A talk with Dr. Ido Katri, Institute for Technoscience & Society, York University, Canada

Over the past decade, gender self-determination has been celebrated as a transformative legal reform: a move away from medical and juridical gatekeeping toward recognition grounded in autonomy and dignity. In a growing number of jurisdictions, however, these frameworks are being narrowed, stalled, or politically reframed. What once appeared as settled progress now feels strikingly fragile.

This talk traces the arc of gender self-determination from legislative breakthrough to contested terrain. It examines how legal reforms travel through administrative systems, family law, and constitutional discourse — and how they become sites of political struggle. By situating gender recognition within broader debates about sovereignty, populism, and the regulation of “sex,” the lecture explores why reforms built on recognition can prove reversible, and what their instability reveals about the structure of contemporary rights regimes.

Rather than telling a story of simple advancement or decline, the talk invites a deeper reckoning with the conditions that make legal transformation possible — and precarious.