Interview on Acadames podcast

webfront8Earlier this year I took part in an interview for Acadames, a super-cool podcast “that explores whether being a woman in academia is a dream, game, or scam”. The episode is now available! I really enjoyed speaking with Whitney  Robinson about my work, and hope you will enjoy our conversation just as much.

Today Whitney speaks with Dr. Ruth Pearce, a social researcher and feminist scholar based at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. Ruth discusses her current work with the Trans Pregnancy project, why gender equity schemes are so important in academia, and offers tips for resiliency when facing online harassment and political backlash. Along the way, she shares stories of her life as a trans woman, how academic institutions in the UK differ from those in the US, and the similarities between organizing a concert and organizing a conference.

Click here to listen.

Trans Pregnancy poster: initial findings presented at WPATH

Cross-posted from the Trans Pregnancy blog. Image shows a woman standing in front of a poster display board, smiling.

In early November, I presented a poster at the 2018 World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Symposium in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The poster outlined a number of initial findings from our first research interviews, which have so far been conducted in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The WPATH Symposium is attended primarily by healthcare professionals working specifically in the field of trans health, so the poster was designed especially with this audience in mind. Our future work will also speak to the needs and interests of trans people who become pregnant as well as professionals specialising in fertility and reproductive health. Plus, we will be exploring what trans pregnancy means for understandings of sex and gender.

You can click on the poster image below to read and download a copy for yourself, or click here for a PDF version.

Through our Twitter account I also reported on two sessions at the WPATH conference which were all about trans fertility and reproduction. You can read these Twitter threads by clicking on the links below:

WPATH oral presentations: Fertility

WPATH oral presentations: Reproduction

To find out more about the context of trans pregnancy and people’s experiences, please do explore our website. We have already published a series of law and policy reviews and are adding more resources all the time.

We are also still recruiting research participants from Australia, European Union countries (including the UK) and the USA. If you are a trans person who has been pregnant and you would like to talk confidentially with us about your experiences, please click here to find out more.

Family Planning workshop at Trans Health Matters (23 October)

In a couple of weeks I will be attending the Trans Health Matters conference, which is held at Resource for London on Tuesday 23 October.

You can read about and book tickets for Trans Health Matters 2018 here.

Co-hosted by holistic sexual health centres cliniQ (London) and Clinic T (Brighton), this event offers an insight into cutting edge practice and research, particularly with regards to sexual and mental health.

I will be speaking at a workshop entitled Trans Family Planning: Contraception, Fertility, Pregnancy and Childbirth, alongside Kate Nambiar, Michael Toze and Francis Ray White.

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Resource for London, Holloway Road

Trans people often find there is a lack of information available on their own fertility, or that they have been misinformed about the reproductive capacity of their own bodies. Similarly, trans people wishing to form families continue to face social, legal and medical barriers to parenthood. The workshop will comprise three short interventions, reflecting on current challenges and opportunities for trans reproductive autonomy, and an opportunity for attendees to reflect on how this might relate to their own work.

Kate Nambiar is a medical doctor and researcher who works at Clinic T. She will be discussing issues around contraception for trans people.

Michael Toze is a Research Fellow in the School of Health and Social Care at the University of Lincoln. He will talk about UK medical practice and law with regards to trans fertility, parenthood, and sterilisation procedures.

Francis Ray White is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Westminster, and I am a Research Fellow in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds. We will be discussing intial findings from the Trans Pregnancy Project.