Sounding Board

This fall I am giving a couple of class lectures in the fall while the professor is away and part of the lecture will be on the intersection of race and trans people and how the two interact. So I have been searching Google Scholar (I miss having the research database from school, many of the papers that I find on the topic I can read unless I pay an outrageous fee.) for papers on the topic and I have come across a number of interesting papers.

One of the papers that I found is “Transgender Youth of Color and Resilience: Negotiating Oppression and Finding Support” and the Abstract reads in part…

Abstract This qualitative study explored the resilience of 13 transgender youth of color in the Southeastern region of the U.S. The definition of resilience framing this study was a participant’s ability to “bounce back” from challenging experiences as transgender youth of color. Using a henomenological research tradition and a feminist, intersectionality (intercategorical) theoretical framework, the research question guiding the study was: “What are the daily lived experiences of resilience transgender youth of color describe as they negotiate intersections of transprejudice and racism?”

So now I’m off finding information on, “intersectionality theoretical.”

Another paper that I found was “AN INTERSECTIONAL ANALYSIS OF LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENDER(LGBT) PEOPLE'S EVALUATIONS OF ANTI-QUEER VIOLENCE” and it begins…

Most studies that have focused on violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people have overlooked the intersections among race, class, and gender (Mason 2002). Conversely, I examine LGBT, or queer, people's violent experiences through a feminist and intersectional lens, exploring the evaluations of 47 respondents interviewed in New York City. In particular, I build on studies that have examined the severity of anti- queer violence, focusing particular attention on LGBT people's evaluations of physical and verbal abuse (Herek, Gillis, and Cogan 1999; Rose and Mechanic 2002). Previous research has suggested that lesbians and gay men generally perceive homophobic physical attacks as more severe than verbal abuse or violence that is not based on their sexuality (D'Augelli and Grossman 2001; Dunbar 2006; Herek et al. 1997). In contrast, my results reveal significant intersectional differences, thereby dispelling the notion that LGBT people evaluate forms of anti-queer violence in uniform ways.

Still another paper “Gender Affirmation: A Framework for Conceptualizing Risk
Behavior among Transgender Women of Color” and its abstract reads,

Experiences of stigma, discrimination, and violence as well as extreme health disparities and high rates of sexual risk behavior and substance use have been well-documented among transgender women of color. Using an intersectional approach and integrating prominent theories from stigma, eating disorders, and HIV-related research, this article offers a new framework for conceptualizing risk behavior among transgender women of color, specifically sexual risk behavior and risky body modification practices. This framework is centered on the concept of ‘gender affirmation,’ the process by which individuals are affirmed in their gender identity through social interactions. Qualitative data from 22 interviews with transgender women of color from the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States are analyzed and discussed in the context of the gender affirmation framework.

Plus I have a copy of the 2015 GLSEN School Climate Survey along with a copy of the 2015 Transgender Survey. So I have lot of reading to do this summer, many of you probably find this all boring, so do I but if I am going to teach it I have to understand it.

Anyone have any thoughts on what I might also want to cover in the lectures for future teachers?