Trans depathologization has often centered around the claim, “We’re trans, we’re not sick.” However, activists’ efforts to push back against psychiatric diagnoses are increasingly identified as ableist in their work to distinguish trans wellness and sanity from “true” forms of mental pathology. Given these critiques, what remains useful about thinking with depathologization? Drawing on research in New York City and Buenos Aires between 2012-2018, this talk argues for the importance of thinking with trans depathologization beyond ableist disavowal. Analyzing themes of classification, collectivization, and care, it follows the work of activists and providers as they grapple with biomedical infrastructures, population health and austerity politics, racialized politics of care and debt, and colonial regimes of knowledge. The talk suggests that many depathologizing claims in trans health in fact seek extraordinarily broad transformations related to biomedicine and health politics—often leading to coalitional rather than exceptional imperatives for transformation.
Christoph Hanssmann is an Assistant Professor of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at the University of California, Davis. His first book, Care without Pathology: How Trans- Health Activists are Changing Medicine (2023) was recently published by the University of Minnesota Press. He works collaboratively with researchers and activists in feminist, queer and transfeminist health and justice, and has published articles in Transgender Studies Quarterly, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Feminist Formations, and Social Science and Medicine.