On 20 December 2021, Lena Holzer defended a thesis at the Graduate Institute, Geneva on: “The Binary Gendering of Individuals in International Law: A Plurality of Assembled Norms and Productive Powers of the Legal Registration of Gender”. The jury members were Professor Janne Nijman (chair and internal examiner), Professors Paola Gaeta and Elisabeth Prügl (co-supervisors) and Professor Dianne Otto (external examiner).
Using a transdisciplinary approach, this thesis analyses how international law has been involved in making gender a personal legal identity characteristic that is assigned to individuals at birth. It analyses norms from various fields of public international law, including norms on development, humanitarian law, human rights law and passport regulations, as well as rules of private international law. By drawing on queer and feminist theories and assemblage thinking as methodological tools, it contributes to queer-feminist approaches to international law and legal pluralism. It concludes that ‘queering’ legal gender categories in international law could be achieved through efforts to ‘de-propertise’ the categories by decreasing their value for the accumulation of people’s economic, symbolic and political capital. Moreover, it develops assemblage thinking as a queer-feminist method that allows taking into account a plurality of subjectivities, feminist positions and norms in the study of international law.
Currently, Lena is a consultant for the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer & Intersex Youth and Student Organisation (IGLYO). In the future she plans to continue with research and teaching in international law.
International and Comparative SOGIESC Law - Professor Andreas R Ziegler 