Facial Feminization Surgery: The Ethics of Gatekeeping in Transgender Health.

The lack of access to gender-affirming surgery represents a significant unmet health care need within the transgender community, frequently resulting in depression and self-destructive behavior. While some transgender people may have access to gender reassignment surgery (GRS), an overwhelming majority cannot afford facial feminization surgery (FFS). The former may be covered as a "medical necessity," but FFS is considered "cosmetic" and excluded from insurance coverage. This demarcation between "necessity" and "cosmetic" in transgender health care based on specific body parts is in direct opposition to the scientific community's understanding of gender dysphoria and professional guidelines for transgender health. GRS affects one's ability to function in an intimate relationship, while FFS has the same impact on social interactions an, therefore may have a far greater implication for one's quality of life. FFS is a cost-effective intervention that needs to be covered by insurance policies. The benefits of such coverage far exceed the insignificant costs.

The feminization of school hypothesis called into question among junior and high school students.

BACKGROUND: The feminization of school hypothesis suggests that boys underachieve in school compared to girls because school rewards feminine characteristics that are at odds with boys' masculine features. AIMS: The feminization of school hypothesis lacks empirical evidence. The aim of this study was to test this hypothesis by examining the extent to which school demands are actually associated with female more than male students. SAMPLE AND METHOD: A large sample of 1,954 students (1,115 girls and 839 boys) from grades seven, nine, 10, and 12 took part in the study. The participants were asked to rate the extent to which various characteristics valued in the school setting were exhibited by girls or boys who succeed in school. RESULTS: Three sets of characteristics related to school success emerged from the analyses: compliance, assertiveness, and effort/intelligence. Compliance and effort/intelligence were associated with the girls more than with the boys, while assertiveness was associated with the boys more than with the girls. CONCLUSION: The feminization of school hypothesis received weak support. This study discusses the limits of this hypothesis to explain boys' underachievement in comparison with girls.

[Delusion with a theme of generation in chronic schizophrenia].

For schizophrenics and persons at risk of developing schizophrenia, issues regarding the origin of self and paternity sometimes become pressing questions which jeopardize the formation of their subjects. We termed the system which gives rise to such questions as a theme of generation. Through the analysis of a peculiar delusion in a chronic male case, which included the reverse and alteration of the family relations, we clarified the location of a theme of generation in the psychopathology of schizophrenia. The delusion emerged on the death of his parents and successive alienation from his brothers and sisters, which confronted him with a question of generation. The important appearance mechanisms of the delusion were second person hallucinations and primary delusions through delusional ideas. Themes of feminization and monogenic reproduction playing a central role in the delusion were sustained by the concept of the female as a container to regulate the infinite chaos, which is characteristic to the delusion of feminization in schizophrenia (Kato, 2002). With reference to the findings of J. Lacan's structural psychoanalysis, we considered the delusion as a schizophrenic answer to a perplexing question of generation posed to the patient. Additionally, we discussed the delusional other as the responder to this question who had the following three characteristics: 1. the other was the place of the infinite production of signifiers, 2. the other took the position of a mysterious God-like figure and made the patient's body the object of "jouissance", and 3. the other also responded to the question of sexual difference.

War's long shadow: masculinity, medicine, and the gendered politics of trauma, 1914-1939.

War is an inherently traumatizing experience, and during the First World War more than 15,000 Canadian soldiers were diagnosed with some form of war-related psychological wounds. Many more went unrecognized. Yet the very act of seeking an escape from the battlefield or applying for a postwar pension for psychological traumas transgressed masculine norms that required men to be aggressive, self-reliant, and un-emotional. Using newly available archival records, contemporary medical periodicals, doctors' notes, and patient interview transcripts, this paper examines two crises that arose from this conflict between idealized masculinity and the emotional reality of war trauma. The first came on the battlefield in 1916 when, in some cases, almost half the soldiers evacuated from the front were said to be suffering from emotional breakdowns. The second came later, during the Great Depression, when a significant number of veterans began to seek compensation for their psychological injuries. In both crises, doctors working in the service of the state constructed trauma as evidence of deviance, in order to parry a larger challenge to masculine ideals. In creating this link between war trauma and deviance, they reinforced a residual conception of welfare that used tests of morals and means to determine who was deserving or undeserving of state assistance. At a time when the Canadian welfare state was being transformed in response to the needs of veterans and their families, doctors' denial that "real men" could legitimately exhibit psychosomatic symptoms in combat meant that thousands of legitimately traumatized veterans were left uncompensated by the state and were constructed as inferior, feminized men.

A feminização na psicose: empuxo-à-mulher e erotomania / The feminization in psychosis: the push towards woman and erotomania

A tendência à feminização nas psicoses constitui uma questão para a direção do tratamento psicanalítico. Denominada por Jacques Lacan de empuxo-à-mulher, ela se distingue da posição do neurótico no lado mulher da divisão dos sexos. Este trabalho tem por objetivo conceituar o empuxo-à-mulher e delinear o destino que o delírio é capaz de lhe conferir. O procedimento consiste em circunscrever a problemática da sexuação entre os humanos com base na teoria freudiana e no ensino de Lacan sobre a inscrição do sujeito na partilha sexual. Os casos Aimée e Schreber serão abordados com o intuito de delimitar a pressão da estrutura no empuxo-à-mulher, a emergência do fenômeno e sua articulação com a erotomania.(AU)

The trend towards feminization in psychoses is an issue to be dealt by psychoanalytical treatment. Entitled by Jacques Lacan as push towards woman, it is different from the position of the neurotic on the woman's category in the division of gender. The aim of this paper is to appraise the push towards woman and outline the destination that the delirium is able to grant it. The procedure consists in circumscribing the problematic of sexuality among human beings based on the Freudian theory and on Lacan's teaching about the subject inscription in the sexual partition. The cases Aimée and Schreber will be approached with the intention of delimiting the structure pressure on the push towards woman, the phenomenon emergency and its articulation with erotomania.(AU)

A feminização na psicose: empuxo-à-mulher e erotomania / The feminization in psychosis: the push towards woman and erotomania

A tendência à feminização nas psicoses constitui uma questão para a direção do tratamento psicanalítico. Denominada por Jacques Lacan de empuxo-à-mulher, ela se distingue da posição do neurótico no lado mulher da divisão dos sexos. Este trabalho tem por objetivo conceituar o empuxo-à-mulher e delinear o destino que o delírio é capaz de lhe conferir. O procedimento consiste em circunscrever a problemática da sexuação entre os humanos com base na teoria freudiana e no ensino de Lacan sobre a inscrição do sujeito na partilha sexual. Os casos Aimée e Schreber serão abordados com o intuito de delimitar a pressão da estrutura no empuxo-à-mulher, a emergência do fenômeno e sua articulação com a erotomania.

The trend towards feminization in psychoses is an issue to be dealt by psychoanalytical treatment. Entitled by Jacques Lacan as push towards woman, it is different from the position of the neurotic on the woman's category in the division of gender. The aim of this paper is to appraise the push towards woman and outline the destination that the delirium is able to grant it. The procedure consists in circumscribing the problematic of sexuality among human beings based on the Freudian theory and on Lacan's teaching about the subject inscription in the sexual partition. The cases Aimée and Schreber will be approached with the intention of delimiting the structure pressure on the push towards woman, the phenomenon emergency and its articulation with erotomania.

Gender and eloquence in Ercole de' Roberti's "Portia and Brutus".

A commonplace of modern feminist scholarship holds that fifteenth-century Italian humanists regarded the figure of the articulate women with hostility and suspicion. This position is insufficiently nuanced: while it may have been true to some extent in republican contexts, it was emphatically not the case in the secular princely courts, where women's capacity for eloquence was frequently a subject of praise. Humanistic attitudes toward female eloquence are examined here with special reference to Ercole de' Roberti's representation of the classical heroine Portia in oratorical guise in his Portia and Brutus, painted at the court of Ferrara in the late 1480s or early '90s. The article contextualizes Roberti's painting with regard to its classical literary sources, to contemporary practices of female oratory, and to the cultural and social self-positioning of the work's probable patron, Duchess Eleonora d'Aragona.

AIDS e feminização: os contornos da sexualidade / AIDS and feminization: the sexuality contours

Desde o surgimento da aids, a prevenção é tratada como uma questão crucial para o controle da epidemia e, após mais de vinte anos, a importância da prevenção não é menor, principalmente levando-se em conta a feminização da aids. A rápida disseminação da aids chamou atenção para as limitações da compreensão da sexualidade humana, pois mesmo com todos os esforços desenvolvidos com o intuito de esclarecer a população quanto às formas de contágio da aids e quanto ao que fazer para reduzir os riscos de contaminação, não há o declínio esperado de novos casos de infecção. Assim, considerando a aids como uma doença capaz de produzir grande soma de sofrimento psíquico, o presente estudo objetiva se inserir na discussão sobre a sexualidade como um elemento fundamental no combate à aids. As autoras sustentam que uma abrangente discussão sobre a sexualidade e um enfrentamento aberto em relação ao desejo, podem ajudar na elaboração de melhores estratégias de prevenção à aids. Quem sabe se a sexualidade passar da ordem do unheimlich para a do familiar, as pessoas fiquem mais preparadas ao se defrontar com as possíveis situações de contaminação da aids? Portanto, faz-se necessário um deslocamento das discussões sobre vírus para uma discussão sobre o prazer que todas as pessoas, de um modo ou de outro, buscam em suas práticas sexuais.

Since aids was discovered, prevention has been faced as a crucial matter for the epidemic control and after more than twenty years, the prevention importance is not less fundamental, principally taking into consideration the feminization of the aids. The fast spread of aids has drawn the attention of researchers for the comprehension of human sexuality limitations, although all the effort which were developed with the intention of clarifying people's doubts about the transmission ways and that people should do to reduce the risk of being contaminated, there is not the expected decline of new infection cases. Thus, considering aids as a disease which is able to produce a great deal of psychological suffering, this research aims to include itself in the discussion about the sexuality as a fundamental element to fight aids. The authors claim that a broad discussion about sexuality and facing desire openly might help the development of better strategies to prevent aids. Perhaps if sexuality changes from the unheimlich to the family order people would get ready when facing possible aids contamination situations. Who knows? Thus, it is necessary to make a change from the discussion about the virus to a discussion about the pleasure that everybody, somehow, search in their sexual intercourses.

AIDS e feminização: os contornos da sexualidade / AIDS and feminization: the sexuality contours

Desde o surgimento da aids, a prevenção é tratada como uma questão crucial para o controle da epidemia e, após mais de vinte anos, a importância da prevenção não é menor, principalmente levando-se em conta a feminização da aids. A rápida disseminação da aids chamou atenção para as limitações da compreensão da sexualidade humana, pois mesmo com todos os esforços desenvolvidos com o intuito de esclarecer a população quanto às formas de contágio da aids e quanto ao que fazer para reduzir os riscos de contaminação, não há o declínio esperado de novos casos de infecção. Assim, considerando a aids como uma doença capaz de produzir grande soma de sofrimento psíquico, o presente estudo objetiva se inserir na discussão sobre a sexualidade como um elemento fundamental no combate à aids. As autoras sustentam que uma abrangente discussão sobre a sexualidade e um enfrentamento aberto em relação ao desejo, podem ajudar na elaboração de melhores estratégias de prevenção à aids. Quem sabe se a sexualidade passar da ordem do unheimlich para a do familiar, as pessoas fiquem mais preparadas ao se defrontar com as possíveis situações de contaminação da aids? Portanto, faz-se necessário um deslocamento das discussões sobre vírus para uma discussão sobre o prazer que todas as pessoas, de um modo ou de outro, buscam em suas práticas sexuais.(AU)

Since aids was discovered, prevention has been faced as a crucial matter for the epidemic control and after more than twenty years, the prevention importance is not less fundamental, principally taking into consideration the feminization of the aids. The fast spread of aids has drawn the attention of researchers for the comprehension of human sexuality limitations, although all the effort which were developed with the intention of clarifying people's doubts about the transmission ways and that people should do to reduce the risk of being contaminated, there is not the expected decline of new infection cases. Thus, considering aids as a disease which is able to produce a great deal of psychological suffering, this research aims to include itself in the discussion about the sexuality as a fundamental element to fight aids. The authors claim that a broad discussion about sexuality and facing desire openly might help the development of better strategies to prevent aids. Perhaps if sexuality changes from the unheimlich to the family order people would get ready when facing possible aids contamination situations. Who knows? Thus, it is necessary to make a change from the discussion about the virus to a discussion about the pleasure that everybody, somehow, search in their sexual intercourses.(AU)

Sex, hypermasculinity, and hyperfemininity in perception of social cues in neutral interactions.

Sexual coercion is a prevalent problem on U.S. college campuses. One potential avenue by which it may occur is the misinterpretation of social cues, and such misperception may be mediated by extreme sex role adherence, i.e., hypermasculinity and hyperfemininity. 62 undergraduate students viewed a film of a neutral interaction between a college-aged man and woman. Subsequently, participants indicated which behaviors they remembered the opposite-sex actor performing, offered a prediction as to the outcome of the scenario and what they would do had they been in a similar situation, and then completed either the Hypermasculinity Inventory or the Hyperfemininity Scale. Scores on the former correlated negatively with recall accuracy, and men indicated that they were more likely to date and have sex with the actress than women reported being likely to date or have sex with the actor. Women reported a high perceived likelihood of dating the actor coupled with the expectation that he would have sex with the actress. Likewise, women expected to be sexually coerced by the actor had they been in a similar situation. Social implications of these findings and possible research are discussed.