<ARTICLES>Queer Theory and Transgender People: On Sexual Differences

This article examines the limitation of Queer Theory, which is used in discussing transgender persons. Queer Theory has excellent methodology derived from the work of leading schlar M. Foucault. Foucault calls this methodology "genealogy". Queer Theory is derived from this genealogy. Genealogy explains the origins of subjectivity or identity. Specifically, the discourse creates the subject and subjectivity is generated in the process of building the subject. Applying this model to transgender identity, medical discourse was the creative force for such identity. But, there is a problem with this model. It ignores the transgender "body": that is, the biological body. This biological body has physiological phenomena. Transgender persons experience the physiological phenomena as everyday difficulties. These factors arise out of the genealogy. If they are ignored, Queer Theory makes it difficult to analyze transgender people's everyday difficulties