Ido Katri | Tel Aviv University (original) (raw)

Papers by Ido Katri

Mishpat Umimshal (Law and Government), 2021

The article provides an anti-essentialist reading of anti-discrimination legislation within Israe... more The article provides an anti-essentialist reading of anti-discrimination legislation within Israeli, providing tools to account for the systemic aspect of exclusion within private lawsuits. The anti-essentialist analysis opens up avenues for strategic use of anti-discrimination laws, specifically for groups that are not explicitly recognized as a protected category, such as Mizrahi or trans communities. From a trans perspective on anti-discrimination laws, the article proposes an innovative reading on discrimination on the basis of Mizrahi identity or Mizrahi-ness. The absence of a distinct category of Mizrahi or trans (or gender identity or ethnic origin) in Israeli law is not only a product of legislative lacuna but stems from the fact that trans people and Mizrahi communities are legally located “in-between” the most basic legal categories, male and female, the Jew to the Arab.
The article examines the ‘classical’ discrimination scenario the Prohibition of Discrimination in Products, Services, and Entry into Places of Entertainment and Public Places Law, 2000, was enacted to protect, the discrimination of young Mizrahi men at dance clubs, alongside the growing body of law on gender identity. The article closely reads these cases by using anti-discrimination theories, as well as, queer theory, trans studies and critical race theory. The article argues that anti-discrimination laws can better address structural discrimination by considering the ideologies that justify difference and differentiation between individuals and collectives. The article explores the idea that legally defined protected categories do not reflect pre-legal truth about one's characteristics or abilities but constitute them as inherent truth as a way to reinforce group distinctions.
The article examines the concept of the performativity of identities according to individual and group identity is constructed and contested through social interrelations. Identity is marked by practices that are both material and discoursive. Focusing on Mizrahi masculinity and its contextual and relative characteristics, the article attempts to locate the ideological standpoints that disadvantage Mizrahi identities. To this end the article examines the category of nationality in Israeli law and considers how it functions similarly to the category of sex in outlining social expectations. Focusing on the values and worldviews that construct the category of Jewish nationality, the article accounts for the impact of Jewish nationality on Mizrahi identity. The article further studies the intersections between racial signifiers and gender performativity and the limitations of legal discourse in recognizing these intersections.
Offering a road map for recognizing the intersections of race and gender, the article will return to anti-discrimination laws and propose an anti-essentialist reading of Mizrahi discrimination that bridges group affiliation, characteristics, and actions through looking at the performativity of identity. The article argues that an anti-essentialist shift is a natural development of the existing cases law. The article proposes that instead of asking whether one belongs or does not belong to this or that protected category, jurists should ask whether the decision was motivated by racist, sexist or nationalist ideologies? The article asserts that anti-essentialist analysis can undermine the mechanisms that fortify group and individuals’ privileges granted in relation to group identities.

Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, 2020

This Article explores the incarceration conditions of trans and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) peopl... more This Article explores the incarceration conditions of trans and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) people in Israel. The lived experience of TGNC people reflects the inherent incoherence of sex/gender and of the carceral system, two regimes of violence that derive power from their promise to provide stability and certitude to society. To uncover the practical meaning of these theoretical positions, the Article examines the Israel Prison Service (IPS) at a unique juncture: before and after an attempt to reform its policies regarding TGNC prisoners. An analysis of these reforms against the backdrop of the previous policy illustrates the carceral system’s inability to meaningfully transform the treatment of TGNC prisoners. To demonstrate this systemic failure, the Article centers the voices of two incarcerated trans women: Dorin and Lena. Both women have lived in male and female facilities before and after the reform. Their demands for safe and dignified treatment have reshaped IPS practices. Following Dorin and Lena’s stories, this Article argues that the IPS’s inability to properly accommodate TGNC prisoners is rooted in the logic of carceral systems themselves, which relies upon gender segregation and isolation as means for protection and rehabilitation. This examination reveals the futility of attempts to define who are and are not “real” men and women. And, by examining the IPS’s limited ability to reform its use of administrative segregation for TGNC prisoners, the theoretical inconsistencies and perniciousness of incarceration itself is exposed. Attempts to distinguish coherently between criminals and noncriminals, women and men, and trans and cis people, and to spatially segregate them according to such classifications, contradicts the heterogeneity and intersectionality of lived experiences and obscures the systemic use of institutional violence to hold these categories in place. Gender nonconformity is situated in this Article as a thread that, when pulled, unravels the carceral regime as a whole.

Transgender Studies Quarterly , 2019

In this article, Mizrahi (Jews of Arab descent) and trans legal claims will serve to expose the l... more In this article, Mizrahi (Jews of Arab descent) and trans legal claims will serve to expose the law as a tactic of stability. These experiences, positioned at the in-between of stable legal categories, embody the “other” of law, the affective ideologies that the law refuses. If transgender as an identity category emerged from the violent process of separating homosexuality and transsexuality to constitute gayness as normative, Mizrahi emerged from pitting the Jew and the Arab against each other to constitute the “new Jew,” a coherent member of a normative (whitened) nation. Yet the Arab and the Jew, the trans and the homo, are not separate spheres of being but constitute one another, exposing the excesses of gender/sex and race/ethnicity. The Mizrahi and the trans experience cannot escape the desire for normalization or the trauma of otherness, whose materialization into rights and property they critique. Still, the realities of in-betweenness hold the possibility of exceeding coherence, in a state of constant transition between mutually exclusive categories of being. Both positions serve as an affective intervention if they are considered as transitional spaces where one can dare to question the stability of reality and accept its shifting compromise formulation.

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, 2019

Sex reclassification is a core issue of gender nonconformingnonconfining legal engagements. Acces... more Sex reclassification is a core issue of gender nonconformingnonconfining legal engagements. Access to proper identification documents for trans and nonbinary people relates to lower levels of exposure to anti-trans violence, discrimination, and suicidality. In the first decades of the 21st century, a the vast majority of global jurisdictions have seem seen some kind of reform with respect to sex reclassification. Nonbinary classifications, such as the X marker, are also becoming available for those who wish not to be classified as either M or F. Across the globe, five major policy streams can be found: total ban on reclassification, i.e.that is, having no law or policy in place that allows for reclassification; reproduction- related prerequisite, i.e.that is, requiring applicants to undergo sterilization or genital- related surgery; other medical intervention-based schemes, that is, i.e., requiring the applicants to provide proof that they have modified their body using some kind of gender-r related medical technology; corroboration requirements, i.e., that is, requiring that a third party, usually a medical professional, would corroborates the identity of the applicant; and the emerging “gold standard,” gender self-determination, i.e., that is, laws and policies requiring only an expression of a desire or need to be reclassified.
These streams of policy provide varying levels of access to proper identification documents and place different burdens on applicants, some requiring bodily modifications while others rely on autonomous will. Yet, all these policies still demand an alignment between the internal truth of the body and external facts, resonating with the logic of birth assignment of sex itself—.t That is, the idea that the allocation of differentiated legal status of M or F reflects an immutable truth about legal subjects. Current laws and policies fail to address harms caused to gender nonconforming people by state mechanisms themselves. They only provide post facto remedies ex post facto. In the early 21st century, all countries assign a differentiated legal status of either M or F at birth based solely, in almost all cases, on external genitals of newborns. This differentiated legal status is recorded on the birth certificate and becomes a part of one’s legal identity for life. This allocation of status reflects the idea that external genitals of newborns are proof of their owner’s’ future roles as men or women, i.e.,that is, an idea that there is a pre-legal alignment between certain bodily configurations, social role, and gender performance. This mundane administrative mechanism not only justifies different treatment for men and women but also marks trans and nonbinary people as others. In order to better address the harm caused by systems of gendered distribution of resources and opportunities, there is a need to go beyond sex reclassification to question birth assignment itself.

ההפרדה המגדרית המכוננת את מרחב בית הסוהר מסתבכת, מתבלבלת ונבוכה בבואה לעצור או לאסור מי שמִגדרם ח... more ההפרדה המגדרית המכוננת את מרחב בית הסוהר מסתבכת, מתבלבלת
ונבוכה בבואה לעצור או לאסור מי שמִגדרם חורג מהנורמות החברתיות
המקובלות עבור המגדר שאליו הושמו בלידתם, למשל א/נשים טרנסים.
מבוכה זו מובילה לא אחת לפתרונות לא קוהרנטיים ולא הולמים עבור
א/נשים טרנסים, ועל פי רוב — להשמתם בבידוד או בצינוק.
מאמר זה בוחן בעין ביקורתית את מדיניות השב"ס ואת שאלת השמתם
בכלא של א/נשים טרנסים על רקע מציאות החיים המורכבת של א/נשים
שונים מגדרית ומציע פתרונות חלופיים למדיניות זו. המאמר מנתח את
הבעייתיות שבפתרונות הקיימים — הן במישור ההשמה והן בשאלת בידודם
של אסירים/ות טרנסים/ות — וחושף את האופן שבו פילוסופיית הכליאה,
הנטועה בנורמות מגדריות, נמצאת במתח אינהרנטי עם פרקטיקות מגדריות
חורגות. כך, כל ניסיון למשוך את קצה החוט הטרנסי מוביל לפרימה של
פילוסופיית הכליאה כולה. נוכח קשיים אלו מוצעים בסיום המאמר כמה
פתרונות קונקרטיים להתמודדות עם הנוכחות המוגברת של א/נשים טרנסים
במערכת המשפט הפלילי.

This article suggests that a performative reading of discrimination cases allows for recognition ... more This article suggests that a performative reading of discrimination cases allows for recognition of in-tersectional harms and facilitates a broader systemic account of exclusion from resources and opportunities. Revealing the protected category of sex as a prohibition against discrimination on the basis of gender performance , the article considers how signifiers marked on the gendered body constitute the protected categories relating to race and ethnicity as well. The article suggests that racial/ethnic signifiers and sex/gender performance function reciprocally to construct material realities of exclusion from resources and opportunities. Drawing on the trans position in anti-discrimination, the article offers a nuanced reading of discrimination suffered by Jews of Arab decent, the Mizrahim, under Israeli law. It shows that courts could address systemic aspects of individual claims by looking for the intersecting differentiating logics at the root of private discrimination. The article argues that protected legal categories do not reflect pre-legal truths but constitute them; that when the law prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex it prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender performance; and that gendered performance is always already marked by racial signifiers. Thus, by turning the legal gaze to racial signifiers of gender performance, intersecting harm can be accounted for.

This article will puts a gender variant perspective on anti-discrimination law and litigation. It... more This article will puts a gender variant perspective on anti-discrimination law and litigation. It analyze trans right claims by synthesizing queer theory’s concept of performativity and critical race theory’s concept of intersectionality, to offer a new and original concept of legal “intrasectionality”, with far-reaching implications for rights-based litigation. Instead of considering how “legal men” are treated different than “legal women”, this article will ask whether a given gender variant individual is treated differently than one whose gender performance coheres to social standards. These inquiries into the intrasectionality of the sex category with respect to equality will set the stage for the claim that anti-discrimination law and litigation intertwines with performativity.

The passage of Bill C16, which adds protection of gender identity and expression to the Canadian... more The passage of Bill C16, which adds protection of gender identity and expression to the Canadian Human Rights Code and the Criminal Code, is a huge step forward towards a right for gender selfdetermination. This is a historic moment. The new law, passed in the Senate on Thursday, prohibits discrimination against trans and gender non binary individuals, and includes them within the protections provided by the hatespeech and hatecrime provisions of the criminal law. With the enactment of Bill C16, the federal government finally joins the provinces and territories that have amended their human rights codes to recognize and protect gender diversity. It is a long overdue statement of the formal equality of trans and gender nonbinary Canadians. Analysis: Canada shows leadership in advancing human rights Related: Legislation, apology coming for past wrongs against LGBTQ It has been a rocky road. Previous private member's bills had been defeated in the Senate. Bill C16 became the focus of controversy, with opponents lining up behind claims that the law would violate freedom of expression. Legally and factually dubious claims about the law became the platform to oppose equality for trans and gender nonbinary Canadians, cloaking the underlying transphobia that animated the opposition.

An OpEd about the links between trans suicidality and access to proper identification documents i... more An OpEd about the links between trans suicidality and access to proper identification documents in trans communities under Israeli law. I argue, following research on the subject, that barring gender diverse people from chaining their sex designation on their ID has direct effect on their exposure to harm and discrimination, which in turn leads to higher suicide rates

The headlines are full of trans rights stories these days. From the federal government’s introduc... more The headlines are full of trans rights stories these days. From the federal government’s introduction of Bill C-16 to finally add gender identity and gender expression to the Federal Human Rights Code, to Ontario’s upcoming reform to add the sex designation “X” to public registries, trans rights are on the move. But where exactly are they going? While the right to non-discrimination seems to be increasingly recognized, there is a newer right on the horizon: the right to gender self-determination. It is a more positive right—one that gives the power over gender to individuals themselves. It means that gender-variant people, like non-gender-variant people, have an autonomous right over their gender that others are obliged to respect and protect.

So, is this good news? Is it more inclusive? Are we leaving anyone behind? Let’s consider how far trans rights have come in the recent past, to contemplate the as yet unknown future.

Trans movements, nationally and globally, have worked tirelessly to ensure the law’s protection includes gender variance. In 2002 the Northwest Territories were the first government in the Canada to explicitly prohibit discrimination against trans people by including gender identity in their Human Rights Code. A decade later, in 2012, Manitoba added gender identity to their human rights legislation. In that same year, Ontario and Nova Scotia added both gender identity and gender expression to their human rights laws. Prince Edward Island as well as Newfoundland and Labrador followed suit in 2013. In 2014 Saskatchewan made provisions for gender identity, and in 2015 Alberta joined the club, adding both gender identity and expression to their Human Rights Code.

The other five provinces and territories—British Columbia, Québec, New Brunswick, Nunavut Territory, and the Yukon—have implicit protection, having interpreted their Human Rights Codes as including gender variance under existing prohibited grounds. The idea is that discrimination against trans individuals constitutes discrimination on the basis of "sex." While this has provided some protection against discrimination, trans advocates argue that it does not capture the unique nature of the discrimination that trans individuals face.

The federal government was late to the game. Neither gender identity nor gender expression were included in the Canadian Human Rights Act. Bill C-16, introduced by the Trudeau government, will finally address this exclusion. The Bill will amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and Criminal Code, adding gender identity and expression to the list of prohibited grounds for discrimination in the Human Rights Act, and to the "identifiable group" clauses of the Criminal code, making it federally illegal to discriminate in the provision of housing, employment, and social services on the basis of gender variance, and making crimes motivated by a hatred of gender variance subject to harsher sentences, respectively.

Provincial trans legislation is moving forward more quickly than Bill C-16 and a body of law supporting a right for gender self-determination seems to be forming. Québec already adopted a regulation regarding government-issued identification that allows individuals to change their sex designation, and Ontario is about to add an “X” option to their registry.

On a global scale, gender self-determination as an independent human right would have been considered farfetched even a few years ago. But in 2012, Argentina passed a Gender Identity Law that recognized one’s right to determine one’s gender, and imposed a duty on the state to recognize and protect that choice, as well as provide access to medical and other resources. This sort of legislation in now sweeping through the European Union, with new gender self-recognition laws in Denmark (2014) and Malta (2015), and similar laws to be introduced in the near future in the UK, Portugal, Norway, and other countries. This emerging human right is popping up even at the international level, with the UN Human Rights Council’s decision from June 2016 to appoint an independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

In this move towards the ultimate trans right—a right for gender self-determination—there is still one question no one can (or should) answer: Who is trans? What is considered gender variance?

The people who experience and practice gender variance are highly diverse, and getting more diverse by the day. Gender identities and practices are shifting rapidly as new identities emerge, from transsexual through transgender, two spirits, and third gender, to bigender, agender, multigender, gendersexual, pangender, and trigender (and the list goes on). As the young gender-independent warriors keep teaching us, once you start unraveling gender there is no limit to where you can go with your creativity and imagination.

Moreover, as feminist and critical race theorists have long argued, our gendered experience cannot be detached from other spheres that shape our social world, such as racism, ableism, sexism, classism, and ageism, just to name a few. The rights you need recognized and protected as a poor trans feminine person of colour are very different than the ones you need recognized and protected as an upper-middle-class white trans masculine person. Layers upon layers of discrimination make some individuals less visible and more vulnerable. But, the law is a one-size-fits-all kind of system. Paradoxically, in the name of equality, laws and policies are designed without taking into account the multiplicity of experiences, the different shades of exclusion painted by all those overlapping and intersecting spheres of life. In this context, gender self-determination might be just another honey trap—one that puts so much focus on the individual that it makes it hard to look at the complex web of social and legal forces that shape and sustain the exclusion of trans people.

In March 2015, the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal opened its decision in the case of Angela Dawson vs. the Vancouver Police Board with the following statement: “Gender. It may be the most significant factor in a person’s identity. It is intensely personal.” The tribunal gave us a glimpse into what a right to gender self-determination might look like: a right that starts and ends with the individual, that accounts for only one factor of one’s identity and neglects to account for the ways in which one’s gendered experience is shaped by the open-ended list of social constructs that influence how one is perceived and treated by others and by the law. In an absurd turn, gender—the concept that feminists argued is inherently public—is now becoming intensely private in the name of trans rights.

Where should trans rights be headed? Perhaps gender-variant people’s engagement with shaping the law will open a range of future possibilities. Maybe the move towards protecting and promoting the right to gender variance will require us to rethink some of the very categories that have informed legal protections. Once-stable categories like sex and gender, long considered “unchangeable,”’ “natural,” and “constant,” are currently unraveling over fibre optic cables across the globe, literally at the speed of light.

Maybe if we considered gender not as something that we have or we want, not as a product that we can consume, but as a force that distributes access to life chances, then we could start thinking about how to make sure that gender variant practices and experiences—specifically for those who face intersectional exclusion—are fully recognized and protected.

This special-issue on ‘Trans Temporalities’ grew out of a dynamic conference by the same name at ... more This special-issue on ‘Trans Temporalities’ grew out of a dynamic conference by the same name at the University of Toronto, Canada, in April, 2016. Organized by Ido Katri, Simon Fisher and our colleague Celeste Pang, the conference featured scholarship from graduate students, community artist-activists, lay scholars, and faculty addressing the unique relationships between time, narrative, discourse and bodies. Defining these concepts as interrelated enables us to better understand trans temporalities and the widely and forcefully held linear conceptions of ‘progress’ and ‘development’ that constrain them. The conference was successful beyond our aspirations, drawing participants and audience members not only from Toronto, but from across Canada and the United States. We are grateful that the editors of Somatechnics, Sheila L. Cavanagh and Malena Gustavson, for inviting us to further develop these important and exciting conversations herein print.

סקירת מעמדם המשפטי של א/נשים טרנס*ים בישראל. מתוך ספר זכויות הקהילה הגאה בישראל: משפט, נטייה מינ... more סקירת מעמדם המשפטי של א/נשים טרנס*ים בישראל. מתוך ספר זכויות הקהילה הגאה בישראל: משפט, נטייה מינית וזהות מגדרית, בהוצאת נבו

הארת הפסיקה עוסקת בפסק-הדין בעניין פלונית, שבו הומתק עונשו של נאשם טרנסג'נדר בשל העובדה שעל-פי נה... more הארת הפסיקה עוסקת בפסק-הדין בעניין פלונית, שבו הומתק עונשו של נאשם טרנסג'נדר בשל העובדה שעל-פי נהלי השב"ס הוא אמור היה להיות מוחזק בהפרדה בבית הכלא נווה תרצה. השב"ס טען כי הנאשם "טרם עבר ניתוח לשינוי זהותו המינית ומוגדר עדיין כאישה", ולכן נשקפת לו סכנה המחייבת להחזיקו בהפרדה.

במסגרת המאמר נטען שדרך בחינת פסק הדין ניתן ללמוד על הכוח הטמון בהסטת הדיון מגופם של טרנסג'נדרים אל התפיסה החברתית לגביהם. בעוד שדעת הרוב של השופט ניל הנדל היא דוגמה ליישום הפרדיגמות השמרניות, דעתו של השופט סלים ג'ובראן, המצטרפת לדעת הרוב, מעניקה לראשונה תוכן לזכותם של טרנסג'נדרים לשוויון ולאוטונומיה בכך שהיא מנתקת את הקשר שבין קבלת הכרה רפואית לקבלת הגנה משפטית. מצד אחד, לבית המשפט תפקיד מרכזי במערכת המשטור המגדרי אשר פועלת ככוח מדכא כלפי החופש המגדרי של כל אדם. באמצעות מתן משמעות לקטגוריות המשפטיות הוא אוכף את חוקי המגדר שבהם משתמשת המדינה כדי לקטלג ולסווג את האוכלוסייה ולנתב את חלוקת ההזדמנויות והזכויות. מצד אחר, פסק הדין בעניין פלונית מלמד על הפוטנציאל הטמון בשינוי נקודת המבט השיפוטית, משמירה על גבולות המגדר להגנה על הזכות לחופש מגדרי ועל האוטונומיה של הפרט להגדיר את עצמו ולממש את זהותו.

Thesis Chapters by Ido Katri

This thesis offers a gender variant perspective on Anti-Discrimination legislation and litigation... more This thesis offers a gender variant perspective on Anti-Discrimination legislation and litigation. Using queer theory, feminist legal theory and critical race theory, this thesis analyzes current debates within the trans movement regarding the use of rights based litigation and the fight for inclusion. I argue that gender variant people’s exclusion from resources and opportunities is inextricably linked, legally and affectively, to gender performance. I will show how performative aspects of the law can be brought forward by applying an “intrasectional” analysis of the protected classes relating to gender variant people within anti-discrimination law and litigation (ADL), and set the stage for the claim that ADL more broadly is intertwined with performativity. Reading the notion of performativity into legal analysis, this thesis suggests the possibility of strategic use of the existing legal rights as an instrument for change.

Mishpat Umimshal (Law and Government), 2021

Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, 2020

Transgender Studies Quarterly , 2019

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, 2019

So, is this good news? Is it more inclusive? Are we leaving anyone behind? Let’s consider how far trans rights have come in the recent past, to contemplate the as yet unknown future.

In this move towards the ultimate trans right—a right for gender self-determination—there is still one question no one can (or should) answer: Who is trans? What is considered gender variance?