The challenges of body and sex: Le Breton and Butler

Goodbye to the body(1)

Contemporary society has led to a reassumption of the body, a feeling of power over themselves, which is embodied in practices such as tattooing, piercing and also the operations of sexual reassignment. There has been a separation between the human being and his existence, so these exercises and marks on the body are ways of building an identity, a revival and an esthetic making. The important thing of this is the variety of meanings in these practices. They don’t imply to standardize people, but a brand that follows the logic of each one.

This also involves a risk, to transform the body into a possession becomes a part of the circuits of consumption in contemporary society. In this topic about physical transformation, Le Breton sees the old suspicion, discomfort, and the sin that leads to failure as the body. As an alter ego of our own being, we can only achieve the full existence through the change. "The body is an object to submit, not to live as it is, but with joy"(9).

Changing the body the individual wishes to change the life, to change the sense of identity, to be born again when he multiplies the signs of the presence so visible on his body. This anatomy is no longer a destination but the presence of an accessory shaping need.

In the reflection about the body Le Breton talks specifically about transsexualism. The strong will is what motivates the construction of the hormonal and surgical transgender body, the decision to go against the anatomical target, but also the eager of trying and play. Thus the feminine and the masculine become a permanent production based on the use of signs in a space of experimentation. This process shows a deep questioning of masculinity.

For Cooper (2), mentioned by Le Breton, the experience of enjoyment with a transsexual satisfies the child curiosity to experiment, touch a man without sacrificing the excitement of the encounter with a woman. The transsexual is a traveler of his own body, a traveler between sex and gender, a passenger who is adapted not to the body but to the moment.

Undoing Gender (3)

The story of David Reimer, the Joan / John, is narrated by Butler with great detail, along with key questions that will direct reflection on their gender to do justice to someone: "Who can I become in a world where the meanings and the boundaries of the individual are defined in advance for me? And what happens when I start to become someone you do not have space within in a given context?"

Assumptions about gender and the debate about its biological and cultural root were fatally suffered in the body of David even leading him to suicide. Scientists used David to support their own theoretical beliefs, instead of looking at the experience in the construction of himself, a possible way of thinking about identity, which questioned preconceived ideas of the science, as it should be in the process of learning any exercise that seeks to reveal the human being and not limiting him.

Although it seems that the gender category has been sufficiently discussed, it is beyond a fixed concept, "gender is a different kind of identity and its relationship to the anatomy is complex" (97). For that reason, the reflections on their approaches find difficult dissolution.

A Butler's case is discussed in detail related to the diagnosis of gender identity disorder (DSM-IV). On this point there are two seemingly opposite positions, one that argues that the diagnosis is an easy route to the medical and surgical sex reassignment. And those who deny transsexuality as a disorder and suggest that the trans must be accepted as committed people to practices of self-determination and autonomy. On this term it "would be a mistake to seek its eradication without having previously established a series of structures that enable the transition to pay and obtain legal status", because indeed that is the reality for many trans people in the world.

However, it emphasizes the fact that this situation affects the way trans children and adolescents who are not yet sure about dealing with a system and a process of pathologyzing what they feel they are. According to Dr. Richard Isay, quoted by Butler, "the diagnosis can cause emotional damage on hurting the self esteem of a child who does not suffer from any mental disorder"(123).

It looks like that we must not expect an ideal health system before fighting against the gender identity disorder as it is still being used as a vehicle for the desired sex change, the process involves: a) inculcate a sense of mental disorder in those subject of process, b) empower the idea of transsexuality as a disorder and c) appear as a support for those who think that transsexuality should continue in the field of mental illness because they belong to medical centers or institutes that draw economic benefit from it.

In the same way, the need for a medical certificate, this tries to say that the involvement of medical specialists to approve a change of sex is a paternalistic act that runs against the autonomy that is being searched in the process of sexual reassignment. To Isay, the diagnosis can also lead to confusion between the autonomy and pathology in children and young people. "The price of using the diagnosis to get what they want is that you can not use the language to say what you really think is true"(135). In other words, it is a type of freedom sale, with another, paying a heavy price for this election: the truth.

Because of the harmful nature in the diagnosis of gender identity disorder, Butler makes an interesting reflection "it may not be an issue of living according to the rules governing the life of the other gender, but it is referred to the idea of agreeing with the psychological speech stipulated on what those rules are"(137).

Butler considers that the most paradoxical is the diagnosis that produces the pressure that causes distress, "the diagnosis relieves the suffering, and it is possible and also necessary to say that the diagnosis intensifies the suffering which must be alleviated" (147).

The problem is not simple and it is necessary to keep fighting, looking for a world of a wider existence to create what we really want to be, so that freedom does not imply lack of freedom or self restraint.

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References:

(1) Le Breton, David. Adiós al cuerpo. Una teoría del cuerpo en el extremo contemporáneo. México: La Cifra editorial, 2007.

(2) Cooper, W. Sesso estremo. Nuove pratiche di liberazione. Roma: Castelvecchi, 1997.

(3) Butler, Judith. Deshacer el género. Barcelona: Paidós, 2006.