TY - JOUR
T1 - A perverse solution to misplaced distress trans subjects and clinical disavowal
AU - Wiggins, Tobias B.D.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Duke University Press
PY - 2020/2/1
Y1 - 2020/2/1
N2 - Transgender people have long been associated with sexual perversion. For example, many early versions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) infamously categorized any gender variance as sexual deviance or paraphilia. This article therefore investigates the taxonomical movement away from the transgender subject as perverse toward the current diagnosis of gender dysphoria, which instead consolidates the transgender subject as distressed and suffering. Through an unconventional use of psychoanalytic theories of perversion, I argue that DSM-5’s new diagnosis criteria work defensively, functioning as an antidote to the clinician’s anxiety in the face of difference. When separated from stereotypical acts and identities, perversion proves to be quite valuable in understanding clinical transphobia. In particular, Freud’s writings on fetishism and disavowal reveal some of the unconscious roles at play in the repeated medicalization of trans people and the restricting of transition-related resources. Through the donning of a fetish object, disavowal acts to ignore an upsetting reality while the traumatic truth remains intact. An analysis of Chase Joynt’s video installation, Resisterectomy, provides grounded narratives of gendered surgery and illness that disrupt anticipated affects, temporalities, and curative measures.
AB - Transgender people have long been associated with sexual perversion. For example, many early versions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) infamously categorized any gender variance as sexual deviance or paraphilia. This article therefore investigates the taxonomical movement away from the transgender subject as perverse toward the current diagnosis of gender dysphoria, which instead consolidates the transgender subject as distressed and suffering. Through an unconventional use of psychoanalytic theories of perversion, I argue that DSM-5’s new diagnosis criteria work defensively, functioning as an antidote to the clinician’s anxiety in the face of difference. When separated from stereotypical acts and identities, perversion proves to be quite valuable in understanding clinical transphobia. In particular, Freud’s writings on fetishism and disavowal reveal some of the unconscious roles at play in the repeated medicalization of trans people and the restricting of transition-related resources. Through the donning of a fetish object, disavowal acts to ignore an upsetting reality while the traumatic truth remains intact. An analysis of Chase Joynt’s video installation, Resisterectomy, provides grounded narratives of gendered surgery and illness that disrupt anticipated affects, temporalities, and curative measures.
KW - Affect
KW - DSM
KW - Perversion
KW - Psychoanalysis
KW - Transgender art
KW - disavowal
KW - transgender
KW - perversion
KW - distress
KW - clinical transphobia
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85083460416&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1215/23289252-7914514
DO - 10.1215/23289252-7914514
M3 - Journal Article
AN - SCOPUS:85083460416
SN - 2328-9252
VL - 7
SP - 56
EP - 76
JO - Transgender Studies Quarterly
JF - Transgender Studies Quarterly
IS - 1
ER -