The Locker Room

ABSTRACT

In this article the author, a trans male psychoanalyst, explores the experience of using the male locker room. The article will seek to formulate this experience using the psychoanalytic writings of Fonagy, Bromberg, and Harris in order to address the collapse of symbolization and nullification of potential space enforced by such traditional and uniquely gendered binary spaces. This author argues that in such spaces, Harris’s conceptualization of gender as soft assembly cannot be upheld under the threat of exposure and the trauma of gender misrecognition.

Notes

¹ In this context I am using the word “essential” as a paradox. The culture we live in is such, despite extensive academic research, and gender advocacy, that it still depends on the concretization of gender as its basic organizing principle. In this context, gender and genitalia are deemed to be one and the same, and the understanding and deconstruction (Dimen and Goldner, 2002) of gender as a product of socialization is sorely lacking. Case in point, it would behoove medical establishments to expand their gender categories. I have yet to make an appointment at a doctor’s office (not a gender wellness clinic) in 2019 New York City without being presented with male or female as its only options. In this article I argue that within the context of locker rooms such binary concretization of gender is even more vivid. Relying extensively on the binary and concrete notion of gender, such environments serve to simultaneously accentuate and mirror the gender divide of our essentialist culture. In male locker rooms, the signifier and signified are one and the same. The penis is the phallus. It is power, dominance, and the social order.

² I avoid looking at the genitals in the locker rooms for multiple reasons, the explorations of which go beyond the scope of this article. However, one of the conscious reasons that comes to mind and that contributes to this turning away may arise from the fear that such “looking” will be read through the lens of systemic homophobia and will be misconstrued by the object of my gaze as a homoerotic advance and affront. Another potential reason for the avoidance at the sight of this phallus relates to its emblematic concretization, which, in turn, exacerbates the familiar angst of gender dysphoria and its body/psyche discontinuity (Saketopoulou, 2014), from which I instinctively dissociate.

³ Menopause, brought on by hormonal changes, brings with it a slew of unwelcomed and uncontrollable somatic changes. The main one is that one’s body fat increases around the waist, hips, and thighs; as such, this fat distribution only serves to accentuate one’s feminine attributes. The body appears “softer” and sluggish. For someone suffering from body dysmorphia and gender dysphoria, not being able to assume any level of control over these inevitable physical changes can bring on states of depression and despair, as no amount of exercise, dissociation, and prayer can help prevent these distressing changes.

⁴ In 2019 in the United States using the moniker “Cowboys and Indians” is deemed racist and ignorant, but in the 1970s, in the French-speaking region of Switzerland, a country proud of its political neutrality, it was common to use this name to describe this childhood game. To this day, I believe that the notion of cultural competence and political correctness is yet to be fully appreciated throughout Europe. As the following contemporary French educational (des jeux pour les enfants) site demonstrates, https://www.educatout.com/activites/themes/les-cow-boys-et-les-indiens.htm, the French (the Swiss are even less sensitive to matters such as racism and xenophobia) are not ready to comprehend the racist implications behind such title. However, in order to preserve the authenticity of this vignette, I believe that it is important to historically contextualize the name of this game: “les Cowboys et les Indiens,” despite its offensive racist connotations.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Luc Olivier Charlap

Luc Olivier Charlap, Ph.D., is a psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City. He is a faculty member at the New York University Silver School of Social Work and a faculty member, supervisor, and training analyst at the Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy.