PANELISTS

Sophie Grace Chappell

Professor of Philosophy at the Open University, UK, and Executive Editor of The Philosophical Quarterly. Her most recent books are Epiphanies (OUP 2022), Songs For Winter Rain: Collected Poems (Ellipsis 2024), Trans Figured (Polity 2024), and A Philosopher Looks At Friendship (CUP 2024).

Abstract: Just Like a Woman

It seems to be widely supposed that the shock-jock question “What is a woman?” is an unanswerable gotcha for trans people or trans allies. Here I answer the question (my answer is “an adult human female”) and explain why this isn’t a transphobic answer, and why, actually, the question is a gotcha for the other side—for trans exclusionaries. I also answer the question “Can a woman have a penis?” My answer is “Yes, and whether you are trans inclusionary or trans exclusionary, it’s still yes”.

Alyosxa Tudor

Reader (Associate Professor) in Gender Studies, University of London, and the Chair of the Department of Gender Studies at SOAS. Their main research interest lies in analysing (knowledge productions on) migrations, diasporas and borders in relation to critiques of Eurocentrism and to processes of gendering and racialisation. Tudor’s book The Endurance of the Mare on histories of resilience and (sexual and state) violence in the Eastern borderlands of gender and Europe is forthcoming with Cornell UP.

Abstract: Organized transphobia in right-wing-times

While anti-gender mobilizations most often act in the name of conservative, right-wing or fascist politics, ‘gender crit’ articulations are more politically ambiguous. This is particularly apparent when considering anti-trans/ arguments within feminism, where left and right arguments coalesce around claims to protect women and children from danger. While asking broader questions on leftist/liberal complicity in rising fascism, I caution against blanketly understanding all ‘gender crits’ as fascists. Rather, I am interested in what ‘gender crit’ thought, especially on the left, does for fascism. I argue that ‘gender critical’ left positions offer a key case study that helps us theorize the role of the left and of Liberalism in ‘right-wing times’ more generally. A ‘right-wing times’ framework is useful because it redirects attention to the discursive boundaries of the debate rather than the positionality of the speakers involved. Both in left/liberal and right-wing iterations, anti-gender and anti-trans politics frequently overlap with anti-immigration and anti-Palestine rhetoric and attacks on fields of knowledge like critical race theory and intersectionality. 

Jeta Mulaj (Toronto Metropolitan University) will moderate the event.