This thesis argues for the necessary consideration of trans eroticism in relation to medicine and the clinic, proposing an alternative to liberal and conservative attempts to either eradicate, sterilize, or vilify trans erotics entirely. The thesis centralizes erotics, and argues that transness must be conceptualized as desire. While transness is not dependent on the clinical establishment, this thesis attends to trans desire for medicine within and beyond the clinic.

Beginning with a historical analysis of nineteenth century sexology, I trace dominant clinical conceptualizations of gender and sexual "deviance," identifying how descriptions of non-normative gender desires became increasingly stripped of eroticism.

The second chapter closely analyzes the diaries of Lou Sullivan, whose documenting of his medical transition is recorded in expressly erotic terms. This chapter is therefore concerned with the clinic's status as "an object of desire" for the transsexual patient, and how the relationship of the two parties-clinic and trans patient-operates as an erotic.

The following and final chapter then considers the power of eroticism to take us beyond-beyond the clinic, beyond rigid regimes of gender, and beyond the limits of the self. In this chapter, I turn to non-clinically delineated trans medicine, drawing upon Sara Ahmed's theorization of object "misuse" and its possibilities. Ultimately, this thesis calls for a move beyond and, too, to regard "beyond" as an erotic site of potential and act of self determination too.