Vanessa Sinclair et al., "The Queerness of Psychoanalysis: From Freud and Lacan to Laplanche and Beyond" (Routledge, 2024)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "Vanessa Sinclair et al., 'The Queerness of Psychoanalysis: From Freud and Lacan to Laplanche and Beyond'"

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Lexa Rosiane
Guests: Vanessa Sinclair & Miriam Sauer
Date: September 17, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the groundbreaking edited volume "The Queerness of Psychoanalysis: From Freud and Lacan to Laplanche and Beyond" (Routledge, 2024). Host Lexa Rosiane speaks with two of the three editors, Vanessa Sinclair and Miriam Sauer, about psychoanalysis’s complex history with queerness, the current cultural and clinical challenges facing queer and trans people, and the book’s call to action for greater inclusivity and theoretical expansion in psychoanalysis. The discussion weaves through history, theory, activism, and personal narrative, foregrounding the voices and experiences of queer and trans analysts, scholars, and activists.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Introduction & Editorial Background

[01:31–07:27]

• Purpose of the Book: The collection explores psychoanalysis’s often fraught relationship with queerness: its history, presence, and disruptive effects both in clinical practice and in theory.
  • “It is a call for action to utilize and deepen psychoanalysis’ enormous explicatory powers and bring together voices that have so far been denied a unity of expression while critically reevaluating psychoanalysis’ historical relationship to queerness.” (A/Lexa, [03:15])
• Editorial Motivation: The project was sparked by co-editor Elisavet Ioannidou’s interest in psychoanalysis as a heritage and its queer legacy, especially via the poet H.D. and partner Bryher. The category “queerness” was chosen over “heritage” to better reflect political stakes and the inherent queerness within psychoanalysis.
  • “We’re not queering psychoanalysis, but it’s like the queerness of psychoanalysis already inherent in psychoanalysis itself.” (D/Vanessa, [08:29])

Centering Trans Voices & Psychoanalytic Traditions

[09:35–10:29]

• Trans Liberation as Central: The editors intentionally foreground trans and queer contributors, acknowledging ongoing transphobia within psychoanalysis and aiming for corrective representation.
  • “We have a lot of scholars and analysts who are trans, and it’s all written with trans liberation in mind.” (B/Miriam, [09:35])
• Historical Case Studies: Discussion around Freud’s acceptance of Bryher as a transmasc nonbinary person, demonstrating nuanced openness in psychoanalytic origins.
  • “It uncovers historical traces of Freud welcoming and accepting a transmasc nonbinary person...which just shows the free spirit of Freud, how open he was in many ways.” (B/Miriam, [11:17])

Trans Experiences, Family Romance, and Invented Selves

[23:30–27:58]

• Essays Discussed:
  • Emmy O’Brien’s essay uses oral histories of trans childhoods to explore how non-normative origin fantasies serve as psychological resilience, intertwining Freud’s “family romance” and the creative inventions of queer youth.
    • “Trans people, trans children invent these really beautiful stories of feeling like aliens, of feeling like they don’t fully belong, to make sense of where they’re coming from and situate themselves.” (B/Miriam, [26:23])
• Dedication to Cecilia Gentile: Honoring the Argentinian American writer/activist for her pivotal work and personal testimony of vulnerability and survival.

Contemporary Institutional and Political Hostility

[18:00–21:06]

• US Context: Discussion of cultural backlash and policy hostility toward gender/sexuality diversity, universities retreating from inclusive programs, and the policing of language (“you can’t even write in emails anything about trans or diversity...the algorithms are just looking for and they’ll flag you and you’ll get called in.” D/Vanessa, [19:07])
• Editorial Response: The editorial approach prioritized authentic voice and breadth of form (essays, dialogues, artistic pieces) to resist academic restriction and allow trans/queer contributors to define their own terms.

Mapping Psychoanalytic Theory—Beyond the Canon

[28:25–36:33]

• Limits and Possibilities in Clinical Theory:
  • Miriam’s essay critiques both historic and current psychoanalytic limitations regarding trans subjects, discussing clinicians like Danielle Quinodoz and the evolution from pathologization to conditional acceptance.
  • Theoretical tools from Bion and Laplanche are explored, especially Laplanche’s move away from Oedipus and sexual binarism: “Laplanche...gives us language to talk about sexuality again. He moves away from Oedipus as a necessary reference.” (B/Miriam, [31:46])
• The Frustration of the Archive: There’s a tension between needing canonical thinkers for legitimacy and the desire for new, self-originating traditions:
  • “I keep maybe telling myself and others, trans is okay, because if you just read the white men the right way, you will see that you are okay. And so I was frustrated there at the end.” (B/Miriam, [33:15])
• Broader Perspective: The challenge mirrors those faced by scholars in the Global South needing to reference Western canons for legitimacy.

Experimental Formats & Queering Academic Writing

[36:33–39:32]

• Dialogues and Artistic Essays: The volume includes non-traditional academic contributions—conversations, group discussions, and “dragging” sessions—to capture psychoanalytic insight emerging outside formal theory.
  • “It does kind of queer the book, and that we don’t have to always have these kinds of formal academic essays. We can learn in other ways through conversation and free association.” (D/Vanessa, [37:22])
  • This democratizes theory, rooting it in lived experience.

Queerness, Magic, and Psychoanalysis

[39:32–41:28]

• Magic as a Queer Analogue: Discussion shifts briefly to Vanessa’s background, her husband's connections to Anton LaVey and queer icons, and the frequent overlap of queer experience and magical traditions.
  • “Queer people and magic kind of go together.” (D/Vanessa, [40:01])

Projects, Next Steps & Where to Engage

[41:46–46:52]

• Rendering Unconscious Center: Vanessa is running an online psychoanalytic education center (with all classes archived on Substack) to expand public access to psychoanalytic education and host ongoing discussions inspired by the book.
  • “This important volume puts theory into practice by centering queer and trans voices.” (A/Lexa, [04:19])
  • Center events archive: RU Center for Psychoanalysis Substack ([44:27])
• Miriam’s Current Work: Finalizing a novel imagining a near-future Germany as an apartheid state, exploring the escalation of fascism and transphobia.
• Elizabeth’s Recent Activity: Teaching and producing new work on H.D.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Editorial Philosophy:
  • “We wanted people to write what they wanted to write...and not to feel like, yeah, overedited or silenced in any way.”
    – Vanessa Sinclair ([21:06])
• On Queer Childhood and Survival:
  • “Trans children invent these really beautiful stories of feeling like aliens, of feeling like they don’t fully belong, to make sense of where they’re coming from.”
    – Miriam Sauer ([26:23])
  • “Well, I’m an alien. I was sent here from outer space to evaluate how great you are at being humans, and you all fail miserably.”
    – Shared anecdote about trans childhoods ([27:58])
• On the Challenge of the Canon:
  • “I keep maybe telling myself and others, trans is okay, because if you just read the white men the right way, you will see that you are okay.”
    – Miriam Sauer ([33:15])
• On Freud’s Legacy:
  • “At the heart of psychoanalysis, a real openness to the other and allow it to arrive on its own terms.”
    – Miriam Sauer ([11:17])
• On the Value of Dialogue and Experimental Forms:
  • “We can learn in other ways through conversation and free association, especially with such great minds talking to one another.”
    – Vanessa Sinclair ([37:22])

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Major Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Topic/Quote | |-------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:31–04:28 | Book introduction and overview | | 07:27–12:36 | Origins of the project; Freud, Bryher, and queer heritage | | 13:42–15:08 | Schreiber, trans traces in psychoanalytic history, upcoming Berlin event | | 18:00–21:06 | US climate, censorship, and the politics of language | | 23:30–27:58 | Cecilia Gentile, O’Brien’s essay on family romance and trans childhoods | | 28:25–36:33 | Clinical case studies, theoretical evolution, Laplanche, and frustration with the canon | | 36:33–39:32 | Inclusion of dialogues and conversations as experimental forms | | 39:32–41:28 | Conversation about magic, queerness and psychoanalysis, Vanessa’s personal story | | 41:46–46:52 | What’s next for the editors—new projects, educational initiatives, and further engagement | | 47:01–50:17 | Reflections on the Das Unbehagen group, psychoanalysis community activism |

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Conclusion

This episode is both a celebration and an intervention—highlighting the inclusivity and experimental spirit of "The Queerness of Psychoanalysis," and inviting psychoanalysts, clinicians, scholars, and the public to engage with queer and trans voices on their own terms. The conversation is rich in historical insights, personal testimony, theoretical critique, and an ethic of welcoming difference.

For more information, events, and classes:

• Rendering Unconscious Substack
• RU Center for Psychoanalysis Substack

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“It was really fun. And Carl was like, does your group have a journal or something? And I was like, no, but maybe they’d like one...So that’s what this book, the Rendering Unconscious book, is.” – Vanessa Sinclair ([47:26])

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Transcript

[Lexa Rosiane]

Adjective used to describe an individual whose.

[Miriam Sauer]

Spirit is unyielding, unconstrained, one who navigates life on their own terms, effortlessly.

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They do not always show up on.

[Miriam Sauer]

Time, but when they arrive you notice an individual confident in their contradictions. They know the rules, but behave as if they do not exist.

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[Vanessa Sinclair]

There.

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Welcome to the New Books Network.

[Lexa Rosiane]

Hello all, and welcome back to New Books and Psychoanalysis, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. I'm Lexa Rosiane, the host of the channel. Today we'll be talking to Vanessa Sinclair and Miriam Sauer, the three edit, the two of the three editors of the Queerness of Psychoanalysis, From Freud and Lacan to Laplanche and Beyond the Queerness of Psychoanalysis From Freud and Lacan to La Planche and Beyond is an exploration of psychoanalysis, psychoanalysis's often complicated and fraught history with thinking about queerness as well as its multifaceted heritage. Throughout the chapters, the contributors write about psychoanalysis, relationship with queerness, the ways in which queerness is represented in the psychoanalytic archive, and how that archive endures in the present and creates various disruptive effects both within and beyond the clinic. Each chapter from the global cohort of contributors approaches queerness from a different angle. They consider the literary aspects of queerness's presence in the analytic world, the clinical complexities of working with queer and trans people, metapsychological inclusion and exclusion of queerness, and many other subjects. Taken together, these contributions constitute a decisive intervention into the psychoanalytic canon they are an unabashed demand for accepting and furthering the representation and inclusion of queer and in particular trans people within psychoanalysis. It is a call for action to utilize and deepen psychoanalysis enormous explicatory powers and bring together voices that have so far been denied a unity of expression while critically reevaluating psychoanalysis historical relationship to queerness. Each chapter proposes different ways of thinking and writing psychoanalytically, with many of the papers querying the format and forms of expression commonly found in academic writing through their use of dialogues, conversations and other experimental forms of writing. Written almost exclusively by analysts, scholars and activists who identify as trans and or queer, this important volume puts theory into practice by centering queer and trans voices. Vanessa Sinclair is a psychoanalyst based in Sweden and the host of the Rendering Unconscious podcast. Miriam Sauer is in Berlin and a PhD candidate, writer and poet. Unfortunately, the third wonderful editor Elizabeth, cannot be with us. So editors, welcome to the show and I wonder if each of you could begin the interview by telling us a bit about yourselves.

[Miriam Sauer]

Thank you so much for having for having us lexer. It's a real honor. I also sometimes host do podcasts on the Psychoanalysis channel of the nbn, so it's nice to now be a bit on the other side and also quite interesting and nerve wracking to have to field questions, but I'm very excited as well. Yeah, I think you already gave a nice little overview of who I am. I'm in Berlin, Germany. I teach and research at Frei Universit Berlin as a PhD student here in Germany. You kind of do both. You teach and you work on your PhD. I write, I published a novel in 2023 and my primary academic interests I think are psychoanalysis, gender studies, trans studies and in that capacity I write papers. I worked in this collected volume and yeah, that's kind of who I am.

[Lexa Rosiane]

Thank you. It's such a pleasure to have you here.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Absolutely. And I'm Vanessa Sinclair. I'm also based in Sweden like Elizabeth, who's not with us, but I'm from the US originally, originally from Miami, lived in New York for a decade and then made my way over to Sweden where I'm based now. I'm a clinical psychologist at Visaidi, doctorate in psychology and psychoanalyst. I have Rendering Unconscious podcasts which is how most people know me nowadays. And I've actually just launched this summer the Rendering Unconscious center for Psychoanalysis, which is going to be an all online center for psychoanalysis and the first class starts tomorrow. So it's Pretty exciting. Which is just an introduction to psychoanalysis for people. Yeah. Who are interested in learning more or contextualizing it, because they don't really ever kind of teach you the history from beginning to end and how this field evolved and how we ended up with all these different strains of psychoanalysis. So I've been researching that and writing it out and now I'm going to share it with everyone. So it's really exciting.

[Lexa Rosiane]

That is so exciting. And also, I just want to let you know that I'm very excited because I am co teaching a class with Richard Sachs at the center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies on sexuality and gender and the queerness of psychoanalysis. Your book is required reading for the class. We had our first class last night, so I'm pretty excited about that and to talk about this book, this incredible book. So I want to ask you to, to the degree that you can know your motivation, what prompted you to edit this book? How did this come to be?

[Miriam Sauer]

Do you want to start, Vanessa?

[Vanessa Sinclair]

I can. Sure. This book actually germinated from Elizabeth and that's wonderful. And she has a project in Gothenburg University on heritage studies. And I've done a book with her before that we edited on outside. It's called Outsider Impatient. On kind of outside art and people creating art within, like psychiatric wards at old mental institutions that have now gone defunct because there was a huge old psychiatric hospital in Gothenburg that was being like demolished or closed down. So she had events there as part of that. And then the next one she wanted to do was on the queerness of psychoanalysis. She originally came to us with the idea of the queer heritage of psychoanalysis. She's obsessed with the poet HD and her partner Briar. And HD was an analysis with Freud. And yeah, she wanted to show that, yeah, this queer heritage had been there since the very beginning. And then we changed the word from heritage to queerness because it has a lot of political reasons, reasonings, especially in US and North America. And also that was a great shift because as Miriam's talked about in a prior event of ours, queerness really captures it well, as we're not like queering psychoanalysis, but it's like the queerness of psychoanalysis already inherent in psychoanalysis itself, which I think is a really important point.

[Miriam Sauer]

Yeah, that's a good overview. I think what I would add is I first met Elisavet in early 2020 at a conference and we became friends immediately. And she's a real powerhouse of academic production and thinking. And yeah, she was really the very, very important figure in this. She brought me to Sweden, we discussed this project and then that's how I met Vanessa. And so that's how she came into my. Into my life.

[Lexa Rosiane]

Yeah.

[Miriam Sauer]

And I think for me, this book certainly has a focus on trans subjects or the question of trans related issues. It was of course, open to everything queer, but I think psychoanalysis as a field continues to be much like the world in many ways, very much to be transphobic. And so what we wanted, and I think we accomplished that, and I'm very proud of that, is we have a lot of scholars and analysts who are trans and it's all written with trans liberation in mind. And that feels really good. And it feels like a book I can give to someone and be like, this is something you could dig into. And all of the papers that are in there taught me a lot and I'm very proud of it.

[Lexa Rosiane]

Yeah, as you should be. I was much taken with Elizabeth's essay about H.D. and Breyer. It's cult psychoanalysis, mysticism and gender. And to learn not only that Freud was accepting of Breyer's identification as a boy, but that Freud encouraged him to become a psychoanalyst. I mean, there it is, getting to learn. This was just so kind of mind blowing. And also the weaving in of the occult interests that were flourishing at the time, along with the mythical and mystical Pallas Athena. It made for quite an exciting read. If there's anything more you can say on behalf of Elizabeth, again, I'm sorry that she couldn't be with us today, but this essay is quite incredible.

[Miriam Sauer]

It is a great essay. Well, yeah, she has this real obsession with HD and Briar and I think that is something only she can fully explain to us. I mean, I think HD is amazing and I really like her work. She wrote a beautiful book about Freud. She was actually in analysis with Freud for I think, a year. This is a really important text she's written because it uncovers historical traces of Freud. Welcoming and accepting a transmasc non binary person and not only using these pronouns, but also saying that Briar has a space and analysis. I mean, given how ferociously transphobic institutional psychoanalysis is, by and large, to me that's really significant. And it shows the free spirit of Freud, how open he was in many ways. Which doesn't mean he was always amazing, but that is at the heart of psychoanalysis, a real openness to the other and allow it to arrive on its own terms.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Yeah. And for psychoanalysis being for those who desire psychoanalysis, if you Want to become an analyst? He would help you become an analyst. And yeah, the debates about who is acceptable as a psychoanalyst came later, you know.

[Lexa Rosiane]

Yes, yes. But it, it was really wonderful to. I. I'm a fan of Freud, you know, he had his limitations and. But, you know, there were moments where he just really opened things up. Right. For all of us. I also love the. The inclusion of Schreiber, you know, which to me is kind of the beginning of the trans work in psychoanalysis and just this idea of that it being too close to home for Freud, that, you know, he grappled with his own Jewish femininity. This, this article. You can help me with the writer of this. I found the Layer. Wow. Anything to say about that?

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Yeah.

[Miriam Sauer]

Luis wrote a really beautiful philosophical paper in which she looks at the case of Shriva. It's been a while since I last read it, but I think it is one of the more theoretical interventions alongside Ista Hoefler's paper, which is quite similar. And I'm actually, I mean, not similar in terms of content, but how it proceeds. Very theoretical and drawing on French theory figures. And I'm very happy to also just mention here that in November, here in Berlin in Germany, we will have the first German language version of presenting this paper or this book alongside Esther and also Luz. It's here in Berlin at the ipu. So if someone's listening and they're interested, then they're very much invited and of course, and welcome to come. It's going to be in person and in German.

[Lexa Rosiane]

When are the dates for that again?

[Miriam Sauer]

Yes, thank you. I think I want to say it's the 5th of November. It's definitely in that week. It's a Tuesday. I think it should be the fifth or the fourth. And I think one can already find the necessary info on the website. International Psychoanalytic University it is called.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

And what a landmark event this is.

[Miriam Sauer]

Yeah, it's going to be really exciting because German psychoanalysis is not exactly welcoming, shall we say, of trans people in general in their institutions. This isn't true for everyone, but a lot. Easter just edited a volume in German where that's a really big subject. And I think there's only one trans person who trained an institute and he had to do it completely stealth. He could never come out to anyone. And he insists on his and his anonymity in that very book, which just shows how vulnerable one still is as a trans person in German psychoanalysis and certainly in the world.

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[Lexa Rosiane]

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[Lexa Rosiane]

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[Vanessa Sinclair]

One forgets mom 60th and never miss.

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A meme or milestone.

[Lexa Rosiane]

All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn [e-mail] yes, it's wondered if you had any thoughts about what was going on in the States right now. I mean in the way that Trump is coming into all of the universities. I think we're very blessed that the President said, yeah, go ahead and teach this course. You Know where many of the. I mean, they're not. I don't believe the Institute's receiving any federal funding, but, you know, there are a lot of the universities are pulling back some fears and so it's a very timely book, your book in this climate. Important.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Very timely. I feel like it couldn't have come out at a better time.

[Miriam Sauer]

Yeah, yeah, I agree. Vanessa, how do you. I mean, you've also taught in the States a bit. You know the states better than I do. How do you. What is your take on this way at the universities?

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Oh, it's abhorrent. I mean, they're all just. Yeah. Pulling their programming. And I have friends that work in hospital systems that are, you know, government based. And they said they can't even write in emails anything about trans or diversity. There's like certain, like, keywords that the algorithms are just, like, looking for and they'll, like, flag you and you'll get called in. It's like that level inclusion was one of them. God forbid that you are inclusive.

[Miriam Sauer]

I mean, I think my take is I can't fully speak to the American system so well, but I think if you want to destroy people, you first destroy it intellectually. You destroy the language, the words that they use, you stop calling them but what they prefer. So trans woman becomes trans. Identifying men in the kind of tour of parlance. And I think this is very much part of this, taking away the language so that people who still use this language either get ousted or seem insane. And so I think with the volume, of course, we don't do that, and we really allow the contributors to have a really wide range of expression so people can speak of. Transsexual, of course, is a contested reference sometimes, but people can use whatever term that they seem is right, of course, give reason, but nevertheless have that opportunity. And I think this reflects itself on the format as well. We have conversations, we have more artistic pieces, we have clinical papers, we have very theoretical stuff. It's such a great volume. I'm really proud to be part of it. Again, to repeat myself, and also that I got to work alongside Vanessa and Elizabeth.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Yeah, yeah. And that was one of the caveats we had going in was we wanted people to write what they wanted to write, like what they had to say and not to feel like. Yeah, over edited or silenced in any way.

[Lexa Rosiane]

Well, that is really wonderful. And I had questions about that. First of all, I want to point out that there's a wonderful map to the text in the front that summarizes each essay, and it Kind of helps you get your bearings. So who did the editors write that?

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Yeah, we wrote that.

[Lexa Rosiane]

That was very wonderful. And is there a way that you. Did you have in mind? You know, like, these are the writers that we want to ask to contribute, or did people approach you?

[Vanessa Sinclair]

As soon as Elizabeth came to me with the idea, I was like running. I was like, oh, I know who I want to invite. I had so many great people in mind.

[Miriam Sauer]

Yeah, I mean, I do remember we had a Google Doc with some names, but Vanessa knew so many amazing people. And at the time I didn't know the American context, for instance, so well, I knew about Esther, whose work I really loved, and a few others. I think Elizabeth mentioned Ken Corbett. Of course there's many others. Some, it's. But yeah, so we kind of asked people who we thought could really contribute. And I do think we gave preference to voices. Like trans voices. Definitely, yes.

[Lexa Rosiane]

Which is a really beautiful thing about it. And speaking of that, I did have a question. It's only a question, but just maybe the desire to have you speak to Cecilia Gentile, who the book is dedicated to. And I just wondered if. If either of you would like to speak on her life or to talk about the o' Brien's essay on trans childhoods and the family Romance. And it's here that Freud's family romances are examined to shed light on trans non human origin fantasies that often served as a transitional support when belonging was not easily found. I truly love that. It moved me very much and sort of unlocked memories of some of my own early fantasies. Childhood romance fantasies.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Yeah. Emmy's piece is really amazing. And actually it's part of the Rendering Unconscious center that I mentioned, center for Psychoanalysis. So far we've had two events and they've both been centered around this book. And I'm going to eventually, hopefully have an event with all the different contributors where each person presents their paper. And the first one was with Miriam, which she'll talk about her piece soon. Emptiness is the Cure of Psychoanalysis. And then the second event we had in August was with Emmy. And even when we did the book launch here in Sweden, we workshopped her piece because it's such a great piece. And Emmy worked for a long time at the New York City Trans Oral History Project. And so she had interviewed so many trans people throughout her work there over the years. And if you haven't seen this website, this resource is completely incredible. And it's so. I mean, for people in psychoanalysis, I assume you love to hear people's Stories, you know, And I do, and I love to read those stories. They're so moving. And listen to the stories. A lot of them are recorded. And she pulled from that for her essay, which is really, really fantastic. And wove in, like, Freud's series about the family romance. And it's such an interesting kind of connection to make. Cause Freud's is so like, oh, they wish they had this bourgeois whatever. And this is like, I must have a different family than these people.

[Lexa Rosiane]

It's a good from outer space.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Totally different ways, but it totally fits. Yeah, It's a really brilliant move, I think. Absolutely.

[Lexa Rosiane]

Yeah.

[Miriam Sauer]

That's a really beautiful paper by Emmy. And when we were in Malmo in Sweden earlier this year to present a book, we also had a seminar, like a workshop. And this was also around this article, which I think touches upon something very central, clear to psychoanalysis, the question of childhood, of infantile experiences, the experiences where one is very vulnerable because one is often at a loss for words. One is new to this world and doesn't really understand it, really. And I think this is about Cecilia Argentilli, who was an Argentinian American writer and activist who she had been living in New York for 20 years, certainly a long time, and she passed during, I think, as we were putting together the volume. And then we also dedicated it to her. I think she is a really extremely important figure in New York for trans people, providing. She provided all sorts of services. And she also wrote this book, Faltas, which takes you into her childhood experiences growing up in a small village. In the village, but like a small town in the 60s or 70s, I think, in Argentina. And it's written in letters that she writes to people who she grew up with, who, as the subtitle says, are not her rapists. And, yeah, I would say moved when I first read it, because it really describes the vulnerability and fragility of trans, in this case, trans, feminine childhood. How exposed one is, how one is looking for another that sees you, that protects you, holds you, and at the same time, this other person can often be very dangerous, can be violent, can abuse you. And so then what me also shows is how people, trans people, trans children, invent these really beautiful stories of feeling like aliens, of feeling like they don't fully belong, to make sense of where they're coming from and situate themselves. Yeah, that's my reading of this paper. Yeah.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

And imagine that there must be somewhere else they belong.

[Miriam Sauer]

That's right. There's this really great thing that they described. This is so funny to me. This is an example, actually where one of the trans people sometimes gets asked, are you a boy or a girl? And then the child says, well, I'm an alien. And I was sent here from outer space to evaluate how great you are at being humans. And you all fail miserably. And I think that's really beautiful.

[Lexa Rosiane]

It is really beautiful. And in a way, this is kind of a lead in Miriam to speak about your essay which explores the limitations placed on gender expression, the dark, spoiled past treatment of specifically transgender feminine. And you also discussed the frustration of limitations to the Freudian Klein interventions and point for the more healing and accepting future trans work through beyond and Laplanche beautiful and informative healing, showing us a way forward. Can you speak more on this?

[Miriam Sauer]

Yeah, yeah, gladly. Thank you. Basically, I look at a case of a trans woman. Simone, who is from. This is in Switzerland, I think. It's in Brussels. No, it's in Geneva, I think. And she works with this clinician, Danielle Cunardeau Zeclinian. And the treatment in comparison to what happened before is actually solid. That doesn't mean it's good. But given to what happened before that, I would say that someone like Kinondo represents a transition in how psychoanalysis works of trans people. Simon doesn't get openly or doesn't get as directly pathologized as often the case. Kynador doesn't just go out of her way and say this person is psychotic or whatever. She does work with her. She develops a kind of theory which revolves around Simone not being willing to really enter treatment and discuss her stories and over rely on surgical interventions. She suggests that Simone has these three identities which she doesn't really focus on fully reconcile. And I kind of reconstruct that and what I was trying. And I think this is a shift in the sense that it moves away from saying trans people are simply mad and they need to be healed to a kind of conditional acceptance where the implicit assumption is still, yeah, this is a quite sad thing to be trans and these people kind of mutilate their bodies. But given the alternative, which would be not to transition, which would be horrible, we have to kind of help them and accept them. So it's still kind of hateful and kind of pitying and not really nice, but it was a step up at the time. And so I look at this and I show some of the limitations of the Kleinian paradigm and. And then I make some suggestions with Bion and also La Planche. Laplanche was a central reference throughout the book. A lot of the people were engaging with it. Esther was Avi, who was in there with a conversation she did us with.

[Lexa Rosiane]

Grisan Butler speaks of Laplanche as well.

[Miriam Sauer]

Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. In the newest book, I think it definitely shows up. And yeah, Laplanche has a big moment right now, I think, and it is very exciting. I think he gives us language to talk about sexuality again. He moves away from Oedipus as a necessary reference. And yeah, with him, you can argue that transness is a kind of exciting and profound translation of gender, of enigmas, of gender you encounter in childhood, and is a construction based on these encounters. And I was going into a similar direction in this paper, although I also felt still frustrated that ultimately you still need these guys, Lablanche or beyond, to show that trans people deserve to be. And I was kind of bemoaning that at the end of it and wondering out loud if we need other references, references of our own that don't always go to the archive and then that's where it ends. I had a bit of a crisis there because I felt like I keep doing this, I keep maybe telling myself and others, trans is okay, because if you just read the white men the right way, you will see that you are okay. And so I was frustrated there at the end.

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[Lexa Rosiane]

But you know, you remind me of Freud because he said the same thing. Like, people will have to come after me to figure this out. I mean, I believe he said that several times.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Yeah. Monet can reference this book and reference you and the other people in this book. So it's a good start.

[Miriam Sauer]

I would pick one.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Laplanche is great. Yeah. And that he also helps move away from like, the focus on the phallus and the binary of like. Yeah. And gets things more like on a spectrum and fluid. Which is good. But. Yeah, no, that's a constant struggle. But I have friends. Like, I had someone on my podcast, Robert Bashara, who had translated the work of one of his favorite Egyptian philosophers, and he was talking about how it's so fresh frustrating. Yeah. That in order to even be able to converse with, you know, people that will be listening to my podcast, for example, like, they have to do the references of like Foucault and Lacan and Deleuze and like, you know, you can't just have philosophy without interacting with this kind of canon of philosophy. Right. How frustrating that is for, you know, people in the Global south and other parts of the world that have their own philosophy. They have to constantly reference this. It's kind of similar, you know.

[Lexa Rosiane]

Very true, very true. I also had a question about There are two entries that are different. They're not really essays. They're more like conversations. The one with Jack and Avge, the sissy Dance dollars.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Yeah. Griffin and Avi.

[Lexa Rosiane]

Griffin and Avi. And also the dragging. So I wondered if how that came about, because all of them, Avge and Griffin, Lara Sheehy, they all have written a lot. So it was really interesting and different that these were conversations. And I wondered about your choices there.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Absolutely. Avi and Griffin, this is a reprint of a piece that they had published in a journal. And, you know, again, I just asked them to contribute, if they would like to contribute to our book. And this was a recent piece and they had been considering it. And then I read it and I was like, yes, we can. We will do this. This is great. Because it's great in that it does kind of queer the book and that we don't have to always have these kinds of formal academic essays. We can learn in other ways through conversation and free association. Especially when you have such a great minds talking to one another and kind of fleshing things out like as they are having the conversation, which I think is really refreshing. All spurned from, you know, an encounter that Griffin had on the streets of New York. And with Lara and Jeffrey Hervey, it's the same. Jeffrey Hervey is one of Lara's grad students. And I invited her and she said, I have the perfect person that I want to invite. And Jeffrey's so fantastic. And they talked to their different drag friends and had a group conversation. And Jeffrey's point was that these people might not be steeped in psychoanalytic theory, but what they're speaking about is so psychoanalytic. It's just pouring out of these conversations and to show that. And that's been my experience too. Like I acting always like I don't really do talk so much. Like in academic settings, I'm always talking more like public facing, you know, and just talking to people that are interested in other things like art or magic or something, and then kind of weaving psychoanalytic theory in there. And like everybody, you know, understands it if you speak without jargon, because people all have minds and you can kind of see it playing out in your own life, you know. And that's really more interesting to me is to kind of access and have people be able to access the theory so that they. They can work with it in their own lives, other than just like talking about it in academia and going my feeling a little bit in circles with the same people all the time.

[Lexa Rosiane]

You know, you mentioned magic. So I. I understand that your husband is. Is he A knit. Would it be an initiate, a devotee of Anton lavey? I. I actually wanted to know more myself. Am a high priestess of the Wicca and very cool. I found magic all through this book.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

So yeah, queer people and magic, you know, kind of go together.

[Lexa Rosiane]

Kind of go together.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

It goes together a lot. And Carl met lavey and it's a really fun story because he was only like around 20 or 22 or something and he just made an album. Cause he was obsessed with, you know, from Sweden, this like American kind of B pop culture, you know, like B movies and Jayne Mansfield and lavey and everything that was happening back then. And he made an album with a song called Sweet Jane, which is about their relationship. When Anton lavey and Jane Miesler had a relationship and Carl was friends with Genesis Piorge, who's a great kind of trans icon. And Jen said to Carl, like, you should send it to lavey. Like I just was in San Francisco and I went to the Black House and he's super cool and I'm sure he would love that you made this album. So like 22 year old Carl was like, okay, I'll pay my little DIY record to Anton lavey. And then he got a letter back from him thanking him from the album and saying that Jane would have loved it and love that people are still like making things about her and making him like an honorary member of the Church of Satan. So that's how it happened. And then he went to San Francisco to visit and he got to meet Anger, Kenneth Anger and lavey and all these cool people that he's. Yeah, just stayed in touch with until they've passed away overtime.

[Lexa Rosiane]

How cool is that?

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Yeah, so that's why you just have to do things and things happen, you know.

[Lexa Rosiane]

Well, and that's what you're doing. You're doing things and things are happening. And I really want to thank you both, such a pleasure doing this interview. And I just to wrap it up. I want to know what you're up to now. What's next?

[Miriam Sauer]

Do you want to go first, Vanessa?

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Well, as I mentioned, it's the center really for me and for people that are interested in this book. It's going to be an ongoing kind of project. I already have recordings of Miriam's discussion of her chapter and me's discussion of her chapter up at the Rendering Unconscious center for Psychoanalysis substack. And then the next event's gonna be with Simone Atenea Medina Polo, who we didn't get to her chapter yet, but she Talks about Theresias as the patron saint of psychoanalysis and looks at that. I mean, there are also chapters.

[Lexa Rosiane]

The Tiresias was such a wonderful essay and what a perfect symbol for trans. He knew both sides. They knew both sides.

[Miriam Sauer]

That's right.

[Lexa Rosiane]

Now, is there a website or is there an email? Is there somehow that people can sign up to get information, you know, or emails about like, oh, well, this week we're going to interview, you know, this person on the podcast and next week will be that. Where can they find this?

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Yeah, this year I've moved everything to Substack, which is so easy to use and user friendly. I love it. So Rendering Unconscious podcast has its own subset called renderingunconscious.subsect.com and then I post an episode every week there with video or audio. If the guest prefers not to have video, then I just put audio up there. So that's happening every week. And I always let people know when I post the episode if there's any events coming up and things like that. And then the center that just started this summer has its own sub stack. It's RU center for Psychoanalysis.subsac.com and I've been posting there probably a little less than once a week, but just letting people know when events are coming. So this won't be out before tomorrow, but tomorrow starts the intro psychoanalysis class, but that's also ongoing and all the classes are going to be recorded and archived at this substack. Substack is really. Yeah, it's really wonderful to use. You can archive video there and audio files super easily. So even if you're Hearing this after September 13th when we have the first class, you can always join us for the next class, which will be October 18th, and just watch the video of the first one. It's not like I'm not going to test anyone or anything. It's just for your own formation and education because you have a desire to learn more about psychoanalysis. And that's where all the. All the queerness of psychoanalysis events are also archived on that sub seg as well. It's been fun.

[Lexa Rosiane]

A full plate for Vanessa.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Yeah, that's how we roll.

[Lexa Rosiane]

And Miriam.

[Miriam Sauer]

Yeah. What am I up to? Well, it's a mess up to start, so I'm getting ready to teach, I think in terms of projects in the off hours when I'm not working as an academic. I now finish my. I'm working on a second novel which I hope will come out. I can't confirm anything, but it's the second novel project, and basically the premise of it is that Germany has become this fascist, racist, transphobic, apartheid state and in like, 10 years from now. And it tells the story of a group of rebels fighting against the state, and it takes you through how Germany became this kind of state. So it's really a kind of. I mean, it's not super intellectual, but it is a reflection on, I think, what we are already going through right now, which is this rise of extreme oppression. And it was important for me to write this, to work through some of the violences that are ravaging our planet right now. So that's my current project. It's not super happy, I think, but that's something I was trying to understand on a narrative level.

[Lexa Rosiane]

Wow. It sounds really great, though. Sounds like an important read, a good read, a powerful read.

[Miriam Sauer]

I'll look at that.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Okay.

[Miriam Sauer]

It's going to be in German, so.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Yeah, you have to translate everything into English for us. Yeah.

[Lexa Rosiane]

Well, the publishers will take care of your publisher. The publisher will have an English translation. Then let's read it, and then.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

We'Ll do podcast interviews about them. Okay.

[Lexa Rosiane]

Any idea what Elizabeth is up to now?

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Teaching. Teaching, teaching.

[Miriam Sauer]

So. And always something about hd, but I think that's always there for her. It's a transcendental figure in her life.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Yeah. There's another point. I have a Rendering Unconscious book, and Elizabeth wrote a piece about HD for that book, too. That came out last year.

[Lexa Rosiane]

I love to read that. That came out last year.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Yeah. And, yeah, so, yeah, check that out, because she's. Yeah, she's a powerhouse.

[Lexa Rosiane]

Let's see the book. What's the title of the book?

[Vanessa Sinclair]

It's called Rendering Unconscious, and it originally was this book. I'll show you. It was originally a nice hardback edition. Beautiful.

[Lexa Rosiane]

Oh, my God.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Allison's artwork on the COVID The listeners.

[Lexa Rosiane]

Won'T be able to see this, but Vanessa's showing me such a beautiful hardcover book, and also behind her, she has a reading hundreds of books.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

It was beautiful. But this came out in 2019, basically because my husband Carl, he came to when he was visiting me in New York a lot before we were married. We actually went to talk by Steven Reisner right after the first election. And it was like, January of 2017. And Carl asked, like, we had this group dust in Bhagwan where we were, like, doing psychoanalytic events all the time in New York.

[Lexa Rosiane]

Did you start the Das Unbahagen?

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Yeah, me and Jameson Webster, Michael Garfinkel. And then there was, like, a Handful of people. At the first meeting initiated by Jameson, she wrote us all an email, being like, I know all of you. You're all amazing. Like, I wanted to see what happens if I put you all in the same room. And, yeah, that's what happened. Dassen Vahagen was born and still going strong. Yeah, it was really fun. And Carl was like, does your group have a journal or something? And I was like, no, but maybe they'd like one. And then, yeah, he started collecting papers for it. And then, instead of making, like, a journal, decided to make it into a book. So that's what this book, the Rendering Unconscious book, is. And that hardback sold out pretty fast because it was limited edition. So then I edited it into two smaller softback books that you can get on Amazon and everything with my artwork this time.

[Lexa Rosiane]

Wonderful. And just before we go, can you just explain to people what DAS mean? Because I think it ties in a bit with queerness of psychoanalysis.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Yeah. DAS is from civilization and its discontent. You can probably pronounce it better. Not probably. Definitely.

[Miriam Sauer]

I think you're really close. You're really close. Unberhagen. Yeah, I think it's pretty good. This is very good. Das Unberhagen.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Yeah. And, yeah, it was basically, we were discontent with the civilization of psychoanalytic institutes, and Jameson and Michael Garfinkel and I all kind of ran from New York psychoanalytic at the same time after Jameson and Michael wrote them wonderful letters, trying to get them to do better with their programming, etc. But it was kind of falling on deaf ears. So, yeah, we were like, well, you know, It's. It was 2012, and we have the Internet and email and we can just start putting on our own events rather than asking these kind of stuffy boards for permission to have the events we wanted to have, which, yeah, we know that they're not.

[Lexa Rosiane]

Unfortunately, there's still a lot to run from, but there's still stuff coming in to run to, like, the queerness of psychoanalysis, from Freud and Lacan to Laplanche and beyond. Miriam, Vanessa, thank you so much for this interview and all the.

[Miriam Sauer]

Thank you. Thank you for having us. It was lovely.

[Vanessa Sinclair]

Thank you.

[Miriam Sauer]

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[Miriam Sauer]

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