Marta Cruells

Challenging equality policies: The emerging LGBT perspective

The state members of the European Union have witnessed the emergence of equality policies which target discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity. These are usually based on the single issue model focusing exclusively on discrimination suffered by LGBT people, however there are other approaches to this issue which take into account the interaction of different axes of inequality, namely, the multiple and intersectional discrimination models. This article analyses the implications of these three models from a theoretical and empirical perspective, pointing out their respective advantages and disadvantages.

Breast Surgery as a Gender Technology: Analyzing Plastic Surgeons’ Discourses

ABSTRACT This article explores the role of breast surgery as a gender technology by considering the discourse of plastic surgeons. We analyze the gender discourses that come into play when surgeons are asked to distinguish between 3 cases of breast surgery: breast implantation for transsexual women, postmastectomy breast intervention, and breast augmentation for aesthetic reasons. In the surgeons’ discourses, the 3 interventions are situated in the reconstruction/cosmetic divide. However, we can see that this boundary is profoundly influenced by cultural conceptions of gender. These gendered conceptions affect what is labeled normal/abnormal, what demands are considered legitimate, and which bodies are deemed able to possess certain attributes.