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Making Transgender Count in Poland
6 Disciplined Individuals and Circumscribed Populations
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9
ANNA M. KŁONKOWSKA
10
11
12
13 Abstract The article examines the criteria for determining which individuals become legible as
14 transgender in Poland and how expert medical and legal discourses normalize the gender identity,
sexuality, and gender performativity of this group. Only those transgender people who fit the out-
15
dated model of the “true transsexual” are allowed to (in fact expected to) undergo a physical
16 transition. Once transitioned, they are expected to blend into society and present heteronormative,
17 socially conforming gender roles. In Poland, only those people who have been diagnosed as so-called
18 true transsexuals are counted in the estimated number of transgender people. After describing the
19 convoluted legal and medical processes that individuals are required to follow, the article presents
qualitative research describing how transgender people in Poland have responded to these nor-
20
malizing systems. The article concludes with proposals that would make trans populations more
21 legible to policy makers and the mass media without imposing outdated medical norms on the trans
22 community.
23 Keywords transgender, transsexual, Poland, expert discourse, heteronormativity, exclusion
24
25
26
27 T he social aspects of the transgender phenomenon are well grounded in the
English literature concerning the topic (e.g., Currah 2009; Devor 1989; Ekins
and King 2006; Feinberg 1999; Hines 2007; Stone 1991; Stryker 2008; Whittle
28
29 2002; Wilchins 1997). In Poland, transgender studies has only recently been
30 acknowledged in the field of social sciences. Previously, it has been the domain of
31
sexological and psychiatric studies (e.g., Imieliński and Dulko 1988, 1989) and
32
presented mostly in the essentialist paradigm. This essentialist approach in Polish
33
studies on gender identity, which would limit transgender variation to trans-
34
sexualism only, has strongly influenced the social reception of the transgender
35 phenomenon. However, the emergence of transgender studies and approaches
36 associated with it, such as feminist and queer theory and social constructionism,
37 has transformed thinking on transgender phenomena in much of the social
38 sciences in Poland (e.g., Bieńkowska 2012; Dynarski 2012b; Kłonkowska 2013;
39 Kochanowski 2008).
40

TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly * Volume 2, Number 1 * February 2015 123

DOI 10.1215/23289252-2848931 ª 2015 Duke University Press
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1 Although many scholars in social science fields and activists in trans

2 organizations do not subscribe to the essentialist approach, it continues to govern
3 most legal and medical discourses on gender identity in Poland. Consequently, it
4 is the narrow medical view of transsexualism that still frames the policies of
5 government agencies and health services as well as the representation of trans
6 people in the mass media. Only people who meet the criteria for “true trans-
7 sexuals” count (Benjamin 1966): those whose desired gender entirely matches a
8 gender socially recognized as the opposite of the one assigned them at birth; those
9 who are heterosexual in relation to their gender identity; and those who want to
10 legally change their gender markers and seek sex reassignment surgery. Moreover,
11 the most common term appearing in Polish medical discourse and legal docu-
12 ments is “transsexualism” (transseksualizm), (as in the commentaries on Article1,
13 paragraph1 of the Family and Guardianship Code; see Je˛drejek 2013; ISAP 2010
14 The frame of reference for the treatment of transsexuality in Poland remains
15 based on the medical and sexological discourse of the 1980s and early 1990s
16 (Imieliński and Dulko 1988, 1989). The centrality of the term transsexualism in
17 Polish medical discourse reflects the language of the tenth edition of the Inter-
18 national Classifications of Diseases (ICD), first published in 1990, and earlier
19 editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of the American Psychiatric
20 Association. This framework precludes the possibility of recognizing the wide range
21 of individuals exhibiting gender-nonconforming attitudes and behaviors.
22 Narrowing the transgender phenomenon to true transsexuals circum-
23 scribes who gets classified as trans, what health-related transition services they will
24 receive, and whether or not an individual’s gender identity will be legally rec-
25 ognized by the state. By setting out medicalized limits to the threshold criteria,
26 it also radically limits who gets counted and thus plays an important role in deter-
27 mining the estimated size of the trans population. Counting only true transsexuals
28 rather than the much larger group of people whose gender identity or gender
29 behavior does not comport with the sex assigned at birth results in a much smaller
30 number. Thus how the trans population is measured influences the degree to which
31 its members and their interests will seem to matter. This has significant conse-
32 quences for the trans community: the smaller the population seems to be, the less
33 importance is attached to policies affecting it and the more invisible it remains.1
34 Although there is no official count of the trans population in Poland, in
35 academic publications, as well as in mass-media discourse, some speculations are
36 endlessly circulated. One estimate is based on statistics from the earlier editions of
37 DSM on the prevalence of transsexuality. According to the DSM-IV (American
38 Psychiatric Association 1994), often cited in Polish academic publications and
39 mass-media discourses (which consider the terms gender identity disorder and
40 transsexualism as equivalent), for every 30,000 individuals assigned male at birth,
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KŁONKOWSKA * Making Transgender Count in Poland 125

1 one will seek gender reassignment (MTF). For trans men (FTM), the preva-
2 lence rate suggested in the DSM-IV is one per 100,000 individuals assigned female
3 at birth (Fajkowska-Stanik 2001: 33). Given a population of 38,501,000 (Central
4 Statistics Office of Poland 2011), these ratios would suggest there are only 614 trans
5 women and 201 trans men in all of Poland (Bieńkowska, 2012: 39). Based on these
6 outmoded assumptions concerning prevalence, there are 815 trans men and
7 women in all of Poland. The credibility of these numbers is called into question by
8 studies finding that in Poland, like in the rest of the ex-communist East European
9 countries, trans men outnumber trans women (Strzelecka, 2007; Imieliński and
10 Dulko 1988: 168). Even more problematic, the trans population is also measured
11 by literally adding up the number of people who have successfully managed to
12 navigate the heavily policed processes for gender transition. The only available
13 data refer to court records concerning the number of people who have applied
14 for legal gender recognition. According to this metric, from 2009 to 2012, 223
15 applications were submitted, and 203 were successful (We˛grzyn 2013). According
16 to the slightly more generous methodology of counting successful gender rec-
17 ognition cases, a couple of hundred trans people come into legal existence every
18 four years. In Poland, the estimated percentage of transgender people in the
19 population is severely underestimated because only those people who have been
20 diagnosed as true transsexuals and have succeeded in having their legal gender
21 markers changed count as transgender.
22 I have conducted more than thirty qualitative in-depth interviews with
23 trans people in Poland between 2010 and 2013. If one subscribed to the prevalence
24 ratios cited with authority in Poland, one would be forced to conclude that I have
25 talked at length with almost four percent of the entire trans population in the
26 country. Many of these individuals, however, would not be legible as trans
27 because they have not successfully navigated the medical and legal obstacles to
28 transition. Many more of them would not care to attempt such a feat, because
29 their gender identity or gender behavior falls outside the bounds of the true
30 transsexual. At this point, it is perhaps obvious that the meanings attached to the
31 terms trans and transgender in this discussion are not stable. Indeed, I use the
32 terms to signal the disagreement between those who hold an expansive view of
33 gender nonconformity (trans people, social scientists, and trans allies) and official
34 discourses that work to preserve the rigid and heteronormative definition of
35 transsexual. Social scientists and trans people in Poland seek to expand the field of
36 what and who gets counted —transgender rather than transsexual.
37
38 Medical and Legal Processes for Gender Transition
39 To demonstrate the narrowness of the classification and the many points at
40 which transgender people can fail the test of true transsexuals, I now describe the
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126 TSQ * Transgender Studies Quarterly

1 convoluted legal and medical procedures that govern gender reassignment. The
2 process starts with psychological and psychiatric evaluations and a “Real Life
3 Test,” which supposedly enables the diagnostician (usually a sexologist) to establish
4 whether one is “truly” transsexual and thus able to undertake the social aspects of
5 transitioning to a different gender role. Afterward, the diagnostician commis-
6 sions physical examinations to rule out some medical conditions and to deter-
7 mine one’s fitness for medical transitioning. Although there is no official list of
8 the advised medical examinations, usually they include: an electroencephalogram,
9 genetic tests such as karyotype test, an x-ray or computed tomography scan of
10 the head, an ophthalmoscopy exam, liver and kidney puncture lab tests, blood
11 morphology, tests of luteinizing and follicle-stimulating hormone levels, an
12 abdominal ultrasound, and a urological/gynecological examination.2 During the
13 psychiatric part of the diagnostic stage, individuals should prove to the satisfac-
14 tion of the clinician that after transition they will be heterosexual and that they
15 will and can conform to traditional gender roles and expressions. Those who will
16 not pretend that after transition they will be attracted to the opposite gender and
17 those who fail to convincingly portray their future selves as unfailingly hetero-
18 normative will not receive the needed diagnosis and will go no further in the
19 transition process. If medical tests indicate no health issues, and if the individual
20 receives a psychiatric diagnosis of transsexuality, the diagnostician will likely
21 prescribe feminizing or masculinizing hormones (Dynarski 2012a). Those who do
22 not receive the diagnosis or who have problematic results from the medical tests
23 are denied the opportunity to transition medically or socially.
24 The legal aspects of the process do not begin until a medical transition is
25 already underway. At this stage, those who have passed the medical and psy-
26 chological evaluations must prove their consistent and explicit gender identity
27 and their commitment to live in the new gender role permanently by undergoing
28 feminizing or masculinizing medical procedures, including hormone therapy
29 and, in the case of trans men, a double masectomy and chest reconstruction. As a
30 result, transgender people who do not wish to or do not feel a need to undergo
31 those medical procedures either are forced by the system to accommodate the
32 requirements by medically masculinizing or feminizing their bodies or find them-
33 selves prevented from having their gender identity legally recognized (Kryszk and
34 Kłonkowska 2012: 243–44).
35 Moreover, trans people seeking medical services face another dilemma.
36 Article 156 of the Polish Criminal Code (ISAP 1997a) criminalizes medical
37 treatments that interfere with an individual’s “procreation abilities,” and trans-
38 sexuality is not one of the serious medical conditions exempted from this
39 provision. As Wiktor Dynarski, a researcher and president of Poland’s Trans-
40 Fuzja Foundation, points out, providers have interpreted “procreation ability” to
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KŁONKOWSKA * Making Transgender Count in Poland 127

1 include chest surgery on trans men. “As a result, a vicious circle is created in which
2 a person is required to undergo a mastectomy, but some health care providers
3 refuse to carry out such an operation because of the fear of legal consequences.
4 This situation drastically limits the offer of medical help to transgender people
5 and creates a corruption-friendly environment” (Dynarski 2012a).
6 Those who have made it this far in the process now must initiate the legal
7 procedures for changing one’s gender markers. According to Article 156 of the
8 Polish Criminal Code (ISAP 1997a), genital surgeries such as phalloplasties or
9 vaginoplasties can be performed only after a court has issued a positive verdict on
10 one’s gender recognition and the individual has been issued a new birth certificate
11 and a new personal identification number. To secure this court ruling, individuals
12 (usually adults) must file a lawsuit against their parents to meet Article 189 of
13 the Polish Criminal Code (ISAP 1997a). Dynarski describes the problems this
14 adversarial process can create:
15
16 Because a person’s parents are involved in the court process, the procedure can be
17 irrationally prolonged, especially when parents do not accept their child’s deci-
18 sion. . . . Since the Polish court system does not educate its judges on the subject of
19 gender recognition, the court hears out both of sides and (usually) calls an expert
20 witness . . . who is expected to check whether the first diagnosis was carried out
21 accordingly. As a result, this process can take up to several years. (2012a)
22
23 Although an applicant’s post-transition heterosexuality will have already been
24 confirmed during the diagnostic stage, judges will often query trans people about
25 their sexual orientation before issuing their verdict.
26 If the court verdict on one’s gender recognition is positive, the individual’s
27 birth certificate is amended to reflect the new gender marker. The given name and
28 the form of the surname are also changed, as most Polish surnames indicate the
29 person’s gender. Unfortunately, however, the old information remains: anyone
30 who views the full certificate can easily discover a transgender person’s past.
31 At this point, one may apply for new identity documents (e.g., ID card, driver’s
32 license, university diploma). Since the successful applicant has already convinced
33 their diagnostician of their commitment to live a post-transition life in a (hetero)
34 normative gender role once the gender markers are changed, married individuals
35 must divorce their pretransition husbands or wives. Same-sex marriages are
36 banned in Poland according to Article I, Part I, of the Family and Guardianship
37 Code (ISAP 1964) and Article 18 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland
38 (ISAP 1997b). It is only at this stage that an individual can undergo genital and
39 other surgeries that would, in the view of the state, complete their transition. But
40 there is yet a final barrier: the National Health Fund does not cover the cost of
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1 those medical procedures. At the moment of writing (September 2014), legisla-

2 tion to reform this system of gender recognition, which Dynarski describes as
3 among the worst in Europe (2012a), is under discussion in the Polish parliament
4 (Olczyk 2014).
5
6 Transgender Strategies of Resistance and Assimilation
7 I now turn to a discussion of the response of trans people to this classification
8 regime. since 2010, as noted, I have conducted more than thirty in-depth inter-
9 views with transgender people in Poland. I have collected the biographical stories
10 of my respondents and studied Internet forums (transseksualizm.pl) populated
11 by transgender people (Kłonkowska 2012, 2013; Bojarska and Kłonkowska 2014).
12 Given the predominance of the myth of the true transsexual in both the mass
13 media and expert discourses, it is important to contest that narrative with the
14 voices of trans people. My respondents spoke of the imposition of traditional
15 gender norms, compulsory heterosexuality, whether to resist or assimilate, and
16 most important, how transgender should be defined.3
17 Marcin, a trans activist, addressed the need to deceive in order to meet the
18 pathologizing criteria:
19
20 In the whole official process of sex reassignment the most frustrating is the con-
21 straint of lying in order to fit the heteronormative pattern of a poor, unhappy
22 misfit who, with the help of God-doctors, can finally become an ordinary
23 Mr. Smith. Not only do we have to beg successive institutions to give us a chance of
24 a normal, decent life but we don’t even get the right to be ourselves—no, we have
25 to be almost a perfect example of dysfunction.
26
27 According to Igor, some doctors are aware of this common practice:
28
29 I read a comment from a doctor who claimed that only statements of transsexuals
30 after transition are worth something (i.e., are honest), because only a transsexual
31 who is independent of a doctor will tell the truth. So doctors are aware that we
32 stretch the truth to achieve our goal.
33
34 Respondents also took issue with the impossible ideals they were measured
35 against, norms that cisgender people can fail to meet without losing their status as
36 men or women. According to Konrad:
37
38 Not every man has short hair. Why should an FTM? Not every woman has long
39 hair. Why should an MTF? Not every man is tough and has a typically masculine
40 hobby. Why should an FTM? Not every woman wears makeup and feminine
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KŁONKOWSKA * Making Transgender Count in Poland 129

1 clothes. Why should an MTF? There isn’t one person in the world who fits an ideal
2 image of a man or a woman.
3
4 Respondents also took issue with the role sexual orientation plays in the diagnosis
5 of transsexuality. Cisgender people in Poland most certainly experience the social
6 pressure to be heterosexual. But again, the legal gender of homosexual cis indi-
7 viduals does not depend on their sexual orientation. But for noncisgender LGB
8 people, their gender identity can be invalidated by their (post-transition) sexual
9 orientation.
10
11 Iza: My trans colleagues who identify themselves as gay lied to their doctors. . . . They
12 had a choice of saying they’re straight and getting their medicines right away
13 or admitting they’re gay or bisexual and be forced to undergo psychotherapy. . . . It
14 was clear what they would choose.
15
16 Sławka: Such doctors [diagnosticians] draw a conclusion that all trans people are
17 straight. This is what they tell their next patient, that’s what they write in their
18 publications, and this is how their publications are being cited in the Internet. And
19 as a result, a few years later, a poor little trans person who is looking for some
20 knowledge and identity discovers that since their sexual orientation is differ-
21 ent, it means that they must be some kind of a “pervert” and will not qualify for
22 treatment.
23
24 Social and expert pressure exerted on transgender people concerning their
25 declared sexual orientation also affects their self-perception. Some transgender
26 people, especially those identifying as transsexual, view heterosexuality as con-
27 firmation of one’s gender identity and status as a true transsexual. They remain
28 confined by the socially constructed, heteronormative matrix defining femininity
29 and masculinity. This is especially true for transgender people who have not had
30 body modifications.
31
32 Zdzisław, who was assigned female at birth: I live with a woman. I can’t imagine
33 a man touching me . . . as long as I have my present body. If [my body] were
34 “proper” I wouldn’t have such objections.
35
36 Janek, also assigned female at birth,: Oh, God, I like men, so maybe I’m not a true
37 transsexual.
38
39 Only by subscribing (or pretending to) to the norms of the disciplinary appa-
40 ratuses governing transsexuality can hetero- and gender-normative trans people
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130 TSQ * Transgender Studies Quarterly

1 succeed in becoming legible, first as transsexuals in the diagnostic process and

2 later, post transition, as “proper” men and women. These assimilating subjects
3 not only reproduce the common perception of transgender individuals; they
4 influence the self-perception of other transgender people as well, and they rein-
5 force the demand to conform. Of course, it is ultimately the expert discourses of
6 participating sexologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and physicians that produce
7 the power/knowledge regime that certifies (through diagnosis and legal pro-
8 ceedings) who in Poland can change their gender.
9
10 From Gender-Disciplined Individuals to Circumscribed Transsexual Populations
11 The disciplining of trans individuals through measurement and evaluation of
12 their identifications, bodies, gestures, desires, and everyday activities also has
13 effects at the level of the population. Norms, Michel Foucault explains, “circu-
14 late between the disciplinary and the regulatory” (2003: 252). While disciplinary
15 knowledges center on an “anatomo-politics of the human body,” regulatory
16 controls are interventions on the “biopolitics of the population” (Foucault 1978:
17 139). Transposed onto the regulatory realm, the norms governing whether, how,
18 and when individuals in Poland may transition from one gender to another also
19 become metrics for estimating the number of transsexuals in the population. As a
20 result, only a tiny fraction of the number of people who identify as transgender,
21 broadly construed, become legible as trans. A class of individuals constituting
22 0.00001 percent to 0.00003 percent of the entire population can be labeled as a
23 mere anomaly, their needs easily ignored. Moreover, the existence of this small
24 group will have little effect on challenging hegemonic notions of sex and gender.
25 This is especially true because the individuals classified as trans are perceived as
26 only moving from one pole of the gender binary to another instead of challenging
27 the notion of dichotomous gender.
28 As in most other countries, transgender people in Poland are also rendered
29 invisible by government data collection efforts. Questions about assigned birth
30 sex, current gender identity, and transgender identification have never been
31 included in any census conducted by Central Statistical Office of Poland. But it is
32 not impossible to do a much better job at counting the trans population. Rather
33 than using criteria originating in medicalized models of transsexuality, a census
34 could ask people to simply state their gender identity, the sex they were assigned at
35 birth, or transgender identification. This would allow people to make declarations
36 about their gender identity in the same way they now can declare an ethnic
37 identity or languages spoken. Adding one or two questions to the census ques-
38 tionnaire should not be problematic and would have a number of significant
39 consequences. First, allowing individuals to simply declare their gender would
40 begin to undermine the authority of the expert medical and legal discourses
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KŁONKOWSKA * Making Transgender Count in Poland 131

1 empowered to determine individuals’ gender. Second, letting people declare their

2 own identity instead of letting the expert discourse decide for them could also
3 precipitate changes in social attitudes about gender. Moving away from the
4 essentialist approach to sex and gender identity could result in diminishing the
5 now widespread perception of transgender identities as exceptions, norm viola-
6 tions, illnesses, or deviations. Third, transgender people would be more likely to
7 have a voice in decisions concerning the health, safety, and public welfare of the
8 population. Fourth, it might also begin to transform language, the bedrock of
9 many social attitudes about gender. In the Polish language, not only pronouns but
10 also the noun, adjective, verb, and numeral forms express the gender of the person
11 speaking and the person to whom the speech is addressed.
12 Finally, over time, the transgender category itself might be produc-
13 tively destabilized. As people recognize that many cis people exhibit gender-
14 nonconforming expressions and behaviors, the heavily policed borders between
15 cisgender and transgender and between gender identity and expression could be
16 breached. As one of my respondents, Konrad, suggested:
17
18 There is not a single person in the world who would totally fit the ideal model of a
19 man or a woman. Partly because there is not just one single model of a man or a
20 woman. Everything depends on where we actually are, where we come from, what
21 our attitude is toward the things we were taught in childhood. So, isn’t it true that
22 everybody is trans, at least in a tiny little part?
23
24 In moving away from rigid expert discourses and disciplinary norms and toward
25 ways of figuring trans that are no longer bounded in essentializing notions of sex
26 and gender, bodies and identities, other questions arise. At which point does a
27 nonconforming attitude to gender performance consolidate into a transgender
28 identity? Kasia, one of my respondents, pointed out that being transgender may
29 be a temporary identification, not a permanent one:
30
31 I’m wondering if now—when I’ve completed all these changes and transforma-
32 tions, when I have new documents and when I finally have the body that fits who I
33 am; when I do not only feel like a woman, but I also am acknowledged to be female
34 on my new birth certificate and in all my documents, and when I have a female
35 body and I like this gender role—so I’m wondering, am I still being transgender?
36 Maybe I am no longer transgender, maybe I’m cisgender now? Because now I don’t
37 feel like transgender anymore.
38
39 As Richard Ekins and Dave King explain, “Transgendering . . . refers to the idea of
40 moving across (transferring) from one preexisting gender category to another
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132 TSQ * Transgender Studies Quarterly

1 (either temporarily or permanently); to the idea of living in between genders;

2 and to the idea of living ‘beyond gender’ altogether” (2006: xiv). Transgender
3 will mean different things to different people. Wiktor, one of my respondents,
4 explains:
5
6 After shifting and blending different roles, being identified in another . . . speaking
7 about myself beyond the known linguistic categories . . . I feel an explicit need to
8 point out how very individual my own experience is and that it absolutely doesn’t
9 mean that all of us see the issue of transgender identity in the same way.
10
11 Since it is not easy to draw a distinction between cis- and transgender identity,
12 since being transgender may mean different things to different people, since it can
13 be permanent identity change, a temporary stage, or an ongoing lifelong process,
14 no one but the individuals themselves should be able to declare what their gender
15 identity is. Experts and officials should not have the power to decide whether an
16 individual’s gender identity will be recognized by the state.
17
18
19 Anna M. Kłonkowska, an adjunct professor in the Department of Social Sciences at the
20 University of Gdansk and a visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities,
21 Stony Brook University, is a sociologist, psychologist, and philosopher, publishes in the field of
22 transgender studies, and is the editor in chief of the sociological journal Miscellanea Anthro-
23 pologica et Sociologica. She also has facilitated one of the few support groups for transgender
24 people in Poland since 2010 and cooperates with the Trans-Fuzja Foundation.
25
26
27 Acknowledgments
28 I would like to thank Paisley Currah for his editorial guidance, Amanda Kennedy for linguistic
29 corrections, Wiktor Dynarski for his helpful comments, and the individuals who shared their
stories with me in interviews.
30
31
Notes
32
1. The Polish terminology applied to the transgender phenomenon is not equivalent to the
33 English terminology. First, there is no Polish word for gender. The Polish word płeć is
34 equivalent to the English term sex, and the lack of a correlate for the English word gender
35 implies that there is no differentiation between sex and gender. Thus płeć has a deter-
36 mined and determining, essential character. With regard to trans, the lack of a Polish
37 term for gender results in a confusing situation. The term used for transsexualism is
transseksualizm, a literal copy of the English term. But the term used for transgender
38
(understood as broader than transsexualism and including gender-nonconforming
39 identities and practices) is transpłciowość, and that term is in fact also derived from
40 “transsexualism” (instead of “transgender”), as the word płeć means “sex,” not “gender.”
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KŁONKOWSKA * Making Transgender Count in Poland 133

1 Thus, in Polish, the difference between the terms transpłciowość (transgender) and
2 transseksualizm (transsexualism) seems insignificant from the linguistic point of view,
even though they are defined differently. Nevertheless, of concern here is that only the
3
term transseksualizm, not transpłciowość, appears in Polish legal and medical discourse
4 concerning the transgender population. The latter is used only by social scientists and
5 trans advocates. Also, transpłciowość is sometimes replaced by Polish social scientists
6 and by trans activists with the English term transgender to signify “individuals . . . whose
7 personal identities [are] considered to fall somewhere on a spectrum between ‘trans-
8 vestite’ . . . and ‘transsexual’” (Stryker 2006: 4). Using the English term avoids the
essentialism conveyed by the Polish word płeć. In this article, I use the word transgender as
9
it is used in the contemporary English-language social sciences: as an umbrella term
10 broadly encompassing a whole variety of gender-nonconforming identities and practices.
11 2. This list of tests is based on accounts of members of a support group for transgender
12 people which I have been running since 2010.
13 3. Interview quotations have been translated by the author. The names of respondents have
14 been changed. Polish first names always reveal the gender: if the name ends in an a, it is a
female name. If the name ends with a consonant, it is a male name.
15
16
References
17
American Psychiatric Association. 1994. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 4th
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wersytetu w Białymstoku.
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Bojarska, Katarzyna, and Anna M. Kłonkowska. 2014. “TRANSgresja płci, TRANZycja ciała,
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National Census of Population and Housing). www.stat.gov.pl/cps/rde/xbcr/gus/lud_
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