LAUSR

The rights of transgender people to use the bathroom of their choice is a matter of much debate, as reflected in multiple legal cases currently being bounced back and forth between the Supreme and lower courts in the U.S. Why does the figure of the trans person elicit anxiety, hatred, and aggression? The author investigates the reasons behind transphobia, or xenophobia against transgendered individuals, by using a Lacanian psychoanalytic approach. Jacques Lacan’s logic of the social bond, mirror stage, conceptions of jouissance, and sexuation formulae are taken up to shed light on transphobia in general and in particular how and why it is elicited at the site of the public bathroom.