Gender violence: freedom of choice and forced choice in a case of childhood transsexuality

Abstract

Today we are confronted with a widely held idea: everyone owns their body and has the right to do with it whatever they want. The cases of so-called “transsexuals” are presented as ideals of this decision-making power over the body and the claim of the right to freedom of choice. This work proposes to interrogate such ideal to return on the effects of the original constellation in the advent of a subject. In 1969, Lacan proposed to rethink this in terms of the way in which the desire of the father and of the mother was presented to the subject, the way in which knowledge, enjoyment and object a were actually offered to them. It is in these terms that Lacan situates the idea of “cheating” on the choice between neurosis and psychosis. Cheating or improper because there was no such choice, the choice was already made at the level of what was presented to the subject. The forced choice is veiled behind the ideal of the right to freedom of choice. Now, the force of choice does not occlude the hypothesis of an active subjective position. The article addresses this issue in the case of a transsexual child.