Lio Okroi, M.A.

Lio Okroi studied Political Science at LMU Munich and Sociology at the University of Freiburg. Their research focuses on gender and sexuality, subjectivation, affect, and memory. They work with discourse-analytical as well as reconstructive-hermeneutic methods.

A Sociology of Fluid Genders and Sexualities

In their doctoral project, Lio Okroi investigates the field of stability and changeability of gender and desire. From a subjectivation-theoretical perspective, they are interested in the social requirement to have a definite and unchangeable gender and sexual orientation – as well as in what happens when this requirement is not (fully) met.

Based on narrative interviews, Lio Okroi first of all explores how people whose gender and/or desire changes over their life course experience and narrate transitions. The project thus contributes to a reflexive and critical research on transitions: fluid transitions are a form of transitional deviance that diverges from normative biographies and classical coming-out stories. Their study therefore enables a queer and fluidifying perspective on processes of transition.

Secondly, Lio Okroi is interested in the historically grown conditions of variability and stability of gender and sexual orientation. How is the demand for unambiguity related to current social conditions and transformations? Which modes of existence, categories, and narratives are available to whom – and imposed on whom? How do processes of subjectivation unfold in this context? To what extent, and in what ways, is it possible today to live ‘fluidly’?

Thirdly, supported by the method of body mapping, Lio Okroi focuses on the bodily and affective dimensions of subjectivation. They reconstruct which body practices and modifications, as well as emotions and affects play a role in gendered and sexual self-relations. They hold that processes of subjectivation do not produce immaterial and abstract entities, but feeling, desiring, vulnerable persons of flesh and blood who position and transform themselves within social relations.

Overall, with their doctoral project, Lio Okroi aims to challenge the widespread notion – in society at large, but also within the social sciences and queer communities – of a general stability of gender and sexual orientation, and to analyze its societal functions and effects.

Publications

• Okroi, Lio (2023). Queering History? Spannungsfelder des Erinnerns im Audioguide ‚Queere Geschichte*n Freiburg‘. Invertito – Jahrbuch für die Geschiche der Homosexualitäten 24.

Projects

• The audioguide Queere Geschichte*n Freiburg, which Okroi developed as part of their master’s degree, tells 27 historical and current stories about queer people, topics, events, controversies, scenes and places in Freiburg. It was awarded the Bertha Ottenstein Prize of the University of Freiburg.

Lectures

• Okroi, Lio (2025). Transitions under Tension: Fluid Gender and Sexuality in a Disambiguating Society. Presentation at the international conference ‘Situating Transitions: New Horizons in Research of Life Course Transitions’ organized by the DFG Research Training Group ‘Doing Transitions’, Eberhart-Karls-Universität, October 6, 2025, Tübingen.
• Okroi, Lio (2025). Spannungsverhältnisse fluider Geschlechter und Begehrensweisen. Presentation at the session ‘Sex(uality) and Gender in Progress – Transitionen und Transformationen von Geschlecht und Sexualität’ of the Women’s and Gender Studies Section at the 42nd Congress of the German Sociological Association ‘Transitionen’, University of Duisburg-Essen, September 25, 2025, Duisburg.
• Okroi, Lio (2024). Diskussion und kritische Würdigung des Vortrages ‚Vergeschlechtlichte Selbstverhältnisse in Praktiken des Erzählens: Kraftsport als Metapher der Subjektwerdung‘ von Jannis Ruhnau. Conference ‚Geschlecht als Erfahrung – Geschlecht erleben‘, 1. October 2024, University Bielefeld.
• Okroi, Lio; Vatter, Lisa (2024). Reflexive Forschungspraxis zu Übergängen. Seminar session as a part of the seminar ‚Doing Transitions: Reflexive Forschung zu Übergängen in Lebenslauf und Biographie‘, Goethe-University, 24. June 2024, Frankfurt a. M.
• Okroi, Lio; Vatter, Lisa; Reich, Marie; Goerdten, Hans (2023). Fragen an eine kritisch-transformative Geschlechtersoziologie in Zeiten multipler Krisen. Lecture as a part of the workshops ‚Towards Sustainable Research‘, Justus-Liebig-University, 11. December 2023, Gießen.
• Okroi, Lio (2023). Contested Identities in the Memorialization of Lesbians in the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. Lecture for the ‘Cambridge German-History Research Group’ as part of a series on ‘Gender in German History’, Cambridge University, 2 June 2023, London.
• Okroi, Lio (2021). Queere Geschichte*n Freiburg – Spannungsfelder des Erinnerns im Audioguide. Lecture at the annual conference of the Fachverband Homosexualität und Geschichte e.V., 1-3 October 2021, Frankfurt a. M.

Memberships

• Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie (DSG, German Sociological Association),
  • Sektion Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung (Section Women’s and Gender Studies)
  • Sektion Methoden der qualitativen Sozialforschung (Section Methods of the qualitative Social Science)
• Gewerkschaft Erziehung und Wissenschaft (GEW, Trade Union for Education and Science)
• Institut für qualitative Sozialforschung (IQS, Institute for qualitative Social Science)