Depathologization of homosexuality and transsexuality

social movements and identity issues

Abstract

The article reflects about the reasons that led to the depathologization of homosexuality being recognized more than two decades before the depathologization of transsexuality. Among these hypotheses are: the pioneering of movements around sexual orientation in relation to movements concerning gender identity; identity conflicts between identities that constitute sexual minorities, which contributed to the exclusion of certain identities in the first decade of these movements' activity, mainly those constituted around gender identity; greater social rejection in relation to non-hegemonic gender identities than in relation to non-hegemonic sexual orientations, as the former are conceived as more threatening to the dichotomous gender system and male domination.