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Paper short abstract

Sociopolitical polarization in Chile fragments trans* healthcare. Trans* identity is framed as a chronic condition to access specific healthcare, public debates contest trans* healthcare and identity, and consequently, care trajectories are affected and reinvented.

Paper long abstract

We critically examine how sociopolitical polarization surrounding trans* healthcare in Chile affects and fragments emerging care institutions and protocols, and contributes to the emergence of new care strategies among trans* community.

We argue that trans* identity is framed as a chronic condition by healthcare institutions operating within a contentious and constantly disputed sociopolitical environment. Indeed, access to healthcare for the trans* community relies on the declaration of an identity considered problematic by society, which labels it with the biomedical diagnosis of "gender dysphoria".

To map the controversial sociopolitical context of public disagreements, we analyze how experts make use of the public sphere to contest the scope of government programs, social rights and even the ontological status of trans* people. As an example, we discuss the effect of this public debate on the continuity of the Chilean Government’s Gender Identity Support Program for trans* youth (PAIG, for its name in Spanish). Ethnographic findings regarding the first year of the PAIG’s implementation (2024) allow us to illustrate how shifting policies and the persistent dispute over full citizenship have a direct and long-term impact on trans* people’s care trajectories, which are situated within the sociopolitical environment of the Global South.

As part of an ongoing research project, we propose further ethnography to discuss how the volatility of sociopolitical environments and shifts in policy affect -and are contested by- the trans* people’s strategies to access, manage, and produce their own care.