Invisible Lives

Through combined theoretical and empirical study, this work argues that transgendered people are not so much "produced" by medicine or psychiatry as they are "erased", or made invisible, in a variety of institutional and cultural settings. An analysis is made of two theoretical perspectives on transgendered people - queer theory and the social sciences - displaying how neither of these has adequately addressed the issues most relevant to sex change: everything from employment to health care to identity papers. Namaste then examines some of the rhetorical and semiotic inscriptons of transgendered figures in culture - including studies of early punk and glam rock subcultures - to illustrate how the effacement of transgendered people is organized in different cultural sites. This text concludes with research on some of the day-to-day concerns of transgendered people, offering case studies in violence, health care, gender identity clinics and the law.