(De)pathologizing Discourse: The Problematization of Trans and Gender-Nonconforming Mental Health in Ontario

Abstract

The trans and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) community has a complex relationship with psychiatry. The need for access to transition-related medical services is complicated by an increasing amount of activism that refuses the pathologization of TGNC identities through the diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria and the rejection of the biomedical model of mental illness more broadly. TGNC activists have mobilized concepts from critical disability studies and Mad studies, namely the biomedical and social models of mental illness, to describe their aversion to, and proposals against pathologization. However, this binary relationship between the biomedical and social models is problematic, as it is increasingly evident that conceptualizing TGNC mental health within this binary does not account for the complex reality of the lives of trans and gender-nonconforming people who must navigate between fighting pathologization without sacrificing access to publicly funded transition-related medical procedures, counselling services, and disability benefits. Consequently, in this thesis, I seek to trouble the binary relationship between the biomedical and the social, pointing to the shortcomings of mainstream disability discourses within TGNC mental health policies and practices in Ontario, using Foucault’s notion of biopower and Pamela Moss’ perching model to trace both the consequences of, and alternatives to, these limiting conceptualizations.