Cassius Hou (they/them) is a Ph.D. student in Philosophy at Georgetown University and an incoming 1L at Georgetown Law. Their research interests include feminist philosophy, social ontology, transgender studies, moral psychology, and the philosophy of disability. They are particularly interested in exploring how we construct ourselves in relation to others and how language impacts who we are and who we understand ourselves to be.
Research Project: Gxrls and Bxys: What Trans* Failures of Language Mean for Gender
This project explores the emergence of the letter “X” as a marker of non-binary gender identity. Despite its growing use, not enough research has addressed the implications of “X” for the social intelligibility of gender non-conforming individuals or the work non-binary neologisms are doing to amend hermeneutical gaps in our understanding of gender. Taking the question of “Why X?” as a starting point, this project investigates the linguistic construction of non-binary identities and the impact of language on the social intelligibility and ontological possibilities of gender non-conforming people.