Constantine Sandis and Sophie Grace Chappell talk to Diarmaid MacCulloch

Philosopher, theatre director, and playwright Professor Constantine Sandis and philosopher, poet, and mountaineer Professor Sophie Grace Chappell discuss the realities of being transgender and societal understanding of gender concepts.

In Real Gender: A Cis Defence of Trans Realities, Sandis and his co-author Danièle Moyal Sharrock argue for a broader understanding of gender concepts. They recognise the undeniable social aspects of gender while also recognising that gender cannot be completely divorced from our biological underpinnings. They argue that gender self-identification does not require denial of biology or sex and that what is needed is a more liberal understanding of gender concepts. The book is grounded in trans theory and contains many trans voices. Sandis has authored numerous books and has taught philosophy at several universities. He is presently visiting professor of philosophy at the University of Hertfordshire.

Chappell is author of numerous books including Trans Figured: On Being a Transgender Person in a Cisgender World. She is a professor of philosophy at the Open University, a translator of Homer, Dante, and Plato, a published poet, and a mountaineer with over 50 first winter ascents in Scotland to her name. She is also a trans woman, and in Trans Figured she tells how she was only four and three-quarters years old when she asked her mother if she could go to school as a girl rather than a boy. Chappell combines memoir, philosophical reflection, science fiction writing and poetry to explain what it is really like to be transgender. And she asks what society can do better to accept the reality of trans lives and to welcome and include trans adults, children, and families.

The event will be chaired by Professor Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch, a historian, broadcaster, and author specialising in the history of Christianity. Although he was ordained a deacon in the Church of England, he declined ordination to the priesthood because of the church’s attitude to homosexuality and his determination to be truthful about being gay. His most recent book is Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity.