Moving Boundaries

Many of us have had the experience of standing in front of the window of a hospital's newborn nursery, a partition that simultaneously protects and allows visitors to gaze at the variety of human life displayed within. The tiny creatures, hatted in little ski caps, are only hours to days old, yet how distinct they are from one another as they sleep, squirm, smile, grimace, and cry. It's fascinating in those early weeks, especially if the infant is a familial one, to watch the play of expressions that crosses its face and then shifts, calling to mind now the contemplative gaze of one relative and then the loopy smile of another—features that over time will coalesce into a more stable facial configuration. It's as though, for a brief while, the newborn phenotype reflects the multiplicity of its genetic constituents that will shortly disappear from view and go underground.

The first psychoanalyst to single out and explore the process of identity formation was Erik Erikson, who classified the stages and challenges of identity development and highlighted the “identity crisis.” In his view, the formation of both personal and group identity—national, racial, ethnic, and religious, among others—is shaped equally by the elements that are allowed in and incorporated and those that are left out and expelled. Disidentification is the term coined by the psychoanalyst Ralph Greenson to depict the process in which the little boy turns away from maternal identification in the course

of his masculine gender identity consolidation. But as we all know, if the unconscious is a bottomless reservoir and in line with Erikson's intimation, what becomes of disavowed and discarded identifications?

Identity establishment and alignment are keynotes of our cultural discourse, signaling cohesiveness and allegiance as well as diversity and fluidity. The LGBTQ umbrella represents members of the population who identify neither with the majority sexual orientation nor with traditional gender categor