Ketil Slagstad: "On the Boundaries of Care: The Emergence of Transgender Medicine".

On the Boundaries of Care: The Emergence of Transgender Medicine

In current public discourse, medical treatment for transgender people is often presented as something “new.” However, the medical practices of modifying bodies have a long history. This talk presents the framework of my forthcoming book on the history of transgender medicine in 20th century Scandinavia. Using medical records and oral history interviews with former patients, activists, doctors, and psychologist, as well as sources from public and private archives, medical journals, newspapers, and activist publications, my book analyzes how the medical practice of modifying sex emerged in the welfare state. So-called sex reassignment or “sex change” was negotiated and shaped in a space between the clinic, the laboratory, the bureaucracy, the press, activist organizations, and communities.

Using theoretical and methodological tools from trans studies, praxiography, and science and technology studies, my book specifically analyzes the role of technology and practice: paper technologies, laboratory practices, psychological testing, and the therapeutic practices of social medicine.

A defining feature of trans medicine in the welfare state was its pragmatic nature: it developed not as part of prestige projects, such as the gender clinics in the United States or as a specialized form of medicine, but alongside general clinical practice. Short lines of communication between clinicians and authorities, informal networks between activists, communities, and physicians, and comprehensive epidemiological infrastructures characterized Scandinavian transgender medicine.

Medical practices were shaped against the role of the “social.” Physicians cared for the patient and for society – and for the patient in society. The goal was to integrate and readapt patients to society, but also to protect the fabric of society. At the heart of trans medicine was the concept of sex, and as part of the political project of creating and reforming the welfare state, the medical, legal, and bureaucratic boundaries of sex were redrawn.