2026
A few things are already planned… But we are busy making plans : ) More information coming up soon!
March 2026
Trans Research Residency with Iwo Nord (DIS Stockholm/Södertörn University), Lotti O. Harju (University of Helsinki) and Flora Löffelmann (University of Vienna).
2025
Higher Seminar | Transgender Studies Research Platform | Karlstad University | Date and Time: 17 December, 10.30 – 12.00
Annette Brömdal (University of Southern Queensland, Australia)
Perspectives on Successful Ageing among Indigenous, BIPOC and White Australian Trans, Non-Binary and LGBTQ+ People
Drawing on contemporary understandings of successful ageing as a multidimensional concept, Netta Brömdal will present an exploratory study aimed to address a critical gap in the literature by examining the unique perceptions, expectations, and hopes of trans, non-binary and overall LGBT+ people regarding successful ageing. Given the historical and ongoing discrimination faced by these communities, understanding perceptions of successful ageing is vital. Concepts of successful ageing spanned physical, mental, and emotional health and social connections. These insights provide opportunities for tailoring the enhancement and provision of services to better address the expectations and hopes of LGBT, and the indigenous sistergirl and brotherboy people ageing in Australia.
Prof Annette Brömdal (Netta/they/them), Associate Professor, is based at UniSQ, Australia and leads the Sexuality and Gender Research Program Team, focusing on health promotion, bodies, gender, and sexuality through co-designed research with indigenous LGBTQIA+ Sistergirl and Brotherboy communities. They have had their work cited by the UN report “Mapping of Good Practices for the Management of Transgender Prisoners” (2020), the recent World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s “Standards of Care” Version 8 (SOC-8; 2022) and are an Editorial Board member for the International Journal of Transgender Health.
Online Higher Seminar | Transgender Studies Research Platform | Karlstad University | Date: 15 December, 2025 | Time: 15.15 – 16.45 CET
Sofia Aboim (University of Lisbon, Portugal)
The Return of the Binary: Gender Fields and the Far-Right Politics of Scapegoating
In recent years, gender has become a key battlefield in the rise of far-right populism worldwide, with reactionary movements transforming it into a symbolic fault line through which broader crises of democracy, belonging and social order are fought. Drawing on the framework developed in Gender Fields: The Social Organisation of Gender Identity (Routledge, 2025), this lecture explores how the far right has reconfigured the field of gender into a site of moral panic, scapegoating and renewed binary thinking.
While past decades have seen an unprecedented expansion of trans visibility and gender self-determination, a counter-movement is now emerging that seeks to restore ontological hierarchies and reimpose rigid boundaries of sex and identity. Through examples from Europe and beyond, this talk analyses how gender is weaponised to mobilise resentment, discipline diversity and normalise inequality. Rather than merely signalling regression, the far right’s mobilisation of gender reveals a profound transformation within the field itself, where struggles over recognition, embodiment, and freedom are defining the contours of contemporary democracy and its discontents.
Prof. Sofia Aboim is Research Professor of Sociology at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon. Having led an ERC-funded Consolidator Grant, her work focuses on the intersection of gender, sexuality, race and power. Her current research, which draws on fieldwork in Mozambique and Cape Verde, examines racialised masculinities, mobilities, and racial capitalism in postcolonial African contexts within the historical borders of the former Portuguese Empire. She is also working on two projects: Colonial Senses, which considers colonialism a sensory regime shaping perception and inequality, and Labouring Bodies, which examines trans sex work, materiality, and embodied labour through comparative ethnographies of trans migrant sex workers from Latin America and Southeast Asia.
Higher Seminar | Centre for Gender Studies | Karlstad University | Date and time: June 3, 13.30 – 15.00 CET, 2025
Ruth Pearce (University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK)
Trans Pregnancy and the Future of Gender
The figure of the “pregnant man” has been the subject of extensive hyperbole and moral panic. These portrayals contrast greatly with the grounded materiality of trans parents’ lives. The reality is that many trans men and non-binary people are born with a uterus and ovaries. They are therefore potentially capable of conceiving, carrying, and giving birth to a child.
This talk will look broadly at the experiences, needs, and perspectives of trans birth parents from a trans feminist perspective. It will draw on findings from across two studies which together engaged with over a hundred individuals: the international, qualitative Trans Pregnancy project (2017-2021), and the mixed-methods English research project Improving Trans Experiences of Maternity Services (2020-2021). Key topics will include pathways to conception, the role of perinatal services, the impact of hormone use, pregnancy loss, gender-based violence, and fatness.
With more trans people giving birth every year, this talk will emphasise the importance of centring lived experience rather than sensationalism. In contrast to commentaries that seek to pit the needs of women and trans people against one another, it will argue for collaboration across shared interests, transforming both social discourse and service provision for all mothers, all fathers, all parents.
Dr Ruth Pearce is Lecturer in Community Development at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, and Senior Fellow at the Center for Applied Transgender Studies in Chicago, USA. Her research explores themes of inequality, marginalisation, power, and transformative political struggle from a trans feminist perspective. She is the author of Understanding Trans Health (Policy Press, 2018), has co-edited the books The Emergence of Trans (Routledge, 2019) and TERF Wars (Sage, 2020), and is currently co-editor of the Community Development Journal. Ruth also plays bass guitar in the noise-pop band wormboys, and blogs athttp://ruthpearce.net.