Beyond BinariesGender, Sexuality, and Medicine in Postwar Europe

9 June 2023

Photo: UHH/Inci

Held at the historical Warburg Haus on the 9th – 10th June, and organised by Dr Kate Docking and Dr David Peace, ‘Beyond Binaries’ hosted scholars from a wide range of institutions to consider gender, sexuality, and medicine in Post-War Europe as part of the ERC ‘Taming the European Leviathan’ project.

The conference brought together scholars working across disciplines to examine how theoretical approaches incorporating gender and sexuality can shed light on medical ethics, scientific practices, and policymaking associated with health across ideological divides. It examined how histories of gender and sexuality can help our understanding of individual medical experiences and the complex relations between patients, doctors, policymakers, pharmaceutical companies, and medical ethicists.

Exploring gender and sexuality in the context of post-war medicine helps us to examine potential similarities in medical practices, policies, and experiences across Europe, which moves beyond its Cold War security context and ideological differences to highlight the exchange of scientific ideas across the “Iron Curtain”. By examining gender, sexuality, and medicine in the post-war period we feel this conference helped to foster new scholarly perspectives on Europe as a continent that, to an extent, shared common ground through parallel experiences, policies, ideas, and beliefs.

The conference took place in four different panels: 

• Reproductive Policies and Governing Sex
• Transgressing Borders and Shared Ideals
• Gender Dynamics and Health Politics
• Sexual Deviance and Moral Norms

Agnieszka Kościańska (University of Warsaw, Poland) gave the keynote speech "Gender, Sexuality and Hierarchy".

We would like to thank all participants for their fascinating papers and very interesting discussions, including the CHES team for their great effort in organization.