In recent times there has been a buzz within psychoanalytic circles and schools around the world regarding the 'trans' question. Freudian schools, and not only, have attempted to approach this phenomenon in various ways in order to facilitate discussions, meanings, and interpretations. However, a number of analysts have been magnetised by and drawn into this discourse. Therefore, in paying attention to what is being written about it and the ways that this topic is being approached, one can detect heavy traces of influence of the discourses of trans activists.

According to Patounas, although these are important questions and discourses to be considered, it appears that psychoanalysts have forgotten their main function: that of creating space for the analysand’s subjective truth and Act. He claims that a number of psychoanalysts are captured by the discourses of trans activism and are responding to these challenging issues from an identification with the signifier “psychoanalyst”, taking a position conforming to the activists’ demands.

This has little to do with the analyst as responding to the subject in speaking about their most profound questions of being. Very few have taken this question to heart, which is the core point of the Freudian orientation: how do we practise with transgender individuals? This question is not a matter of technique but one of desire, the analyst’s desire.

In this seminar, Petros Patounas psychoanalyst of the SFL, responds from his experience with transgender people to vital questions regarding the analytic act.