IHS Seminar: Victoria Englmaier

Potential of Legal Change for Breaking up Gender Binary at Austrian Universities

In 2018, the Austrian Constitutional Court, citing the European Convention on Human Rights, confirmed the right to a third gender category alongside female and male. Since September 2020, there have been six categories in Austria to record the gender of people. Of course, universities also have to deal with these legal innovations. The question of my dissertation is what changes these legal developments trigger at Austrian universities. Are only data collection systems being adapted or is there also a deeper engagement with the experiences of discrimination of trans*, inter* and non-binary university members? Which actors are involved in this process and in what way?

In the IHS seminar, the first results of the document analysis will be presented, showing which topics are currently discussed in university documents, and an overview of the major differences between the individual universities will be given.

The event will take place online, if you're interested in participating please register at event(at)ihs.ac.at.


Victoria Englmaier is a Junior Researcher at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS Wien) and a PhD student at the University of Economics and Business Vienna (WU Wien). At the IHS she works on national and international projects on gender equality issues in science and research. Her dissertation deals with institutional change from the perspectives of feminist institutionalism and queer theory.