Gender Identity Disorder

According to the DSM IV, a person with GID is a male or female that feels a strong identification with the opposite sex and experiences considerable stress because of their actual sex (Task Force on DSM-IV and American Psychiatric Association, 2000). The way GID is characterized by health professionals, patients, and lay people belies certain assumptions about gender that are strongly held, yet nevertheless questionable. The phenomena of transsexuality and sex-reassignment surgery puts into stark relief the following question: “What does it mean to be male or female?” But while the answer to that question may be informed by contemplation of GID, we should also be aware that the answer to the question “what does it mean to have GID?” is shaped by our concepts of male and female. First, I consider the concept of transsexuality, and explain how it forces us to clarify our concepts of sex and gender, and leads to the development of what I will call the “standard view.” I then explain GID from a mental-health standpoint, question the concept of gender identity, and try to uncover some fundamental assumptions of the standard view. I argue that these assumptions are at odds with the plausible view that gender supervenes on physical, psychological, and/or social properties. I go on to argue, contra the standard view, that gender has no essence. I suggest an anti-essentialist account of gender according to which “man” and “woman” are cluster concepts. This undermines the dualistic conception of gender that grounds the standard view. An anti-essentialist view of gender cannot make sense of the concept of “gender identity” and hence sees so-called “GID” as primarily conflict between the individual and her society, and only derivatively a conflict between the individual and her body

Citizen Bodies, Intersex Citizenship

The aim of this article is to assess the use of sexual citizenship and intimate citizenship in articulating a concept of ‘intersex citizenship’. Intersex activism diverges in important ways from feminist, queer, lesbian and gay, and trans activism. Nevertheless, concepts of sexual and intimate citizenship help in thinking about the effects of family and kin structures on intersex corporeality, the impact of new technologies on intersex activism, and the advantages and disadvantages of consumer citizenship models for intersex claims, amongst other factors. As long as intersex issues are defined by medically disciplining techniques, there remains a need to think critically about how citizenship norms are constructed though responses to corporeality. Carol Lee Bacchi and Chris Beasley’s concept of ‘citizen bodies’ provides a useful starting point both in attempting to theorize the norms underlying the hyper-embodiment of intersexual subjects, and in relating this hyper-embodiment to the construction of intersexual people as non-citizens

"Que nunca chegue o dia que irá nos separar": notas sobre epistémê arcaica, hermafroditas, andróginos, mutilados e suas (des)continuidades modernas "May it never come the day that will tear us apart": notes About classical epistémê, hermaphrodites, androgynous, mutilated people and their modern (dis)continuities

A figura do hermafrodita ou andrógino foi fundamental para todo o discurso médico-moral-espiritual sobre sexo e gênero em nossa cultura, desde a Antiguidade até o século XVIII. Com a mudança epistemológica que ocorre a partir do século XVI, o antigo hermafrodita, associado ao mundo mágico e religioso, perde seu lugar nas classificações modernas. A partir do século XIX nasce uma nova entidade conceitual no Ocidente: o pseudo-hermafrodita da medicina, não mais "maravilha" da natureza, mas um erro desta; filho do racionalismo iluminista e do positivismo, vindo a tornar-se o pai - e mãe - das futuras identidades transgêneras.<br>The image of the hermaphrodite or androgyne was essential for all medical-moral-spiritual discourses about sex and gender in our culture, from Antiquity until the eighteenth century. With the epistemological change that has happened since the sixteenth century, the old hermaphrodite, associated with the magical and religious world, has lost his/her place in modern classifications. From the nineteenth century on, a new conceptual entity in the West takes place: the pseudo-hermaphrodite from medicine, not the wonder of nature anymore, but its error; a product of the illuminist rationalism and positivism, gradually becoming the father and mother of future transgender identities