Narratives of Transgender People Detained in Prison: The Role Played by the Utterances “Not” (as a Feeling of Hetero- and Auto-rejection) and “Exist” (as a Feeling of Hetero- and Auto-acceptance) for the Construction of a Discursive Self. A Suggestion of Goals and Strategies for Psychological Counseling

摘要

Purpose: Understanding how transgender people, who committed criminal offensesudand are detained in prison, produce a narrative representation of self within differentudprison contexts. More specifically, this study has been based on two sub-aims: Onuda paradigmatic level, it has been aimed at critically investigating how the discursiveudpositioning among the Self and the Other might promote the internalization of positiveudand/or negative attitudes toward the self. On a pragmatic level, it intends to offer someudsuggestions for goals and strategies of psychological counseling with these inmatesudinside such highly institutionalized contexts.udMethod and Materials: In total, 23 in-depth interviews were conducted withudtransgender women detained in either female or male prison contexts in Italy andudBrazil. The lexical, semantic, and semiotic structure of the transcribed interviews hasudbeen investigated by adopting the quali-quantitative software Iramuteq for performingudstatistical text-mining analysis. Frequency, correspondences, and distribution of themostudrepresentative utterances across the corpus of data have been accessed and criticallyudanalyzed.udResults: The findings showed that transgender inmates in Brazil made repeated useudof the adverb “not,” while the verb “exist” became the most representative word for theudItalian sample. In Brazil, indeed, transgender women assumedmasculine-driven behavioruddue to a common imprisonment with cis-gender men. On the contrary, transgenderudwomen in Italy are detained in protected sections, where they are allowed to wearudfemale clothing and continue hormonal treatments. Surprisingly, transgender inmates inudItaly suffered more violence in a female sector when compared to exclusively male jails. Conclusions: Transgender people represent a challenge for prison administrationudbecause it is not clear in which penitentiary context they should be detained. Theyudshould receive special attentions in order to face their special needs, which are radicallyuddifferent when compared to other typologies of inmates. Within penitentiary contexts,udpsychological counseling with transgender women should pay a special attention to theudseveral psycho-social dimensions of this existential condition. In particular, psychologicaludcounselors should consider its inner complex articulation within different social, culturaludand normative contexts.