Contemporary understandings of gender form a vast and expanding field. Gender transformations, their convergences and polarizations, are inseparable from our personal and communal experiences. These experiences reshape social, cultural, institutional, and personal discourses and practices, while urging legal and medical systems to adapt to new societal landscapes and gender regimes.

The conference aims to open the floor for interdisciplinary exchange among scholars, raise political awareness among scientists and activists, and recognize artistic contributions to the evolving structure of the gender order, especially in terms of the recognition and inclusion of emerging gender identities. Special attention is given to the experiences of intersex persons, whose position within the existing gender order is particularly vulnerable.

Intersex individuals face social erasure and discrimination at all life stages, from birth to old age. Those born with noticeable intersex characteristics are often subjected to non-consensual medical treatments during infancy, early childhood, or adolescence in many medical systems. Despite (a) the seriousness of the often-permanent medical, psychological, and social consequences of these treatments and (b) existing international legal documents (such as European Parliament Resolutions, Council of Europe Resolutions, United Nations recommendations, etc.) advocating for the cessation of medical interventions on minors, such harmful, non-consensual, and unnecessary practices persist.