Vem får man vara i vårt samhälle? - Statens folkhälsoinstitut

different phenomena (Docter 1988). If transvestism and transsexualism
are to be considered as entirely different phenomena with few correspondences
it is doubtful whether an umbrella concept, such as transgender
individuals, actually increases our theoretical understanding of
the phenomena in question. The concept of transgender may in that
case submerge important differences that should be brought out. On
the other hand, if transvestism and transsexualism and other forms of
cross-dressing are examples of a common underlying basic phenomenon
then the concept of transgender becomes more meaningful. This
is because it points to the common generative basic mechanisms of
the different phenomena. To clarify the situation there is a great need
for further research (Bullough & Bullough 1993; Docter 1988; Docter
& Prince 1997). However, transgender individuals share a common
characteristic and that is that they tend to be heavily stigmatized in
Western society for their gender nonconformity (Bockting & Cesaretti
2001). One point of view is that after sex reassignment a transsexual
person is in principle to be considered as any man or woman.
1.6 The development of a LGBT paradigm and trans-
gender research
An important point mentioned in the literature is that the analysis of
transgender individuals should be linked to the theoretical analysis of
homosexuality, including people with a lesbian or bisexual identity.
Accordingly, the LGBT paradigm or the LesBiGay transgender affirmative
paradigm has been developed and various arguments have been
presented for doing the analysis of the LGBT groups taken as a whole
since there seem to be many obvious similarities between them. The
different LGBT groups transcend in different ways the traditional gender
norms or the norms for sexual object choice, the so-called “hetero
norm” in society. Therefore, it seems meaningful and reasonable to
carry out an integrated analysis focusing on these groups taken as a
whole (Fierstein 1994; Hemmings 2002).
However, there are important differences between groups belonging
to the LGBT paradigm. According to Prince and Bentler (1972) the
concept of transvestism is referring, on a general level, to individuals
who wear clothing considered appropriate for the opposite gender but
the term at the same time obscures more than it clarifies since it says
nothing about motivations, satisfactions or possible purposes of cross-
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