「性」の構築

「性同一性障害」医療化の行方

抄録

　Since Saitama Medical University applied to carry out a sex reassignment surgery (so called "sex change surgery") in 1995, medicalization of "gender identity disorder" is actively encouraged in Japan. There has been a corresponding increase in number of treatises on this mental disorder published by specialists. By analyzing those professional discourses, I will illustrate how a domain of "the sexual" is socially constructed.
　The social constructionism has argued two important views: First, objects are produced in and through a series of linguistic practices of signification; second, some knowledge is cited/referred when the practices are intelligible. The question of how "the sexual" is constructed will not be limited to the work of showing the particular way of construction of "the sexual." I will also show how and what kind of knowledge is cited in the constructing process.
　Having learned constructionism from Judith Butler, this paper keeps the interest of describing gaps and fissures that are produced in the very process of the constructing practices. Those gaps and fissures are observed as logical discontinuity, and are taken as the possibility to change the hegemonic meaning of "the sexual."
　I hold the attention of its changeablity because I am anxious that the construct of "the sexual" by professionals becomes standard and legitimate knowledge. Examining carefully the practices, we will find cited knowledge there operates against not only other "sexual minorities" but also transsexuals themselves.