Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T17:00:20.489Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The politics of gender transitioning in Italy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

Eleonora Garosi
Eleonora Garosi*
Affiliation:
PUEG (Programa Universitario de Estudios de Género), UN AM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), Mexico City, Mexico
*
∗Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In Western societies the sex–gender binary informs individual experiences of gender transitioning. As with every passage of status, gender transition is regulated by formal and social norms aimed at re-establishing the ‘proper’ correspondence between sex and gender. In Italy, national legislation regulates the formal process of transforming one's gender, identifying medical science as the ‘proper’ social authority to manage gender transitioning in society. Only trans people who conform to social standards of sexual ‘normality’ are allowed to officially change their gender. However, in everyday life, alternative modes of gender transitioning exist and constitute a solid foundation to claim formal recognition by the State. This study is based on a qualitative sociological investigation of the process of gender transitioning in Italy that was carried out in Turin between 2008 and 2010.

Keywords

gender transitioningtrans-normativitysex–gender binarysocial accomplishment
Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 17 , Issue 4: Special Issue: The politics of sexuality in contemporary Italy , November 2012 , pp. 465 - 478
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arfini, E.A.G. 2007. Scrivere il sesso. Retoriche e narrative della transessualità. Rome: Meltemi.Google Scholar
Arfini, E.A.G. 2008. Everybody's passing: Passing, crossing e narrazioni trans. In Transessualità e scienze sociali. Identità di genere nella postmodernità, eds. Ruspini, E. and Inghilleri, M., 275–93. Naples: Liguori.Google Scholar
Belgrano, E., Fabris, B. and Trombetta, C. 1999. Il transessualismo. Identificazione di un percorso diagnostico e terapeutico. Milan: Kurtis.Google Scholar
Benadusi, L. 2008. Dalla paura al mito dell'indeterminatezza. Storia di ermafroditi, travestiti, invertiti e transessuali. In Transessualità e scienze sociali. Identità di genere nella postmodernità, eds. Ruspini, E. and Inghilleri, M., 19–48. Naples: Liguori.Google Scholar
Bettcher, T. 2009. Feminist perspective on trans issues. In The Stanford encyclopaedia of philosophy, ed. Zalta, E.N., Stanford: Metaphysics Research Lab, Center for the Study of Language and Information, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2009/entries/feminism-trans Google Scholar
Billings, D. and Urban, T. 1982. The socio-medical construction of transsexualism: An interpretation and critique. Social Problems 29, no. 3:266–82.Google Scholar
Bolin, A. 1994. Transcending and transgendering: Male-to-female transsexuals, dichotomy and diversity. In Third sex, third gender: Beyond sexual dimorphism in culture and history, ed. Herdt, G., 447–86. New York: Zone Books.Google Scholar
Bornstein, K. 1994. Gender outlaw: On men, women and the rest of us. New York–London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bottone, M., Valerio, P. and Vitelli, R., eds. 2004. L'enigma del transessualismo. Riflessioni cliniche e teoriche. Milan: Franco Angeli.Google Scholar
Bullough, V. 1998. La transexualidad en la historia. In Transexualidad, transgenderismo y cultura. Antropologia, identidad y género, ed. Nieto, J.A., 63–78. Madrid: Talasa Ediciones.Google Scholar
Butler, J. 1990. Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York–London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Butler, J. 2004. Undoing gender. New York–London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cecconi, R. 1976. Io, la ‘Romanina’. Perché sono diventata donna. Florence: Vallecchi.Google Scholar
Connell, R.W. 2002. Gender. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Conrad, P. 1992. Medicalization and social control. Annual Review of Sociology 18:209–32.Google Scholar
Davy, Z. 2011. Recognizing transsexuals: Personal, political and medicolegal embodiment. London: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Devor, H.A. 1989. Gender blending: Confronting the limits of duality. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Ekins, R. and King, D. 1999. Towards a sociology of transgendered bodies. Sociological Review 47, no. 3:580–602.Google Scholar
Ekins, R. and King, D. 2006. The transgender phenomenon. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Feinberg, L. 1996. Transgender warriors: Making history from Joan of Arc to Ru Paul. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. 1978. The history of sexuality. Vol. 1. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. 2000. Gli anormali. Milan: Feltrinelli.Google Scholar
Fusaschi, M. 2008. Corporalmente corretto. Rome: Meltemi.Google Scholar
Garfinkel, H. 1967. Studies in ethnomethodology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.Google Scholar
Garosi, E. 2009. Under construction: Becoming trans in Italy. E-pisteme 2, no. 2, Special Issue on Gender:1–14.Google Scholar
Garosi, E. 2011. Gender, sex and (hetero)sexuality: A critical lesson from the trans experience in Italy. In Queering paradigms II: Interrogating agendas, eds. Scherer, B. and Ball, M., 99–112. Oxford: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Halberstam, J. 1998. Female masculinity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Hausman, B. 1995. Changing sex: Transsexualism, technology and the idea of gender. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Hines, S. 2007. Trans Forming gender: Transgender practices of identity, intimacy and care. Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Kessler, S. and McKenna, W. 1978. Gender: An ethnomethodological approach. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Krafft-Ebing, R. 1965/1886. Psychopatia sexualis. New York: Arcade Publishing.Google Scholar
Marcasciano, P. 2002. Tra le rose e le viole. Rome: II Manifesto.Google Scholar
Marcasciano, P. 2008a. Le trace del transito: tratti e ritratti di un percorso. In Transessualità e scienze sociali. Identità di genere nella postmodernità, eds. Ruspini, E. and Inghilleri, M., 213–33. Naples: Liguori.Google Scholar
Marcasciano, P. 2008b. Favolose narranti. Rome: Il Manifesto.Google Scholar
Marcasciano, P., Arietti, L., Ballarin, C. and Cuccio, G. 2010. Elementi di critica trans. Rome: Il Manifesto.Google Scholar
Nicotra, M. 2006. Trans Azioni. Corpi e soggetti FtM. Milan: Il Dito e la Luna.Google Scholar
Poidimani, N. 2006. Oltre le monoculture del genere. Milan: Mimesis.Google Scholar
Preciado, B. 2002. Manifiesto contra-sexual. Prácticas subversivas de identidad sexual. Madrid: Editorial Opera Prima.Google Scholar
Preciado, B. 2008. Testo yonqui. Madrid: Espasa.Google Scholar
Prosser, J. 1998. Second skins: The body narratives of transsexuality. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Raymond, J. 1979. The transsexual empire: The making of the she-male. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
Romano, G. 2009. Il mio nome è Lucy. Rome: Donzelli.Google Scholar
Rubin, H. 2006. The logic of treatment. In The transgender studies reader, eds. Stryker, S. and Whittle, S., 482–98. New York, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sanger, T. 2010. Trans people's partnerships: Towards an ethics of intimacy. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Saraceno, C., ed. 2003. Diversi da chi? Gay, lesbiche, transessuali in un'area metropolitana, Milan: Guerini e Associati.Google Scholar
Schettini, L. 2011. Il gioco delle parti. Milan: Mondadori.Google Scholar
Spade, J. 2006. Mutilating gender. In The transgender studies reader, eds. Stryker, S. and Whittle, S., 315–32. New York–London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Stone, S. 1991. The empire strikes back: A post-transsexual manifesto. In Body guards: The cultural politics of gender ambiguity, eds. Epstein, J. and Straub, K., 280–304. New York–London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Tolu, D. 2000. Il viaggio di Arnold. Storia di un uomo nato donna. Rome: Edizioni Universitarie Romane.Google Scholar
West, C. and Zimmerman, D.H. 1987. Doing gender. Gender and Society 1, no. 2:125–51.Google Scholar