Welcome!

I’m a PhD student in philosophy at the University of Arizona. I work primarily on issues at the intersection of feminist political philosophy, social metaphysics, and philosophy of constitutional law.

My current research examines the underappreciated ways in which transgender equality at once poses pressing challnges to, and sheds novel light on, the meaning of gender equality. Along the way, I defend a social meaning account of discrimination which situates the legal issue of discrimination within a broader political struggle for equality; a realist account of gender that grounds facts about a person’s gender identification in facts about their gender, not the other way around; and together, a trans feminist account of gender equality that takes both the gender (the metaphysics) and the equality (the political philosophy) of gender equality seriously.

A note on my last name

I do not use my legal last name for family-related reasons. “Ding” can function as both a first name and a last name.

And a note on pronouns

I go by they/them and she/her.