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Identité masculine et transsexualisme
Masculine identity and transsexualism
Andrologie volume 10, pages 66–74 (2000)
Résumé
Le transsexualisme est un phénomène propre à notre culture, même s’il y a toujours eu des hommes ou des femmes ne supportant pas leur sexe d’origine: les possibilités techniques ont conduit des médecins à offrir aux patients un «changement de sexe» par les hormones et la chirurgie, qui n’est en fait qu’un changement d’apparence permettant de mieux occuper dans la société la place de l’autre sexe.
Transsexuels masculin vers féminin et transsexuels féminin vers masculin ont en commun un même fonctionnement psychique marqué par le clivage et le déni. Mais les transsexuels masculin vers féminin ont des caractéristiques propres: précocité des manifestations, en partie liée à l’intolérance sociale aux comportements féminins chez le garçon, sous-groupe de sujets mal insérés à l’école, puis dans la société, et vivant de subsides sociaux même après l’intervention.
Les intersexués et les transsexuels nous apprennent que le sentiment d’appartenance à un sexe est une croyance, une construction, où les facteurs psychiques (interactions entre les parents, l’environnement et l’enfant) jouent un rôle important.
L’identité masculine et l’identité féminine découlent certes de la différence sexuelle, mais reprise et interprétée par la culture dans laquelle le sujet vit.
Tout cela nous montre que, même si des facteurs biologiques jouent un rôle, ils ne sauraient à eux seuls expliquer l’identité sexuée et l’orientation sexuelle.
Abstract
Transsexualism is a phenomenon of our culture. In the past, there were men and women who could not accept their innate sex. What is new is linked to our modern medical technology which offers patients a so-called «change of sex» using hormones and surgery; in fact it is a change in appearance, allowing the individual to «pass» as a member of the other sex. Some societies had and still have a social status for a third gender, but our transsexuals do not want to be treated as members of a third gender, they want to belong to the other gender
Male-to-female and female-to-male transsexuals have the same mental functioning, characterized by splitting and denial. But there are differences, in part because society is more intolerant of feminine behaviors in men than of masculine behaviors in women. Male-to-female transsexualism includes a subgroup of subjects who, after failing in school, are unable to earn their living and live on welfare, even after surgical sex reassignment.
We have learned from the study of intersexed and transsexual subjects that the feeling of belonging to a gender is a belief, a construction, in which psychological factors (interactions between the parents, the environment and the child) play an important role.
Masculine or feminine identities have their roots in the sexual difference, but they are defined by each culture. A man is a male who accepts at least part of his culture’s stereotypes regarding masculinity.
Even if biological factors play a role, they cannot explain the whole of gender identity and sexual orientation.
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DESC d’andrologie 1999–2000, 20 janvier 2000.
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Chiland, C. Identité masculine et transsexualisme. Androl. 10, 66–74 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03035225
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03035225