Dear all,


You are invited to attend the next philosophy seminar Tuesday 1 August 2023 
from 1:00 to 2:00pm.



Attend in-person at 25B Wally's Walk, Room B603.
Attend online: 
https://macquarie.zoom.us/j/83678569910?pwd=SG4wWHpQa0h1aEFEdzBRUUM0dXRKdz09
Password: seminar



Speaker: A/Prof Rach Cosker-Rowland


Title: Freedom of Gender
Abstract: Some states, such as Hungary, have banned trans people from changing 
their genders on their legal identification documents. Tennessee, Kansas, 
Montana, and North Dakota have recently enacted similar laws.  We use our legal 
documents to access many goods. Being unable to change one’s gender marker on 
one’s legal documents has been shown to significantly harm trans people. Do we 
have rights to change our gender on our legal identification documents? More 
generally, do we have rights to freedom of gender? This paper is in 4 parts. 
First, I sketch, and explain the plausibility of, the most popular account of 
the grounds of fundamental liberal rights to freedom of religious belief and 
expression, namely that these rights are grounded in more general right to live 
and act with integrity. Second, argue that our rights to live and act with 
integrity establish that trans people have rights to be able to change their 
gender markers on their legal documents so that they do not clash with their 
gender identities. In the third part of the paper, I draw out the implications 
of this argument for particular laws and policies. I argue that my argument 
establishes that: (i) wholesale bans on legal gender marker change such as 
Hungary, Tennessee, Kansas, Montana, and North Dakota’s are unjust; (ii) 
surgery requirements on gender marker change, which are implemented in 11 US 
states are unjust; (iii) the UK’s policy of requiring non-binary people to have 
binary gender markers on their passports is unjust; and (iv) there is a strong 
presumption in favour of policies, such as self-identification and gender 
decertification, that make it relatively easy for trans people to ensure that 
their gender markers do not clash with their gender identities. The final part 
of the paper looks beyond freedom of legal gender identification to freedom of 
gender more generally. It argues that in addition to basic liberal rights to 
live and act with integrity we have basic liberal rights to equal and inclusive 
treatment; these rights are also relevant to freedom of religion for they 
ground duties of state religious constraint. It then argues that our rights to 
equal and inclusive treatment and rights to live and act with integrity imply 
that we have rights to change our legal gender (and not just our gender 
markers), rights to have the gender that we are presented as on others’ legal 
documents not clash with our gender identities, rights to freedom of gender 
expression, and duties on state officials not to assert that, or adopt policies 
that imply that, trans people are not the genders that they take themselves to 
be.

For any queries relating to Macquarie Philosophy Work-in-Progress Seminars, 
please contact [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>.



Best regards,

Regina


Dr Regina Fabry (she/her)
ARC Discovery Early Career Research Awardee
Editor-in-Chief of Philosophy and the Mind 
Sciences<https://philosophymindscience.org> (Diamond Open Access)
Department of Philosophy
Level 7, 25B Wally’s Walk
Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia
E: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>  |  W: 
https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/persons/regina-fabry
[Macquarie University]<http://mq.edu.au>

I acknowledge that Macquarie University stands on the lands of the Dharug 
Nation. <https://www.mq.edu.au>
I respect Elders, past, present, and future and recognise the continuity of 
knowledge <https://www.mq.edu.au/>
that nurtures Country and community.<https://www.mq.edu.au/>
CRICOS Provider 00002J. ABN: 90 952 801 237.

From: Regina Fabry <[email protected]> On Behalf Of FoA Philosophy Seminars
Sent: Tuesday, July 4, 2023 8:33 AM
To: Regina Fabry <[email protected]>
Cc: Narcyz Ghinea <[email protected]>
Subject: Macquarie Philosophy WiP Seminar Tuesday 18 July 2023 – Dr Yarran 
Hominh


Dear all,



You are invited to attend the next philosophy seminar Tuesday 18 July 2023 from 
1:00 to 2:00pm.



Attend in-person at 25C Wally's Walk, Room C326.

Attend online: 
https://macquarie.zoom.us/j/85801112874?pwd=SjBqaEp0MnNJOThLRGdTbnRLRlR6QT09
Password: Seminar



Speaker: Dr Yarran Hominh (Bard College)


Title: Affective Misdirection and the Stability of Unfreedom


Abstract: Systems of unfreedom like the global system of racial capitalism are 
self-stabilising. They maintain themselves in the face of concerted action to 
transform them. How might we understand their capacity to do so? In this paper 
I examine one mechanism by which such systems stabilise themselves: what I call 
“affective misdirection”. Affects are powerful agential forces that potentially 
serve as a means of social transformation. They are both epistemically powerful 
(they help us understand our situation and what is going wrong) and practically 
powerful (they motivate action). Systems of unfreedom misdirect these 
potentially transformative energies in ways that maintain those systems. For 
example, anger that should be directed against capitalist institutions for 
economic ills is redirected, through racism and xenophobia, toward other groups 
within the system. And hope that might help us imagine freer and more just 
social forms is redirected under capitalism towards individual success. These 
misdirected affects both engender support for systems of unfreedom and disrupt 
potential sources of collective action. The larger methodological claim this 
paper advances is that systemic and structural forms of understanding should be 
combined with individual-level moral psychological analysis.


Speaker Bio: Yarran Hominh is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Bard 
College. His research sits at the intersection of social and political 
philosophy with moral psychology. He draws liberally from a variety of 
traditions of thought and practice, including the pragmatist tradition, the 
Black radical tradition, Buddhist modernism, and anti-racist, anti-colonial, 
and anti-imperial praxis from around the globe. He is working on a book 
entitled The Problem of Unfreedom and has papers recently published or 
forthcoming in Philosophers’ Imprint, The Pluralist, the Journal of Legal 
Philosophy, Comparative Philosophy and the Journal of Confucian Philosophy and 
Culture. He is also the Associate Editor of the APA Studies on Asian and Asian 
American Philosophers and Philosophies and is on the editorial board of The 
Philosopher.



 For any queries relating to Macquarie Philosophy work-in-progress seminars 
please contact <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>.



Best regards,

Regina

Dr Regina Fabry (she/her)
ARC Discovery Early Career Research Awardee
Editor-in-Chief of Philosophy and the Mind 
Sciences<https://philosophymindscience.org/> (Diamond Open Access)
Department of Philosophy
Level 7, 25B Wally’s Walk
Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia
E: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>  |  W: 
https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/persons/regina-fabry
[Macquarie University]<http://mq.edu.au/>

I acknowledge that Macquarie University stands on the lands of the Dharug 
Nation. <https://www.mq.edu.au/>
I respect Elders, past, present, and future and recognise the continuity of 
knowledge <https://www.mq.edu.au/>
that nurtures Country and community.<https://www.mq.edu.au/>
CRICOS Provider 00002J. ABN: 90 952 801 237.

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