THE SEXUAL POLITICS OF CLINICAL PSYCHOANALYSIS AND TRANSGENDER MENTAL HEALTH TOBIAS B. D. WIGGINS A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN GENDER, FEMINIST, AND WOMEN’S STUDIES YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO March 2019 © Tobias B. D. Wiggins, 2019 ii Abstract Perversion is derived from the Latin pervertere which means “to turn around” and has been broadly conceptualized as that which deviates or wavers from an original course. One could argue that the perverse is fundamentally constructed through difference; its existence is predicated upon being set up against some norm and its eccentricity is maintained through a continued refusal to adhere to the rule. This dissertation explores questions of gender difference and sexual deviance as they relate to the clinical pathologization of transgender people’s mental health. In particular, it considers how psychoanalytic theories of perversion - in their multifaceted definitions and various clinical applications - can be usefully employed to understand transphobia as it emerges throughout psychiatric institutions. In borrowing from Freud’s polymorphous perversity, fetishism, perverse defense, and Lacan’s perverse structure, this study both contributes to and moves beyond a genealogical account of transgender people’s relationship to psychoanalysis. It uniquely considers the psychical provocations behind clinician’s anxious descriptions and treatments of gender variance, as they have emerged since transsexual’s nosological coinage in the early 20th century. By combining two disparate contemporary fields of study - psychoanalysis and transgender studies - this project also asks how transgender people may re-narrate their relationship to the perverse. To do so, this research investigates many under-considered objects of study, including surrealist transsexual drawings from the mid 1900s, lineages of psychiatric taxonomies, science fiction literature, contemporary transgender art installations, autoethno-pornographic transition narratives, and transgender accounts of undergoing psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Through a combination of critical historiographies, discourse analysis, content analysis, and narrative research, this dissertation contributes to a rapidly emerging non-pathological conversation about the psychic life of gender variance, both for transgender people themselves and the mental health institutions that serve them. Ultimately, it finds perversion to be quite useful as a floating signifier, as its various theoretical containers and clinical meanings are employed to deconstruct institutionalized transphobia’s tenacity. Furthermore, this research centers an archive of historically neglected transgender narratives on mental health as they emerge in the clinic, through case study, and in art or aesthetics. Keywords: transgender, psychoanalysis, mental health, perversion, sexuality, visual art iii Dedication To those who move away from an unchosen starting place. iv Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge the support of many individuals and organizations, for without their contributions and inspiration this dissertation project would not have come to fruition. First to my committee chair, Prof. Deborah Britzman, your scholarship, astute commentary, and even- handed encouragement has made this process not only achievable but also memorable. I would like to thank my committee members, Prof. Aparna Mishra Tarc and Prof. James Penney for their invaluable insights. Prof. Tarc, you have held me up through even the most trying hurdles, and your belief in my work will continue to sustain my passions. Prof. Penney, I credit you with being one of the first to facilitate my interest in psychanalysis, especially by introducing me to Lacan. Your advice that we should not always read to understand never ceases to galvanize my thinking. Many scholars at York University have contributed to the development of ideas leading up to this dissertation. In particular, thank you Prof. Allyson Mitchell, Prof. Amar Wahab, Prof. Sheila Cavanagh, Prof. Kamala Kempadoo, Prof. Bobby Nobel, Prof. Marc Stein, Prof. Karleen Pendleton Jiménez, & Prof. John Greyson. Profs. Mitchell and Wahab, along with Prof. Alison Crosby and Prof. Enakshi Dua, also provided support for my and Daria Davydova’s vision for the Summer Institute for Sexuality Studies, successfully held summer 2017. The discussions on theories of perversion at this institute – both with graduate students and faculty – also greatly bolstered many aspects of this PhD research. I owe a deep gratitude to my psychoanalyst, who transformed my understanding of psychoanalysis through our clinical work together. With him, I more intimately learnt that words will always miss their mark, but that it is within the space left behind by misrecognition that we may play. Thank you for metabolizing the beta and for co-experiencing the joys of being found. To my dear friends and colleagues who have seen me through so many different aspects of my doctoral studies, I appreciate your encouraging presence. A big thank you to Caro Ibrahim, Dr. Alex Van De Kamp, Molly Willats, Dr. Kami Chisolm, Dr. Aziz Güzel, Caitlin Jensen, Weronika Rogula, Leah Henderson, Isaiah Bartlett, and Kathleen Banville, as well as others in or involved with the doctoral program in Gender, Feminist, and Women’s Studies at York University including Dr. Nael Bhanji, Preity Kumar, Amy Verhaeghe, Morgan Bimm, Lindsay Blewett, Dr. Loree Erikson, Laine Hughes, Judith Mintz, Dr. Nishant Upadhyay, Jolin Joseph, Hans Rollmann, Gary Lee Pelletier, Evan Vipond, Dr. Ela Przybylo, Danielle Cooper, Stephanie Latella and others. I have felt inspired by each one of you. Thank you for your intersectional, interdisciplinary queer and feminist research that thrives in an institutional climate increasingly hostile to such marginalized ways of knowing. I would also like to thank the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada for supporting this project through a doctoral fellowship, as well as the provincially funded Ontario Graduate Scholarship Program. v Table of Contents ABSTRACT........................................................................................................................................... II DEDICATION...................................................................................................................................... III ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................................... IV LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ............................................................................................................... VI CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 1 CENTRAL THEMES .................................................................................................................................... 3 POLITICS AND TRANS/PSYCHOANALYSIS ........................................................................................................ 9 TRANSGENDER MENTAL HEALTH .............................................................................................................. 17 SITUATED RESEARCH .............................................................................................................................. 21 THE FRAME .......................................................................................................................................... 26 Terminology .................................................................................................................................. 27 Methodology ................................................................................................................................ 31 Chapter Summaries ....................................................................................................................... 33 CHAPTER 2: TRANS/SEXUAL USES OF PERVERSION ............................................................. 37 SORTING TRANSGENDER ......................................................................................................................... 37 LEAKING BATHROOMS ............................................................................................................................ 41 CONTRADICTIONS IN TRANSVESTIC BEGINNINGS ........................................................................................... 48 PERVERSE LEGACIES ............................................................................................................................... 61 HELLO TITTY! ....................................................................................................................................... 67 CHAPTER 3: A PERVERSE SOLUTION TO MISPLACED CLINICAL DISTRESS ................... 72 AUSPICIOUS CONDITIONS ........................................................................................................................ 72 A HISTORY OF GENDERED DISORDER ......................................................................................................... 75 THE DSM-V AND TAXONOMIES OF SUFFERING ............................................................................................ 79 AN ARTFUL LOOKING AWAY .................................................................................................................... 83 UNINHIBITED