Helen J. Stephan

Material-Discursive Apparatuses and Hormonal Bodies. Living in Contradiction with Binary Gendered Biopolitics

The medical body has acquired the status of a universal category, and hormones configure in a fundamental way the bio-medical understanding of the human as well as the binary construction of gender difference that was institutionalized 120 years ago. My project aims at a praxeological ethnography of apparatuses that produce knowledge of hormonal bodies and are situated in various forms of assemblage (techno-scientific, political, medical, economical), that regulate the accessibility of gendered and racialized human groups to sexual hormones. In my work I will juxtapose the different onto-epistemological figurations of the hormonal-gendered body that are produced by material-discursive apparatuses with the everyday experiences of persons who are pursuing or are looking for the possibility to pursue therapies with hormone replacement therapy in the context of gender transition.