Contesting the terrain of the' Ambiguous': the struggle of gender migration and the issue of sex reassignment in Turkey

Abstract

This thesis aims to analyze the puzzle that the sex reassignment is an officially recognized right; however it is regulated in a sense that the applicant individual should confirm his/her adaptation to an archetypal transsexual within the scope of regulation. Through the reading of sex reassignment process, this study tries to understand how 'equal' citizenship in Turkey turns out to be exclusivist in the case of trans individuals. It argues that despite the legalization of sex re-assignment indicates an emancipatory attempt at the first instance, its practice reflects the lawmaker's "heteropatriarchal" rationale. In its scrutiny of legal framework of sex reassignment, this study maintains that word of law aims to dissolve ambiguities, and control the process in a way that it leaves the final say to the medical and legal experts. Furthermore, this study intends to show that trans individuals, in order to be allowed to undergo sex reassignment, endeavor and in a way are forced to persuade the officials that they fit into the frame drawn for the "transsexual" prototype; while they might not want to live within that frame completely. In addition to that, this thesis emphasizes the demand of the trans individuals for a better regulation that would be systematized in consideration, and in harmony with their own definitions and their own needs. Under the light of the, combination of legal and theoretical frameworks of the issue of sex reassignment with the fieldwork, this thesis suggests that a politics that would make sense, should ori the one hand recognize the right of reassignment, and on the other hand it should reveal and struggle against the heteronormative and heterosexist mental structure that enforces the individuals to fit into the predetermined patterns in the reassignment process.