Transsexualism, Overview

Introduction

The term “transsexualism” was reportedly first used by D. O. Cauldwell (1949) but popularized by Harry Benjamin MD (1953) in a response to the widely reported media coverage of the story of Christine Jorgensen who had undergone reassignment surgery by a team of surgeons in Denmark. Although Benjamin is often described as the “father of transsexualism,” accounts of medical attempts to reconstruct the sex/gendered body can be found earlier with the most frequently cited case being Lili Elbe (Hoyer, 1933). The field of transsexualism has been hotly contested with debates over the legitimacy of transsexualism as a syndrome, its etiological basis, and the appropriateness of medical interventions and reassignment surgery as a form of treatment. Critics have pointed to the sociomedical constructed nature of transsexualism which functions to regulate a binary gender system, with some positioning transsexuals as “medical dupes” (e.g., Hausman, 1995). At stake is whether or not...