TRANSGENDERISM, AGENCY AND PERSONAL IDENTITY

Abstract

Transgenderism, a condition in which a person’s gender identity is different from the person’s biological sex at birth, has become a source of philosophical discourse. Previous studies on transgenderism have approached it mainly from the physiological perspective by applying curative measures aimed at realigning a person to their choice of gender. Little attention has however been paid to ontology of being and the place of agency-regarding gender codes and categories. This study was, therefore, designed to interrogate the ontological and agency regarding issues in transgenderism discourse. This is with a view to determining how these curative measures relate with the individual’s personal essence or identity. John Locke’s notion of personal identity, which insists that identity lies in the sameness of continual life located in conscious memory, served as the framework. The interpretive design was used. Texts examined in Ethics included Carol Rovane’s The Bounds of Agency (TBA), James Doyle and Michele Paludi’s Sex and Gender: The Human Experience, (SGTHE), Lynn Conways Vaginoplasty: Male to Female Sex Reassignment Surgery (VMFSRS), Richard von Krafft-Ebings Psychopathiasexualis and Talia Bettcher’s Understanding Transphobia: Authenticity and Sexual Abuse (UTASA). In Metaphysics, John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (ECHU), John Perry’s The First Night (FN), Nicholas Fearn’s Philosophy: The Latest Answers to the Oldest Questions (PLAOQ), Diana Kendall’s Sociology, and Sharon Brehm and Saul Kassins Social Psychology (SP) were interrogated. These texts deal extensively with transgenderism, personal identity and human agency. The philosophical tools of conceptual clarification, criticism and reconstruction were employed. The SGTHE and VMFSRS reveal that hormonal abnormalities, gender dysphoria and genderphobia translate to the experience of living in a ‘trapped body’. Psychopathiasexualis and UTASA proffer physiological and surgical attempts to realign a person’s body to their choice of gender. The TBA show that people have agency-regarding relations, which interferes in the formation of their self-image and identity. The crisis of agency exposes the individual to different self-enhancing and self-handicapping theories of individuality. This demonstrates that society influence a person’s self-image by compelling people to align to gender codes and categories (SCG, LIP). The PLAOQ critically underscores the fundamental issue of personal identity in the determination of how a person endures through time. Whereas the human body plays a significant role in the specification of individuals, identity demands more than bodily attributes (ECHU, FN). Critical intervention revealed that personal identity is innate and that sex change surgeries and other curative measures aimed at realigning the anatomy not only fail in changing a person’s identity but often lead to transgender regret, depression and suicide. Transgenderism implicates ontological and agency-regarding issues of personal identity more than the physiological and curative processes that fail to understand the compelling nature of gender codes and categories.