Sex, gender and sex differences: How can we make the world a more inclusive and equal place?

She will begin by describing her early work about transgender, before moving through her research about LGBT issues, including collaborations with colleagues from the Global South. She will then discuss patterns of bisexual erasure revealed by her “reading from the margins”. This will be followed by an overview of her international collaborative work about the issues facing intersex people and those with variations of sex characteristics.

Each of these areas is cross-cut by topical debates about identity, health, citizenship, feminisms, intersectionality and postcoloniality. Surya will use the last part of her lecture to explore what role each of us plays in making the world a more inclusive and equal place. Epistemic justice is a pressing issue within academia – with important implications beyond the fields that Surya focuses on – and academic knowledge can be a force for good within the wider world.

Surya Monro is an expert in the areas of gender, sexuality and variations of sex characteristics – notably LGBT and Intersex issues.

She is the author of several published works including Gender Politics: Citizenship, Activism, and Sexual Diversity; Sexuality, Equality and Diversity (co-author); Bisexuality; Intersex, Variations of Sex Characteristics and DSD: The Need for Change (co-author); Queer in Africa (co-editor) and Intersex, Variations of Sex Characteristics and DSD/dsd: A Critical Introduction (lead author, forthcoming 2024).

She leads the Intersex: New Interdisciplinary Approaches project (INIA) in collaboration with intersex activists and academics. Her teaching covers topics such as inequalities and social theory, and she has supervised a range of PhD students, in fields spanning sexuality, gender and citizenship.