Genderqueer: One Family’s Experience with Gender Variance

Abstract

Accounts of the experiences of gender variant individuals that have recently received attention in the popular and psychoanalytic literature have led to an increased appreciation for the complex nature of identity; gender development; and the interaction of mind, body, and the social environment. Although there is still a great deal to be learned about the developmental trajectories of transgender identities that fall within what is a more familiar, male/female binary-based landscape, even less is known about developmental pathways for individuals whose gender identities remain neither comfortably male nor female. In this article, we present selected episodes reflecting our experiences as a family, drawn from over a 25-year period in which a gender variant individual, along with the rest of us, grew up. We tell this story—our family’s story—to better understand what we have been through and learned, to help other families going through similar experiences, and as a thought-piece to clinicians and students of gender. The result is both a narrative and a meditation on the nature of gender identity and gender development.

Notes

¹ Although the formal nomenclature set forth in the DSM-IV and DSM-5 has been a matter of considerable debate, the term gender variant, like the nearly-synonymous term transgender, is used to describe people who diverge significantly, either in identity or expression, from societal norms defining male and female (Serano, 2007).

² Sara currently uses the pronouns she and her, aware that conventional gender pronouns do not faithfully portray the specific individuality of her experience of her gender. As Corbett writes, “Categorical speech, though, always fails; someone always falls out” (2009, p. 3).

³ Gender identity is distinct from seeing one’s self or one’s specific traits as masculine or feminine, for example, “I am a masculine female,” or “I am a feminine male.”

⁴ Many controversial issues involving the assessment and treatment of intersex conditions (and by extension, the broader spectrum of gender ambiguity), including whether these conditions are in need of treatment, are raised by this case (Diamond and Sigmundson, 1997; Fausto-Sterling 2000; Butler, 2001). Discussion of these issues is beyond the scope of this article, but we use Reimer’s case to illustrate the independence and power of the experience of gender identity as distinct from gender expression, gender role, and physical anatomy.

⁵ See Butler (1990), Wilchins (2004), and Harris (2009) for discussions of how language privileges that which can be symbolically represented in categories—suggesting that what is named is real and that what is not named does not exist. Those who fall outside of the reassuring structure of classification are typically marginalized and devalued.

⁶ Natal, biologic, or physical sex refers to one’s genomic and anatomical gender: one’s chromosomes, reproductive organs, genitals, secondary sex characteristics, and aspects of central nervous system organization. Affirmed, preferred, or lived sex refers to the gender that a gender variant person might transition to in order to achieve greater harmony with their gender identity.

⁷ As Fausto-Sterling (2000) pointed out, human characteristics that both occur more frequently and, by virtue of representing distinct ends of a spectrum of possibilities, are more easily characterized, tend to be viewed as more “natural” (i.e., produced by nature) and more “normal”(i.e., representing a statistical and social ideal). This leads to a privileging of “complete maleness and complete femaleness,” and a bias against viewing gender variant developmental pathways as equally “natural” and “normal” (p. 76).

⁸ Phillips (Gelé et al., 2012) highlighted that only when a previously stigmatized aspect of human development—he was referring to homosexuality, but the same can be said for gender variant identities—is no longer being treated presumptively as pathological (by psychoanalysis) can the role of psychic conflict be safely explored.

⁹ This formulation is not intended as a formal application of Kuhn’s (1962) theory, rather it is being used as a heuristic.

¹⁰ Historical attempts to cure homosexuality are another example.

¹¹ This complicated issue, although not confined to minors, is gaining importance as transgender conditions are being identified in children at progressively younger ages, and concomitantly earlier stages of development.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lisa Marcus

Lisa Marcus, Ph.D., is a faculty member of the Western New England Psychoanalytic Society. Kenneth Marcus, M.D., is a lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine and an attending psychiatrist at Yale-New Haven Hospital. Sara M. Yaxte is a graduate student in the Department of Psychology, New School for Social Research. Katherine Marcus is a medical student at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Kenneth Marcus

Lisa Marcus, Ph.D., is a faculty member of the Western New England Psychoanalytic Society. Kenneth Marcus, M.D., is a lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine and an attending psychiatrist at Yale-New Haven Hospital. Sara M. Yaxte is a graduate student in the Department of Psychology, New School for Social Research. Katherine Marcus is a medical student at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Sara M. Yaxte

Lisa Marcus, Ph.D., is a faculty member of the Western New England Psychoanalytic Society. Kenneth Marcus, M.D., is a lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine and an attending psychiatrist at Yale-New Haven Hospital. Sara M. Yaxte is a graduate student in the Department of Psychology, New School for Social Research. Katherine Marcus is a medical student at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Katherine Marcus

Lisa Marcus, Ph.D., is a faculty member of the Western New England Psychoanalytic Society. Kenneth Marcus, M.D., is a lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine and an attending psychiatrist at Yale-New Haven Hospital. Sara M. Yaxte is a graduate student in the Department of Psychology, New School for Social Research. Katherine Marcus is a medical student at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.