverage of individual cases, e.g., Christine Jorgensen, J an Morris, and Renee Richards, MD.

Psychological Testing With Transsexuals: A 30-Year Study

This paper critically reviews over 30 years of psychological testing of transsexualism, during which time 41 studies have been published. A review of the psychological tests and methodology employed, the search for an adequate control group, and an analysis of the findings are presented. It is argued that we have reached a critical point in transsexual research. Researchers must reconsider the "hit or miss" approach to psychological testing with transsexuals and relate psychological testing to the actual clinical phenomenon of transsexualism; addressing the newer conceptualizations of transsexualism as a variant of borderline pathology.

A typology of transsexualism: gender identity theory and data.

An analysis of postoperative data obtained from 42 male-to-female transsexuals showed them to fall into three distinct categories: homosexual transsexuals, asexual transsexuals, and heterosexual transsexuals. Additonal data covering the areas of gender vs. sexual dysphoria, surgical details, background characteristics, sexuality-related behaviors, and postoperative adaptation further differentiated these groups and suggest that the categorization is theoretically meaningful and relevant to understanding the causes and course of the transsexual phenomenon. An extensive developmental theory is suggested to account for both differences and commonalities among the different subgroups of transsexuals, as well as among these and related groups, such as effeminate homosexuality and transvestism. The theory is sufficiently specific for making empirical predictions.

Male to female: the role transformation of transsexuals.

Twelve male transsexuals were found to have acquired a successtion of gender roles from childhood to adulthood-ambivalent, homosexual, drag queen, and transsexual. Thse roles constituted different stages of their livers during which they were clarifying their psychosocial gender role as transsexuals. Their transition through these roles suggests that these individuals are a subset of the transsexual phenomenon, for many--probably most--other transsexuals do not adopt these roles prior to becoming adult transsexuals. The social interaction of these transsexuals with significant others differed from the ways in which sociological role theories view this process: the significant others in their lives (apart from their mothers) primarily influenced their role changes by withdrawing from and/or rejecting these individuals--not by inducing them to conform to their role expectations. As permanently cross-dressed transsexuals, these individuals continued to associate with the institutions of the gay world, which alone was tolerant of them and where they could draw on the emotional support of other transsexuals in this last presurgery role. At this point they had become their own reference group.