Definition of "transfixer"

When I was coming of age in the '60s, I squirmed and squiggled not to be pinned down by that great transfixer "the homosexual" which American psychiatry had made into such a weighty implement. To be stuck by that label, it seemed to me, would mean having to live my life as a case history in a medical text book.

1980 August 30, Tim Walton, “Queer Rights Strategy Argued in Quirky Dictionary”, in Gay Community News, volume 8, number 6, page 9