Florence Ashley

Florence Ashley is a Canadian academic, activist They specialize in trans law and bioethics. Ashley is also the author of the book, Banning transgender conversion practices: a legal and policy analysis. Ashley served as the first openly transfeminine clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada.

Personal life and education Ashley came out as trans and transitioned in 2015. They use singular they pronouns. 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.

Career

In 2019, Ashley became a clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada, where they worked in the chambers of Justice Sheilah Martin. During the same year, the Canadian Bar Association awarded Ashley the SOGIC Hero Award.

Ashley coined the term gender modality in 2019.

In 2022, Ashley published Banning transgender conversion practices: a legal and policy analysis, a book about conversion therapy for transgender people. It studies how these therapies be legally banned, and what impact such bans would have on countries that decided to implement them. Ashley believes that conversion therapy needs to disappear and that a formal ban improves the situation without fully solving the issue. They cite the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto as an example, saying that the practices there were so bad that they served as a precedent to get conversion therapy banned in the province of Ontario.''

On September 14, 2025, Ashley was placed on non-disciplinary administrative leave due to comments they made on social media about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. According to a statement from the University of Alberta, the suspension was taken while a review was conducted related to concerns about community safety. Ashley returned to work a week later on September 22, after the review concluded there was "no imminent risk associated with this incident." Ashley later criticized the suspension and argued their statements fell within the scope of academic freedom and freedom of expression.

Selected academic publications

Books

Articles

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