On the + of LGBTQ+: The Adolescent Developmental Task Through the Prism of Sexual Identity, Gender, Sex, and Sexuality

This paper theorizes the "+" of LGBTQ+ not just as a place holder for sexual identities that do not fit into the five categories, but as an enigmatic call for the generation of new sexual identities. Conjugating Jean Laplanche's concept of the "sexuel" with Harry Stack Sullivan's concept of chumship, the thesis is that chumship provides the relational foundations for the undoing of the repression of gender by sex and for the translation of the "sexuel" residue into a sexual identity. This "translation," facilitated by the tumultuousness of adolescence, is built on the framework of chumship, which restructures the asymmetrical relations and the primacy of the other of childhood. The clinical situation is then viewed as a movement between the asymmetrical parent/child relation (and the analysis of the implantation of enigmatic messages) and the symmetrical relationship of chumship (and the collaborative construction of meaning).