Abstract

SOLEY-BELTRAN, Patrícia. Transexuality and Transgender: a bioethical perspective. Rev. Bioética y Derecho [online]. 2014, n.30, pp.21-39. ISSN 1886-5887.  https://dx.doi.org/10.4321/S1886-58872014000100003.

Transexuality as practice and medical category is a phenomenon crossed by bioethical questions since its very beginnings. Pathologising medical categories, such as “transexualism” or “transvestism”, work as mechanisms producing and regulating the ‘truth’ of gender. On the basis of a sociological study, I will examine few aspects of the social and legal frameworks of transgenderism that reveal the circularity of identification and diagnostic process, as well as the interaction of medical discourse and folk notions of masculinity and femininity. In contrast with the binary frame that locates transgender people in a marginal “third” gender space, the comparative empirical studies them as a source of data about gender norms ruling all society members, and locates them in its ideological, social and political contexts. My aim is to better understand the cultural milieu in which the legal and the medical frames operate, and de-pathologising demands take place. I conclude with some thoughts about a possible interdiscursive framework that considers the ethical challenges in order to generate a new social set up more inclusive and respectful with gender fluidity.

Keywords : transexualism; transgender; de-pathologization; gender violence; gender identity; identification documents.

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