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Journal Article
The Socio-Medical Construction of Transsexualism: An Interpretation and Critique
Dwight B. Billings and Thomas Urban
Social Problems
Vol. 29, No. 3 (Feb., 1982), pp. 266-282
Published
by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Study of Social Problems
DOI: 10.2307/800159
https://www.jstor.org/stable/800159
Page Count: 17
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Topics: Transsexualism, Physicians, Gender roles, Transvestism, Psychiatry, Sex reassignment, Plastic surgery
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Abstract
This article examines transexualism and its treatment by sex-reassignment surgery. Physicians have drawn upon their previous experience with hermaphrodites and the psychological benefits of elective surgery to legitimate sex-change surgery for what they view as a distinct patient population, transexuals. We demonstrate that transexualism is a socially constructed reality which only exists in and through medical practice. Furthermore, we contend that sex-change surgery reflects and extends late-capitalist logics of reification and commodification, while simultaneously reaffirming traditional male and female gender roles.
Social Problems
© 1982 Oxford University Press