ABSTRACT
The various kinds of discourse that surround transsexuals are part of the diversity of the universe of discourse, in which, whatever people's willingness to do so, they can never find common ground. Psychoanalysts like to adopt an attitude of benevolent neutrality. But the French language does not possess a neuter gender; and even in those languages which do have one, those in which the adjective does not agree in gender with the noun, the problem still cannot be sidestepped. When writing about transsexuals, physicians in France have attempted to use the masculine form of the word for male transsexuals and the feminine form for female transsexuals. Some physicians in foreign countries have turned transsexualism into a source of income. Physicians who propose hormonal and surgical sex reassignment do so out of compassion. Transsexuals are deeply distressed, and their request is not a passing whim.
