Florence Ashley Explained

Florence Ashley is a Canadian academic, activist and law professor at the University of Alberta.^[1] They specialize in trans law and bioethics. They have numerous academic publications, including a book on the law and policy of banning transgender conversion practices.^[2] Florence served as the first openly transfeminine clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada.^[1] They are a winner of the Canadian Bar Association SOGIC Hero Award.^[3]

Biography

Personal life and education

Ashley came out as trans and transitioned in 2015.^[4] They use singular they pronouns.^[5]

Ashley attended McGill University in Montreal, Canada, where they graduated with a Bachelor of Civil Law and a Juris Doctor in 2017 and with a Master of Laws in bioethics in 2019. They earned a Doctor of Juridical Science from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 2023, where they were also a Junior Fellow of Massey College.^{[6] [7]}

Career

In 2019, Ashley became the first known openly transgender clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada, where they worked in the chambers of Justice Sheilah Martin.^{[8] [4]} During the same year, the Canadian Bar Association awarded Ashley the SOGIC Hero Award.^[9] In 2023, they joined the University of Alberta Faculty of Law as an Assistant Professor.^[10]

Ashley's work is cited in the World Professional Association for Transgender Health‘s Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People Version 8.^[11]

In 2022, Ashley published the book Banning transgender conversion practices: a legal and policy analysis.^[12] The book is about conversion therapy for transgender people and studies how they can be legally banned, and what impact this ban would have on the countries which would decide to implement these laws. Ashley believes that conversion therapy needs to disappear and that a formal ban improves the situation without fully solving the issue.^[13] They cite the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto as an example of practices that were so bad, they served as a precedent to get conversion therapy banned in the province of Ontario.

Ashley coined the term ‘gender modality’,^{[14] [15]} which is increasingly cited and applied in trans health^[16] and education literature,^[17] and by governments^[18] and courts.^[19]

In 2023, Ashley was one of 21 members appointed to the World Health Organization's guideline development group concerning the health of trans and gender diverse people,^[20] but as of 15 January 2024, they were no longer listed as a proposed member of that group due to a schedule conflict.^[21]

Selected academic publications

Books

• Book: Ashley, Florence . Banning transgender conversion practices: a legal and policy analysis . . 978-0-7748-6692-7 . Law and Society . 1 April 2022 . en . 10.59962/9780774866941 . 1276933161 . 35589970M.
• Book: Ashley, Florence . Gender/Fucking: the Pleasures and Politics of Living in a Gendered Body . CLASH Books . 978-1-955904-93-3 . 13 February 2024 . en . 1376495878.

Articles

• Ashley . Florence . Brightly-Brown . Shari . Rider . G. Nic . Beyond the trans/cis binary: introducing new terms will enrich gender research . . 13 June 2024 . 630 . 293 - 295 . 10.1038/d41586-024-01719-9. free .
• Ashley . Florence . What Is It like to Have a Gender Identity? . . en . 1 July 2023 . 132 . 528 . 1053–1073 . 10.1093/mind/fzac071 . 0026-4423. subscription .
• Ashley . Florence . Parsa . Neeki . kus . t . MacKinnon . K. R. . Do gender assessments prevent regret in transgender healthcare? A narrative review . . 2023 . 10.1037/sgd0000672 . y . Advance online publication.
• Ashley . Florence . Youth should decide: the principle of subsidiarity in paediatric transgender healthcare . . en . 7 February 2022 . 49 . 2 . 110–114 . 10.1136/medethics-2021-107820 . 35131805 . 246636156 . 0306-6800. subscription .
• Salway . Travis . Ashley . Florence . 10 January 2022 . Ridding Canadian medicine of conversion therapy . . en . 194 . 1 . E17–E18 . 10.1503/cmaj.211709 . 0820-3946 . 8800469 . 35012950.
• Ashley . Florence . 20 December 2021 . The Constitutive In/visibility of the Trans Legal Subject: A Case Study . . 28 . 1 . 10.5070/L328155794 . 1943-1708. free .
• Ashley . Florence . The Misuse of Gender Dysphoria: Toward Greater Conceptual Clarity in Transgender Health . . 2021 . en . 16 . 6 . 1159–1164 . 10.1177/1745691619872987 . 31747342 . 208214158 . 1745-6916. subscription .
• MacKinnon . K.R. . Ashley . Florence . Kia . H. . Lam . J.S.H. . Krakowsky . Y. . Ross . L.E. . Preventing transition "regret": An institutional ethnography of gender-affirming medical care assessment practices in Canada . . 2021 . en . 291 . 114477 . 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114477. free .
• Ashley . Florence . The clinical irrelevance of "desistance" research for transgender and gender creative youth. . . 2022 . en . 9 . 4 . 387–397 . 10.1037/sgd0000504 . 239099559 . 2329-0390. subscription .

Essays

• 'Trans' is my gender modality: a modest terminological proposal, Trans Bodies, Trans Selves, 2nd ed., Laura Erickson-Schroth (ed.), Oxford University Press (2022)

Notes and References

1. Web site: Florence Ashley Directory@UAlberta . 8 July 2023 . www.ualberta.ca . 8 July 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230708215838/https://apps.ualberta.ca/directory/person/fashley . live .
2. Web site: Banning Transgender Conversion Practices . 7 April 2022 . UBC Press . en-US . 10 April 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220410141444/https://www.ubcpress.ca/banning-transgender-conversion-practices . live .
3. Web site: Florence Ashley, LL.M., Receives the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Community Section Hero Award . 7 April 2022 . www.cba.org . en . 6 November 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20211106111329/https://www.cba.org/News-Media/Press-Releases/2019/Florence-Ashley . live .
4. Web site: "À mon partenaire: avant de te rencontrer, je ne me pensais pas capable d'être trans et amoureuse". Le Huffington Post. fr. 8 June 2019. 4 November 2021. 4 November 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20211104103613/https://www.huffingtonpost.fr/entry/a-mon-partenaire-avant-de-te-rencontrer-je-ne-me-pensais-pas-capable-detre-trans-et-amoureuse_fr_5cfa20c7e4b0b08cf7ec231d. live.
5. Web site: Banning transgender conversion practices: Florence Ashley's first book is an important legal and policy guide to eradicating them. . 7 August 2022 . www.nationalmagazine.ca . en . 28 September 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220928105308/https://nationalmagazine.ca/en-ca/articles/law/access-to-justice/2022/banning-transgender-conversion-practices . live .
6. Web site: Florence Ashley University of Toronto Faculty of Law . law.utoronto.ca . 9 April 2022 . 6 February 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220206061634/https://www.law.utoronto.ca/graduate-programs/sjd-program-doctor-juridical-science/sjd-profile/florence-ashley . live .
7. Web site: Dis son pronom: les mots de la non-binarité. Le Devoir. 6 July 2021 . fr. 4 November 2021.
8. Web site: Florence Ashley, JD, LLM. Center for Applied Transgender Studies. en-US. 4 November 2021. 4 November 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20211104103612/https://www.appliedtransstudies.org/people/ashley. dead.
9. Web site: En-"gendering" change. Maryse. Chouinard. National Magazine. Canadian Bar Association. en. 5 February 2019. 4 November 2021.
10. Web site: Five distinguished legal scholars appointed to Faculty of Law . 8 July 2023 . www.ualberta.ca . en . 8 July 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230708215837/https://www.ualberta.ca/law/about/news/2023/3/five-hires.html . live .
11. Coleman . E. . Radix . A. E. . Bouman . W. P. . Brown . G. R. . de Vries . A. L. C. . Deutsch . M. B. . Ettner . R. . Fraser . L. . Goodman . M. . Green . J. . Hancock . A. B. . Johnson . T. W. . Karasic . D. H. . Knudson . G. A. . Leibowitz . S. F. . 19 August 2022 . Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People, Version 8 . International Journal of Transgender Health . en . 23 . sup1 . S1–S259 . 10.1080/26895269.2022.2100644 . 2689-5269 . 9553112 . 36238954.
12. Web site: A new book on conversion practices examines exactly what trans people need from lawmakers. xtramagazine.com. 6 April 2022. en. 4 August 2022. 2 October 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20221002042713/https://xtramagazine.com/culture/trans-conversion-practices-florence-ashley-220924. live.
13. Web site: Banning transgender conversion practices: Florence Ashley's first book is an important legal and policy guide to eradicating them.. www.nationalmagazine.ca. en. 4 August 2022.
14. Book: Ashley . Florence . Erickson-Schroth . Laura . Trans Bodies, Trans Selves . 2022 . Oxford University Press . Oxford, U.K. . 9780190092726 . 22 . 'Trans’ is my gender modality.
15. Ashley . Florence . Brightly-Brown . Shari . Rider . G. Nic . Beyond the trans/cis binary: introducing new terms will enrich gender research . . 13 June 2024 . 630 . 293 - 295 . 10.1038/d41586-024-01719-9. free .
16. Streed . Carl G . Beach . Lauren B . 1 . Assessing and Addressing Cardiovascular Health in People Who Are Transgender and Gender Diverse: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association . . 8 July 2021 . 144 . 6 . e136 - e148 . 10.1161/CIR.0000000000001003. 8638087 .
17. Web site: Transgender and Nonbinary Identities . Gender Identity . Planned Parenthood . 19 June 2024 . 11 June 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190611155557/https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/sexual-orientation-gender/trans-and-gender-nonconforming-identities . live .
18. Web site: Classification of cisgender, transgender and non-binary . Standards, Data Sources, and Classifications: Statistical Classifications . Statistics Canada . 19 June 2024 . 12 June 2024 . https://web.archive.org/web/20240612002606/https://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/pUtil.pl?Function=getNote&Id=1326715&NT=01 . live .
19. Michel v. Graydon . SCR . 763 . 2020 . 101 . 2 . https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2020/2020scc24/2020scc24.html . SCC . https://web.archive.org/web/20220412151904/https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2020/2020scc24/2020scc24.html . live .
20. Web site: WHO announces the development of a guideline on the health of trans and gender diverse people . 7 January 2024 . www.who.int . en . 7 January 2024 . https://web.archive.org/web/20240107182106/https://www.who.int/news/item/18-12-2023-who-announces-the-development-of-a-guideline-on-the-health-of-trans-and-gender-diverse-people . live .
21. Web site: WHO GUIDELINES ON THE HEALTH OF TRANS AND GENDER DIVERSE PEOPLE . who.int . 17 January 2024 . 17 January 2024 . https://web.archive.org/web/20240117121707/https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/hq-hiv-hepatitis-and-stis-library/biographies_tgd-gdg_proposed_members_2024.pdf . live .