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Challenging the gender binary: Empirically unravelling the limitation of the male-female categories

Project description

Challenging the binary framework

The objective of the EU-funded BeyondGenderBinary project is to free science and society from the belief that the division into female and male extends into all aspects of human existence. Moreover, it aims to restrict the use of these categories to the areas in which they have been shown to play a key role, such as reproductive medicine. BeyondGenderBinary will collect data on four psychological components of gender (psychological characteristics, gender identity, attitudes towards the sexed body, sexuality) to discover how they are best described when freed from the binary framework. The project will map variability in presumably "typical" populations, defy pathologisation of non-conformity and challenge the categorisation of humans into men and women and the gendered social order this categorisation helps maintain.

Objective

The ultimate goal of this project is to free science and society from the unfounded dogma of sex categories as all-encompassing dichotomies, and to promote a world in which the male-female categories are restricted to the domains in which they have been shown to play a central role (e.g. reproductive medicine), rather than a-priori assumed to do so (e.g. mind and brain). According to the modern normative view of sex and gender (the gender binary), each of two biological sexes (male/female) is associated with a typical, coherent gender identity (man/woman), sexual attraction towards the other sex, a set of psychological and behavioral characteristics (masculinity/femininity), and the neural substrates on which these rely (male/female brains). In the past decade I led a scientific research project challenging the binary view of human brains. Using diverse analytical tools, we discovered that brains are not female or male but rather comprised of unique mosaics of female-typical and male-typical features. On the basis of the mosaic framework, the multi-level analysis tools we developed, and my expertise in psychology, the proposed research project will use self-reports and indirect measures to collect rich data from large and diverse samples on the four psychological components of the gender binary (psychological characteristics, gender identity, attitudes towards the sexed body, and sexuality) and their interrelations to discover how they are best described when freed from the dogmatic binary framework. Focusing also on the experiences of presumably typical populations (i.e. cisgender, heterosexual individuals) we will map variability in domains assumed to be homogenous and advance thinking about nonconformity as a matter of diversity rather than pathology. More broadly, the proposed research project will undermine the ancient categorization of humans into men and women and the unjust gendered social order this categorization helps maintain.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Keywords

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2021-ADG

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Host institution

TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 2 446 001,00
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 2 446 001,00

Beneficiaries (1)

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