Avgi Saketopoulou and Ann Pellegrini, "Gender Without Identity" (Unconscious in Translation, 2023)

*Gender Without Identity* challenges static psychoanalytic models of gender by reframing it as an emergent, allocentric process rather than an innate, ontological core. Authors Avgi Saketopoulou and Ann Pellegrini argue that gender is not a fixed developmental outcome but a fluid, idiosyncratic "self-theorization" shaped by trauma, social mythosymbolic codes, and intergenerational transmission. By integrating insights from trans-of-color critique and black feminism, the authors push psychoanalysis to abandon its reliance on "born this way" narratives, which often pathologize non-normative identities. Instead, they propose a clinical practice that embraces the "strange agency" of patients, allowing for the continuous rearrangement of gender throughout a lifetime. This approach demands that clinicians move past their own anxieties regarding transness and trauma, ultimately fostering a more capacious, responsive, and ethically rigorous framework for understanding the complexities of human identity in a hostile political climate.