No Body ― Clinical Constructions of Gender and Transsexuality, Pathologisation, Violence and Deconstruction

What articulations between bodies, genders and desires are required socio-culturally for recognition of what is human? What happens with those people who do not meet the heteronormative criteria of intelligible life? Are psychology and medicine part of the solution, or part of the problem?

This pioneering book presents a novel analysis of transgender constructions within a clinical setting, examining the experiences of "transsexuality in treatment" interpreted through psychological, feminist, post-structuralist and queer theories. Based on research that includes interviews with the clinic’s professionals and users, notes from its group therapy sessions, and analysis of its manuals and scientific productions, the author shows how the psychological sciences not only "treat" transsexuality, but construct it in each of its elements: corporality, sexuality, identity, performances and vulnerability. Looking at the work of philosophers such as Michel Foucault, Judith Butler and Paul B. Preciado, this book also highlights how the productive character of language and other subjectifying technologies are linked to the symbolic and material violence that falls on these bodies, deconstructing the bio-scientific and sociocultural conceptions that nourish the understanding of trans life experiences that are medicalised and psychopathologised.

No Body is a valuable book for students, researchers and professionals in critical psychology, psychiatry and social sciences, and anyone interested in the fields of transsexuality and homo/transphobia, feminism and queer theory, discourse analysis and the construction and signification of the body, gender and sexualities.

Miguel Rosello Penaloza is Professor of Psychology at the Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano, and is also Professor of Social Psychology at the Universidad Diego Portales (Chile). His research interests include feminisms and queer theory; the construction of difference and stigmatisation based on sex, gender and sexual practices; and deconstruction of psychopathology and power relations in science, clinical practices and public politics.