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This study examines representations of transgender individuals and identity in mainstream U.S. newspapers in an effort to understand the extent to which the transgender community is legitimized or delegitimized by news media. To do so, 200 articles from 13 of the 25 most circulated daily newspapers in the United States were coded for the presence or absence of "legitimacy indicators." The study finds that mainstream newspaper coverage of the transgender community is extremely limited. Moreover, the coverage that does exist contains a significant amount of delegitimizing language, which it is argued will detrimentally impact both the projected legitimacy of transgender claims in the political arena and public perceptions of the transgender community.

This research investigates a neglected topic within both transgender studies and religious studies by analyzing ex-gay movement discourses of &ldquo ; transgenderism&rdquo ; from the 1970s to the present, focusing primarily on the US-American context. The oppression of transgender people in the US and globally is fed and fueled by the religious, scientific, and political discourses of the transnational &ldquo ; ex-gay&rdquo ; movement, which provides the ideological and material foundation of Christian Right politics. Using critical discourse analysis of ex-gay texts, we analyze the implications of these discourses in the individual, interactional, and institutional dimensions of society&rsquo ; s gender structure. This movement is one of the most insidious&mdash ; and overlooked&mdash ; sources of cisgenderism and transmisogyny today, constructing gender variance as sin, mental illness, and danger&mdash ; with catastrophic consequences for transgender people, and those along the transfemale/feminine spectrum in particular. Finally, we discuss the public policy implications of these discourses.

U.S. tax dollars "have gone to promote transgenderism in Bangladesh."

The paper is based on a broader study of the use of discourses of transgenderism among sex-reassignment evaluators in Sweden. In this paper we explore how a developmental–psychological discourse was reproduced by the evaluators in their discursive negotiations of transsexualism. We found that maturity and authenticity are two key concepts that illuminate how the developmental–psychological discourse both clashes with and works together with a medical–pathological discourse of transgenderism. The developmental–psychological discourse can help to produce a definition of transgenderism that is more diverse regarding male/female dichotomies. This in turn can create a wider range of possible subject positions for patients who are seeking help. The developmental–psychological discourse also imposes additional limitations regarding the subject positions available to transgender persons through a demand for maturity and for having gone through all of the steps in the expected identity development process. The developmental–psychological repertoire casts transgenderism as an identity crisis.

"Is transgenderism a mental disorder, as some would claim, or a matter of sexual identity? An orientation or a life choice? Despite differing opinions, transgenderism has lost much of its stigma over the past decade or so - though perhaps none of its shock value. Nevertheless, the door is open for a reformulation of the hysterical question, "Am I a man or a woman?"" "Utilizing rich clinical vignettes and elements of Lacanian theory, Patricia Gherovici demonstrates how the transgender discourse has both reoriented psychoanalytic practice and reframed debates about gender in American society at large. She traverses historical, theoretical, and clinical grounds to explore what has been termed the "democratizing of gender"--For what could be more democratic than the choice of one's own gender, now able to be changed on demand?" "Arguing for the depathologization of transgenderism, Please Select Your Gender aims to revise current notions of human sexuality in general. In doing so, it challenges the theory and practice of psychoanalysis with questions typically addressed only indirectly, but which are themselves transforming how analysis is done, advancing new ideas for the clinic that can be extrapolated to social and intellectual contexts in an effort to engage the broader dialogues of gender and sexuality."--Jacket

The article deals with the philosophical and cultural issues of the transgenderism phenomenon as seen through the modern concept of androgyny. The 20th century became a turning point for many scientific areas, including the humanities. Due to the activity of feminist movements, there took place a drastic revision of gender-based sociocultural patterns and the ontological status of a woman was changed (starting from Simone de Beauvoir). Moreover, a woman's intrinsic value and independence from a man were proved and postulated. A distinct concept of gender (socially constructed characteristics of men and women). In the last third of the 20th century, that led to the emergence of an independent interdisciplinary scientific area named «Gender Studies», whose field of interest included studies of social and cultural phenomena using the theory of social sex (gender). Furthermore, the issues of self-identification and gender identity began to occupy a special place. The «transgender revolution» that took place at the beginning of the 21st century mainstreamed the transgender phenomenon again. It became the most striking and widespread form of expressing «other gender». However, it should be noted that any modern variation of the «third sex» is based on the Platonic idea of androgyny, which finds its reflection in modern gender models. Therefore, it is becoming extremely important to consider transgenderism as a phenomenon that forms a separate cultural discourse in the context of the modern idea of androgyny. We make an attempt to identify common metaphysical features of both anthropological phenomena (transgender and androgyne) and to assume their «ontological affinity».