ZOOM - Field Evening on 7th May 2021, 8 pm.
The TRANS Issue
One of the most powerful - orientation-giving - myths of our time, the unalterable, genital-bound binary gender, currently seems to be questioned in our society.
There are partly radical tendencies aiming towards an "overcoming of the flesh (1)", that seek to realise gender identity in a mere act of speech.
“The trans issue has suddenly appeared on our radar,” writes Jacques-Alain Miller (2) and also “Let's not dilly-dally. I say: ‘Never again!’ Never again must the Freudian field be caught off guard by the unexpected emergence of a clinical issue with major social and media implications in the ‘public debate’“ (3).
“Since, however, apart from the very rarest cases, only one kind of sexual product - ova or semen - is nevertheless present in one person, you are bound to have doubts as to the decisive significance of those elements and must conclude that what constitutes masculinity or femininity is an unknown characteristic which anatomy cannot lay hold of”.
Can psychology do so perhaps?
Thus we speak of a person, whether male or female, as behaving in a masculine way in one connection and in a feminine way in another. But you will soon perceive that this is only giving way to anatomy or to convention. You cannot give the concepts of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ any new connotation. The distinction is not a psychological one;
Nor will you have escaped worrying over this problem - those of you who are men; to those of you who are women this will not apply - you are yourselves the problem [in the Original: Rätsel, engl. enigma] (4).
Gerhard Reichsthaler
Language: English
register via lacanfeld@gmx.at – the zoom link will be sent on the day of the event
Contributions
Avi Rybnicki: Messages
Sarah Birgani: Bureau-Messages
Cleméntine Benard: Metamorphoses
Heike Lutz: Transgender, overcoming the flesh (5)
Marco Mauas: Commentary on an article from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (6) and Eric Marty and Jacques-Alain Miller – Interview on “The Sex of Moderns” (7)
Moderation: Norbert Leber
(1) Thiel T., FAZ, 29.1.2021, https://zeitung.faz.nt/faz/feuilleton/2021-01- 29/3eb0ec072c29945c0c7a95a723d1877c/?GEPC=s5
(2) Miller J.A., Brief vom 2. April 2021
(3) Ibid.
(4) Freud S., New Introductory Lectures On Psycho-Analysis, 4.716https://archive.org/stream/SigmundFreud/Sigmund%20Freud%20%5B1933%5D%20New%20Introductory%20L ectures%20On%20Psychoanalysis%20%28James%20Strachey%20translation%2C%201961%29_djvu.txt
(5) see the FAZ-article “Overcoming the flesh”; German: https://zeitung.faz.net/faz/feuilleton/2021-01-29/3eb0ec072c29945c0c7a95a723d1877c/?GEPC=s5
(6) Ibid.
(7) https://lacanquotidien.fr/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/LQ-927-A.pdf; In German, the first version of the translation of the text will be sent to those who register for the field evening; the final version of the translation will follow later.