Trans Youth Talk Back: A Foucauldian Discourse Analysis of Transgender Minors’ Accounts of Healthcare Access

Abstract

Contemporary transgender youth in the U.S. today face increasing stigmatization as extraordinary legislative attacks intensify discrimination and exclusion of these young people in healthcare, recreation, and school life. These attacks reflect broader political, religious, and cultural ideologies embedded in systems of power that regulate the provision of healthcare for American transgender youth. We apply Foucauldian discourse analysis and a theory-driven conceptual framework for structural analysis of transgender health inequities—Intersectionality Research for Transgender Health Justice—to identify discourses youth encounter within healthcare practice. We analyzed data from interviews conducted in Western Washington State with youth ages 13–17 ( n =11) and asked how transgender subjectivity was constructed in their accounts and in what ways youth made use of the discursive resources available to them when navigating systems of care. Three sets of discourses—discourses of normativity, discourses of temporality, and discourse of access—characterized participants’ narratives. We discuss how participants negotiated discursively situated systems of power in order to ensure their safety and access to care.

“There Are Many of Us”: Online Testimonies From “Pill Victims” as a New Form of Health Activism

“…In this respect, the style adopted, fact-based and very concrete, seems to palliate the dubious legitimacy that the sharply critical accounts of non-experts inevitably encounter. In Foucault, the body clearly reflects the ambivalence of discourse, being both shaped and molded by discourse, but also acting as an instance of resistance (Sforzini, 2014). In the case of these testimonies, bodily vicissitudes are described both by an autobiographical, subjective perspective, focusing on feelings and affections, and the external perspective of the practitioners, where treatment and diagnosis are accurately described with clinical technicalities.…”

“…The testimonies of pill victims, which preceded, accompanied, and followed the French pill crisis, are analyzed here as an emerging, activist practice that problematizes the medical discourse on contraceptive risk and, more generally, risk and gender. Foucauldian discourse analysis is generally used to analyze the experience of people who undergo, and only partly react to, the discursive imposition of disciplinary mechanisms and social identities (Hamed et al, 2017; Johnson et al, 2012; Shook et al, 2022). In contrast, it is adopted here to study self-representation in open contrast to an institutionalized pattern of knowledge like medicine.…”

Do gender assessments prevent regret in transgender healthcare? A narrative review.

“…Because only two criteria are required for a diagnosis, it is possible for someone to be diagnosed with gender dysphoria without bodily gender dysphoria or wanting gender-affirming interventions, such as by fulfilling criteria (e) and (f). Someone who wants gender-affirming interventions but only experiences gender euphoria or creative transfiguration, 2 however, may be denied a diagnosis because they do not meet the requirement of significant distress or functional impairment (Askevis-Leherpeux et al, 2019; Beischel et al, 2022; Jacobsen & Devor, 2022; Shook et al, 2022). Pursuing gender-affirming care because of gender euphoria or creative transfiguration has not been shown to be associated with detransition or regret.…”

Narrativas de homens trans: uma análise discursiva no Facebook

“…Para tanto, as novas narrativas coletadas foram parafraseadas, analisadas metaforicamente, bem como delimitadas em suas condições de produção e contexto. A categoria de análise foi escolhida pelo fato de a análise do discurso visar a compreensão das condições nas quais um discurso foi produzido, sendo a partir (ZITZ et al, 2014;DIRKS, 2016;RIBEIRO;GOMES, 2020;WEST et al, 2021;SHOOK et al, 2022;HALLIWELL et al, 2022;JACOBSEN, 2022). Existem diferentes linhas de análise de discurso que caminham entre uma análise baseada em uma materialidade textual e outra análise mais baseada em práticas sociais e culturais (BUDD, 2006).…”