Todd Reeser

In France, the omnipresent principle of universalism means that legally a citizen is defined as a citizen first and only secondly as a member of a “particular” identitarian or communitarian category (e.g. Muslim, woman, homosexual). As a major element of national identity, French universalism has been widely studied and cited, often with respect to specific categories such as Jews, women, homosexuals, and Muslims. Extending the question of the relation between universalism and identity into uncharted territory, my book project Transgender France: Universalism and Sexual Subjectivity makes two historically-based arguments about the French context: that universalism has defined the representation of transgender subjects since the inception of the category “transsexualité” in the 1950s up until today; that trans representation has mediated but also critiqued French universalism more broadly, revealing an otherwise unstated assumption of universalism, namely its biopolitical foundation in the idea of an inviolable and stably gendered body. Over the course of seven book chapters, I study how this relationship is articulated “officially,” especially in medical, psychoanalytic, and legal discourse, but also in more popular sources (television, film, documentary, news, tabloid journalism, literature, theatre, autobiography) through contextualized close readings of these texts. The categories under the transgender umbrella are not always defined on their own terms, but due to their perceived ambiguity, are made to intersect with—and thus to rely on—constructs of more legible categories such as Jews, children, and black and Arab colonial subjects. As a result, an important element of the project is to study the ways in which transgender is defined intersectionally, relying on pre-existing assumptions of French universalism’s relations to other kinds of subjects. 

This deeply interdisciplinary project will appeal to readers in both gender studies and French studies, as well as readers in media/film studies, communications, literature, and the history of medicine. It will also serve as an especially important case study in how transgender and nation-state relate broadly. Transgender France will help correct the focus on Anglophone contexts in the burgeoning field of transgender studies and help open up much-needed transnational and transatlantic conversations on gender.