Contribution à l'archéologie de la distinction sexe – genre

Ce que la psychiatrisation des homosexualités au XIXe siècle a fait au sexe

Abstract

The genealogy of the distinction between biological sex, gender and sexual orientation often dates back to the clinic of transsexualism in the U.S.A. during the sixties, before its formulation by the feminist theories in the seventies. But this distinction actually finds its origin in a range of scientific and medical discourses about same sex-relations between 1850 and the beginning of the twentieth century. The latters pursued social and political objectives: fighting against the stigmatization and the repression of the individuals involved in same-sex relations. These discourses have led to breaking with the binary apprehension of sexuality from the Enlightenment, and they have marked an anthropological mutation in the way of representing sexuality.