Sex Therapist targets Oxford
"Everyone is in between" declares psychotherapist Tracie O'Keefe, "It is not a bipolar system." Clinical hypnotherapist, counsellor, Patron of the Transgender Film Festival, psychotherapist, author and lecturer rolled into one, Tracy is to give an inaugural open lecture next week, entitled 'Sex, Gender and Sexuality: 21st Century Transformations.'
Arriving on a wave of publicity following the publication of her third book, Doctor O'Keefe's international lecture tour focuses on sexual diversity and is permeated with interviews with transsexuals and lesbians, stories and her own clinical papers. Her unique lecture style is needed she declares, in a city that is, "way behind the times. Students must help staff to move into the 21st Century." The climax of the lecture revolves around a 47-point teaching model of various kinds of physical gender that she believes exist, a marked increase on Freud's model of three. As a lifelong transsexual, she enforces the idea that a sex change cannot exist, replaced instead by 'cosmetic aligning.' Penetrated with findings from a diverse range of researchers, she veers away from traditional concepts, complaining "the English don't read outside their own island."
Coming to a city of students that have recently been unearthed as the most sexually frustrated in the country, Doctor O'Keefe is setting herself a challenge. "I shall be introducing many kinds of identity in each person that they haven't come into contact before." It's back to the classroom for sex-starved students. Tracy's lecture is at 7.00pm on October 25th at the Medical School, Lecture Theatre 1 at the Academic Centre, John Radcliffe Hospital.
7th Oct 1999