[Gender performativity, medicalization and health in transsexual women in Mexico City]

The World Health Organization and the American Psychological Association consider transsexuality a pathology and suggest sex-gender reassignment for the biopsychic adjustment of trans people. Through the discursive analysis of experience, this study describes the processes of medicalization and gender performativity in relation to the health of a group of trans women from Mexico City. For this purpose, a qualitative study was conducted in which 10 semi-structured interviews were carried out in 2015. As part of medicalization, the pathologization of transsexuality generated psychic suffering; on the other hand, sex-gender reassignment also entailed additional risks. It is possible to conclude that in trans women, violence and exclusion constitute the primary experiences explaining their foremost health problems. Therefore, it is suggested that it is necessary for discrimination be reduced and for advancements to be made in safer medical interventions.