Transexualidad y agenda política: una historia de (dis)continuidades y patologización

Abstract

Transgenderism has recently become a political matter that has entered the Spanish political agenda. We are witnessing a socio-political scenario of growing inclusion of LGTB rights (lesbians, gays, transgenders and bisexuals) in the political debate, including key events such as the approval of same sex marriage (law 13/2005) and the right of transgender people to change their name in the register without having to go through compulsory surgery (Law 3/2007). The study of the discourses on transgenderism is relevant, as it shows the transformations in the sex/gender notions. Therefore, the political problem no longer lies in punishing criminal subjects who are breaking the law (as it was phrased in the 1970 Law on Persons Representing a Social Danger and their Social Rehabilitation), or subjects constructed as transvestites. In the eighties a disclosure of the taboo of transgenderism starts to emerge (Garaizabal 1998:60); in the nineties transgender people become subjects of social mobilization and lastly in our decade, they succeed in achieving legal rights. Using a policy frame analysis, the article arguments that despite the successful history of achievement of rights, the binary inscription of heteronormativity remains unquestioned.