A session reflecting on the tensions emerging from a debate about proposed changes to the legal gender recognition process will be co-hosted by Kent Law School’s Centre for Law, Gender and Sexuality (CLGS) on Saturday 24 November.

Beyond the Gender Agenda will be co-hosted jointly with the Future of Legal Gender (FLaG) project from 14.00 to 16.00 in the CLGS Common Room in Eliot College on Kent’s Canterbury campus. The session takes place within the context of conflict over the meaning and value of gender and in the wake of the Government’s consultation process on how best to reform the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) 2004.

FLaG’s Principal Investigator, Professor Davina Cooper (King’s College London) and Kent Law School Lecturer Dr Flora Renz, a Co-Investigator for FLaG, will begin the session with a short introduction to the GRA consultation and the FLaG project. They will also address key legal issues and wider gender politics. This will be followed by a moderated discussion with all attendees.

The session is free to attend, but anyone interested in coming is asked to register via Eventbrite.

FLaG is a three-year project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, that aims to critically explore different ways of reforming legal gender. In addition to Dr Renz, Co-Investigators include Kent Law School Professor Emily Grabham and Professor Elizabeth Peel (Loughborough University).

As well as exploring whether people should have a female/male legal status assigned at birth, FLaG also seeks to determine how the way that female/male and other gender categories used in UK law could be changed. People interested in expressing their views are invited to contribute to a FLaG project survey on ‘Attitudes to Gender’.