Researcher spotlight: Chris Dietz

Dr Chris Dietz is a socio-legal scholar researching the intersection of health justice, technology, and embodiment.

Chris joined the International Centre for Future Health Systems and the Faculty of Law & Justice at UNSW Sydney in February 2025. Prior to this, he was a Lecturer in Law & Social Justice at the University of Leeds (UK). Much of Chris's research considers the regulation of gendered embodiment, with a primary focus on promoting equitable access to trans health care. This includes the first empirically based and theoretically informed investigation of the effectiveness of the ‘self-declaration model’ of legal gender recognition in Denmark – conducted at a time when it was the second state to have adopted this model worldwide.

What project are you working on that excites you?

I have a few strands of research on the go at the moment. As Law & Justice's representative in the new Future Health Systems Research Team, I work on a number of projects relating to the urgent challenges facing Australia's health system. I bring a health justice perspective to these, including the research I am leading on trans young people's access to health care, and the impact of wearable tech when it is used in health systems. I am also conducting a review, with my team, on measures that increase the role of prevention in primary care, as well as developing a research project on regulating the use of AI scribes in health.

What do you hope to achieve with your research/impact & engagement in the next year?

Along with some great collaborators, I was recently awarded seed funding from the Australian Human Rights Institute and the Faculty of Law & Justice to interview health practitioners about their views on bans affecting the treatment of young trans people (such as the one that has been implemented in Queensland). We have begun these interviews and I am excited to write up the results. While I enjoy reading theory and conducting legal analysis, I love analysing interviews and thinking about how theory and law relate to each other in complex social settings.

What research/impact & engagement achievement are you most proud of and why?

Around the time I published my book 'Self-Declaration in the Legal Recognition of Gender' , I was to invited to give evidence to the Scottish Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee as part of their consultation into the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. Though this legislation was eventually blocked, I was grateful to be given the opportunity to inform the Scottish Parliament's attempt to develop reforms which sought to improve the everyday lives of trans and gender diverse people living there.

Do you have a regular research practice that you can share?

I write best offline - and wrote most of my PhD thesis in the State Library of Berlin without ever asking for their WiFi password! Though working offline gets harder all the time, I'm thankful to have met a few colleagues in the School of Law, Society and Criminology who are up for meeting up to write in silent focused bursts.