(De)Constructing the Vulva: Locating the Labia in Trans "Vaginoplasty"

Abstract: The surgical construction of a vulva in transgender 'vaginoplasty' offers a unique opportunity to deconstruct the sociocultural standing of the vulva at large. Social apprehension of the vulva is broadly 'dis-eased,' in Christine Labuski's terms: profoundly and bioculturally disparaged. Synecdochically erased, and with its function effaced against the reproductive, heterosexed vagina, the vulva is situated at the paradoxical intersection of excess and lack, simultaneously invisibilised and threateningly, shamefully visible. This disparagement bears professional ramifications: medical science reflects the sociocultural context in which it is produced and (re)produces precisely this culture. Through trans 'vaginoplasty,' the trans body is surgically inscribed with this dis-eased vulvar script, manifesting as social text upon which the vulva may be read. Systematic reviews of surgical literature, analysed here with respect to the clitoris and labia minora as structures central for female sexual pleasure, reveal how surgeons (re)produce the fictitious dichotomy between vulvar appearance and vaginal function and (re)erase non-heteronormative sexuality. The trans vulva thus illustrates the sociocultural position of the vulva, literally constructed in this image: linguistically invisibilised, it is the heterosexed vagina which takes precedent, at cost of vulvar cosmesis, and in disavowal of vulvar function, the vulva relegated to an academic, surgical and otherwise afterthought.