(De)transition?

Gender, body and appearence in transidentification

Abstract

This article introduces two reports on gender detransition to reconceptualize the process of transition based on philosophical reflections from the theoretical field of fashion. Gender nonconformity, as addressed by psychology and medicine – represented by the DSM-5, ICD-10, and ICD-11 manuals – is situated within the realm of deviation and pathology, which prescribes corrective procedures for trans bodies, overseen by a medical team. While on the one hand, aesthetic procedures for cisgender people do not face the same level of control and bureaucracy, the unquestioned adherence to gender binarism and submission to normative roles may not alleviate the feelings of inadequacy of trans people, whose suffering manifests in the desire to turn back. By recognizing bodily interventions of different temporalities as features of all societies, as well as the transience of fashion images capable of evoking both rejection and desire, we argue that the back-and-forth process of exploring appearance and gender cannot be understood as failure or regret, but rather as an expression of a mode of being characterized by disidentification with the cisgender norm.