Transsexualism: Illusion and RealityWhat is a person's gender? How do we determine whether someone is a man or a woman? Who gets to decide the sex of an individual: the individual, parents, doctors, judges, politicians, God? And how does medical transformation of one's body impact an individual's psychological, social, cultural and biological status? In this fascinating, eminently readable work--originally published in France in 1997 and now translated into English for the first time--French psychoanalyst Colette Chiland grapples with these questions as she explores the many dimensions of gender and gender discomfort. Transsexualism: Illusion and Reality masterfully combines the insights of psychology, psychoanalysis, history, anthropology, sociology and personal experience to rethink transsexualism within the frames of identity, subjectivity and the wider social-historical world. Chiland's compelling text challenges readers of every sexual identity and orientation to reconsider their notions about the origins, implications and possibilities of gender. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Change of Civil Status | 119 |
Changing what People Have in their Minds | 145 |
Our Culture and Transsexualism | 153 |
| 167 | |
| 187 | |
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Common terms and phrases
accepted adolescent adults appearance Archives of Sexual assigned sex behaviour belong berdaches biological sex birth certificate body breasts change of civil change sex child childhood civil status clinical cross-dressing culture disorders of gender doctors dress experience father feel female-to-male transsexuals feminine boys follow-up studies French Freud gender dysphoria gender identity gender identity disorder genital girls heterosexual Hijras homosexual hormonal and surgical human husbands identity documents individual intersexed liminal live Lothstein male-to-female transsexuals marriage married masculine mother narcissistic normal Oedipus complex operation opposite sex organs parents partner patients penis envy person phalloplasty primary transsexualism problem prostitution psychiatrist psychoanalytic psychological psychotherapy registered rejection relationship request Robert Stoller role sample sex change Sex reassignment surgery situation social sex society sometimes Stoller surgery surgical sex reassignment syndrome term therapist therapy third gender to-male transsexuals trans transformation transvestism transvestites treatment Wålinder whereas wish woman women