Thinking Gender Justice: Oppression, Resistance, Liberation

Thinking Gender Justice: Oppression, Resistance, Liberation is the second conference of the Centre for Gender, Feminisms and Sexualities (CGFS), University College Dublin, taking place 17-19 June 2026.

We aim to bring together academics, activists, artists and others committed to liberatory knowledge and action, transdisciplinary perspectives, and coalitional community-building in feminist, queer, race-critical, decolonial, and anti-capitalist research, activism, and living.

During this time of authoritarian surge, genocide, and war – including the war on migrants, women and on gender and sexual minorities – how do we build resistances and foster movements toward liberation?

Indigenous peoples and people of the Global South have long been at the front line of building resistances against racial capitalism, border regimes and the struggle for environmental justice. Women have been at the forefront of uprisings, revolutions and resistance across the globe.
How does or how can our work as researchers, activists, and artists contribute to local and global strategies to build resistance, coalition and solidarity? How do anti-colonial and decolonial knowledge and praxis transform practices in our movements as well as academic practice? What does true solidarity look like and what must we do to work toward it? What is the role of culture, media and the arts in building feminist, trans and queer resistances and the ongoing work of transformative justice?

The aim of this conference is to reflect on these and related questions from a range of disciplinary fields and perspectives that share an active commitment to building resistance and working toward justice and transformative change in Ireland and globally.

Confirmed plenary sessions:

Keynote: Rania Jawad (Birzeit University, Palestine)

Keynote: Sophie Lewis (author of Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen and Girl Bosses Against Liberation and Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against the Family)

Plenary Roundtable: Queer Lives in Motion: LGBTIQ+ Activism, Exile, and Solidarity Across Borders

Plenary Screening: TITE (Trans Image/Trans Experience) Film Festival contemporary trans and non-binary short film programme & discussion