Dr. Avgi Saketopoulou

Title

Against Transantagonism: Towards a Metapsychology for the Flourishing of Trans Children

Abstract

In this presentation, Dr. Avgi Saketopoulou urges psychoanalysts to let the debate about the validity of trans children take its place in the fossil record of analytic history. It is time, she suggests, to move beyond transantagonism: rather than sparring with colleagues who see trans existence as cause for alarm, we need to be working on developing the psychoanalytic theories we need and do not yet have to work towards the flourishing of trans and queer children. Let us refuse, once and for all, the philanthropy of being “inclusive,” delving, instead, into the difficult task of seeing what pressures trans children and adults put on existing thinking about gender. Starting with the premise that trans children deserve no less than a psychoanalysis that wants their transness and which does not treat their genders as undesirable or inauthentic requires our…