Book Review: Gender Without Identity by Avgi Saketopoulou and Ann Pellegrini

Abstract

In their 2023 book Gender Without Identity, Avgi Saketopoulou and Ann Pellegrini critique traditional psychoanalytic models that treat gender as an innate, fixed aspect of the self and instead advocate for a psychoanalytic approach that examines how trauma can serve as a resource in the process of gendered self-theorization. The authors are both psychoanalysts with a private practice based in New York City and are faculty members at New York University. Their work is grounded in their clinical experience, and is also informed by trans of color critique, Black feminism, and queer theory, grounded in their extensive clinical experience with queer and trans individuals.