The idea of transgender identity is less perceived as a mental illness but as a sexual health condition in many parts of the Western world, while it is seen as an anomaly in most parts of Africa. Transgender identity is a gender expression that differs from the naturally assigned sex. The widely accepted reason behind transgender is unsatisfactory feelings toward assigned sex by the individual. This work sets out to explore transgender identity and (...) family life in Africa. Several works have explored the concept but with less emphasis on family life as it relates to the African setting. Furthermore, this work sets out to demonstrate some implications of transgender identity in an ideal African family. In this work, we shall argue that once transgender identity is normalized in Africa, it will be a threat to family life. The arguments to be used are historical, analytical, descriptive as well as evaluative. (shrink)

There is an emerging consensus within Natural Law that explains transgender identity as an “embodied misunderstanding.” The basic line of argument is that our sexual identity as male or female refers to our possible reproductive roles of begetting or conceiving. Since these two possibilities are determined early on by the presence or absence of a Y chromosome, our sexual identity cannot be changed or reassigned. I develop an argument from analogy, comparing gender and language, to show (...) that this consensus is premature. Language and gender imbue our body with further social meaning and so, I conclude, that just as we can learn multiple languages, so too can we learn multiple genders. Since language and gender each constitutively contribute to our wellbeing as a “second nature,” I argue against this consensus to show that the reason people who are transgender struggle to flourish is not because of a “troubled trans psyche,” but because there are conceptual, interpersonal, and institutional obstacles stacked against them. (shrink)

Sexual and gender minorities in contemporary India are formed in the interstices between the neoliberal, Hindutva state; transnational discourses of liberal democracy and sexual ‘rights’; as well as cosmopolitan culture and global LGBT movements. As is evident in recent court judgments and legislation, particularly since 2014, postcolonial Hindu nationalism has created cultural conditions where forms of queer gender are permissible while queer sexuality is generally unacceptable. In recent years, significant developments have focused on transgender communities, complicating activism surrounding sexual (...) and gender identities. By positing some identities as state-sanctioned acceptable citizens and others as not, certain ‘transgender’ individuals are conceptualised as bearers of rights while finding other facets of their identities discriminated against and maintained as illegal. The 2014 Supreme Court NALSA v. Union of India judgment and The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2016 passed by the Lok Sabha, alongside further judgments and legislation affecting wider LGBT communities, have kept discourses fixed on sexual and gender identities and their relationship to Indian citizenship at the forefront of discussions of gender justices and injustices in India today. Focusing on recent judicial and legislative developments, this paper examines how transgender rights are being granted in the context of the neoliberal, Hindutva state and considers which forms of transgender identity are currently being conceptualised as legitimate and authentic in such discourses, which can serve to bolster larger right-wing visions and ideologies of the nation and its citizens. It contemplates the ways in which gender ‘justices’, framed in relation to both transnational LGBT rights discourses and right-wing agendas, are conceptualised and played out on the bodies of sexual and gender minorities. (shrink)

There is an emerging consensus within Natural Law that explains transgender identity as an “embodied misunderstanding.” The basic line of argument is that our sexual identity as male or female refers to our possible reproductive roles of begetting or conceiving. Since these two possibilities are determined early on by the presence or absence of a Y chromosome, our sexual identity cannot be changed or reassigned. I develop an argument from analogy, comparing gender and language, to show (...) that this consensus is premature. Language and gender imbue our body with further social meaning and so, I conclude, that just as we can learn multiple languages, so too can we learn multiple genders. Since language and gender each constitutively contribute to our wellbeing as a “second nature,” I argue against this consensus to show that the reason people who are transgender struggle to flourish is not because of a “troubled trans psyche,” but because there are conceptual, interpersonal, and institutional obstacles stacked against them. (shrink)

BackgroundDuring adolescence, bullying often has a sexual content. Involvement in bullying as a bully, victim or both has been associated with a range of negative health outcomes. Transgender youth appear to face elevated rates of bullying in comparison to their mainstream peers. However, the involvement of transgender youth as perpetrators of bullying remains unclear in the recent literature.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to compare involvement in bullying between transgender and mainstream youth and among middle and late (...) adolescents in a general population sample.MethodsOur study included 139,829 students in total, divided between a comprehensive school and an upper secondary education sample. Associations between gender identity and involvement in bullying were first studied using cross-tabulations with chi-square statistics. Logistic regression was used to study multivariate associations. Gender identity was used as the independent variable, with cisgender as the reference category. Subjection to and perpetration of bullying were entered each in turn as the dependent variable. Demographic factors, family characteristics, internalizing symptoms, externalizing behaviors, and involvement in bullying in the other role were added as confounding factors. Odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals are given. The limit for statistical significance was set at p < 0.001.ResultsBoth experiences of being bullied and perpetrating bullying were more commonly reported by transgender youth than by cisgender youth. Among transgender youth, all involvement in bullying was more commonly reported by non-binary youth than those identifying with the opposite sex. Logistic regression revealed that non-binary identity was most strongly associated with involvement in bullying, followed by opposite sex identity and cisgender identity. Transgender identities were also more strongly associated with perpetration of bullying than subjection to bullying.ConclusionTransgender identity, especially non-binary identity, is associated with both being bullied and perpetrating bullying even when a range of variables including internal stress and involvement in bullying in the opposite role are taken into account. This suggests that bullying during adolescence may serve as a mechanism of maintaining heteronormativity. (shrink)

In this article, I explore difficult and sensitive questions regarding the nature of transgender identity claims and the appropriate medical treatment for those suffering from gender dysphoria. I first analyze conceptions of transgender identity, highlighting the prominence of the wrong-body narrative and its dualist presuppositions. I then briefly argue that dualism is false because our bodily identity is essential and intrinsic to our overall personal identity and explain why a sound, nondualist anthropology implies that (...) gender identity cannot be entirely divorced from sexual identity. Finally, I make the case that arguments in favor of hormonal and surgical treatments for gender dysphoria rest on this mistaken dualist anthropology, and that these treatments therefore give false hope to those suffering from gender dysphoria, while causing irreversible bodily harm and diverting attention from underlying psychological problems that often need to be addressed. I also briefly discuss how these philosophical claims relate to empirical studies on the outcomes of hormonal and surgical treatments for gender dysphoria and to testimonies of transgender individuals who regret having undergone these treatments. (shrink)

Unlike gender inequality, racial inequality primarily accumulates across generations. In this article, Dembroff and Payton argue that transracial identification undermines collective reckoning with that injustice.

Transgender legal protections have long been contentious issues, with courts often pathologizing or refusing recognition of transgender identities. Recently, however, courts adjudicating asylum claims have recognized “transgender” as a legitimate category of protection. I take this legal development as an opportunity to ask how courts determine if individuals are transgender. While previous work has shown how courts maintain the gender binary, asylum law offers the first chance to analyze how recognizing a distinct transgender category affects (...) the legal gender order and the classification of trans claimants. Drawing on court decisions, ethnographic observations, and interviews, I argue that the recognition of transgender as a category implicitly acknowledges the malleability of gender. Yet, the adjudication of transgender asylum cases continues to uphold a fixed and binary conception of gender by assuming a “born into the wrong body” narrative and that claimants should always already know their gender identities. Courts thus enforce a cis–trans binary wherein only certain claimants are found “trans enough.”. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the medical conceptualization of gender identity in the United States has entered a “new regime of truth.” Drawing from a mixed-methods analysis of medical journals, I illuminate a shift in the locus of gender identity from external genitalia and pathologization of families to genes and brain structure and individualized self-conception. The sexed body itself has also undergone a transformation: Sex no longer resides solely in genitalia but has traveled to more visible parts (...) of the body, implicating racialized aesthetic ideals in its new formulation. The re-imagining of gender identity as genetically and neurologically inscribed and the expanding locus of sex correspond to an inversion of the relationship between gender identity and the sexed body as well as shifts in medical jurisdiction. Whereas psychiatrists in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s understood gender as stemming from genital sex, the less popular idea that gender identity precedes the sexed body has gained traction in recent decades. If gender identity once derived from the sexed body, the sexed body must now be brought into alignment with gender identity. The increasing legitimacy of self-defined gender identity, the expanding definition of racialized sex, and the inversion of the sex–gender identity relationship elevates the role of surgeons in producing racialized and sexed bodies. (shrink)

This article explores the uptake and circulation of ‘transgender’ in academic and philanthropic institutions, as a way of taking seriously Robyn Wiegman’s call for a divergentist approach. In so doing, the article aims to demonstrate the intimate entanglements between non-profit and academic spheres and identity knowledges therein. Taken together, both contexts reveal the messiness and complexities of institutionality, not only as a lived reality for individuals such as philanthropy professionals and academics, but also as an object of study (...) itself. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that the more information surveillance apparatuses can collect about an individual, the less risk she poses. In this article, we examine how gender figures into and potentially disrupts the link between identity and security. Our analysis centers on one very particular event: the confusion that erupts at the airport when US Transportation Security Administration agents perceive a conflict between the gender marked on one's papers, the image of one's body produced by a machine, and/or an (...) individual's perceived gender presentation. Gender has been so deeply naturalized-as immutable, as easily apprehended, and as existing before and outside of political arrangements-for so long that its installation in identity verification practices largely goes unthought. In what follows, we describe how the two TSA programs, "Secure Flight" and "Advanced Imaging Technology," operationalize gender differently. We examine what happens when different sources of knowledge about gender clash within the security assemblage of the airport. As part of state security apparatuses' unceasing quest for more and better information, both programs securitize gender. They also reveal the impossibility of predicting with certainty that something about a person, even something thought to be sourced/lodged in the body such as gender, will stay the same over time. We argue, however, that the effects of gender's unreliability as a measure of identity do not constitute a problem for the TSA but rather for the transgender individuals whose narratives, documents, and bodies reveal the category's mutability. We conclude by suggesting that the securitization of gender at the airport is best understood as an assemblage. (shrink)

The present study explored the relationship between attitudes toward transgender individuals and the judgments people make in transgression scenarios involving transgender and cisgender individuals of different ages in a sample of 184 Romanian students. We used a mixed-method approach and tested the effect of gender identity on participants' punishments in a hypothetical transgression. In hypothetical transgressions involving preadolescent transgender and cisgender agents, results suggested no differences in participants' theft punishments. However, adult cisgender transgressors received significantly harsher (...) punishments compared to transgender transgressors. Our qualitative analyses suggested that the most frequent categories of responses justifying the punishments confirmed the importance of the agent's age. Our findings suggested no significant associations between participants' gender and reported the previous contact with an LGBTQ member and the punishments they chose for child and adult transgressors. Results are discussed in light of their implication in the contemporary, highly LGBTQ intolerant Romanian context. (shrink)

The exponential rise in transgender self-identification invites consideration of what constitutes an ethical response to transgender individuals’ claims about how best to promote their well-being. In this paper, we argue that ‘accepting’ a claim to medical transitioning in order to promote well-being would be in the person’s best interests iff at the point of request the individual is correct in their self-diagnosis as transgender (i.e., the distress felt to reside in the body does not result from another (...) psychological and/or societal problem) such that the medical interventions they are seeking will help them to realise their preferences. If we cannot assume this—and we suggest that we have reasonable grounds to question an unqualified acceptance in some cases—then ‘acceptance’ potentially works against best interests. We propose a distinction between ‘acceptance’ and respectful, in-depth exploration of an individual’s claims about what promotes their well-being. We discuss the ethical relevance of the unconscious mind to considerations of autonomy and consent in working with transgender individuals. An inquisitive stance, we suggest, supports autonomous choice about how to realise an embodied form that sustains well-being by allowing the individual to consider both conscious and unconscious factors shaping wishes and values, hence choices. (shrink)

Drawing on data from interviews with 65 masculine-to-feminine transgenderists, the authors examine the coming-out experiences of transgendered individuals. Drawing on the literature that shows gender to be an inherent component of the social infrastructure that at an individual level is accomplished in interaction with others, they demonstrate that interactional challenges to gender are insufficient to challenge the system of gender. Whereas many transgenderists believe that their actions and identities are radical challenges to the binary system of gender, in fact, the (...) majority of such individuals reinforce and reify the system they hope to change. (shrink)

As secular culture exerts pressure on Catholic health care to conform to its standards, there is need for a clear response to those who claim that the body is not constitutive of the person but can be manipulated to suit a subjective view of the self. Patients who suffer from gender dysphoria deserve our compassionate support, but "therapies" that carry out or encourage the destruction of one's natal sexuality are contrary to the Christian tradition and to the teachings of the (...) Catholic Church. This book provides the arguments, evidence, and practical advice needed for Catholic health care to resist this ideology and courageously affirm the biological reality of the person. Through careful analysis, narrative case studies, and policy language, Transgender Issues in Catholic Health Care critiques current interventions for gender dysphoria and provides practical guidance for professionals and institutions committed to providing whole-person care. -- Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Transgender women are an important subgroup of the transgender umbrella and have their own unique gender identity. This article aimed to understand and measure the latent concept of gender identity among Chinese transgender women from a multi-dimensional perspective. Through a two-phase, iterative scale development process, we developed the Gender Identity Scale for Transgender Women in Chinese. Literature reviews, expert consultations, and focus groups constitute phrase 1 of the study, which resulted in the first (...) version of GIS-TW with 30 items. In phrase 2, exploratory factor analysis on a sample of 244 Chinese transgender women revealed a six-factor solution across the 22 items. The Bem Sex Role Inventory was included to test for convergent validity, and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale was used to test discriminant validity. Then we conducted the confirmatory factor analysis with an independent sample of 420 Chinese transgender women, which produced the final version of GIS-TW with 21 items. The internal consistency and test-retest stability of each factor was good. In conclusion, the GIS-TW is a reliable and valid psychometric tool for the assessment of Chinese transgender women’s gender identity. Future application of the scale will help transgender women obtain better gender confirmative interventions. (shrink)

'Transgender’ is often described either as an identity, or else as the full spectrum of gender nonconformity. In this essay, I suggest that these descriptions do not align with the conceptual labor that we often ask ‘transgender’ to do: highlighting people who engage in forms of self-directed gender nonconformity that are heavily penalized.

A 28-year-old female-to-male transgender patient presents to the emergency room with one day of pleuritic chest pain and shortness of breath. The patient is found to have an acute pulmonary embolus and is admitted is to the academic hospitalist teaching service for further management.The transgender population is diverse in gender identity, expression, and sexual orientation. Although estimates vary, one study suggests that 0.3% of adults identify as transgender. The U.S. National Transgender Discrimination Survey revealed that (...) 28% of transgender adults have experienced harassment in medical settings, 19% reported being refused care, and 28% postponed care because of discrimination... (shrink)

Representing the best popular and scholarly contributions to transgender/ sex studies, and with their mutual concern with female-to-male sex and gender crossing (among other topics), these three books mark an important shift in scholarship on gender and sexuality. Trans studies has reached a level of autonomy and sophistication that firmly establishes it as a field with its own theoretical and political questions. Of course, connections to feminist and queer theory are still very apparent in these texts, and all three (...) authors are committed—to varying degrees—to reading trans identities against the backdrop of male dominance and heteronormativity. It’s no longer enough, however, for feminist readers to dismiss the projects of trans theorists and activists as epiphenomenal to feminist discourses or even queer theory, or to view trans studies as an optional extra in discussions of sex and gender. These books represent the best arguments against this position, and thus offer a new challenge to the inclusivity, scope, and terms of “women’s studies.”. (shrink)

Both in church and culture, discussion of sexual orientation has far outpaced discussion of gender identity, leaving the churches with limited resources to respond to “bathroom bills” or to walk faithfully with transgender persons in their midst. This paper draws on the work of Rowan Williams and Sarah Coakley to argue for understanding gender transition as an eschatological formation ordered to the body’s grace. In critical conversation with Oliver O’Donovan, John Milbank, and David Cloutier, the paper offers a (...) constructive, non-voluntarist theological proposal for transgender affirmation in the service of participation in the triune life that exceeds gender. (shrink)

This article explores “determining gender,” the umbrella term for social practices of placing others in gender categories. We draw on three case studies showcasing moments of conflict over who counts as a man and who counts as a woman: public debates over the expansion of transgender employment rights, policies determining eligibility of transgender people for competitive sports, and proposals to remove the genital surgery requirement for a change of sex marker on birth certificates. We show that criteria for (...) determining gender differ across social spaces. Gender-integrated spaces are more likely to use identity-based criteria, while gender-segregated spaces, like the sexual spaces we have previously examined, are more likely to use biology-based criteria. In addition, because of beliefs that women are inherently vulnerable and men are dangerous, “men’s” and “women’s” spaces are not policed equally—making access to women’s spaces central to debates over transgender rights. (shrink)

Interviews with 41 nonbinary individuals reveal a considerable amount of ambivalence among nonbinary people regarding transgender identification. There is also disagreement about which model of transgender legitimacy determines group membership: the binary and medicalized model or the umbrella model. Those who do not identify as transgender either do not consider themselves to be “trans enough” to claim group membership alongside trans men and trans women or otherwise consider their gender experience to be qualitatively different from the (...) class='Hi'>transgender experience. Meanwhile, those who do identify as transgender credit the umbrella model as authoritative while acknowledging that their claims to group membership are often resisted by those who uphold the binary transgender model. Finally, those who defy an easy yes/no transgender categorization schema qualify their transgender identification with admissions of doubt that they are really “trans enough” to claim the label or through linguistic practices that position themselves as tangentially transgender or as distinctly nonbinary transgender. This range of responses illuminates the diverse gender identities that coexist among nonbinary people that cannot be neatly sorted into a man/woman or cisgender/transgender binary. Research on the sociology of gender must expand beyond both of these binary frameworks to reflect the reality of gender diversity. (shrink)

Despite a “spatial imaginary” which constructs Europe as a location of sexual and gender freedom (Rao, 2014), presently, twenty countries in Europe require sterilisation in order to legally recognise transgender people’s gender identities, including four of the seven countries in the INFERCIT study: Greece, Italy, Turkey, and Cyprus (but not Spain, which since 2007 does not require sterilisation for gender identity recognition [see Platero, 2008]. In Bulgaria and Lebanon no gender identity recognition for trans people is provided (...) by law; the latter lies outside the “European” region) (TGEU, 2014). Compulsory sterilisation—classified as a crime against humanity in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (UN General Assembly, 1998: art. 7.1)—is widely in force against transgender people, who constitute “the only known group in Europe subject to legally prescribed, state-enforced sterilisation” (Hammarberg, 2009: 19). However, forced sterilisation of trans people is not generally conceptualised as a eugenicist or genocidal policy, in part because sterilisation is conflated with gender reassignment surgical interventions which, widely considered as that which brings transgender bodies into being, are in turn conflated with embodied transgender subjectivities. On this view, transgender individuals could not exist except through a medicalised process that, by design, precludes their “natural” reproductive capacities and is generally not accompanied by fertility preservation or the provision of assisted reproduction technologies (Plemons, 2014: 38; De Sutter et al., 2002; De Sutter, 2001). Sterilisation laws are justified through a pathologising discourse on transgender lives which constructs gender reassignment interventions as medical “treatment” of gender identity disorder (Suess, Espineira & Crego Walters, 2014: 73-76). Adopting a depathologising perspective enables us to contextualise compulsory sterilisation (which naturalises the sexually dimorphic, cisgender, heterosexual body) as a form of “gendercide” which has historically been instrumental in the imposition of a Euro-colonial binary gender system (Miranda, 2010; Lugones, 2007). The state-imposition of medical interventions on trans people not only has deleterious effects on their reproductive rights, “effectively undermin[ing] their right to found a family” (Hammarberg, 2009: 21; see OHCHR et al., 2014)—as “family” is hegemonically defined by a heteronormative and bio/ logical kinship order (Butler, 2002; van Anders, 2014). I argue that state regulation of transgender reproduction constitutes a form of institutionalised gendered violence inasmuch as it impedes transgender people’s ability to exercise inherent first-person authority over the materiality and meanings of their gendered embodiments (Bettcher, 2009; Spade, 2013). Efforts to renaturalise gender and kinship inextricably intersect (Kantsa, 2006) in the biopolitical attempt to regulate transgender embodiments and reproduction, which conditions the emerging legal recognition of transgender subjects as a rights-bearing minority (Stryker, 2014). (shrink)

This paper looks at transgender identities and the law in the context of marriage in common law jurisdictions. It particularly focuses on the nature and sources of authority over word meaning as well as the role of language and definition in classifying transgender individuals into a legal category. When it comes to the legal question of who may marry whom, and what the terms “man” and “woman” actually refer to, there is no statutory definition of the terms “man”, (...) “woman”, “male” and “female”. This has put the onus on judges, especially those who needed to decide whether a transgender person can marry in his/her affirmed sex, to interpret these terms. Two lines of cases in transgender jurisprudence are examined so as to have a close study of how the courts construed these terms and classified transgender people into a category. The first concerns United Kingdom cases, namely Corbett v Corbett, Bellinger v Bellinger and the Hong Kong case W v Registrar of Marriages, &. The second consists of Australian cases such as Secretary, Department of Social Security v State Rail Authority and Re Kevin. This paper discusses these issues by analyzing and comparing different cases in transgender jurisprudence as well as examining how these issues play out in contemporary Hong Kong. (shrink)

Cis and transgender. Performativity as bodily and social habit In this article, I argue that habit formation provides a good starting point to understand gender identity. Judith Butler’s concept of ‘performativity’ indicates that gender identity comes about through a process of social and linguistic repetition of normative representations of gender. The phenomenological notion of ‘habitual identity’ that Maren Wehrle (2021) suggests, complements this notion of performativity, but should be complemented with a psychic aspect to attain a (...) completer notion of performativity. Understanding performativity in terms of habit formation seemingly also has a downside: does it not lead to repetition of the same in an environment of predominantly cis and binary gender identities? What does this mean now that more and more people identify as trans or non-binary? I argue that performativity does not necessarily involve the reproduction of cis and binary gender identities, because it includes the possibility of variation from the norm. While cis implies that body, identity and social ascriptions coincide, in the case of trans there are discontinuities between these three. Rather than considering cis and trans as opposites, performativity means understanding both as variations, of which the discontinuities between body, self and social ascriptions are more difficult to live. (shrink)

This essay examines narratives of fundamental change, which portray a break in the continuity between a pre-transition and post-transition transgender subject, in accounts of transgender transitions. Narratives of fundamental change highlight the various changes that occur during transition and its disruptive effects upon a trans subject’s continuous identity. First, this essay considers the historical appearance of fundamental change narratives in the social sciences, the media, and their use by families of trans people, partners of trans people, and (...) trans people themselves. After this is a consideration of Mark Johnson’s account of narrative as a meaning-making activity that occurs in the context of social norms. Johnson’s account is then applied to narratives of fundamental change to explain why these narratives occur, especially in relation to social norms and lived experience. The essay concludes by considering the trajectory of fundamental change narratives, looking at emerging transgender narratives, which stress a more integrated, complex account of transgender lives. (shrink)

A theory of gender ought to be compatible with trans-inclusive definitions of gender identity terms, such as ‘woman’ and ‘man’. Appealing to this principle of trans-inclusion, Katharine Jenkins argues that we ought to endorse a dual social position and identity theory of gender. Here, I argue that Jenkins’s dual theory of gender fails to be trans-inclusive for the following reasons: it cannot generate a definition of ‘woman’ that extends to include all trans women, and it understands transgender (...) gender identity through a cisgender frame. (shrink)

Today, thanks to biomedical technologies advances, some persons with fertility issues can conceive. Transgender persons benefit also from these advances and can not only actualize their self-identified sexual identities but also experience parenthood. Based on clinical multidisciplinary seminars that gathered child psychiatrists and psychoanalysts interested in the fields of assisted reproduction technology and gender dysphoria, philosophers interested in bioethics, biologists interested in ART, and endocrinologists interested in pubertal suppression, we explore how new biotechnical advances, whether in gender transition or (...) procreation, could create new ways to conceive a child possible. After reviewing the various medical/surgical techniques for physical gender transition and the current ART options, we discuss how these new ways for persons to self-actualize and to experience parenthood can not only improve the condition of transgender persons but also introduce some elements of change in the habitual patterns of thinking especially in France. Finally, we discuss the ethical issues that accompany the arrival of these children and provide creative solutions to help society handle, accept, and support the advances made in this area. (shrink)

This introductory article presents some subtle and, perhaps, controversial aspects of providing care to adolescents who identify as transgender. I will describe (1) how praise from careproviders can benefit parents who have difficulty accepting the gender identity of their child that was not assigned at birth; (2) how adolescents who identify as transgender may follow the internet advice of peers on how to “con” careproviders; (3) how it may be difficult for careproviders to decide whether to further (...) patients’ felt needs and to protect them, paternalistically, from making an irreversible decision they may later regret; and (4) how careproviders can benefit adolescents by taking the initiative to discuss sex and how to say “no.” I emphasize how careproviders who see these patients, even when they have no special expertise in this area, may be able to enhance patients’ equality in every respect, even when they otherwise might not choose to do so. (shrink)

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw ends her landmark essay “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color” with a normative claim about coalitions. She suggests that we should reconceptualize identity groups as “in fact coalitions,” or at least as “potential coalitions waiting to be formed.” In this essay, I explore this largely overlooked claim by combining philosophical analysis with archival research I conducted at the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Historical Society Archive in San Francisco (...) about Somos Hermanas, the solidarity project of the Alliance Against Women’s Oppression, based in the San Francisco Women’s Building (1984–90). I extend my analysis into the present by drawing on the oral history and published works of Carmen Vázquez, a key organizer in both Somos Hermanas and the Women’s Building. I argue that conceptualizing identities as in fact coalitions—as complex, internally heterogeneous unities constituted by their internal differences and dissonances and by internal as well as external relations of power—enables us to organize effective political coalitions that cross existing identity categories and to pursue a liberatory politics of interconnection. (shrink)

Transgender individuals and families throw existing taxonomic classification systems of identity into perplexing disarray, illuminating sociolegal dilemmas long overdue for critical sociological inquiry. Using interview data collected from 50 cisgender women from across the United States and Canada, who detail 61 unique partnerships with transgender and transsexual men, this work considers the pragmatic choices and choice-making capacities of this social group as embedded within social systems, structures, and institutions. Proposing the analytic constructs of “normative resistance” and “inventive (...) pragmatism” to situate the interactional processes between agency and structure in the everyday lives of this understudied group of cisgender women, this work theorizes the liminal sociolegal status of an understudied family form. In so doing, it exposes the increasingly paradoxical consolidation and destabilization of sociolegal notions of identity, marriage, normativity, and parenthood—challenging, contributing to, and extending current theoretical and empirical understandings of agency and structure in twenty-first-century families. (shrink)

BackgroundWhile fertility preservation is recommended practice for paediatric oncology patients, it is increasingly being considered for transgender children and young people in paediatric care. This raises ethical issues for clinicians, particularly around consent and shared decision-making in this new area of healthcare.MethodsA systematic review of normative literature was conducted across four databases in June 2020 to capture ethical considerations related to fertility counselling and preservation in paediatric transgender healthcare. The text of included publications was analysed inductively, guided by (...) the Qualitative Analysis Guide of Leuven.ResultsTwenty-four publications were identified for inclusion. Four key ethical considerations emerged from this literature: access to fertility preservation, conscientious objection, decision-making capacity of children and young people, and shared decision-making.ConclusionIn the identified literature, there is consensus that transgender children and young people should not be refused access to fertility preservation services solely due to their gender identity, and that clinicians with conscientious objections to fertility preservation for this group have an obligation to refer on to willing providers. Factors that create ethical complexity in this area of paediatric care include the child’s age, mental health, and parents’ views. (shrink)

There is no paucity of academic studies, medical literature, or media attention given to concerns about gender ideology and being transgender. When reporting their findings, however, some researchers and practitioners working from a purely secular perspective overstep medical observations to make metaphysical pronouncements. This causes considerable confusion and stifles dialogue that could occur if the line between medicine and philosophy were clearly delineated. Properly understood, transgender describes an observable distress due to incongruence between one’s birth sex and gender (...) identity. Conversely, gender ideology is a metaphysical conclusion, which argues that a person’s gender is fluid and open to personal choice. Clearly distinguishing between these can help families, clinicians, and society provide medically appropriate and culturally competent care to those with gender dysphoria, especially children. (shrink)

As of this writing, twenty‐one states have passed laws barring transgender youth‐athletes from competing on public‐school sports teams in accordance with their gender identity. Proponents of these regulations claim that transgender females in particular have inherent physiological advantages that threaten a “level playing field” for their cisgender competitors. Existing evidence is limited but does not support these restrictions. Gathering more robust data will require allowing transgender youth to compete (rather than preemptively barring them), but even if (...) trans females are shown to retain some advantage, this would not have greater moral significance than the many other “fair” physical and economic advantages found across sports. These regulations deprive transgender youth, an exceptionally vulnerable population, from the vast physical, mental, and social benefits of sports. While we advocate for transgender inclusion under our current, gender‐segregated model of sport, we propose changes to the overarching structure that would promote a more inclusive and fairer athletic environment. (shrink)

The often poorly explained notion of gender identity, and the attendant cisgender/transgender distinction, are critically examined.

In some areas of clinical medicine, discussions about fertility preservation are routine, such as in the treatment of children and adolescents facing cancer treatments that will destroy their ability to produce gametes of their own. Certain professional organizations now offer guidelines for people who wish to modify their bodies and appearance in regard to sex traits, and these guidelines extend to recommendations about fertility preservation. Since the removal of testicles or ovaries will destroy the ability to have genetically related children (...) later on, it is imperative to counsel transgender people seeking body modifications about fertility preservation options. Fertility preservation with transgender people will, however, lead to unconventional outcomes. If transgender men and women use their ova and sperm, respectively, to have children, they will function as a mother or father in a gametic sense but will function in socially reversed parental identities. There is nothing, however, about fertility preservation with transgender men and women that is objectionable in its motives, practices, or outcomes that would justify closing off these options. In any case, novel reproductive technologies may extend this kind of role reversal in principle to all people, if sperm and ova can be derived from all human beings regardless of sex, as has happened with certain laboratory animals. (shrink)

This article examines how efforts at legal legibility acquisition by gender diverse litigants result in problematic (e.g., narratives counter to self-identity) and, at times, erroneous discourses on sex and gender that homogenize the litigants themselves. When gender diverse persons approach the court with a rights claim, the narrative they present must necessarily limit itself to a normative discourse that the court may understand and, therefore, engage with. Consequently, the everyday lived experiences of gender diverse persons are often deliberately erased (...) from the narrative as litigants mould themselves into the pre-existing normative legal categories of gender and sex. As a result of such mechanisms, the article finds that gender diverse litigants face epistemic injustice in the courts as their legal legibility is constructed within a constraining gender binary paradigm of judicial discourse.The article explores the trajectory of transgender rights in India, through an analysis of case law prior to and post the landmark NALSA decision, to understand how the approach to transgender rights and identities has been shaped by and shapes, in turn, normative conceptions of gender. The article argues for the incorporation of temporal pluralism into the law that would allow courts to hear gender diverse litigant accounts premised on contemporary gender diversity beyond the binary (rather than incontestable prior understandings based in past precedent), which would better account for such social injustices. (shrink)

Transgender conversion practices involve attempts to alter, discourage, or suppress a person’s gender identity and/or desired gender presentation, including by delaying or preventing gender transition. Proponents of the practices have argued that they should be allowed until proven to be harmful. Drawing on the notion of expressive equality, I argue that conversion practices are prima facie unethical because they do not fulfill a legitimate clinical purpose and conflict with the self-understanding of trans communities.

Research involving transgender and gender diverse people (TGD) increased in the last years, mostly concerning healthcare associated to this population. Few studies dedicated their analysis to the impact of parental support on transgender people, even though this is an important aspect in creating a safe environment on which these individuals can build their identity. In addition, the link between family support, TGD identity and homelessness is not completely established. Thus, due to the specificities of the family (...) context of TGD individuals, the aim of this study is to investigate the association between family support and TGD in different moments of the process of gender affirmation. In addition, this study also aims to explore the relationship between a lack of social support and low self-esteem, home abandonment, and dwelling in the street. The survey was designed based on the TransPULSE project and was made available in electronic format. The sample was constituted of 423 TGD residents in two Brazilian states. A Structural Equation Model analysis suggested that the impact of gender affirmation status on homelessness was mediated by parental support, through self-esteem, and the need to move from home. The association between the status of the gender affirmation procedures, family support and self-esteem was significant and indicated that the further TGD individuals advanced in gender affirmation, the more self-esteem and family support they would have. The association between family support and self-esteem indicated that family support was associated with higher self-esteem. Low family support was associated with the willingness to move from home due to one’s TGD status and there was also a significant correlation between low self-esteem and the willingness to move from home due to one’s TGD status. Finally, homelessness was associated with the willingness to move with a large effect size. Limitations include the sample that was constituted by individuals with Internet access and who had more contact with TGD communities. The findings indicate directions for interventions involving TGD people and their families, considering the parental relationship as a critical variable to improve TGD quality of life in the process of gender affirmation. (shrink)

For a variety of reasons, it's difficult to determine, with any accuracy, the number of trans and gender nonbinary folks living in the United States.1 Data are difficult to obtain since neither the U.S. Census Bureau nor the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey people's gender identity. But even if they did, responses would likely be unreliable. Many members of these two groups are hesitant to answer such questions for fear of their safety, resulting discrimination, or because they (...) disagree on the definition of what it means to be transgender. It's also difficult to obtain accurate numbers on these groups since most medical forms still rely on a two-sex system of... (shrink)

Drawing on the principle of subsidiarity, this article develops a framework for allocating medical decision-making authority in the absence of capacity to consent and argues that decisional authority in paediatric transgender healthcare should generally lie in the patient. Regardless of patients’ capacity, there is usually nobody better positioned to make medical decisions that go to the heart of a patient’s identity than the patients themselves. Under the principle of subsidiarity, decisional authority should only be held by a higher (...) level decision-maker, such as parents or judges, if lower level decision-makers are incapable of satisfactorily addressing the issue even with support and the higher level decision-maker is better positioned to satisfactorily address the issue than all lower level decision-makers. Because gender uniquely pertains to personal identity and self-realisation, parents and judges are rarely better positioned to make complex medical decisions. Instead of taking away trans youth’s authority over their healthcare decisions, we should focus on supporting their ability to take the best possible decision for themselves. (shrink)