Dispossession and the 1970s Trans-Genre: A Reading of Judy Grahn’s “The Psychoanalysis of Edward the Dyke”

Abstract

While Judy Grahn’s 1978 prose poem “The Psychoanalysis of Edward the Dyke” has been examined through a cisgendered lesbian feminist lens, this essay argues that Grahn’s poem is more productively interpreted as a satirical trans-genre that critiques not just the clinical treatment of lesbians, but the clinical treatment of trans persons as well. Through a close reading, this essay analyzes the various social and medical encounters in “Edward the Dyke” to address how transphobic and homophobic discourses of this historical period are parodied and used as satirical elements to critique the clinical establishment. A reading of Grahn’s work as trans-genre contributes to a body of work that illustrates the dispossession of both gender variant lesbians and trans subjectivities and the historical intersections of non-normative genders and sexualities in literature.