This week on the Major Pain podcast we are joined by NYU Professors and psychoanalysts Dr. Avgi Saketopoulou and Ann Pellegrini to discuss the intersection of trauma and gender, as discussed in their book Gender Without Identity. They propose a new theory of gender development, that gender is something all people develop in relationship to trauma, rather than an intrinsic identity we are born with. Their book seeks to shed light on the complex tapestry of experiences that shape one's gender expression and perception.

Dr. Avgi Saketopoulou is a psychoanalyst in private practice in NYC and a member of the faculty at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. She is the author of Sexuality Beyond Consent: Risk, Race, Traumatophilia from the Sexual Cultures Series (NYU Press). Visit her website at https://www.avgisaketopoulou.com/

Ann Pellegrini is Professor of Performance Studies & Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University, and a psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City. Their previous books include Performance Anxieties: Staging Psychoanalysis, Staging Race (Routledge, 1997) and the 2014 Lambda Finalist in Best LGBT Non-Fiction You Can Tell Just by Looking and 20 Other Myths About LGBT Life and People, coauthored with Michael Bronski and Michael Amico (Beacon Press, 2013). Find them online at https://annpellegrini.com