Psyche or Soma? An Analysis of the Medical Debates Over the Diagnosis and Treatment of “Transsexualism”

Abstract

This article revisits the mid-century medical debate over the “treatment” of transsexualism in the U.S., summarily represented in the most cited essays on transsexualism at the time. The article leverages the stasis point of those medical debates—is transsexuality a product of the psyche or the soma?—as a singularly rich site for rhetorical inquiry arguing that this case demonstrates that stasis has both substance and a rhetorical form that determines the limits of what is accepted as a legitimate argument within any debate. The ultimate aim of this essay is twofold: one, to add to the rhetorical history of transsexuality with regard to medicalization and, two, to demonstrate how the decision of medical professionals to not allow sex-change surgery as a legitimate treatment to transsexual patients had much to do with the rhetorical association of site of malady/site of treatment and little to do with scientific evidence.