Abstract

FARJI NEER, Anahí. Trajectories, debates and experiences towards surgical treatments requested by transgender people. Reading professional discourses through feminist debates. La ventana [online]. 2020, vol.6, n.52, pp.132-160.  Epub Feb 09, 2021. ISSN 1405-9436.

Since 1990s, some theoretical and empirical approaches to bodily construction processes carried out by transgender people were produced by feminism and gender studies. These works wondered to what extent those experiences contributed to reinforce the binary gender system or to put it in crisis. In the same period, several studies carried out in the field of feminism and gender studies produced a critical approach to cosmetic surgeries. Some productions conceived cosmetic surgery as a normalization practice of cisgender women's bodies. Other ones aimed to understand cisgender women as autonomous agents of decision. That is, neither as mere victims of the cosmetic surgery industry nor as subjects alienated by cultural messages that affirm their subordination. Taking these debates into account, this article puts into dialogue feminism and gender studies with the bio-medical field. In order to identify points of agreement and disagreement between those fields, it focuses on the senses that urological surgeons and plastic and reconstructive surgeons elaborate around surgical treatments requested by transgender people. The study is based on the analysis of in-depth interviews conducted between 2015 and 2019 to urological surgeons and plastic and reconstructive surgeons of the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires.

Keywords : medical professions; transgender health; feminism; plastic and reconstructive surgery; Gender Identity Law.

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