“Trans* Citizenship: Contemporary Challenges in Europe

Room Henri Janne, Institut de Sociologie (15th floor), Building S
Avenue Jeanne, 44, 1050 Bruxelles

Roundtable with :
Zowie Davy (University of Lincoln)
Sally Hines (University of Newcastle)
Jan Simon Hutta (Universität Bayreuth)
Surya Monro (University of Huddersfield)
Judit Takács (MTA TK Szociológiai Intézet, Budapest)
Janneke van der Ros (Lillehammer University College),

Chair : Joz Motmans (Universiteit Antwerpen)

Abstract
This roundtable brings together established European scholars working in the trans* field to chart contemporary challenges to trans* citizenship across Europe today. It addresses citizenship and recognition, welfare regimes, and social movements.
This roundtable is held within the frame of the European Science Foundation exploratory workshop “Transgender and Political Science in Europe: a comparative workshop”, organized by Joz Motmans (Universiteit Antwerpen), Surya Monro (University of Huddersfield) and Janneke van der Ros (Lillehammer University College).

Biographies
Zowie Davy, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Health and Social Care, University of Lincoln. Davy’s work centers on quality improvements in healthcare. She currently works on projects looking at curricula content for medical health and social care students, gender based violence on campus, and critically examining sexological expertise regarding transgender bodily aesthetics and embodiment. Zowie has published a number of articles about transgender embodiment and was the co-editor of Bound and Unbound: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Genders and Sexualities (Cambridge Scholars Press). Another book, Recognizing Transsexuals: Personal, Political and Medicolegal Embodiment, explores how the bodies of transpeople are figured and reconfigured in socio, politico and medico-legal contexts. The book was awarded the British Sociological Association’s Philip Abrams’ memorial prize 2012.

Sally Hines is Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies (CIGS), and Associate Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds. Her books include: TransForming Gender: Transgender Practices of Identity, Intimacy and Care (Policy Press, 2007); Gender Diversity, Recognition
and Citizenship: Towards a Politics of Difference’(Palgrave MacMillan, 2013), Transgender Identities: Towards a Social Analysis of Gender Diversity (ed. with Tam Sanger, Routledge, 2009); Theorizing Intersectionality and Sexuality (ed. with Yvette Taylor and Mark Casey,
Palgrave MacMillan, 2011), Sexualities: Past Reflections, Future Directions (ed. with Yvette Taylor Palgrave MacMillan, 2012). She has co-edited special journal editions of Sociology (Special Issue on Sexualities) and Gender, Place and Culture (Special Issue on Transgender), and has published in a wide range of journals including Sociology, Gender, Place and Culture, Sociological Research Online.
Critical Social Policy; Journal of Gender Studies. Sally has recently completed an ESRC funded knowledge exchange grant ‘Recognising Diversity?: Equalities in Principle and Practice’ (2012-2013, which drew on her previous ESRC funded project ‘Gender Diversity, Recognition and Citizenship’ (2008-2010).

Jan Simon Hutta is lecturer at the University of Bayreuth, working in the Cultural Geography Research Group. He has conducted research in Brazil and Germany on sexual and transgender politics, urban governmentality, and relations of affect, subjectivity and space. He received his PhD from The Open University in Milton Keynes, UK. He has published book chapters and journal articles in Environment and Planning D, GJSS and Geography Compass and is currently working on a monograph on affective enactments of citizenship in Brazil. Between 2010 and 2012, he worked for the international research project ‘Transrespect versus Transphobia Worldwide’ of the NGO Transgender Europe. He is committee member of the Space, Sexualities and Queer Research Group (SSQRG) of the Royal Geographical Society and founding editor of the German-language open access journal on critical urban research ‘sub\urban – Zeitschrift für kritische Stadtforschung’.

Surya Monro a Reader in Sociology and Social Policy based at the University of Hudderfield, UK. Surya has published substantially in the fields of gender and sexuality, notably on the topic of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equalities. She is the author of Gender Politics: Citizenship, Activism, and Sexual Diversity (Pluto Press 2005) and co-author (with Diane Richardson) of Sexuality, Equality and Diversity (Palgrave MacMillan, 2012).

Joz Motmans, PhD, is coordinator of the LGBT research unit of the Policy Research Centre on Equality Policies at the University of Antwerp. He's also the coordinator of the Flemish “Transgender Infopunt” (www.transinfo.be), a central information & knowledge centre in Flanders hosted at the University Hospital of Ghent. As a researcher, Joz has published (inter)nationally on the living conditions of trans people, their experiences with harassment, discrimination and violence, their quality of life, and on transphobia and trans activism. www.ua.ac.be/joz.motmans

Judit Takács graduated in History, Hungarian Language and Literature and Cultural Anthropology (ELTE, Budapest), and completed an MA in Social Sciences at the University of Amsterdam. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and works as a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Sociology, CSS, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, responsible for leading research teams and conducting independent research on social exclusion/inclusion of LGBTQ people, HIV/AIDS prevention, and social history of homosexuality as well as family practices, work-life balance issues and childlessness. Her most recent publications include an article on How to Measure Homophobia in an International Comparison? A list of her publications can be found at http://www.policy.hu/takacs/publications.php.