Rory Wilson

Thesis title: Decentering Gender Dysphoria

Biography

Background

(he him) I am a 2nd year PhD student interested in transgender experience and knowledge with a feminist bend. 

Qualifications

  • MA Philosophy, University of Sheffield, Distinction
  • BA Philosophy, University of New Hampshire

Responsibilities & affiliations

  • MAP Edinburgh (September 2021 - Present)
  • Scottish Feminist Philosophy Network  (September 2021 - Present)

Undergraduate teaching

Tutor: 

  • PPLS Skills Centre (2021 - Present)
  • Knowledge and Reality (2023)
  • Morality and Value (2022)
  • Logic 1 (2022) 

Research summary

I have broad interests in trans philosophy, feminist and social philosophy, and social epistemology. 

Current research interests

My PhD project centers around the concept of gender dysphoria. At present in the UK this is a diagnosis transgender people must receive in order to receive further gender-affirming care as well as a gender recognition certificate. As an epistemic tool, I find gender dysphoria to carry various unsavory presuppositions reflective of epistemic injustice and creates a strained relationship to certainty for transgender people. I pose that this is a big problem for transgender people but also for transgender medicine. In the latter half of my thesis, I (cautiously) suggest that we should abandon gender dysphoria. I propose there are concepts like gender identity that must be ameliorated to compensate and that transgender medicine should move to value gender exploration over unfulfillable certainty. My goal is for my project to be able to balance two poles in these debates in trans philosophy: criticizing medical models of transgender experience while simultaneously motivating the necessity of transgender and gender-affirming medicine.

Current project grants

Scottish Graduate School of Arts and Humanities AHRC DTP

Past project grants

Fulbright Postgraduate Student Award 2018-2019

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