Professor Surya Monro presents latest research in Belgium
Fri, 01 May 2015 12:15:00 BST
Professor Surya Monro, Associate Director of Centre for Research in the Social Sciences (CRISS) provided two presentations in Belgium in February 2015. The first, an invited lecture at the prestigious Université libre de Bruxelles, addressed the ways in which bisexuality has been excluded from sexuality and gender studies, and the issues that bisexual inclusion raises for both politics and academia.
The second presentation took place at the international conference ‘Equal is Not Enough’, held at the University of Antwerp. The presentation examined the shift from a uniformly binary sex/gender system to one in which there is some space for transgender identities that are neither male nor female, or gender fluid, or androgynous, or multiply-sexed and gendered. Professor Monro explored the reasons for the disjunction between individualised expressions of gender queerness or non-binarism, and the social and political structures that underpin central social institutions including those of employment, education, and healthcare. The challenges that transgender raises in terms of law, language and bureaucracy have not been fully addressed. Professor Monro used institutionalist theory to explain the reasons why gender diversity is not fully reflected in the UK law, bureaucracy and policies.
