The iRTG of the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1665 “Sexdiversity” would like to invite you to the upcoming public lecture of the Distinguished Lecture Series (DLS) on Thursday, 12. December 2024, at 4 p.m. (until 6 p.m.).
Professor Staffan Müller-Wille (Cambridge) will give a talk on
Science, technology and medicine are often portrayed as driving forces in the formulation and reinforcement of sex binaries and gender stereotypes based on these. At the same time, recent decades have seen a burgeoning literature on how life scientists, in the past and in the present, have been revealing queer patterns in the formation and variation of sex across all life forms. In this talk, I am going to review the history of understandings of sex and gender from antiquity to the mid-twentieth century. My argument will be that sex, and consequently gender, were always held as fluid categories allowing for endless variations and permutations. It is precisely because of that, however, that they always have been subject to normalizing discourses. Sex variation had to be reigned in, paradoxically, precisely because it seemed normal but not in line with prevailing or aspired norms.
Staffan Müller-Wille is Professor in History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences at the University of Cambridge and holds an Honorary Chair at the University of Lübeck. His research covers the history of the life sciences from the early modern period to the early twentieth century, with a focus on the history of natural history, anthropology, and genetics. Among his publications is a book co-authored with Hans-Jörg Rheinberger on The Cultural History of Heredity(2012) and further co-edited collections on Human Heredity in the Twentieth Century (2013), Heredity Explored: Between Public Domain and Experimental Science, 1850–1930 (2016), The Gene in the Postgenomic Era, co-authored with Hans-Jörg Rheinberger (2017), In the Shadow of the Tree: The Diagrammatics of Relatedness in Genealogy, Anthropology, and Genetics as Epistemic, Cultural, and Political Practice, co–authored with Marianne Sommer, Caroline Arni and Simon Teuscher (2024).
The DLS will take place in the IMGWF Lecture Hall Königstr. 42, 23552 Lübeck and online as a Webinar via Webex. More information here.
Die vollständige Aufzeichnung des Vortrags von Stefan Hirschauer, der am 15. Januar 2026 im Rahmen der Vortragsreihe „Distinguished Lecturer Series“ des iRTG des Sonderforschungsbereichs 1665 „Sexdiversity“ gehalten wurde, ist nun online verfügbar.
We present a video statement of María José Martínez Patiño (former elite athlete, now professor at the University of Vigo, Spain), as shown at the event “Zwi:schen:räume – Gender Diversity in Science and Sport” on December 3, 2025, at Haus Eden in Lübeck. We also provide her full, unabridged statement, which has been written for the video and translated from Spanish.
We present a video statement of María José Martínez Patiño (former elite athlete, now professor at the University of Vigo, Spain), as shown at the event “Zwi:schen:räume – Gender Diversity in Science and Sport” on December 3, 2025, at Haus Eden in Lübeck. We also provide her full, unabridged statement, which has been written for the video and translated from Spanish.
María José Martínez Patiño was a hurdler in the Spanish elite team. She was dismissed after a competition that would have set her up for participation at the 1988 Summer Olympic games in Seoul – for failing a sex test. She is internationally known for her open and courageous advocacy against the injustices of sex verification procedures in elite sports.
Im Oktober 2025 diskutierten mehr als 20 Jurist*innen aus aller Welt auf einer rechtsvergleichenden Tagung, die für den SFB „Sexdiversity“ an der Europa-Universität Flensburg organisiert wurde, wie unterschiedliche Rechtsordnungen genderdiverse Menschen anerkennen – darunter inter*, trans* und nichtbinäre Personen. Besonders deutlich wurde, dass bei den Kämpfen um Anerkennung die obersten Gerichtshöfe der verschiedenen Länder und auch die internationalen Menschenrechtssysteme eine zentrale Rolle spielen.
Seit September 2025 sorgt die Einführung von genetischen Geschlechtstest durch den internationalen Leichtathletikverband World Athletics für erheblichen Wirbel. Bei Wettbewerben wie der WM in Tokio müssen Athlet*innen, die in der Kategorie „Frauen“ antreten wollen, nachweisen, dass sie das sogenannte SRY-Gen nicht besitzen. Das SRY-Gen sitzt auf dem Y-Chromosom und setzt im Regelfall eine männliche Geschlechtsentwicklung in Gang. Wenn ein*e Athlet*in das SRY-Gen hat, führt es zum Ausschluss aus Frauenwettbewerben.
Diese Maßnahme löste eine Debatte aus, die sowohl wissenschaftliche als auch gesellschaftliche Fragen berührt: Können biologische Marker wie das SRY-Gen wirklich die komplexe Realität von Geschlecht abbilden? Ist ein solcher Test fair und ethisch vertretbar? Und wie spiegeln sich gesellschaftliche Anti-Gender-Diskurse in dieser Diskussion wider? Zunächst soll die Vorgeschichte der aktuellen Gentests kurz beleuchtet werden.
