Home › Concept › Foucault

Foucault and gender: discourse produces the subject

Michel Foucault described how medical and legal discourses shape the categories they claim to describe. Applied to today: 'transgender' is not a discovery but a 20th-century clinical concept.

Sexuality as discourse

In Histoire de la sexualité (1976), Foucault argued that 'sexuality' is not a natural given, but a 19th-century discourse produced by physicians, lawyers, and educators to discipline the population. Categories such as 'homosexual' are not discovered, but produced. The analysis fits—unintentionally for queer theory—perfectly the concept of gender identity: a 20th-century clinical invention of John Money and Robert Stoller that proclaimed itself a universal truth.

Central to this is the notion of subjectivation: persons are made into subjects by the categories in which discourse places them. Those who identify as 'transgender' or 'non-binary' today do so in terms that emerged within fifty years and were spread by clinics. The Cass Review names the influence of peers and media as one of the possible explanations for the sharp rise in referrals, and also as the most contested one; which explanation is right has not been established (source) — see diffusion 2010 and Littman ROGD. This undermines any claim that such categories are innate or universal.

Biopolitics and the medical machine

Foucault's notion of biopolitics—power aimed at the management of bodies and populations—explains why the medical profession is so central to the history of transgender care. Clinics such as Johns Hopkins and later Tavistock were not only practitioners but producers of the category system they treated. The Cass Review (2024) calls care for young people with gender dysphoria 'an area of remarkably weak evidence' (source).

Foucault against Butler — and against contemporary activism

It is striking that Foucault's method—historical deconstruction of categories—also turns against Butler and contemporary gender activism. If 'homosexual' is a 19th-century construct, then 'transgender' is a 20th-century construct. Self-identification as trans is then just as culturally determined as the categories Foucault analyzed. A consistent Foucauldian reading therefore cannot defend 'innate gender identity'—which is precisely the kind of universal truth claim Foucault deconstructed. In Material Girls (2021), Kathleen Stock criticises the theory that every person has an inner feeling called gender identity (source). Activism borrows Foucault's tools and ignores his conclusions.

The circle of diagnosis and care

A consistent Foucauldian reading implies that a physician must be aware of his role in the production of the category he diagnoses. According to the Cass Review, a diagnosis of gender dysphoria does not reliably predict whether someone will remain gender incongruent, or whether medical treatment is the best option (source). Puberty blockers in children rest on that uncertain diagnosis; see also detransition research. On the debate, Hilary Cass writes in her foreword: 'there are few other areas of healthcare where professionals are so afraid to openly discuss their views' (source).

Frequently Asked Questions