Abstract

ARGENTIERI, Simona. Transvestism, transsexualism, transgender: identification and imitation. J. psicanal. [online]. 2009, vol.42, n.77, pp. 167-185. ISSN 0103-5835.

During the course of a few decades, there has been a dramatic change, both psychologically and in civil rights, in the convulsive social and cultural arena in which the so-called "transsexualisms" live, define themselves and are defined. Even the technical language has changed. In the past, diagnoses of transsexualism and transvestism were quite distinct from each other; whereas, today, we speak of "gender dysphoria" or we use the comprehensive term of "transgender" that moves the accent from sexual drive to gender identity. In our clinical work the phenomenon of so-called infantile "cross-dressing" has increased, and there are many more cases of feminine perversions - or, at least, their existence is no longer denied although they may go under different names. I think that psychoanalysis must work to laboriously retrieve its theoretical space and its specific method of clinical operation so as to remove it from the confused scandals of the media, and from the collusive, falsely liberal seduction of medical-surgical "re-assignment" of sexual gender (by now permitted in the public institutions of many countries) that, in fact, puts the problem back on the biological level. We cannot limit ourselves, as frequently happens, to intervening when the damage has already been done.

Keywords : Transvestism; Transsexualism; Transgender; Imitation; Identification.

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