Nonbinary Concept of Gender and Sex

Please join us at the next meeting of the “Gender and Sexuality in Polish sciences and social practice” seminar. Our guest will be RENATA ZIEMIŃSKA, professor at the Department of Philosophy and Cognitive Science, University of Szczecin. Professor Ziemińska will give a talk entitled: NONBINARY CONCEPT OF GENDER AND SEX.

The seminar is open to public.

ABSTRACT: I argue against the binary female/male divide referring to the data about people with nonbinary gender identities and people with biological intersex traits. The groups of people are excluded from the public concept of sex/gender and suffer epistemic injustice. That is why I try to build a nonbinary multilayered model of sex and gender characteristics.
The result I present here is a conceptual model that comprises nine basic layers divided into the following three categories/spectra: femaleness, the nonbinary, and maleness. Five sex layers (chromosomes, gonads, internal sex organs, external genitals, and secondary sex characteristics) and four gender layers (gender identity, legal gender, gender external presentation, and gender pronouns) are included. The nonbinary category, which generally refers to the gender layers, is expanded here to the sex layers and used theoretically to all sex/gender layers.
The model provides a conceptual space to theoretically describe persons with variations in sex characteristics or diverse gender identities, including intersex, trans, and nonbinary people. It seems to be important for feminist theory, masculinity studies, and sex/gender studies.

RENATA ZIEMIŃSKA, professor at the Department of Philosophy and Cognitive Science, University of Szczecin, the editor-in-chief of the philosophical quarterly “Analiza i Egzystencja”. Recently she published “The History of Skepticism. In Search of Consistency” (Frnakfurt am Main: Peter Lang 2017) and “Niebinarne i wielowarstwowe pojęcie płci” [A nonbinary and multilayered conceptualization of sex/gender] (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN 2018). She is interested in the phenomenon of epistemic injustice in conceptual systems and knowledge production.

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