Prof. Dr. Barbara J. Risman 

The twenty-first century has brought many changes to gender politics. There is a new and growing restlessness and the apparent emergence of a new paradigm as some, (mostly) young people in the West begin to reject gender categories entirely. In many Western countries now, people can choose a Category X instead of male or female on many official documents, from driver’s licenses to passports. Category X indicates a person does not identify as either a man or a woman. The numbers of people choosing to identify as non-binary is growing. To understand this social change, we must conceptualize gender as a dynamic and changing social structure of inequality that intersects with other systems of inequality. Just as every society has an economic structure, so, too, does every society have a gender structure with both material and cultural aspects. Gender structures are like dominoes; touch one component and it sets off a chain reaction. Professor Risman and her international team of collaborators has been studying these changes since 2020. They have been interviewing people who identify as non-binary in three regions of the United States as well as Italy, Spain, and Australia. By the end of 2023, 240 interviews from the four countries will have been completed and coded for analysis. During her residency, Professor Risman will complete three different papers addressing how similar or different non-binary people’s experiences are cross-nationally.