Psychoanalysis in Transition: The Minor as a Queer and Trans Horizon in Contemporary France

This article examines contemporary discourses within French psychoanalysis through the lens of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's concept of the minor. Against the backdrop of anti-trans positions advanced by influential psychoanalytic figures, it analyzes alternative theoretical and clinical perspectives that challenge the discipline's dominant and often normative assumptions. More specifically, the article focuses on the work of two psychoanalysts, Thamy Ayouch and Fabrice Bourlez, both of whom mobilize the concept of the minor to develop queer, trans, and decolonial approaches to psychoanalytic theory and practice. Without overlooking certain tensions, I argue that the minor functions less as a fixed method than as a critical horizon. In this light, the minor challenges claims of universality, foregrounds minoritized forms of experience, and reimagines the unconscious in relation to social, historical, and political powers. The article concludes by considering both the transformative potential and the conceptual limits of this framework for rethinking psychoanalysis in the twenty-first century.