Gender and transgender: a metapsychological contribution to the genesis of the sexual ego

Transsexuality or transgender has become an increasingly visible and widespread phenomenon in recent years. From a psychoanalytic perspective, it has so far not been possible to understand the lack of identification with one's own anatomical body. The author distinguishes between the formation of an early body ego as a result of primary identification and that of a sexual ego as part of secondary identifications. Identical and trans-identical orientation could arise against the background of how, when gender difference is discovered, the primary identification is processed, 'translated', in an 'après-coup' movement