Teaching Workshop

I am looking forward to providing a workshop entitled "Researching Trans People: Research Practices and Ethical Issues" (Dr Zowie DAVY, (University of Lincoln) Chair: Dr Mel Duffy, DCU at the
SELF, SELVES
AND
SEXUALITIES
8-10 MARCH 2012
DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY
School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies
School of Nursing and Human Sciences
The Second Irish International
Conference in Sexuality Studies
I will explore the historical aspects of researching trans people and the relationships between gender and sexuality. I hope to move the gender/sexuality debate beyond a simplistic understanding researching binary genders and binary sexualities (hetero/homo/bi). I will utilize some aspects of Jacob Hale's rules for researching trans people that moves beyond historically restricted notions of trans sexualities and look at the intersections with a number of discourses, such as medicine, culture, sociology and so on to explore whether researchers can incorporate new methods and perhaps new ways of researching trans sexualities and what that might mean for our understanding of trans sexualities more generally. However, I will emphasize that researchers we must be aware of their political and theoretical positions whilst representing trans sexualities.

I hope that the workshop participants will generate innovative ways of looking at methods, data collection, and analysis that illustrates in the words of Sandy Stone (1991) a "wider spectra of desire" of trans sexualities.