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Gender Dysphoria and the Medical Gaze in Anglo-American Carceral Regimes

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Containing Madness

Abstract

Anglo-American carceral spaces are invariably segregated on the basis of sex. Drawing on the stories of Katherine Johnson and Synthia Kavanagh—two transgender women who launched complaints against the Correctional Service of Canada—this chapter analyzes the ways in which non-normative genders are constituted using biomedical discourses in carceral spaces. By segregating individuals on the basis of sex, using diagnostic categories such as “gender dysphoria,” and imposing surgical requirements on those who refuse to be subjugated by essentialist gender norms, carceral spaces participate in a larger corporeal project. The chapter concludes by arguing that changes to prison policies, along with a broader commitment to decarceration, constitute important sites of resistance to the imposition of biomedical discourses on transgender people.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    When I use the term ‘gender essentialism ,’ I am referring to the societal assumption that men and women behave differently because of innate, sex-based characteristics.

  2. 2.

    By and large, the history in Canada’s provincial and territorial jails has also been to rigidly segregate carceral spaces on the basis of sex. In 2015, Ontario and British Columbia both developed policies that allow transgender prisoners to self-identity for the purposes of admission, classification, and placement. For further discussion, see K. Kirkup, “How Ontario’s Prisons Pioneered Sensitivity to Transgender Inmates,” TVO, January 26, 2016, http://tvo.org/article/current-affairs/shared-values/how-ontarios-prisons-pioneered-sensitivity-to-transgender-inmates.

  3. 3.

    There was no comparable provision in the CSC policy dealing with the placement of transgender men. However, transgender men appear to have been held in women’s institutions.

  4. 4.

    In June 2017, Bill C-16, which added ‘gender identity or expression’ as protected categories of discrimination in the Canadian Human Rights Act, along with the hate crimes provisions of the Criminal Code, received Royal Assent. For further discussion, see K. Kirkup. 2018. ‘The Origins of Gender Identity and Gender Expression in Anglo-American Legal Discourse,’ University of Toronto Law Journal 68 (1): 80–117.

  5. 5.

    Critics of my approach may suggest that the goal of punishment is—by definition—to restrict prisoners from their preferred life paths. For example, should prison officials deny a prisoner’s request to remove their tattoos? There are two answers to this question. The short answer to this question is that, as the Tribunal rightly notes in Kavanagh, [2001] 41 CHRR 119, the CSC already allows prisoners to request ‘non-essential’ medical procedures such as tattoo removal. At paragraph 170 of the decision, it states:

    Consideration of the treatment accorded to non-transsexual inmates seeking non-essential medical treatment demonstrates that it is the inmate’s status as a transsexual that gives rise to the differential treatment: An inmate who wants to have an elective procedure such as a tattoo removal can obtain a letter from his or her doctors, and will be able to have the tattoo removed at his or her own expense. The same is true of any other type of elective medical treatment , with the exception of sex reassignment surgery.

    The longer answer to this question is that, at a fundamental level, access to medical treatments such as gender-affirming surgery differs from tattoo removal because of its centrality to some transgender people’s identities. For a thought-provoking discussion of the complex relationships between surgery and identity, see L. J. Shrage, ed. 2009. You’ve Changed: Sex Reassignment and Personal Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Kyle Kirkup

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  1. Kyle Kirkup
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Correspondence to Kyle Kirkup .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Criminology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Jennifer M. Kilty

  2. Department of Criminology, Wilfrid Laurier University, Brantford, ON, Canada

    Erin Dej

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Kirkup, K. (2018). Gender Dysphoria and the Medical Gaze in Anglo-American Carceral Regimes. In: Kilty, J., Dej, E. (eds) Containing Madness. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89749-3_7

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