Changing Sex: Transsexualism, Technology, and the Idea of Gender

by Bernice L. Hausman

Changing Sex takes a bold new approach to the study of transsexualism in the twentieth century. By addressing the significance of medical technology to the phenomenon of transsexualism, Bernice L. Hausman transforms current conceptions of transsexuality as a disorder of gender identity by showing how developments in medical knowledge and technology make possible the emergence of new subjectivities.
Hausman’s inquiry into the development of endocrinology and plastic surgery shows how advances in medical knowledge were central to the establishment of the material and discursive conditions necessary to produce the demand for sex change—that is, to both "make" and "think" the transsexual. She also retraces the hidden history of the concept of gender, demonstrating that the semantic distinction between "natural" sex and "social" gender has its roots in the development of medical treatment practices for intersexuality—the condition of having physical characteristics of both sexes— in the 1950s. Her research reveals the medical institution’s desire to make heterosexual subjects out of intersexuals and indicates how gender operates semiotically to maintain heterosexuality as the norm of the human body. In critically examining medical discourses, popularizations of medical theories, and transsexual autobiographies, Hausman details the elaboration of "gender narratives" that not only support the emergence of transsexualism, but also regulate the lives of all contemporary Western subjects. Changing Sex will change the ways we think about the relation between sex and gender, the body and sexual identity, and medical technology and the idea of the human.

Genres: Gender, LGBT, Nonfiction, Transgender, Gender Studies

264 pages, Hardcover

First published June 30, 1995

Reviews

[6655321 · Rating 1 out of 5]

OH MY FUCKING GAWD, ok so this fucking book is basically The Transsexual Empire 2.0 in terms of wholly made up shit and claims that are endnoted but actually do not substantiate the claim (Hausman claims we all know hormones are dangerous as a treatment, her actual end note is that the ongoing debate about hormonal birth control proves this). Bernice Hausman *really* hates trans people, like openly palpably hates them, and spends a lot of time on this although by her own admission she researched this for like a year because it seemed like an interesting topic which is *maybe not the level of competence you want to take on this project*? she basically argues you have a body and a sex and they are real and pre-discursive (which if you are going to cite Foucalt is a contradictory claim) and that you cannot change this body (she talks graphically and at length about genital surgery but without, you know, noting any studies about post-surgical satisfaction rather than graphically detailing failed surgeries from the fucking 1970s) she lacks a real null hypothesis (because she thinks transsexuality exists whole cloth because of endocrinology and plastic surgery but the existence of people who do not care about surgery (or simply can't afford it) for her is the proof that surgery doesn't *work* but what she means by this is basically never stated). I LOATHED reading this book because it's cissupremicist bullshit, intentionally insulting and triggering and has so many examples of poor writing and a fleeting grasp of the subject *in the most charitable possible formulation of this goddamn book* including saying she likes second serve for the sex scenes and descriptions of cars and ignoring that Rene Richards for all her struggles is *probably* not a representative person for trans people as a whole? Don't buy this book, if Hausman is still teaching somewhere remind her that she is a bad person.