- Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University
221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125 Australia
- La Trobe University, Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, Department MemberMonash University, Faculty of Arts, Department Member, and 2 moreadd
- Transgender Studies, Science and Technology Studies, Gender Studies, Women's Studies, Masculinities, Gender and Sexuality, and 33 moreHistory of Sexuality, Transsexuality, Queer Theory, Critical Theory, Cultural Studies, Comparative Literature, Queering methodology, Ethnography, Disability Studies, Crip theory, Somatechnics, Plastic Surgery, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Karen Barad, Gender, Feminist Theory, Photography, Popular Culture, Sex and Gender, Aging, Ageing and Health, Public Health, Theories of Gender and Transgender, Transgender, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Gay And Lesbian Studies, Transgender Health, New Materialism, Bioethics, Ethics, and Medical Anthropologyedit
- Dr J. R. Latham is Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Deakin University and Honorary Fellow in Cultural St... moreDr J. R. Latham is Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Deakin University and Honorary Fellow in Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He holds a PhD in Cultural Studies/Public Health (2016) and a BA (Hons1) in Critical Theory/Gender Studies (2009). See jrlatham.comedit
In this essay, I outline issues relating to gathering data with trans and gender diverse populations and suggest that shifting our focus towards how health services are delivered offers a way to circumvent these problems. I argue that a... more
In this essay, I outline issues relating to gathering data with trans and gender diverse populations and suggest that shifting our focus towards how health services are delivered offers a way to circumvent these problems. I argue that a historical relation to how trans and gender diverse people’s sexualities have been misunderstood by medicine has led to a host of difficulties in providing appropriate sexual healthcare to trans and gender diverse people, resulting in increased trepidation between clinicians and patients that directly impacts HIV prevention strategies. I explore how access and trust have been impeded, and what we can all do to improve environments of care conducive to effective sexual healthcare for all of us.
Research Interests:
This article argues that medicine misunderstands the necessarily complex ways trans people experience sexuality. Despite revisions to treatment guidelines and diagnostic descriptions, transgender medicine continues to be based on a... more
This article argues that medicine misunderstands the necessarily complex ways trans people experience sexuality. Despite revisions to treatment guidelines and diagnostic descriptions, transgender medicine continues to be based on a paradigmatic narrative of ‘being born in the wrong body’. This narrative performatively reproduces sex, gender and ‘gender dysphoria’ as static, predetermined and independent of medical encounters. It also constructs trans sexualities as limited by and dependent on gender/genital ‘alignment’, which necessarily neglects many trans people’s sexual lives. By mobilising critiques of singularity from science and technology studies (STS), which emphasise how discourses and practices produce both what is knowable and materially possible, this article explores how medicine understands and constitutes ‘transexuality’ as a singular phenomenon that limits trans sexualities. By analysing contemporary medical guidebooks alongside the foundational text of trans medical treatment – Harry Benjamin’s (1999 [1966]) The Transsexual Phenomenon – I argue that medicine constitutes transexuality and understands trans sexualities via four axioms: 1) Transexuality is a disjuncture between mind and body; 2) Transexuality is hating having the wrong genitals; 3) Transexuality is painful and debilitating; and 4) Transexuality is resolvable with hormonal and surgical body modifications. In so doing, medicine flattens out the complexities of trans people’s experiences of gender and sexuality, and simultaneously disavows many trans people’s sexual lives.
Research Interests: Surgery, Gender Studies, Queer Studies, Feminist Theory, Transgender Studies, and 12 moreNarrative, Queer Theory, Sexuality, Gender and Sexuality, Medical Humanities, Theories of Gender and Transgender, STS (Anthropology), Gender and Sexuality Studies, Transgender Health, Medicine, science and technology studies (STS), and Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Studies
This article investigates how men who inject performance and image-enhancing drugs (PIEDs) describe their experiences of embodiment and masculinity, locating that analysis in the context of contemporary ‘makeover culture’ and the... more
This article investigates how men who inject performance and image-enhancing drugs (PIEDs) describe their experiences of embodiment and masculinity, locating that analysis in the context of contemporary ‘makeover culture’ and the imperatives of self-transformation. Drawing on qualitative data from interviews we conducted with 60 men who inject PIEDs in Australia, our analysis suggests there is a pragmatic logic associated with PIED use that challenges much research concerning this population, which tends to pathologise men who use PIEDs as disordered in their relationship to their bodies and cultural norms of masculinity. We unpack how the men interviewed describe everyday practices of doing gender in the context of illicit drug use, the implications in normative understandings of maleness and masculinity, and how PIED consumption practices encouraged particular attention to working on the self. Our findings suggest that drug injecting practices can be understood as forms of self-transformation in makeover culture that have the potential to make new, unexpected possibilities for being in the world, and can inform harm reduction measures, including the de-stigmatisation of drug use more broadly. [co-authored with Suzanne Fraser, Renae Fomiatti, David Moore, Kate Seear & Campbell Aitken]
Research Interests:
Abstract: Anabolic-androgenic steroids are synthetic derivatives of testosterone. They are thought to be the most commonly used performance and image-enhancing drugs (PIEDs) in Australia. However, the motivations for men’s use of steroids... more
Abstract: Anabolic-androgenic steroids are synthetic derivatives of testosterone. They are thought to be the most commonly used performance and image-enhancing drugs (PIEDs) in Australia. However, the motivations for men’s use of steroids and other PIEDs are poorly understood. Established ways of understanding these motivations highlight men’s performance and/or image-related concerns, in the context of contemporary masculinities and gender norms. Researchers have paid little attention to how the social and political features of testosterone shape and transform steroid use. Instead, testosterone tends to be taken for granted as a ‘messenger of sex’ that acts on the body in predictable and routinised ways. This article takes a different approach. Drawing on feminist science studies and interviews conducted for an Australian research project, we investigate how the cultural and symbolic meanings assigned to testosterone shape the ontological politics of men’s steroid consumption. Approaching testosterone as an emergent social and biopolitical gathering rather than as a stable sex hormone allows us to better understand how men’s PIED consumption is mediated, particularly by pervasive ideas about sexual difference and the biology of gender. In concluding, we consider ways of better engaging men who consume steroids in health initiatives, in keeping with their concerns and perspectives.
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[Please email me for copies of any of my papers- textual[dot]gore[at]gmail[dot]com] This article examines the various possibilities for making an analogy or disanalogy between cosmetic and trans surgeries, focusing on the suggestion that... more
[Please email me for copies of any of my papers- textual[dot]gore[at]gmail[dot]com] This article examines the various possibilities for making an analogy or disanalogy between cosmetic and trans surgeries, focusing on the suggestion that trans surgeries are medically necessary while cosmetic surgeries are not—a position that has a great deal of rhetorical force. The authors argue that this disanalogy both fails to understand the complexity of the justifications used by recipients of these diverse surgeries and should be seen as symptomatic of various attempts in medical practice to impose particular understandings of suffering, gender identity, and gender politics on trans patients. The appeal to the intense and intrinsic suffering of the trans patient because they cannot become the normatively gendered person they always believed themselves to be, the authors argue, elides the diversity of trans experience as well as coerces trans patients into a politics of ressentiment.
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This article traces the multiple enactments of sex in clinical practices of transgender medicine to argue against the presumed singularity of 'transexuality'. Using autoethnography to analyse my own experience as a trans patient, I... more
This article traces the multiple enactments of sex in clinical practices of transgender medicine to argue against the presumed singularity of 'transexuality'. Using autoethnography to analyse my own experience as a trans patient, I describe my clinical encounters with doctors, psychiatrists and surgeons in order to theorise sex as multiple. Following recent developments in science and technology studies (STS) that advance the work of Judith Butler on sex as performatively reproduced, I use a praxiographic approach to argue that treatment practices produce particular iterations of what sex (and transexuality) 'is' and how these processes limit and foreclose other trans possibilities. I consider the ethical, political and material-discursive implications of treatment practices and offer a series of reflections about the effects and effectiveness of current clinical practices and the possibilities for intervening in such processes in order that, following Annemarie Mol, we might (re)make sex (and transexuality) differently.
[see jrlatham.com/publications]
[see jrlatham.com/publications]
Research Interests: Psychiatry, Surgery, Gender Studies, Feminist Theory, Bioethics, and 11 moreTransgender Studies, Queer Theory, Gender and Sexuality, Autoethnography, Performativity, Medical Humanities, Theories of Gender and Transgender, STS (Anthropology), Transgender Health, Medicine, and Science and Technology Studies
Clinical expectations that trans people will be so filled with self-loathing that sexual interactions will be limited if possible at all fail to take into account the heterogeneous ways trans people experience their own bodies and... more
Clinical expectations that trans people will be so filled with self-loathing that sexual interactions will be limited if possible at all fail to take into account the heterogeneous ways trans people experience their own bodies and sexualities. In this essay, I extend recent work in science and technology studies (STS) that attends to material practices by examining the work of narrative and argue for a new paradigm in situating trans sexualities. I analyse trans men's autobiographical stories to show some of the many ways that trans men make sense of themselves (and enact maleness) as sexual subjects. By focusing on how sex-gender is enacted and hangs together in narrative-practices, we can more fully understand and appreciate the realities of trans lives and the inadequacies of clinical diagnosis.
Keywords: Autobiography, female to male, praxiography, STS, transgender
Keywords: Autobiography, female to male, praxiography, STS, transgender
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Men's Studies, Queer Studies, Ontology, Media and Cultural Studies, and 17 moreFeminist Theory, Transgender Studies, Narrative, Queer Theory, Feminist Philosophy, Gender and Sexuality, English, Autobiography, Literary Theory, Medicine, Feminist Literary Theory and Gender Studies, Sexuality Studies, Literary studies, science and technology studies (STS), Ontological Politics, Praxiography, and Transgender cultural competence in Medicine
This essay investigates a divergence between medical and autobiographical accounts of transexuality. By analyzing a letter to the editor in the journal Aesthetic Plastic Surgery that defends trans patients as a " special case " (Selvaggi... more
This essay investigates a divergence between medical and autobiographical accounts of transexuality. By analyzing a letter to the editor in the journal Aesthetic Plastic Surgery that defends trans patients as a " special case " (Selvaggi and Giordano, 2014), I examine how medicine produces trans patients as a separate category of patients. The differential treatment paths of trans and nontrans people who pursue " gender-enhancing " medical interventions demonstrate a double standard that undermines claims to act in the best interest of the patient. Using the evidence of trans men's accounts of themselves as well as research into the experiences of trans people from across the United Kingdom, Australia, and North America, I critique the medical management of transexuality and call on clinicians to rethink the treatment practices of trans medicine.
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Abstract: Transsexual surgeries are almost always aesthetic surgeries, although they are rarely if ever interpreted this way. Following the standards laid out in Sterodimas, Radwanski, and Pitanguy’s “Ethical Issues in Plastic and... more
Abstract: Transsexual surgeries are almost always aesthetic surgeries, although they are rarely if ever interpreted this way. Following the standards laid out in Sterodimas, Radwanski, and Pitanguy’s “Ethical Issues in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery” [1], plastic surgeons may need to reconsider referring transsexual patients for psychological evaluation as a matter of course. Expert psychological assessment may be necessary, as with all patients requesting cosmetic surgeries. However, to respect patient autonomy, perhaps psychiatric referral should be made on an individual case-by-case basis, as it is with other aesthetic surgeries.
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The experiences and needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex (LGBTI) Australians living with dementia have not previously been researched. The following six key themes relating to dementia were identified from two studies and... more
The experiences and needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex (LGBTI) Australians living with dementia have not previously been researched. The following six key themes relating to dementia were identified from two studies and are discussed in this article: the effects of dementia on sexual orientation and gender identity; discrimination; disclosure; intimate relationships; social connections; and substitute decision making.
Research Interests:
Aim: To outline the experiences and needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) Australians living with dementia – and their partners. Methods: In-depth interviews were conducted with LGBT people, their partners and service... more
Aim: To outline the experiences and needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) Australians living with dementia – and their partners. Methods: In-depth interviews were conducted with LGBT people, their partners and service providers. Results: LGBT people living with dementia experience unique challenges including the failure of some families of origin and service providers to understand and value their sexual orientation or gender identity. The fear of discrimination by service providers results in greater reliance on intimate partners for care and compounds social isolation. Conclusions: The unique experiences of LGBT people with dementia are not well understood. There is a need to recognise historical experiences, including familial relationships, and provide advocacy to ensure sexual and gender rights are not violated. There is also a need to ensure that the experiences and perspectives of LGBT people living with dementia inform the development of services.
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This paper outlines the development of culturally safe services for older lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people. It draws on a framework for cultural safety, developed in New Zealand which incorporates an understanding... more
This paper outlines the development of culturally safe
services for older lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and
intersex people. It draws on a framework for cultural
safety, developed in New Zealand which incorporates an
understanding of how history, culture and power
imbalances influence the relationship between service
providers and Maori people. This has been adapted to the
needs of older lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and
intersex Australians.
services for older lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and
intersex people. It draws on a framework for cultural
safety, developed in New Zealand which incorporates an
understanding of how history, culture and power
imbalances influence the relationship between service
providers and Maori people. This has been adapted to the
needs of older lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and
intersex Australians.
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The following narrative has been adapted from one of the
interviews in consultation with the interviewee. The interviewee
is a person in their 60s who would like to be known
as Pat.
interviews in consultation with the interviewee. The interviewee
is a person in their 60s who would like to be known
as Pat.
Research Interests:
Abstract: Images of transgender bodies which emphasise dislocation and fragmentation have been idolised as the images of queer gender. In this way, gender ambiguous transgender bodies have been privileged over and against transsexed... more
Abstract: Images of transgender bodies which emphasise dislocation and fragmentation have been idolised as the images of queer gender. In this way, gender ambiguous transgender bodies have been privileged over and against transsexed bodies, undermining transsexual ontologies and body modifications as 'gender normative.' Transsexual portraits of bodies (re)made whole can emphasise integrity and cohesion while maintaining subversively queer force in their relation to technologies and the subject's defiance of expectations of gender and sex as biologically determined. Using Roland Barthes theorisation of photographic punctum, I wish to suggest that in queer portraiture of transgender and transsexual bodies, there is the potential to find a queer moment in common: relationships to technology which mark the transsexed body as complete(d) and nuances of gender on the ambiguous transgender body. That photographs are always and only fragments - moments past (dead) – is particularly salient to trans portraiture, where figurative violence is decidedly more likely to be(come) literal.
Acknowledgements: Prof Andrew Benjamin, Dr JaneMaree Maher, Dr Steven Angelides, Dr Alison Ross, Dr Sharon Bickle.
Acknowledgements: Prof Andrew Benjamin, Dr JaneMaree Maher, Dr Steven Angelides, Dr Alison Ross, Dr Sharon Bickle.
Research Interests: Critical Theory, Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, Queer Studies, Visual Studies, and 17 moreWomen's Studies, Photography, Transgender Studies, Popular Culture, Contemporary Art, Queer Theory, Visual Culture, Gender and Sexuality, Culture, Roland Barthes, Transsexuality, Theories of Gender and Transgender, Masculinities, Studies On Men And Masculinity, Punctum, Barthes on Photography and Image Theory, and Queer Punctum
Abstract: What is meant by "drugs" and "addiction" is complex, culturally and historically specific, and unstable, but this complexity is not shied away from within the world of the Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. Buffy provides a... more
Abstract: What is meant by "drugs" and "addiction" is complex, culturally and historically specific, and unstable, but this complexity is not shied away from within the world of the Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. Buffy provides a comprehensive depiction of an experience of drug use through the character arc of Willow, especially in seasons six and seven. The show comments intricately and sometimes contradictorily on ideas about use, abuse, addiction and recovery. Indeed, Willow's character and arc differ from popular understandings of drug use and drug users by challenging stereotype images of the drug user as irrational, weak, dependent and deviant. The show draws attention to her social position, problematising neo- liberal values which posit the individual as wholly responsible for her own destruction. However, I argue that Buffy also relies on these stereotypes in order to render recognisable Willow's situation as "addiction". In this way, Buffy both reinforces and undermines neo-liberal ideas on subjectivity, individualism and "addiction."
Acknowledgement: Dr Suzanne Fraser
Acknowledgement: Dr Suzanne Fraser
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This seminar will explore how men who inject performance and image-enhancing drugs (PIEDs) describe their experiences of embodiment and masculinity, locating that analysis in the context of contemporary makeover culture (Jones 2008) and... more
This seminar will explore how men who inject performance and image-enhancing drugs (PIEDs) describe their experiences of embodiment and masculinity, locating that analysis in the context of contemporary makeover culture (Jones 2008) and the imperatives of self-transformation (Heyes 2007). Drawing on qualitative data from interviews conducted with sixty men who inject PIEDs from across Australia, I argue that there is a pragmatic logic associated with PIED use that challenges much research concerning this population, which tends to pathologise men who use PIEDs as disordered in their relationship to their bodies and cultural norms of masculinity. I unpack how the men interviewed describe everyday practices of doing gender in the context of illicit drug use, the implications in normative understandings of maleness and masculinity, and how PIED consumption practices precipitate particular attention to working on the self.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
How do practices of transgender medicine (re)produce cultural norms of gender, and to what effects? While there are always ways people resist and exceed these controls, overwhelmingly, treatment guidelines and their application demand... more
How do practices of transgender medicine (re)produce cultural norms of gender, and to what effects? While there are always ways people resist and exceed these controls, overwhelmingly, treatment guidelines and their application demand that trans patients adhere to stereotypical understandings of sex-gender through rigorous psychiatric scrutiny and medical surveillance. What happens when trans people do things differently?
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I emphasize the need to take account of the specificities of trans people’s individual, diverse experiences in clinical encounters (and access to medical interventions), arguing that current clinical practices not only limit and foreclose... more
I emphasize the need to take account of the specificities of trans people’s individual, diverse experiences in clinical encounters (and access to medical interventions), arguing that current clinical practices not only limit and foreclose many trans possibilities, but are often experienced as detrimental to that very category of patients their purpose it is to help. What makes this pressing is that these practices limit the very possibility of a supportive and encouraging clinical environment.
Research Interests:
"What I’m interested in is the hostility with which gender ambiguous bodies are stared at, the actuality of violence against those bodies, and the ways visual – and performative – arts subvert, reinforce or simply avoid these real life... more
"What I’m interested in is the hostility with which gender ambiguous bodies are stared at, the actuality of violence against those bodies, and the ways visual – and performative – arts subvert, reinforce or simply avoid these real life threats that trans and gender ambiguous people live with..."
This chapter explores what ageing means for intersexed people, many of whom live with the ongoing effects of non-consensual medical interventions (surgeries, hormone regimes) to conform their intersex differences to aesthetic social norms... more
This chapter explores what ageing means for intersexed people, many of whom live with the ongoing effects of non-consensual medical interventions (surgeries, hormone regimes) to conform their intersex differences to aesthetic social norms of the binary sex categories ‘male’ or ‘female’. By exploring the experiences of ageing intersexed people, we locate intersex sexual rights within a framework of human rights and offer suggestions for the ongoing care of intersexed people into old age.
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Exploring the experiences and needs of trans people for health and aged care services. This resource consists of abridged stories from all the people we interviewed. Part 1 comprises 16 stories from trans people about their personal... more
Exploring the experiences and needs of trans people for health and aged care services. This resource consists of abridged stories from all the people we interviewed. Part 1 comprises 16 stories from trans people about their personal experiences. Part 2 comprises stories about caring for trans people shared with us by service providers. Each story includes some discussion questions to help facilitate conversations about the experiences of trans people with the purpose of educating service providers on how to best care for trans people.
Research Interests:
This resource was developed as part of a research project to document Australian trans people’s experiences of ageing and their health and aged care needs, and to develop a resource that privileged the voices of trans people. The evidence... more
This resource was developed as part of a research project to document Australian trans people’s experiences of ageing and their health and aged care needs, and to develop a resource that privileged the voices of trans people. The evidence for this guide comes from interviews conducted in 2014 and 2015 with 15 trans people aged between 49 and 79 (3 men, 11 women and 1 gender diverse person), two of whom were living with dementia. We also interviewed seven service providers, who contacted us, about their experiences caring for older trans people. Three service providers shared with us the stories of four trans people living with dementia. This guide is part of a tool kit developed from the research, which have been designed to be read together, including a 4 page summary and a resource of participants’ narratives with discussion questions.
Research Interests:
This resource was developed as part of a research project to document Australian trans people’s experiences of ageing and their health and aged care needs, undertaken by Val’s Café at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and... more
This resource was developed as part of a research project to document Australian trans people’s experiences of ageing and their health and aged care needs, undertaken by Val’s Café at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University, in partnership with FTM Shed, Transgender Victoria and The Gender Centre (NSW). This 4 page summary is part of a tool kit developed from the research, which includes an extended guide and narrative resource.
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This resource was developed as part of a research project partnership by Val’s Café at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society at La Trobe University and Organisation Intersex International (OII) Australia. The aim of... more
This resource was developed as part of a research project partnership by Val’s Café at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society at La Trobe University and Organisation Intersex International (OII) Australia. The aim of the project was to document intersex people’s experiences of ageing and their needs, and to develop a resource that privileged the voices of intersex people. This guide is based on interviews conducted in 2014 with intersex people over 55 and is aimed at service providers (in ageing, health, and other human and social services). This resource contains some information on intersex, as well as: 1. Key issues in intersex ageing 2. A guide to intersex inclusive aged care services 3. Further information and resources 4. Stories and discussion questions.
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This resource has been developed to provide service providers with an evidence based on the experiences and needs to LGBT people living with dementia. By doing so we hope to promote the development of LGBT inclusive services for people... more
This resource has been developed to provide service providers with an evidence based on the experiences and needs to LGBT people living with dementia. By doing so we hope to promote the development of LGBT inclusive services for people living with dementia. This resource includes narratives from all the participants in the project with discussion questions to facilitate conversations and education about inclusive care for LGBT people living with dementia.
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'We are still gay' is Australia's first evidenced based study documenting the experiences and needs of LGBT people in Australia living with dementia. The resource outlines the key identified issues from the research and provides suggested... more
'We are still gay' is Australia's first evidenced based study documenting the experiences and needs of LGBT people in Australia living with dementia. The resource outlines the key identified issues from the research and provides suggested strategies to help meet the needs of LGBT people living with dementia. This resource was developed for service providers and is free to download.
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The Outer Sanctum is an unconventional all-female footy podcast that features six passionate fans – broadcaster Emma Race, lawyer Kate Seear, author Nicole Hayes, poet and author Alicia Sometimes, and business owners Lucy Race and... more
The Outer Sanctum is an unconventional all-female footy podcast that features six passionate fans – broadcaster Emma Race, lawyer Kate Seear, author Nicole Hayes, poet and author Alicia Sometimes, and business owners Lucy Race and Felicity Race - who focus on stories and voices rarely heard around the great game of AFL.
We talk "free" agency, gender diversity, and Colin Kaepernick. Our interview is with Dr J. R. Latham, Honorary Fellow at The University of Melbourne, and an expert on transgender health and medicine and it's social implications.
We talk "free" agency, gender diversity, and Colin Kaepernick. Our interview is with Dr J. R. Latham, Honorary Fellow at The University of Melbourne, and an expert on transgender health and medicine and it's social implications.
Research Interests:
Accessing aged care can be an emotionally confronting journey for anyone, but it can be particularly fraught for older people of diverse gender identity and sexual orientation.
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Matthew Wade reports: an Australian-first study has highlighted the discrimination faced by our senior trans* and gender diverse community when seeking services.
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Jill Stark reports on an Australian-first study of the experiences of older trans people that reveals many have faced a lifetime of discrimination and abuse, leading to fears they will be forced back into the closet when entering aged... more
Jill Stark reports on an Australian-first study of the experiences of older trans people that reveals many have faced a lifetime of discrimination and abuse, leading to fears they will be forced back into the closet when entering aged care services.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
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J. Latham follows around contemporary performance artist Hannah Raisin as she considers her work and its place: "Raisin is nothing if not frank. Her work is honest and at times heart-wrenchingly so. Nothing is off limits and the... more
J. Latham follows around contemporary performance artist Hannah Raisin as she considers her work and its place:
"Raisin is nothing if not frank. Her work is honest and at times heart-wrenchingly so. Nothing is off limits and the explorations in her art are clearly the artist’s coming to terms with the world around her and her position in it. “Getting my period at 11 ruined my life,” she tells me, “sometimes I find being female really hard. I was always number one or two in all the sports in primary school and used to beat up the boys.
"Raisin is nothing if not frank. Her work is honest and at times heart-wrenchingly so. Nothing is off limits and the explorations in her art are clearly the artist’s coming to terms with the world around her and her position in it. “Getting my period at 11 ruined my life,” she tells me, “sometimes I find being female really hard. I was always number one or two in all the sports in primary school and used to beat up the boys.
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June 2011 – January 2012 ISBN 978-0-646-57607-7 Published by SEVENTH 155 Gertrude Street Fitzroy VIC 3065 Australia Project Coordinator: Victoria Bennett Editor: Meg Hale ""Did Edward Use a Strap-on? Artifice, Autheniticity and... more
June 2011 – January 2012
ISBN 978-0-646-57607-7
Published by SEVENTH 155 Gertrude Street Fitzroy VIC 3065 Australia
Project Coordinator: Victoria Bennett
Editor: Meg Hale
""Did Edward Use a Strap-on? Artifice, Autheniticity and Attention or, Contemporary Art vs Pop Culture by J. Latham
Since the birth of the modern vampire in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the violence and intimacy of fang penetrating flesh has been a symbol for sex, and more often than not deviant sex at that. But let’s not get carried away. Twilight’s vampire hero Edward is virginal, virtuous, and celibate for over a century; he is unwilling for three films to do the deed with his human lover, Bella, for fear of killing her. Here, bloodlust and sexual desire are inextricably linked; and sex is risky. He fears that sex will equal consumption, and in a way it does, as he impregnates Bella with a vampire child who does eventually kill her. But literally kill her Edward does not. This jump from metaphor to literalisation raises an even more important conundrum: how does he get it up?""
ISBN 978-0-646-57607-7
Published by SEVENTH 155 Gertrude Street Fitzroy VIC 3065 Australia
Project Coordinator: Victoria Bennett
Editor: Meg Hale
""Did Edward Use a Strap-on? Artifice, Autheniticity and Attention or, Contemporary Art vs Pop Culture by J. Latham
Since the birth of the modern vampire in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the violence and intimacy of fang penetrating flesh has been a symbol for sex, and more often than not deviant sex at that. But let’s not get carried away. Twilight’s vampire hero Edward is virginal, virtuous, and celibate for over a century; he is unwilling for three films to do the deed with his human lover, Bella, for fear of killing her. Here, bloodlust and sexual desire are inextricably linked; and sex is risky. He fears that sex will equal consumption, and in a way it does, as he impregnates Bella with a vampire child who does eventually kill her. But literally kill her Edward does not. This jump from metaphor to literalisation raises an even more important conundrum: how does he get it up?""
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The View From Here: 19 Perspectives on Feminism pairs eight writers with eight artists to explore new feminist ideas and their influence on emerging arts practices. The participating artists and writers have worked together in dialogue... more
The View From Here: 19 Perspectives on Feminism pairs eight writers with eight artists to explore new feminist ideas and their influence on emerging arts practices. The participating artists and writers have worked together in dialogue over the past year, and their different perspectives on feminism are manifested in the publication and exhibition. New relationships were forged, opinions navigated and in some cases, collaborations were formed.
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When Susan Stryker first published her ‘words to Victor Frankenstein above the village of Chamounix’ I was a child performing my own transgender rage to authorities of all kinds. Decades later, I remain spellbound by Stryker’s retort that... more
When Susan Stryker first published her ‘words to Victor Frankenstein above the village of Chamounix’ I was a child performing my own transgender rage to authorities of all kinds. Decades later, I remain spellbound by Stryker’s retort that “we transsexuals are something more, and something other, than the creatures our makers intended us to be” (248). This paper explores how trans people exceed the expectations of medical transitioning, and challenge the paradigm of ‘changing sex’ still thrust upon us. Based on research into the experiences of trans men, including an autoethnographic study of my own endurance as a trans patient, I argue that transexuality continues to be a productive site for questioning medicine’s “deeply conservative attempt to stabilise gendered identity in service of the naturalized heterosexual order” (Stryker 248). By drawing on notions of performative realities and ontological politics from science and technology studies (STS), I examine various ways that treatment practices produce particular iterations of what sex (and transexuality) ‘is’ and how these processes limit (and foreclose) particular trans possibilities. I argue that by rethinking sex as ontologically multiple, we might better understand how medicine acts to produce sex in particular (and often oppressive) ways, and how trans people continue to resist and contest that which is said about us, and done to us.
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In this paper, I explore how practices of transgender medicine compel those people who seek female-to-male transgender surgeries to commit to using testosterone as a condition of treatment.
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Research Interests:
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Research Interests: Pediatrics, Feminist Theory, Transgender Studies, Somatechnics, Sexuality, and 10 moreGender and Sexuality, STS (Anthropology), Transgender Health, Medicine, Transgender, New Materialism, Queer time and space, Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Studies, Transgender Children, and Science and Technology Studies
Trans people are expected to undergo rigorous psychiatric screening regimes in order to access ‘gender-enhancing’ medical services, differently from other categories of patients who pursue the same procedures. This paper examines how... more
Trans people are expected to undergo rigorous psychiatric screening regimes in order to access ‘gender-enhancing’ medical services, differently from other categories of patients who pursue the same procedures. This paper examines how trans people are produced as a separate category of patients in order to justify these divergent courses of action. Is this appropriate care or a double standard that undermines claims to act in the best interest of the patient? Trans medical ‘specialists’ continue to advocate the absolute necessity of psychiatric assessment without attention to how trans people experience these processes. Doing trans medicine in this way self-referentially excludes and erases the evidence of a great body of work in trans* studies that critiques this approach. Revisiting Sandy Stone’s (1991) call to ‘deconstruct the necessity for passing’, I explore how - some twenty-five years later - ‘passing’ continues to act in diagnostic practices of trans medicine. I draw on the testimonies of trans people and the evidence of trans research to mount the argument that medicine is set up in ways that disallow the complexities of trans people’s individual experiences of gender and preclude an adequate supportive care environment. This paper asks: How are trans patients treated differently from other patients? How are these differential practices justified? Do these rationalisations do justice to trans patients (according to trans people)? If they do not, how is it that these unjust practices continue to dominate trans medicine?
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This paper introduces the concept of ontological politics (‘ontics’) through an analysis of trans sexual practices to theorise how sex functions in the lived realities of trans people (‘fuctics’). Extending C. Jacob Hale’s ([1997]2003)... more
This paper introduces the concept of ontological politics (‘ontics’) through an analysis of trans sexual practices to theorise how sex functions in the lived realities of trans people (‘fuctics’). Extending C. Jacob Hale’s ([1997]2003) commentary on situating sex, I will elaborate how trans people manage the potential conflicts or contradictions between sexual pleasures and sex-gender-genital ‘alignment’ in multiple ways. Contrary to the limited view of trans sexual possibilities in trans medicine (that trans people will be inadequate or incompetent sexually because we ‘have the wrong genitals’), trans people fuck in a variety of ways, and may, in so doing, enact sex-gender in all manner of ways previously unimaginable to the sexually conservative discipline of medicine. How to bring together these divergent realities? As trans people, we often must navigate complex systems of medical treatment in order to pursue self-determination of our bodies, and we are often expected to participate in the rhetoric of our own incapacity in order to achieve our goals. In particular, engaging in sexually pleasurable activities that are deemed to be appropriate to one’s birth-assigned sex-gender can result in a denial of trans medical services. By mobilising the complex negotiations of sex-gender and sexual pleasure trans people engage in through the notion of fuctics, this paper argues that attending to the many ways trans people enact sex-gender sexually demands a rethinking of how trans medicine is currently practiced.
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One of the problems for transgender people in Australia is that as well as being particularly vulnerable to specific kinds of elder abuse, these issues often fail to be recognised as abuse. In a qualitative study conducted in 2014 and... more
One of the problems for transgender people in Australia is that as well as being particularly vulnerable to specific kinds of elder abuse, these issues often fail to be recognised as abuse. In a qualitative study conducted in 2014 and 2015, older trans people were interviewed about their experiences of ageing and discrimination, especially using health and human services. This paper uses two cases studies from that research as a way to examine forms of transgender elder abuse and advocacy for older trans people. One example brought to the researchers’ attention involves family interference in the gender presentation of older trans people as they enter aged care services and/or decline in capacity to care for themselves, where trans people have been forced or coerced into dressing and pretending to be the sex they were assigned at birth. In one instance, a trans woman who had transitioned over 40 years previously was pressured by her son, who demanded she present as male in a care service or else lose visitation with her grandchildren. The residential care service did not know how to navigate the situation and as a result the woman, whose health was declining rapidly, relented and lived as a man in that service. In a second example, a person presenting as a man in an aged care service reported to employees a desire to wear women’s clothing. Family pressure against doing so was navigated by employees at that service, who prioritised the needs of the resident. By outlining the ways these examples highlight forms of transgender elder abuse, this paper will focus on ways that service providers can advocate for the needs of their clients by understanding the legal rights of transgender people in Australia.
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Abstract: In a 2014 qualitative study, trans people were interviewed about their experiences ageing, including 2 participants living with dementia. Three service providers were also interviewed about their experiences caring for trans... more
Abstract: In a 2014 qualitative study, trans people were interviewed about their experiences ageing, including 2 participants living with dementia. Three service providers were also interviewed about their experiences caring for trans people with dementia. Important issues regarding the experiences of trans people with dementia were brought to the researchers’ attention, as were a number of unfounded assumptions about what dementia means for trans people, some of which were held by service providers and dementia advocates. By presenting the stories of a number of trans people, this paper explores these issues and how they were navigated by trans people and service providers. In ‘Edna’s story’, service providers explain how Edna came to live at their residential facility as a man, after being blackmailed to do so by her son. Edna’s dementia and declining capacity made it impossible for her to advocate for herself and the service providers did not know how to handle the situation. The pretence of living as a man was described as very stressful for Edna, and reported to have accelerated the symptoms of dementia. This story among others will be used to explore some of the myths about trans people with dementia and how service providers can advocate for the needs of their clients.
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In a qualitative study conducted in 2014, older trans people were interviewed about their experiences of discrimination, especially using health and human services. Two related issues regarding the elder abuse of trans people were brought... more
In a qualitative study conducted in 2014, older trans people were interviewed about their experiences of discrimination, especially using health and human services. Two related issues regarding the elder abuse of trans people were brought to the researchers’ attention. One involves family interference in the gender presentation of older trans people as they enter aged care services and/or decline in capacity to care for themselves, where trans people have been forced or coerced into dressing and pretending to be the sex they were assigned at birth. In one instance, a trans woman who had transitioned over 40 years previously was blackmailed by her son, who demanded she present as male in a care service or else lose visitation with her grandchildren. The woman, whose health was declining rapidly, relented and the residential care service did not know how to navigate the situation. A second instance of abuse involves the refusal of families of trans people who have died to recognise the gender of their loved one in funeral services and burial arrangements. This means some people have been buried as the sex they were assigned at birth, and not the gender with which they identified and lived their life. As well as an abuse to the deceased, this behaviour was very distressing to their friends. One of the problems for transgender people in Australia is that as well as being particularly vulnerable to these specific kinds of elder abuse, both of these issues often fail to be recognised as abuse.
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Roundtable Title: "Ontologically Entangled: Rethinking Causality" Abstract: The papers in this panel each rethink and reconceptualises the relationship between disease, disorder, normativity and treatment practices. We ask: How are... more
Roundtable Title: "Ontologically Entangled: Rethinking Causality"
Abstract: The papers in this panel each rethink and reconceptualises the relationship between disease, disorder, normativity and treatment practices. We ask: How are problems (and patients) being produced through the systems designed to treat them? How have our concepts of disease and disorder predetermined the outcomes of treatment, health promotion techniques and strategies of protection? We take as our objects of analysis: endometriosis, poverty, HIV/AIDs, transsexuality, Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), among others. In particular, each paper challenges the commonplace view that these are separately determinate entities, which interact in linear, causal ways. Embracing Karen Barad’s theory of agential realism and intra-activity, we propose that each of our examples is constituted through the very practices that are said to be consequential. In this way, poverty and disease, transsexuality and diagnosis, endometriosis and treatment, PrEP and online forums, object choice and sexual appetite are more usefully understood as ontologically entangled. On the basis of these alternative accounts, we propose that there are more effective, nuanced interventions that can be developed.
Chair: Dr Steven Angelides (La Trobe University, Macquarie University)
Speakers:
Dr Kate Seear (National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University)
‘The makings of a modern epidemic: Endometriosis, gender and politics’
Dr Kiran Pienaar (National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University)
‘HIV/AIDS, poverty and the making of disease’
J.R. Latham (La Trobe University), PhD Candidate, ARCSHS.
‘Making (trans) sense: Enacting maleness through sexual practices’
Emerich Daroya (La Trobe University), PhD Candidate, ARCSHS.
‘The emergence of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) in online cultures of barebacking’
Jacinthe Flore (La Trobe University), PhD Candidate, Gender and Diversity Studies.
‘Traces and amounts: A medical historiography of sexual appetite’
Abstract: The papers in this panel each rethink and reconceptualises the relationship between disease, disorder, normativity and treatment practices. We ask: How are problems (and patients) being produced through the systems designed to treat them? How have our concepts of disease and disorder predetermined the outcomes of treatment, health promotion techniques and strategies of protection? We take as our objects of analysis: endometriosis, poverty, HIV/AIDs, transsexuality, Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), among others. In particular, each paper challenges the commonplace view that these are separately determinate entities, which interact in linear, causal ways. Embracing Karen Barad’s theory of agential realism and intra-activity, we propose that each of our examples is constituted through the very practices that are said to be consequential. In this way, poverty and disease, transsexuality and diagnosis, endometriosis and treatment, PrEP and online forums, object choice and sexual appetite are more usefully understood as ontologically entangled. On the basis of these alternative accounts, we propose that there are more effective, nuanced interventions that can be developed.
Chair: Dr Steven Angelides (La Trobe University, Macquarie University)
Speakers:
Dr Kate Seear (National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University)
‘The makings of a modern epidemic: Endometriosis, gender and politics’
Dr Kiran Pienaar (National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University)
‘HIV/AIDS, poverty and the making of disease’
J.R. Latham (La Trobe University), PhD Candidate, ARCSHS.
‘Making (trans) sense: Enacting maleness through sexual practices’
Emerich Daroya (La Trobe University), PhD Candidate, ARCSHS.
‘The emergence of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) in online cultures of barebacking’
Jacinthe Flore (La Trobe University), PhD Candidate, Gender and Diversity Studies.
‘Traces and amounts: A medical historiography of sexual appetite’
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Medical Anthropology, Transgender Studies, Poverty, Queer Theory, and 17 moreOnline Communities, HIV/AIDS, Transsexuality, STS (Anthropology), Online social networks, Infectious Diseases, DSM-IV-TR, Women and Gender Studies, Asexuality, South Africa, New Materialism, Agential Realism, Karen Barad, Endometriosis, Barebacking, Annemarie Mol, and Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis
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Abstract: In this paper, I investigate the ways in which ftm (‘female-to-male transgender’) individuals are reclaiming their ‘monstrous’ bodies through contemporary cultural productions, and the ways in which technological possibilities... more
Abstract: In this paper, I investigate the ways in which ftm (‘female-to-male transgender’) individuals are reclaiming their ‘monstrous’ bodies through contemporary cultural productions, and the ways in which technological possibilities (and restraints) affect ways of framing sex and sexuality.
The diversity of ftm bodies continues to be taboo even in disciplines in which they are embedded, and from which material meaning emerges, such as clinical psychiatry, plastic surgery, or indeed transgender studies itself. Hence the... more
The diversity of ftm bodies continues to be taboo even in disciplines in which they are embedded, and from which material meaning emerges, such as clinical psychiatry, plastic surgery, or indeed transgender studies itself. Hence the implications of this heterogeneity remain unexamined.
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"How do technologies affect notions of “sex”? Ftm (“female-to-male”) transgender bodies continue to defy expectations of “sex”.
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The erasure of ftm [female to male trans*] bodies, especially in feminist theorising of materiality, exposes the ways in which ftm bodies and lives continue to be deemed 'unacceptable.'
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Executive Summary: Many older lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) Australians have lived through a time when their only protection against heterosexist violence and prejudice was to make themselves invisible, to... more
Executive Summary:
Many older lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) Australians have lived through a time when their only protection against heterosexist violence and prejudice was to make themselves invisible, to publicly deny their sexual orientation or gender identity in order to pass as ‘heterosexual’. Disclosure could result in imprisonment, forced medical interventions and ‘cures’, or loss of employment, family and friends (Barrett, 2008; Leonard, Duncan and Barrett, 2012). The stories documented in this report bear witness to the remarkable lives of 12 older LGT Australians, aged 65 years and above, who participated in the study. They show the complex and varied strategies that older LGBT people adopted to live in a world that denied, not only their sexual orientation and gender identity,
but also their humanity.
Many older lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) Australians have lived through a time when their only protection against heterosexist violence and prejudice was to make themselves invisible, to publicly deny their sexual orientation or gender identity in order to pass as ‘heterosexual’. Disclosure could result in imprisonment, forced medical interventions and ‘cures’, or loss of employment, family and friends (Barrett, 2008; Leonard, Duncan and Barrett, 2012). The stories documented in this report bear witness to the remarkable lives of 12 older LGT Australians, aged 65 years and above, who participated in the study. They show the complex and varied strategies that older LGBT people adopted to live in a world that denied, not only their sexual orientation and gender identity,
but also their humanity.
Research Interests: Education, Anxiety Disorders, Mental Health, Community-Based Mental Health Services, Depression, and 17 morePalliative Care, Sexuality, Australia, Aging, Qualitative Health Research, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Social Care For Older People, Public Health, Health Policy, Health Care Management, Ageing and Health, Employment, Pastoral Care and Counselling, Older people, Healthy Aging, Body Image and Aging, and Public Policy
Abstract: In this article, we argue that the “problem” of addiction emerges as an effect of treatment policy and practice as well as a precursor to it. We draw on the work of Marrati to analyze interviews with policy makers and... more
Abstract: In this article, we argue that the “problem” of addiction emerges as an effect of treatment policy and practice as well as a precursor to it. We draw on the work of Marrati to analyze interviews with policy makers and practitioners in Australia. The interviews suggest that the episode-of-care system governing service activity, outcomes, and funding relies on certain notions of addiction and treatment that compel service providers to designate service users as addicts to receive funding. This has a range of effects, not least that in acquiring the label of “addict,” service users enter into bureaucratic and epidemiological systems aimed at quantifying addiction. Rather than treating pre-existing addicts, the system produces “addicts” as an effect of policy imperatives. Because addiction comes to be produced by the very system designed to treat it, the scale of the problem appears to be growing rather than shrinking.
Travel in time from the heady glamour of Britain's first terminal at Croydon to the signs and squiggles that direct pilots, as well as passengers, in today's airports. This series reveals how rivalry, skulduggery and sheer passion for... more
Travel in time from the heady glamour of Britain's first terminal at Croydon to the signs and squiggles that direct pilots, as well as passengers, in today's airports. This series reveals how rivalry, skulduggery and sheer passion for flight gave birth to our airports, turning muddy airfields into the 24-hour mini-cities we know today. In the process, they've transformed Britain - giving us the freedom to travel anywhere we want and inspiring fear about our borders.
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Clinical expectations that trans people will be so filled with self-loathing that sexual interactions will be limited if possible at all fail to take into account the heterogeneous ways trans people experience their own bodies and... more
Clinical expectations that trans people will be so filled with self-loathing that sexual interactions will be limited if possible at all fail to take into account the heterogeneous ways trans people experience their own bodies and sexualities. In this essay, I extend recent work in science and technology studies (STS) that attends to material practices by examining the work of narrative and argue for a new paradigm in situating trans sexualities. I analyse trans men's autobiographical stories to show some of the many ways that trans men make sense of themselves (and enact maleness) as sexual subjects. By focusing on how sex-gender is enacted and hangs together in narrative-practices, we can more fully understand and appreciate the realities of trans lives and the inadequacies of clinical diagnosis. Keywords: Autobiography, female to male, praxiography, STS, transgender
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Queer Studies, Ontology, Media and Cultural Studies, Feminist Theory, and 15 moreNarrative, Queer Theory, Feminist Philosophy, Gender and Sexuality, English, Autobiography, Literary Theory, Medicine, Feminist Literary Theory and Gender Studies, Sexuality Studies, Literary studies, Ontological Politics, Praxiography, Transgender cultural competence in Medicine, and Sexualities
Healthcare and disability support services are increasing their efforts towards inclusion and recognising the needs of different groups. This research project was conducted by academic and peer researchers (LGBTIQA+ people with... more
Healthcare and disability support services are increasing their efforts towards inclusion and recognising the needs of different groups. This research project was conducted by academic and peer researchers (LGBTIQA+ people with disability) in Victoria, Australia using four focus groups with LGBTIQA+ people with disability. We report on two overarching themes relating to participants’ experiences of accessing health services as LGBTIQA+ people with disability: difficulties in managing multiple identities and the impacts of community services and supports. Participants described having to repeatedly ‘come out’ in a range of ways and contexts as complex and layered processes in which it was difficult to present their full range of needs and experiences to services. We also found that the role of community in promoting a sense of belonging and resilience increased capacity to manage health service use and advocacy. Services and communities aiming to be inclusive to all have the opportun...