MARCH 2023 Committee of the Month
SEXUAL AND GENDER DIVERSITY STUDIES COMMITTEE
The Sexual & Gender Diversity Studies Committee (S&GDSCo) was created in 2017 under the IPA Presidency of Stefano Bolognini. The first chair was Marco Posadas from North America (2017-2021) and the second one, Leticia Glocer Fiorini (2021-2025), from South America, is the current chair.
The aim was to focus on a subject that impacts the psychoanalytic field and is noted in the consultations of diverse contemporary subjectivities, regarding diverse itineraries of sexuality and gender, that move away from classical definitions.
Social and cultural changes are reflected in clinical practice, and this is a challenge since closed theories often hinder an open view on this subject.
These changes include large groups of people who have existed for a long time, although hidden. These groups, called "minorities" are subject to discrimination, persecution, and violence, that can lead to death. The intersections of sexual and gender diversities with ethnicity, religions, social classes, as well as colonialism and racism, shows the complexity of a necessary approach to contemporary subjectivities.
We know that there are important theoretical and epistemological confrontations, and our idea is to host a debate that allows for an open listening between different positions.
For the Committee, it is vital to focus on contemporary clinical experience including the analyst’s transference-countertransference, as well as the different theories we have at our disposal. This position encompasses not only official theories but also private theories, beliefs, ideologies, and prejudices of each analyst.
The notions of masculinity and femininity, gender and post-gender, transgender and transsexuality, gender violence, transitioning regarding children, adolescents, and adults are at stake.
We underline the different consequences on the analytic process according to the "point of view" of the analyst.
This requires a review of theories and logics based on a dualistic, binary, normative solution of sexuality and gender. And, at the same time, demands sustaining crucial axes of psychoanalysis: the unconscious, infantile sexuality, the concept of drive, even though we know that these categories are interpreted differently according to each theoretical framework.
The future of psychoanalysis is involved.
In order to study and deepen these problems, this Committee has worked since its creation in the three regions organising different activities: dialogues, study-days, lectures, publications, among other events.
Events in Europe
Study Day Brussels September 27-28, 2019. Contemporary perspectives on gender and sexuality.
Study Day June 5, 2021. Online. Transition and countertransition. Psychoanalytic work with transgender people.
EPF. Vienna, 2021. Panel online. Gender crossing as caesura versus gender crossing as cut. Dana Amir.
Study workshop. Vienna (EPF Conference) July 14, 2022. The ideal homosexual/the ideal heterosexual. Thoughts associated with ideals in the consulting room.
Preliminary agenda for Europe 2023:
Study Day Milano September 09, 2023. How do we experience questions of gender diversity in psychoanalysis and beyond?
Panel at the EPF Conference March 2023. Illusions and Disillusions about sex and gender diversity. Frances Thomson-Salo, Luca Bruno, Dana Amir, Eva Reichelt.
Events in North America
NA Conference. Saturday, October 15, 2022. Weaving and Unweaving the Webs of Gender: Young People Talk with their Analysts; Analysts Talk with One Another.
NA member, Oren Gozlan, gave lectures in different societies and congresses in 2023: Israeli Psychoanalytic Society, APA Congress, Asia Pacific IPA Congress, New Delhi, Argentine Dialogue, and APSaA. Some titles: Emerging Perspectives on LGBTQ; In-Difference: Transsexuality and Feminism in the field of Phantasy.
An important task of teaching, communication and dissemination of thoughts is carried out by Jack Drescher, consultant of the Committee, who won the Sigourney Award in 2022.
Events in South America
1st Dialogue, 2019. Polimorphisms. Sexual and Gender Diversity in contemporary psychoanalysis.
2nd Dialogue, 2021. Technomorphisms: The posthuman turn.
3rd Dialogue, 2022. Transtopias: Dissident Subjectivities and the psychoanalytic clinical practice of the present.
2022. Three activities/presentations in México FEPAL Congress 2022.
*Plenary presentation. Speaker: Patricia Gherovici. Chaired by Jean Marc Tauszik. Comments: Sodely Paez, Luciane Falcao, Leticia Glocer Fiorini.
*Clinical Workshop-preparatory for Working Parties- Chaired by Silvia Acosta: "Clinical approach to Diversity".
*Conversation. "Trans-adolescences". Organised by the S&GDSCo and the Committee of Children and Adolescents of the IPA.
Preliminary agenda 2023 for South America:
Conference on transfemininity.
Workshop: clinical case. Transference=Countertransference.
All the events of the three regions had a large audience and included many speakers from other societies and regions as well as members of the Committee. These events will continue until the end of our administration.
Preliminary agenda of the Committee on Sexual & Gender Diversity
Cartagena Congress. Who’s Afraid of Gender? Is gender an assault on Psychoanalysis? July, 2023. Chair: Victor Bonfilio. Panellists: Oren Gozlan, Leticia Glocer Fiorini, Eva Reichelt.
Cartagena Pre-Congress. Gender and Sexual Diversity in Psychoanalytic Training. Introduction: Leticia Glocer Fiorini. Gender and Sexuality in Psychoanalytic Education. Paul Lynch, Sergio Lewkowicz, Eva Reichelt.
Gender and sexuality in psychoanalytic supervision. Gabriela Gonzalez-Polo, Nicolas Evzonas, Oren Gozlan.
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Tiresias award: During our first administration (chair Marco Posadas) the Tiresias award was created. The first prize was won by Avgi Saketopulou. The prize will be awarded at all IPA Congresses.
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Publishing project: In this context, the South American Subcommittee has started a publishing project with a series in Spanish whose first book Polimorfismos (Polimorphisms) was published in 2020, edited by Leticia Glocer Fiorini, Jean Marc Tauszik and Silvia Acosta.
The second book is currently being edited: Technomorphisms, the posthuman turn.
In addition, there is already an agreement with Routledge to publish a series in English.
All the books were thought from an open perspective that allows sharing issues that deserve to be discussed and, at the same time, to disseminate thoughts that enable psychoanalysis to approach contemporary subjectivities. This perspective implies reviewing some axes of theoretical, clinical, and epistemological understanding that demand another look over contemporary and diverse subjectivities.
Many thanks to the Committee for their commitment and creativity.
Leticia Glocer Fiorini
Chair. Sexual and Gender Diversity Studies Committee
CURRENT COMMITTEE
Overall Chair: Leticia Glocer Fiorini (Buenos Aires)
South America co-chair: Jean Marc Tauszik (Caracas), Silvia Acosta (Buenos Aires), Sergio Lewkowicz (Brazil), Gabriela Gonzalez-Polo (México) (IPSO Representative)
North America: co-chair: Victor Bonfilio (San Francisco), Oren Gozlan (Toronto), Paul Lynch (Boston), Alla Sheynkin (New York) IPSO Representative, Jack Drescher (New York) Consultant
Europe: co-chair: Frances Thomson-Salo (Windsor- Australia), Eva Reichelt (Berlin), Luca Bruno (Milan), Maria Juusela (Helsinki) IPSO Representative, Dana Amir (Haifa-Israel) Consultant