Transsexuality as Sinthome: Bracha L. Ettinger and the Other (Feminine) Sexual Difference

Cavanagh, Sheila L.

doi:10.1080/15240657.2016.1135681

Cited by 19 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Prosser (1998) and Salamon (2004) were among the first transgender studies scholars to apply Freud's writings on the bodily ego to trans embodiments of sex. Several have turned to Lacan's theory of sexuation and concept of the sinthome (a subject's unique manner of coming to identify with its psychical symptoms and thereby gaining the capacity to enjoy its unconscious life) to investigate sexuality, subjectivity, and desire in relation to transsexuality (e.g., Cavanagh, 2016;Dean, 2000;Elliot, 2001;Gherovici, 2017;Gozlan, 2014;. 11 Hansbury (2017) details a century's worth of transphobic countertransferences in psychoanalytic writings, as well as the recent work that has been done, particularly among feminist and relational analysists, to work through their defenses so as to better "mentalize" their trans analysands: that is, to recognize them as subjects in their own right, not just as receptables of others' gender anxieties.…”

Section: Methods Epistemological Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mainstream Psychology And The Gender Binary: Toward An Account Of Becoming "Non-Binary"

Vasilovsky¹

2021

Preprint

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The gender binary haunts mainstream psychology’s history of medicalizing trans and gender nonconforming people, particularly its construction of their gender identities as psychopathological and in need of treatment for violating the binary logic of normative (cis) development. Drawing on interviews with 24 participants who identified as “non-binary,” this dissertation advances: 1) a genealogical analysis of the construction, interpretation, and administration of “transgenderism” (psychology’s parlance) which elucidates the discipline’s maintenance of the gender binary through said construction, interpretation, and administration; and (2) an account of “becoming” gendered (non-binary, in this case) as an alternative to the mainstream models of gender identity development. Becoming (a) shifts from the etiological “why” to the psychosocial “how” (as in, how to go about assembling oneself as non-binary; labels and pronouns are key); (b) eschews teleology (there is no end goal with regard to embodiment); (c) privileges gender self-determination; (d) attends to intersectionality; and (e) foregrounds intersubjectivity. The participants were largely concerned with asserting the validity of their gender identities as non-binary, which are routinely dismissed and invalidated, and this dissertation works toward undoing psychology’s own invalidating practices.

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Section: Methods Epistemological Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mainstream Psychology And The Gender Binary: Toward An Account Of Becoming "Non-Binary"

Vasilovsky¹

2021

Preprint

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“…Finally, although we set out to include participants from a wide range of theoretical orientations, our conversation has a Lacanian emphasis (albeit not exclusively so, with Silber representing a relational perspective). We do not think this is simply a coincidence, but rather, reflective of the fact that Lacanian thought has played an outsized role in contemporary, English language psychoanalytic writing on trans (see Carlson 2010;Cavanagh 2016;Gherovici 2010Gherovici , 2017Gozlan 2014;Osserman 2017;Shepherdson 2000). This is a curious development (especially given the marginalization of Lacanian clinical practice within the Anglophone world) for which various explanations may be offered.…”

Section: Present and Absent Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Transgender Children: From Controvery to Dialogue

Gozlan

Osserman

Silber³

et al. 2021

The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child

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This paper introduces the topic and unique format of the section that follows, on psychoanalytic work with transgender children. We first review the apparent impasse that characterizes our field regarding clinical work with gender diverse kids, as well as the reasons we pursued a live dialog to push thinking forward. Then, we outline the structure of the entire section, in which four contributors offer short essays, followed by a transcribed and edited version of the dialog we facilitated, which uses these essays as a starting point. We conclude with reflections on some of the themes that arise in the dialog, and implications for all of us who work in the arena of gender and young people.

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“…He knots the Symbolic to the Imaginary and no longer expects the Real of the body to confirm him by demanding his anatomical sex be modified (Millot, 1983). In this sense, the transsexual symptom functions as a supplementary device to the Name-of-the-Father, in other words, as a sinthome (Cavanagh, 2016). …”

Section: Feminine Transsexualism As a Solutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Clinic of Identifications in the Different Processes of Metamorphosis Into Woman

Westphal¹,

Lamote²

2018

Front. Psychol.

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This article examines, from a psychoanalytical perspective, the function of identification in the relationship between the subject of the unconscious and his body, his body image, and the other. To this effect, the article leans on the clinic of the metamorphosis into a woman in psychosis, both in the way that it is presented by patients in the context of treatment, and in the form of testimonies extracted from literature. It demonstrates how specular identification allows the subject to unify himself, so long as there is an avoidance of possible deformations of the psychical body, including for example the delusion of transforming into a woman. It also turns its attention to the second logical moment of identification, when identification becomes sexed and organizes a certain relation to the other. A failure in this process sometimes leads the subject to opt for an identification of a gendered look, so as to stabilize himself. Indeed, transsexualism, which does not derive from any biological or sociological determination, and which can be observed in all subjective structures, is a possible way for the psychotic subject to problematize his relation to the body and to the other by identification with the woman, now that progress in science and law have enabled this.

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Transsexuality as Sinthome: Bracha L. Ettinger and the Other (Feminine) Sexual Difference

Cited by 19 publications

References 17 publications

Mainstream Psychology And The Gender Binary: Toward An Account Of Becoming "Non-Binary"

Mainstream Psychology And The Gender Binary: Toward An Account Of Becoming "Non-Binary"

Transgender Children: From Controvery to Dialogue

The Clinic of Identifications in the Different Processes of Metamorphosis Into Woman

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