Human identity is never singular or stable: it is lived as fluid, relational, and context-dependent. Yet many practices, from demographic surveys and interface defaults to personalization systems, rely on rigid categories that flatten lived experience and marginalize those who do not fit neatly within them.

This project started with work in machine learning critiquing how datasets constrain identity, and expanded into a workshop at ACM CHI 2026 in Barcelona, bringing together HCI researchers, designers, and community partners to ask what it means to design for identities that are hybrid, shifting, and "in-between." Through collaborative activities, participants reflected on their own research practices and co-developed alternative framings of identity as contextual and evolving.

To ground these discussions in lived experience, we partner with Skin Mutts, a cultural platform that creates visual languages for expressing hybrid identities. Workshop outcomes are being translated into accessible formats, including a contribution to Skin Mutts Magazine supported by collective no:topia, bridging academic debate with wider publics.

The conversation did not stop there. In May 2026, we brought the project outside academia with a participatory workshop at FARI Institute in Brussels, designed for civil society organizations and community practitioners. The same questions about identity, categorization, and what AI systems fail to see were explored with a different audience, through different methods, and with the same commitment to co-creating alternatives.