Transsexual Subject as Subject of Language and Desire: An Anthropological Analysis of the Social Construction of Gender as Performer

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Graduated from Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tehran

2 Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tehran

Abstract

This article attempts to examine the cultural-social construction of the gender subject and the impossibility of gender by theories Jacques Lacan and Judith Butler on the Transsexual subject. The interplay of Lacan's orders (Imaginary, Symbolic, and Real) indicates how the Transsexual subject forms through the gap between imaginary identity (Ego ideal) and symbolic identity (Ideal ego). Lacan argues sexual difference is beyond the sexual organs and is based on linguistic signifier as normative ideals, and Butler presents it as discourse structures that shape bodies and are expressed by performativity. The research is qualitative, data are collected through interviews and analyzed in terms of narrative research via theoretical concepts. The research field in Tehran, and research participants are seven Transsexual people who have been selected by the snowball method. Findings depict that the impossibility of realizing gender as signified represented through physical signifier by performativity. The subject's attempt in the symbolic to align with the imaginary gender dealing with the real is an insurmountable gap. The focus of gender difference/identity on the axis’ the signifier/body in the symbolic causes the loss of gender that constructs and destroys the subject by performativity as fantasy. Gender is linguistic and performative not immanent.

Keywords

References

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Iranian Journal of Anthropological Research
Volume 11, Issue 1 - Serial Number 21
Indexing Databases
August 2021
Pages 9-40

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