For Arnaud Alessandrin, sociologist of gender, discrimination and health, 2023 will be a rich year. He is releasing a new edition of Sociology of transidentities (Le Cavalier bleu, 168 pages, 13 euros) and will publish, in February, discrimination in the city. Sexism, racism and LGBTphobia in the public space (with Johanna Dagorn, Double punctuation), then, in April, Marriage for all: return to the violence of a conquest (with Flora Bolter and Denis Quinqueton, Le Bord de l’eau).
Why update your book “Sociology of transidentities” today?
Since 2018, there has been an explosion of studies on trans identities. We have finer knowledge, particularly on minors and discrimination, and new fields such as non-binarity. The law is in full swing. And the visibility, in the series, in the press, has increased and shows more varied profiles.
Is this visibility positive for trans people?
For two years, there has been a proliferation of transphobic words in the media, where the debate is often poorly posed: to sociologists, who work with cohorts and statistics, we prefer psychoanalysts and chroniclers, whose opinion is not not based on established data.
This is reminiscent of 2013 and the debates around marriage for all: the increase in visibility leads to an increase in opposition. Didier Eribon, philosopher and sociologist, then spoke of a “return of the repressed homophobic” ; today a repressed transphobic reappears. There are also opponents of marriage for all, often from psychoanalysis (Observatory of the Little Mermaid, Ypomoni, etc.), with similar arguments, such as child protection.
Is this visibility a sign of an increase in the number of trans people?
They are more visible, speak more, but it is difficult to say that it is because their number increases. There is no’” epidemic “as claimed [l’historienne] Elizabeth Roudinesco. About 1% of young people identify as trans, and this figure remains stable. Health insurance notes a sharp increase in requests for the care of minors, but, until recently, there was no protocol for their care…
Why do transidentities provoke these reactions?
Trans people, especially minors, are disrupting part of society. Families must take into account a word that they do not always understand. The school, a very gendered institution, is changing its uses. And health must question their care and its place in these pathways.
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