In her contribution to the “Sexuality & Gender Studies Now” series, Anne Esacove highlights the Trans Literacy Project (TLP) and its work at the University of Pennsylvania. Created by a group of students, activists, and scholars to cultivate and expand conversations on trans and gender inclusivity, the TLP hosted a series of events and workshops to bring to the forefront concerns and issues facing the trans community in academia. Esacove uses this opportunity to bolster the voices of the project’s participants. Six of the TLP conveners, Ava L.J. Kim, Davy Knittle, Kel Kroehle, Aylin Malcolm, Monique Perry, and Brooke Jamieson Stanley, summarize key points learned from the TLP experience, which can be used to enrich academic learning and provide a more inclusive experience for trans students and scholars.
From Our Fellows
The SSRC has been providing funding to researchers at all stages of their academic and professional careers for more than 90 years. Through a highly competitive and rigorous peer-review process, the SSRC has awarded over 15,000 fellowships and grants to support research around the globe. From Our Fellows focuses on emerging research in the social sciences, including intersections with the humanities and natural sciences, by recipients of SSRC funding. The SSRC’s fellowships, grants, and prizes improve conditions for social science knowledge production worldwide.
Do Primary Voters Want Partisan Polarization?
by Danielle M. ThomsenDanielle Thomsen, a Negotiating Agreement in Congress grantee of the SSRC’s Anxieties of Democracy program, examines the electoral preferences of primary voters. Her project investigates whether primary voters can be persuaded to support politically centrist candidates. Using a survey-based experiment, Thomsen finds: (i) primary voters tend to prefer politically extreme over centrist candidates; (ii) despite Americans' frustration with gridlock and hyperpartisanship in Washington, primary voters are unlikely to vote for candidates who champion bipartisanship. Her findings shed light on the continued polarization in US politics.
Representing and Performing Gender-Based Violence: From Affidavit to the Stage
by Shonna TrinchNarratives of abuse and violence that women experience play a crucial role in prosecuting perpetrators. However, as Shonna Trinch explains in her contribution to the “Sexuality & Gender Studies Now” series, the representations of these narratives are susceptible to distortion by legal actors recording stories of said encounters or detail discrepancies on the part of victims. Building from her research on Latinas’ retellings of their abuse, Trinch argues these omissions create stereotypical and androcentric narratives that hurt women’s chances at justice and remove their agency. She concludes by highlighting the Seeing Rape project and class, programs she started alongside playwright Barbara Cassidy, to perform and problematize representations of gendered violence.
Revisiting the Feminist Sex-Toy Store Revolution
by Lynn ComellaReflecting on her Sexuality Research Fellowship Program experience and how it shaped her career, Lynn Comella explores the evolution of and growth in the feminist sex-toy retail industry since the 1970s. Through ethnographic research across different field sites around the United States, she interrogates how these women-friendly shops and the larger industry around them went from a peripheral phenomenon to mainstream in the span of a few decades, normalizing women’s sex lives and their sexual desires. In her research, she argues that by co-opting consumer culture, sex-positive feminists were able to spread their message of sexual empowerment; however, Comella also highlights potential challenges of “practicing sexual politics through the marketplace.”
When Shame Becomes a Sacrament: US Protestant Discussions of Sexuality
by Dawne MoonWriting for our “Sexuality & Gender Studies Now” series, Dawne Moon analyzes the evolution of views of the LGBTQ+ community among Protestant evangelicals and how LGBTQ+ Christians have started creating a space for themselves within the church. Through her Sexuality Research Fellowship Program (SRFP) funding, she first started researching evangelicals’ views on the LGBTQ+ community in the late 1990s, leading to her current work on understanding “sacramental shame” among LGBTQ+ Christians. She concludes with a reflection on how the SRFP impacted her own career.
From Intersectional Politics to Queer Public History: Reflections on an SRFP Fellowship
by Catherine FoslWriting for the “Sexuality & Gender Studies Now” series, Catherine Fosl reflects on her current work on the queer public history of Kentucky. She traces how she uncovered the state’s LGBTQ history, in particular that of Louisville, and how the Sexuality Research Fellowship Program (SRFP), which sponsored research on the oral history of a local LGBTQ organization, led her down this path. Through her work as a public historian, Fosl has shined light on an aspect of this community’s history, culminating in the state’s first LGBTQ historic context statement, coauthored with the Fairness Campaign.
Combating Sexual Dysfunction through an Intervention Designed to Strengthen Brain-Body Communication
by Lori BrottoIn her contribution to our “Sexuality & Gender Studies Now” series, Lori Brotto examines how a person’s psychological-physical connection influences their sexual desire. She explains how, through her research on cervical cancer survivors, mindfulness meditation—a practice that helps the brain focus on the present moment—can help reconnect the body and brain to stimulate sexual desire. Through this approach, Brotto argues, many other people, from cancer survivors to sexual assault victims, can reconnect with their sexual desires.
Sexual Consent Research and Affirmative Consent Policies: From Saturday Night Live to State Legislatures
by Zoë D. PetersonIn her contribution to our “Sexuality & Gender Studies Now” series, Zoe D. Peterson recounts how affirmative consent policies in college campuses went from being ridiculed as excessive in the early 1990s to a common college policy. Drawing on recent research on these policies, she presents the benefits and shortcomings of affirmative consent—promoting direct and active communication as well as overlooking coerced and uninformed consent, respectively. Peterson concludes with a call for more research on the effects of affirmative consent policies and on ways to address those who ignore the policies.
Debating Abortion and Disability Rights: The Lasting Impact of Nazi Eugenics
by Dagmar HerzogOver the last few decades, antiabortion activists have used disability rights as a way to curtail women’s reproductive rights, particularly in Europe. For the “Sexuality and Gender Studies Now” series, Dagmar Herzog traces the histories of both reproductive and disability rights, looking back at how the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany have been used to advance and push back against LGBT, women's and disability rights.