Robin Dembroff: Difference between revisions

| pronouns=[[they/them]]<ref name="dapp_Dres">{{Cite web |title=Dress Smart – dapperQ Academics Featuring Robin Dembroff |work=dapperQ |date=15 February 2016 |access-date=1 September 2020 |url= https://www.dapperq.com/2016/02/27281/}}</ref><ref name="cbc">{{Cite web |title='It doesn't work for a whole lot of us': Should we torch the traditional gender binary? |author= |work=Out In The Open with Piya Chattopadhyay - CBC Listen |date=18 January 2019 |access-date=1 September 2020 |url= https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-131-out-in-the-open/clip/15664631-it-work-whole-lot-us-should-torch-traditional}}</ref>

'''Robin Dembroff, Ph.D''' is an assistant professor of Philosophy at Yale University. They have written extensively about [[gender]] and associated topics such as [[pronouns]] and [[Romantic and sexual orientations|sexuality]].<ref name="PhilPeople">{{Cite web |title=Robin Dembroff (Yale University) |author= |work=PhilPeople |date= |access-date=1 September 2020 |url= https://philpeople.org/profiles/robin-dembroff-1}}</ref> In addition to gender and LGBT-related concerns, their areas of research include metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of language.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.robindembroff.com/|title=Robin Dembroff|website=Robin Dembroff|language=en|access-date=2020-12-05}}</ref>

Dembroff was raised in a conservative fundamentalist Christian household and, although they were "a [[gender nonconforming]] kid from the start", they remained closeted until the age of 21. They were mostly homeschooled before attending The Bible Institute of Los Angeles, a fundamentalist Christian college known as Biola for short, where they majored in philosophy. Spiritually, they are now agnostic.<ref name="Sosis">{{Cite web |title=Robin Dembroff Interview |author=Sosis, Cliff |work=What Is It Like to Be a Philosopher? |date=August 22, 2019 |access-date=September 1, 2020 |url= http://www.whatisitliketobeaphilosopher.com/robin-dembroff/}}</ref> They went on to attend the University of Notre Dame and Princeton University for further philosophy education.

In a 2018 paper co-authored with Daniel Wodak, Dembroff makes an ethical argument against using gendered pronouns to refer to genderqueer individuals.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Dembroff|first=Robin; Wodak|date=2018|title=He/She/They/Ze|url=http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.12405314.0005.014|journal=Ergo, an Open Access Journal of Philosophy|volume=5|doi=10.3998/ergo.12405314.0005.014|issn=2330-4014}}</ref> The authors also defend a more radical claim, asserting that there are ethical reasons to reject using gendered pronouns in general.  

In their 2020 paper "Beyond the Binary: Genderqueer as Critical Kind", Dembroff argues that, through a narrow focus on only "men" and "women", previous approaches to understanding the metaphysics of gender contribute to "systematic misunderstandings" of genderqueer persons (here used as an umbrella term)<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Dembroff|first=Robin|date=2020|title=Beyond Binary: Genderqueer as Critical Gender Kind|url=https://philpapers.org/rec/DEMBBG-2|journal=Philosophers' Imprint|volume=20|issue=9|pages=1–23}}</ref>. Dembroff proposes a new concept, "critical gender kinds", defined as groups whose members subvert dominant gender ideologies. Since genderqueer people reject exclusive categorization as a binary gender, Dembroff argues that they constitute a possible "critical gender kind".