Pathologise/De-Pathologise: : Changing Medical Understandings of Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming People in Britain

Abstract: In recent years there has been increasing awareness of transgender and gender non-conforming people in the UK, and in turn there have been vastly increasing numbers of people seeking medical treatment for their gender dysphoria. This research paper analyses the past medical literature on transgender and gender non-conforming people in the UK, in combination with an interview with a surgeon working in the field of sex reassignment surgery, to examine the historical trends in medical approaches to gender non-conformity. This investigation into changing medical standards and practices is argued to indicate three major trends, a correlation between wider social norms and medical norms, an increasing de-pathologisation of gender non-conformity and an increasing focus on individualism over society. These trends are then extended forward and used to imagine possible future changes in the medical treatments of transgender and gender non-conforming people in the UK, such as an increasing focus on an informed consent model and a problematising of the boundaries between “transgender” medical procedures and other forms of bodily modifications. This paper aims to contribute to the current body of work in feminist science studies focusing on gendered aspects of medical practices, and also aims to continue the work of Donna Haraway and others in deconstructing rigid bodily categories.