Choosing Sex: Soviet Theories of Gender Identity Development and Their Impact on Intersex/Trans patient Management
In conversation with:
Alexandra Novitskaya (Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Maryland, Baltimore County)
Yana Kirey-Sitnikova is an independent researcher working in the field of transgender studies in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Her research interests span transgender health, social movements, political science, sociolinguistics, history, and biochemistry. Currently, Yana is working on a book “Transgender Russia: the rise and fall of trans rights in an autocracy” (expected in 2027). She is also doing a PhD in Public Health at the Semashko National Research Institute of Public Health.
Dr. Novitskaya’s research interests are at the intersections of sexuality, national identity, geopolitics, migration studies, transnational feminist and queer theory, and feminist ethnography. Her articles and book chapters have been published in NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies, Post-Soviet Affairs, The Russian Review, Journal or Europe-Asia Studies, Sexuality & Culture, The Routledge Handbook of Gender in Central-Eastern Europe and Eurasia, and others. Dr. Novitskaya is working on a book project about queer asylum-seekers from countries formerly in the Soviet Union.
About the presentation: In the Soviet Union, the 1960s and 1970s saw debates on intersex patient management, including the “choice of sex”. Some authors insisted on discovering the “true sex” by means of increasingly sophisticated diagnostic procedures, whereas others highlighted the importance of social and psychological factors. These debates motivated researchers to propose their theories of gender identity development. Both biological and social explanations were put forward, but very soon, their dialectical relationship became emphasized under the influence of state-sponsored Marxism. Psychiatrist Aron Belkin studied “individuals who endured the change of sex” (mostly intersex but also transsexual patients) to propose his model of gender identity formation, which combined psychoanalytical terminology with demonstrative anti-Freudism. Psychiatrist Aleksandr Bukhanovskiĭ was looking for biological correlates of transsexualism, but his theoretically most interesting paper explored the case of three siblings who had been erroneously raised in a wrong gender. Despite the ideological constraints, Soviet researchers were free to propose their explanations and engage with foreign literature, primarily the works of John Money.
About the Workshop: We ask that registered participants read the paper in advance, shared upon registration. At the workshop, Kirey-Sitnikova will have a brief presentation. After Dr. Novitskaya’s comments, we invite all participants to ask questions based on the paper and presentation.
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