Gender Reassignment Surgery (GRS) is an increasingly sought-after treatment amongst trans* indivi... more Gender Reassignment Surgery (GRS) is an increasingly sought-after treatment amongst trans* individuals. Mental-health professionals often stand between trans* patients’ need/desire and their attainment of such services. Utilizing a qualitative, hermeneutic approach, this thesis examines the historical practices in working with this population to understand current therapeutic perspectives. This research utilizes contemporary practices and ideologies informed by relational psychoanalysis to illuminate how the therapeutic process often engages in exactly the bifurcated treatment it ostensibly seeks to transcend. After investigating the various “sides” on which clinicians and their trans* patients fall in considering GRS, the futility of certainty and the unavoidable ambivalence become clearer. The experiences of trans* clients are frequently pathologized, stigmatized, and fetishized, and the question of GRS is situated between transphobia and affirmation. This thesis proposes a therapeutic process that transcends this binary, and instead embraces a toleration for ambiguity, fluidity, and confusion.
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Papers by Kelsey Milano
and ideologies informed by relational psychoanalysis to illuminate how the therapeutic process often engages in exactly the bifurcated treatment it ostensibly seeks to transcend. After investigating the various “sides” on which clinicians and their trans* patients fall in considering GRS, the futility of certainty and the unavoidable ambivalence become clearer. The experiences of trans* clients are frequently pathologized, stigmatized, and
fetishized, and the question of GRS is situated between transphobia and affirmation. This thesis proposes a therapeutic process that transcends this binary, and instead embraces a toleration for ambiguity, fluidity, and confusion.