I will be speaking about my research at an event hosted by the Strathclyde University Feminist Research Network at 3pm on Wednesday.
The talk is titled “Reproductive Justice for Trans People”. It will focus on findings from the Trans Pregnancy and Improving Trans Experiences of Maternity Services projects, but will also touch on wider questions of social reproduction for trans people of all ages and genders.
There are also a lot of other great talks on feminist topics hosted by the Feminist Research Network as part of their seminar series, so definitely check them out!
I’m really happy to announce that an article I co-authored, “Transnormativity in the Psy Disciplines: Constructing Pathology in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and Standards of Care”, has been reprinted in the Palgrave Handbook of Power, Gender, and Psychology.
Originally published in American Psychologist in 2019, this was among the first of many articles written collaboratively with my colleagues in the Trans Pregnancy Projectteam: Damien W Riggs, Carla Pfeffer, Sally Hines, Francis Ray White, and Elisabetta Ruspini. I hope that through its inclusion in this new handbook on theories of gender and power in feminist psychology, this slightly updated essay will reach new readers and provide helpful context on the construction of sex/gender norms through classification and diagnosis.
As I explained on its original publication, in this piece “we examine how the interests of cisgender clinicians and trans patients have variously been opposed and entwined, and contextualise this in relation to wider structures of racism, sexism, colonialism, and binary thinking around sex and gender. We focus especially on how guidance for diagnosing trans people and managing trans healthcare has been contested across various versions of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM) and the International Harry Benjamin Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA, later WPATH) Standards of Care.”
I recently received an email from a colleague informing me of a very concerning case regarding censorship of feminist research by the academic publisher Routledge. I have signed an open letter to Routledge and encourage other academics to do so too.
My colleague kindly granted me permission to reproduce the contents of her email on my blog, which are as follows:
Some of you will be aware of an ongoing case involving the book Sexual Misconduct in Academia: Informing an Ethics of Care in the University (2023).
The book was published by Routledge in March 2023 and contained several chapters by different authors, analysing the topic from a range of perspectives. One chapter, written by Lieselotte Viaene, Catarina Laranjeiro, and Miye Nadya Tom, analyses misconduct within an unnamed research centre, describing the culture and social norms that enabled the harassment to occur. Although no institutions or individuals were identified in the chapter, speculation about their identity led one professor to confirm that he was the “star professor” discussed in the book; he then threatened the authors in the press with legal action. Shortly after that, the book was temporarily withdrawn from circulation while Routledge – Taylor & Francis Group looked into “complaints” and a cease-and-desist letter it had received about the chapter. On 31 August 2023 the authors of Chapter 12 were informed that Routledge would no longer be making that chapter available. It is not yet clear what will happen to the rest of the book, but its page on the Routledge website has disappeared.
Colleagues across the world are deeply concerned with Routledge’s decision to remove from circulation a peer-reviewed feminist study of workplace harassment and sexual misconduct and have written, and signed, an open letter on the issue. The letter asks Routledge to:
publicly state why they have removed the chapter and the book itself from their website
Over the last couple of years, members of the Trans Pregnancy projectteam have been quietly plugging away writing up more of our findings from our 2017-2020 research.
Recently, three new books have come out which include chapters based on our work, plus we have just had a new academic article published. I hope all of these will be useful for expanding knowledge about trans people’s experiences of pregnancy and childbirth, in ways that will be useful to community members, healthcare providers, and researchers.
The Conversation on Gender Diversity (edited by Jules Gill-Peterson, published by Johns Hopkins University Press) is a collection of short trans studies essays originally published on The Conversation. It’s written in an accessible way and priced affordably. It includes our essay “Giving Birth as a Father – Experiences of Trans Birth Parents“, which provides a concise introduction to the topic and to our research.
The Routledge International Handbook of New Critical Race and Whiteness Studies (edited by Rikke Andreassen, Catrin Lundström, Suvi Keskinen, and Shirley Anne Tate, published by Routledge) is a hefty academic volume with a series of articles which critically interrogate whiteness. The book includes our essay “Whiteness in research on men, trans/masculine and non-binary people and reproduction: Two parallel stories“, in which we reflect on both the racialisation of both trans pregnancy and childbirth, and on the whiteness of our research team. It’s currently only available in hardback at “academic” prices, so I encourage people to order it into your local library if it is of interest to you. I’m also very happy to email people a copy of the essay if you’d like to read it, and will be making a version freely available on this site as soon as the copyright agreement allows.
Trans Reproductive and Sexual Health (edited by Damien W. Riggs, Jane Ussher, Kerry H. Robinson, and Shoshana Rosenberg, also published by Routledge) is another academic book, this time focusing on topics including intimacy, sexual violence, sex education, and reproduction. It includes our essay on “Young men, trans/masculine and non-binary people’s views about pregnancy“, drawing on focus groups undertaken with young people to ask about how they see their reproductive futures. Again, this book has academic pricing, so we would greatly appreciate people asking their local library for a copy, and you’re welcome to contact me if you’d like to read the essay.
My book Understanding Trans Health is cited prominently in the new Philosophy Tube video on complaint, systematic inflexibility, and England’s NHS trans health crisis.
It’s a great video, which manages to capture the sheer horror of NHS failings while still delivering silly jokes, ridiculous costumes, and a strong analysis. In addition to drawing on my work, Philosophy Tube’s Abigail Thorne consulted me on the script for this episode, and I appreciated the opportunity to use my research in this way.
I am personally more optimistic than Abigail about the opportunities offered by the four NHS England ‘pilot’ clinics. These are beginning to slash waiting times, and several are now effectively run by trans people, for trans people. However, I do think it’s important to still critique the very logic that underpins many trans healthcare systems, especially the highly questionable ways in which the medical diagnosis of ‘gender dysphoria’ is constructed, and used to try and control us.
You can buy Understanding Trans Health directly from Policy Press here. It’s also available from all major booksellers, plus many independent queer book stores (e.g. Leeds’ brilliant The Bookish Type). I have also written to my publisher for permission to put a chapter of the book online for free – watch this space! In the meantime, free links to much of my other academic writing can be found here.
For the first time in four years (or more!) I don’t have any forthcoming talks booked at the moment.
Honestly, it’s a bit of a relief. I’ve been deeply honoured and humbled by the interest in my work in recent years, but have also frequently found myself exhausted and overwhelmed by it. It takes time to plan a talk, and it takes a great deal of emotional energy to speak about topics such as institutional sexism or transphobia. Especially in the years prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, I felt like I was almost constantly travelling to speak.
In theory, it was exactly the kind of attention I wanted for my research. In practice, I’ve had to spend a lot of time teaching myself to say “no”. I came to understand why various academics I asked to speak at events often didn’t even answer their emails. I suspect they simply didn’t have the ability to read them all, let alone answer. Meanwhile, there are plenty of researchers – especially “early career” academics – who don’t receive anything like the attention they deserve for their work.
I think academics especially have a strange, unhealthy approach to talks and conference presentations. After I began working in a full-time, salaried role for the first time in 2017 (who needs job security or sick pay in their 20s?!?) speaking about my research became sort of part of my job, but was rarely accounted for in any kind of formal work load. Talks generally don’t “count” like academic publications. At the same time, a lot of us find them an immensely useful way to share and learn about cutting-edge studies, and they can be so important for reaching beyond the academy and sharing findings with general audiences.
As a result, you will definitely see me announcing more talks soon. But I am trying to get better at working within my capacity. Part of this involves recommending other speakers who I know will benefit from the opportunity – that is, when I have time to reply to my external emails.
Earlier this year I did a talk for the University of Cambridge Reproductive Justice Research Network alongside my excellent colleague Francis Ray White.
We talked about research findings from the Trans Pregnancyand Improving Trans Experiences of Maternity Services projects, plus reflected on the wider context of reproductive justice for trans people, including media coverage, medical racism, abortion rights, and attacks on young trans people’s bodily autonomy.
You can watch a video of the talk here:
(as a quick aside, I’d like to thank my good friend Harry Tunnicliffefor last use minute of his office so I could do this talk while away from home!)
I was dismayed to read that the UK Government are amending the Gender Recognition Act. Specifically, they are removing the offence under section 22(1) of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 for the disclosure of protected information, to enable this disclosure where it is “necessary for the purposes of facilitating, assisting or undertaking relevant research”.
This amendment enables NHS England to obtain trans people’s confidential information about their medical treatment for the purpose of research into child and adolescent gender services by the Cass Review. Specifically, it enables the acquisition of information (a) that could contain personal identifying details, (b) without that person’s consent, and (c) for individuals who obtained specific legal protections with the reasonable belief that these would remain in place. There has been no community consultation ahead of this move.
As a social researcher and expert in ethical methodologies, I believe that any research undertaken under these circumstances would represent an enormous breach of the basic principles of research ethics. Moreover, it will could significantly undermine the already extremely low existing low level of trust between trans community members, researchers, and medical practitioners.
Finally, the amendment also represents a significant weakening of the Gender Recognition Act’s legal protections for trans people (although for a full and measured analysis, see this post by What The Trans).
I have therefore written to the NHS England’s Gender Identity Programme Board to express my concerns about this development. I also hope that any university or NHS ethical panel overseeing the approval of such research will prevent it from taking place.
I am speaking at a series of exciting events over the next few weeks! All are free to attend, you will just need to register in advance if you’d like to come.
I am incredibly honoured to be giving a keynote talk for this two-day event hosted by the Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad, and the Centre for Writing and Pedagogy, Krea University. I will be speaking about “Building Queer and Trans Communities in the UK” towards the end of the first day, and am enormously excited to be learning from colleagues in India during the event.
10am-6pm IST, 27-28 April Register online to attend
I will be delivering a keynote on the first day of this groundbreaking event hosted by the University of Glasgow. My talk is provisionally titled “Let’s (not!) fight a TERF war: Trans feminism in a time of moral panic”.
9:30am-4:30pm BST, 5-6 May Register online to attend
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Wednesday 11 May – Online Reproductive Justice Research Network seminar (link to come)
I will be joining colleagues from the Trans Pregnancy project to discuss findings from our international study of trans and non-binary people’s experience of conception, pregnancy, and childbirth. Our talk is provisionally titled “Reproductive Justice for Trans People”.
Are you trying to understand anti-trans debates within and beyond feminism? Wanting to get to grips with the relationship between “gender critical” advocacy, medicalisation, and traditional conservative ideologies?
Our Sociological Review edited collection TERF Wars: Feminism and the Fight for Transgender Futures is now more widely available than ever. Challenging the framing of ‘transgender activists versus feminists’, it features a range of peer-reviewed essays from expert writers such as Jay Bernard, Florence Ashley, Julia Serano, and Emi Koyama, on hot-topic issues including gender ideology, autogynephilia, rapid-onset gender dysphoria, detransition, migration, sex work, and public toilets.
None of the authors or editors receive royalties for this work – we simply want to share our knowledge with others.
Hard copies of the book are also available from just £10, e.g. from Foyles (UK), AbeBooks (USA), and (sigh) Amazon. If you can though, please support a local independent bookseller! I am most excited that TERF Wars is available from the amazing Leeds-based queer bookshop The Bookish Type.
Finally, I am deeply honoured to announce that the opening essay of the collection, “TERF Wars: An Introduction” (by myself and co-editors Sonja Erikainen and Ben Vincent) is now also available in Turkish. We are honoured that this version has been published in the latest issueof the journalKaos Q+. I was so excited to recieve my copy in the post!
If you find this work useful, please do tell other people about it, and feel free to share download links or hard copies with others. We have felt very supported by The Sociological Review, but the publishers SAGE have been absolutely awful at distribution and publicity (if you are an academic, I would definitely recommend against working with them on a book if at all possible). It’s up to use to make this work a success!
Dr Ruth Pearce 