Gender verification policies in elite sports topic at Rice April 4

Katrina Karkazis, senior research scholar at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, will discuss gender verification policies in elite sports as part of the Gray/Wawro Lecture Series April 4 at Rice University.

Karkazis’ talk, “Gender Verification Policies in Elite Sport: Eligibility, Fair Play and the Question of Medical Need,” will be at 6 p.m. in Duncan Hall’s McMurtry Auditorium.

Karkazis is a cultural and medical anthropologist and the author of “Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority and Lived Experience,” a study of contemporary controversies over medical treatment for infants with intersex conditions (also known as disorders of sex development) in the United States. She frequently speaks to academic, clinical and lay audiences about her research, including the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association, the Society for the Social Studies of Science, the American Association of Law Schools, the American Psychological Association and the Pediatric Endocrinology Nursing Society.

Through the support of Melanie Gray and Mark Wawro, this lecture series recognizes health as a matter of physical and social well-being and highlights gender as a key factor determining opportunity and quality of life. Each lecture brings to Houston a leading scholar whose work inspires deeper understanding of the gender features underlying urgent health concerns and fosters public conversation that can prompt informed action toward a more just world.

Hosted by Rice’s Center for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality, the event is free and open to the public. Seating is limited and RSVPs are requested to rsvp.to.cswgs@rice.edu.