Transsexuality and the Art of Transitioning Transsexuality and the Art of Transitioning: A Lacanian approach presents a startling new way to consider psychoanalytic dilemmas of sexual difference and gender through the meeting of arts and the clinic. Informed by a Lacanian perspec- tive that locates transsexuality in the intermediate space between the clinic and culture, Oren Gozlan joins current conversations around the question of sexual difference with the insistence that identity never fully expresses sexuality and, as such, cannot be replaced by gender. The book goes beyond the idea of gender as an experience that gives rise to mul- tiple identities and instead considers identity as split from the outset. This view transforms transsexuality into a particular psychic position, able to encounter the paradoxes of transitional experience and the valence of phantasy and affect that accompany aesthetic conflicts over the nature of beauty and being. Gozlan brings readers into the enigmatic qualities of representation as desire for completion and transformation through notions of tension, difference and aesthetics, through examining the artwork of Anish Kapoor and Louise Bourgeois and the role played by confusion in the aesthetics of transformation in literature and memoir. Funda- mentally, this work understands transsexuality as a creative act, rich with desire and danger, in which thinking of the transsexual body as both an analytic and a subjective object helps us to reveal the creativity of sexuality. Ideal for psychoanalysts, psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers as well as students of psychoanalysis, cultural studies, literature studies and philosophy, Transsexuality and the Art of Transitioning offers a unique insight into psychoana- lytic approaches to transsexuality and the question of assuming a position in gender. Oren Gozlan, Psy.D. ABPP, is a clinical psychologist and a psychoanalyst in pri- vate practice and Professor and Director of clinical training at the Adler Graduate School in Toronto. He is a Diplomate in Psychoanalysis with the American Board of Professional Psychology and is also the Chair of the Gender and Sexuality Committee of the International Forum for Psychoanalytic Education. (cid:53)(cid:73)(cid:74)(cid:84)(cid:1)(cid:81)(cid:66)(cid:72)(cid:70)(cid:1)(cid:74)(cid:79)(cid:85)(cid:70)(cid:79)(cid:85)(cid:74)(cid:80)(cid:79)(cid:66)(cid:77)(cid:77)(cid:90)(cid:1)(cid:77)(cid:70)(cid:71)(cid:85)(cid:1)(cid:67)(cid:77)(cid:66)(cid:79)(cid:76) Transsexuality and the Art of Transitioning A Lacanian approach Oren Gozlan First published 2015 by Routledge 27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 2FA and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2015 Oren Gozlan The right of Oren Gozlan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gozlan, Oren. Transsexuality and the art of transitioning : a lacanian approach / Oren Gozlan. pages cm 1. Transsexualism—Psychological aspects. 2. Transgenderism— Psychological aspects. 3. Gender identity—Psychological aspects. I. Title. HQ77.9.G69 2014 155.3(cid:397)3—dc23 2014009016 ISBN: 978-0-415-85574-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-85575-4 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-75607-3 (ebk) Typeset in Times by Apex CoVantage, LLC To Agnieszka (cid:53)(cid:73)(cid:74)(cid:84)(cid:1)(cid:81)(cid:66)(cid:72)(cid:70)(cid:1)(cid:74)(cid:79)(cid:85)(cid:70)(cid:79)(cid:85)(cid:74)(cid:80)(cid:79)(cid:66)(cid:77)(cid:77)(cid:90)(cid:1)(cid:77)(cid:70)(cid:71)(cid:85)(cid:1)(cid:67)(cid:77)(cid:66)(cid:79)(cid:76) Contents Acknowledgements ix Introduction xi 1 Transsexuality as a state of mind: questions of learning and indeterminacy 1 Transsexuality of everyday life 3 Embodied apprehension 4 Aesthetic crisis in psychoanalysis 7 2 The aesthetics of transitioning 15 Primal encounters 18 Transsexuality as psychic space 21 Sublimation, perversion and death 23 The art of sublimation 26 3 Narrating transsexuality: transition from memoir to literature 30 Truth or dare: adolescent stories of origin 31 Adolescent belief 37 Reading and writing the body 38 The act of re-writing 40 Phantom writer 43 4 Transsexual surgery: a novel reminder and a navel remainder 47 Identification and the body’s excess 48 Transsexuality as sinthome 49 Identification with the act: a clinical fragment 52 Transsexuality, sexual difference and novel beginning 54 viii Contents 5 The “real” time of gender 58 Cross identification 60 Movement and time in the primary 62 Re-conceptualizing “ femininity ” 65 Hysteria, femininity and jouissance 66 Matricide and creativity: a question of time 68 Psychoanalysis and the feminine position 69 6 Re-writing the screen 73 Absence and temporality 74 Ground zero 76 Fantasmatic art of disappearance 78 Between burial and survival 79 Sexual difference as dream 81 The transsexual dream interpretation 83 A return to art 85 The trans-sexuality of thinking and memory 86 The transsexual future of an illusion 88 Conclusion: afterwordness 90 Scintillation between two deaths 95 References 97 Index 101 Acknowledgements I could not have written T ranssexuality and the Art of Transitioning without the help of several individuals. I am greatly indebted to Distinguished Profes- sor Dr. Deborah Britzman, for her support and sustained interest in my project. Few contemporary thinkers have done more to elaborate on the strong connection between sexuality and education and broaden the concept of education to include its afterwordness. Britzman’s way of treating education as an emotional situation inspired me to consider concepts such as transsexuality as analytic objects. I am deeply thankful for her suggestions and careful reading of several chapters and for presenting me with enigmas when I have reached an impasse in my writing. I am enormously indebted to Dr. Paola Bohorquez for her gentle, careful and thoughtful editing, comments and stimulating conversations, which helped in clar- ifying my ideas. I would like to thank Dr. Clarissa Barton for turning my answers into questions and for her intellectual and emotional nourishment throughout the years. I would like to express deep gratitude to Dr. Joshua Levy for helping me develop a third ear with which to listen to my patients and to myself. The N ew Directions: Writing and Clinical Thinking from a Psychoanalytic Perspective pro- gram of the Washington Centre of Psychoanalysis, in which I participated for three years, has also provided a safe space where I could test my ideas and cultivate my writing style. I am indebted to my patients who have allowed me into their lives and challenged my thinking. The cover photograph “Transdifferentiation” by Osheen Harruthoonyan (www.osheen.ca) was used with the direct permission of the artist. I would like to thank Osheen for allowing me to use this evocative image as my book cover. Most of all, I am indebted to my wife whose love, support, insight and contain- ing ways brought moments of coherence to the chaos and volatility inherent to writing. The author would like to thank Tamar Peleg of New Library for granting per- mission to reproduce an excerpt from David Grossman’s “Falling out of time”.