First-year Assistant Professor Ophelia Vedder has published a new article in the journal, Ethics. The article, titled, "Getting Free from Gender: The Case Against Compulsory Sex-Marking," argues for the "abolition of a core component of our hegemonic gender regime: compulsory sex-marking." 

In the article, Vedder looks at the issues surrounding compulsory sex-marking and gender roles, and how they threaten freedom and autonomy for all people. Vedder then looks at what eliminating compulsory sex-marking could be and the benefits provided that are compatible with "a trans-liberatory political project."

Read the abstract below and the entire article on the Ethics website: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/739662

Abstract

This article argues for the abolition of a core component of our hegemonic gender regime: compulsory sex-marking. Compulsory sex-marking refers to the social demand that individuals advertise, through conventional means, a binary sex status connected to a socially legible gender role. This linchpin of our hegemonic gender regime poses an unjustifiable threat to our autonomy. In what follows, I not only offer a novel account as to why we should embrace a critical component of gender abolition but also argue that dismantling a core feature of our hegemonic gender regime is compatible with a trans-liberatory political project.