Political anatomy. Body intervention technologies in transgender people, from the “natural” body to the “lived body”

Abstract

In this article we identify some transformations that were present in the biomedical and legal readings of trans bodies and experiences, since the enactment of the Gender Identity Law in Argentina. By changing certain prescriptive and bureaucratic aspects, part of the pathologizing discourse began to give way to a series of arguments anchored in the right to identity, but fundamentally the way in which trans people were seen and how they positioned themselves socially At the same time, the democratization of the access to bodily intervention technologies approved by the already mentioned law, allowed those who wished, that is to say- without any diagnostic requirement and free of charge – to have an operation that would transform their own body.   Finally, we analyze these transformations in the light of Judith Butler's proposal and the contributions of constructivism as instances that overcome the essentialist position, but at the same time we identify a series of limitations that prevent us from contemplating the dimension of "lived bodies". In this sense, we include the proposals of phenomenology to enrich new perspectives about trans experiences, as well as new interpretation of bodies and their relationship with technologies.