Study To Compare Transgenders,

Gender

BY STACEY HORN

‘ ‘ ender," UVM Ph.D. candidate
GRhonda Factor explains, “is not
a dichotomous variable. There
are people who don’t identify as either gender,
an emerging population of individuals who
don’t experience themselves as one or the other,
aren’t interested in being one or the other 
what does that mean about how they relate to
their body?” Further, asks Factor, what does it
mean for how psychology will relate to them?

Factor is currently working on a dis-
sertation titled “Exploring Gender Diversity: A
Comparison of Transgendered Adults and Their
Conventionally Gendered Siblings.” In her
study. she uses the term trarlsgender,‘0r trans,
as “an umbrella term referring to a heteroge-
neous group of individuals who do not fully
identify with the sex and/or gender to which
they were assigned at birth.” This group
includes those who describe themselves with
the terms “transman” or “transwoman” as well
as “gender radicals  individuals who experi-
ence themselves as neither male nor female.”

Factor explains that her interests in
“gender expression, gender diversity, gender as
a construct” led her to pursue research about
transgender populations. She adds, “I don’t
identify as trans, but I do feel connected to _
these issues in a personal way and that [all]
people are harmed by gender reinforcement.
Looking at gender constructions, we bring into
question the facts of male and female that are
so reifred by culture.”

As she gathered information for her
research, Factor found that the limited available
literature in the field of psychology provided
"little knowledge and insight into the experi-
ences of trans individuals,” so when clinicians
encounter trans individuals in therapy, they do
not have access to trans-affirming information
to inform their therapeutic practices. I

Clinicians might “teach people how

 

Radicals, and their Siblings

There

* awe
people
\Mho

e donfi’
identify
as
either
gender

Rhonda

to sit and act” in order to pass, for one gender
or another, or they might diagnose transgender
individuals with Gender Identity Disorder or
Transvestic Fetishism. Those two terms are the
psychological labels used to describe individu-
als whose experience of gender causes “clini-
cally significant distress or impairment in
social, occupational, or other important areas of
functioning” according to the American
Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).
“In terms of the waythe DSM regu-
lates sex and gender,” Factor says, “I don’t feel
that’s useful or about real health or illness. It’s
about cultural norms.” She identifies one role
of psychology as “policing the borders” of gen-
der divisions, leaving transgender individuals
“totally marginalized” and frequently patholo-
. gized when they seek'support from the psycho-

  
    

f.D candidate 

-logical establishment.

Out of her work, Factor hopes to see
psychology’s view of gender move “away from
defining” toward a “much more contextual
understanding.” She hopes “to show the varia-
tion of experiences that people who identify as
trans have; female to male, male to female, and
those who identify as neither.” In addition,
Factor would like to see “improvements in legal
protection” for trans individuals who frequently
experience discrimination, harassment, and vio-
lence, yet are accorded little or no legal recog-
nition and raised public awareness about seem-
ingly mundane experiences of gender such as
the designation of male, or female, on drivers’
licenses and other official documents as well as
separate bathrooms for Men and Women.

Factor recognizes that new methods
and new ways of understanding must fuel

research with transgender populations.
“Anything that’s hard to quantify,” Factor
explains, “poses challenges to scientific under-
standing. Transgender bodies, as sites where
cultural perceptions of male and female are
challenged, refuse to be quantified, categorized,
or defined by traditional psychological theo-
ries.” For a psychological researcher like
Factor, this lack of quantifiable data presents a
unique opportunity.

Out of interviews she conducted with
transgender individuals, Factor developed a sur-
vey, prefaced with a paragraph explaining, “I
have tried to include choices that describe a
wide range of experiences. However, some of
the items will not describe you exactly. By
choosing the response that comes closest to
describing you, you are helping to broaden the
ways in which our society understands gender.”

From her surveys, Factor seeks to
learn about respondents’ demographic charac-
teristics (such as level of education, occupation-
al status, and income) as well attitudes and
experiences of the body, social support systems,
and experiences of violence, harassment, and
discrimination. "

Factor has designed two versions of
her survey: one for individuals who identify as
trans and one for their “conventionally gen-
dered” siblings. Factor’s use of siblings as a
control group mirrors a 2001 study titled
“Lesbians and their Sisters as a Control Group”
she worked on with Dr. Esther Rothblum, also
of the UVM Psychology Department. Lesbian
mental health was Factor’s original ‘research
interest when she came to UVM in 1997 and
began studying with Rothblum. As her research
interests shifted, Factor sought ways to evolve
methods she was familiar with in her work with
transgender populations. She plans to defend
her dissertation in September of 2004. After
earning her doctorate, Factor hopes to work as a
clinician, to engage in “healing work with indi-
viduals and to speak more qualitatively to these
issues.” V

l

UVM Celebrates
Academic Coming Out

 

Bv STACEY Horm

VM’s Lesbian, Gay,

Bisexual, Transgender, Queer,

and Allies Center hosted
events throughout National Coming
Out Week. Events on Monday and
Tuesday evening, facilitated by
LGBTQA Center coordinator
Dorothea Brauer, brought students
and faculty together to discuss LGBT
issues in the classroom and curricu-
lum.

Monday night‘s “Coming

Out as a Scholar" panel featured
Valerie Rohy, Assistant Professor of
English specializing in queer studies,
19th and 20th century American liter-
ature, critical theory, and women’s
studies: and UVM scholars Peter
Blackmer, Assistant to the Dean for
Administrative Services, completing

his doctorate in leadership and policy
studies; Glen Elder, Associate

Professor of Geography, specializing
in race and sexuality and urban geog-

raphy; Rhonda Factor, a Ph.D. candi- '

date in clinical psychology, complet-
ing her dissertation on gender diver-
sity; Clinton Nichols, a doctoral stu-
dent in geography; and John Sarna, a
Ph.D. student in educational leader-
ship.

In front of a small, respon-
sive audience, scholars discussed
LGBT studies as a field of research.
Panelists addressed the question of
whether scholars in this field must
identify as queer, agreeing that the
answer varies across disciplines.
Sexual orientation might be more rel-
evant for social science researchers
than for scholars who study construc-
tions of queerness in literature and
culture. Rohy cited a line she remem-

bered from Tom Robinson’s song,
“Glad to Be Gay”: “You don’t have
to be gay to sing this song, but it
helps.”

Members of_the panel
expressed comfort with the LGBT-
affirming climate at UVM. Audience
members raised the question of how
scholarly LGBT research works to
affect social change. Panelists agreed
that the classroom is an important
place to raise these issues, foreshad-
owing Tuesday’s faculty/student
forum.

Brauer called Tuesday’s
“fishbowl discussion” about LGBT
issues in the classroom and curricu-
lum “the most powerful event ofthe
week.” Sixty-three students and fac-
ulty attended, including President
Fogel and his wife, Rachel.

Brauer explained the

event’s format but did not introduce

. the participants. Instead, she asked

the students, who sat in a circle sur-
rounded by faculty, to begin.
Students discussed hetero-centric ide-
ologies they ‘often face in the class-
room, such as the assumption that
marriage and children lie in most stu-
dents’ futures. In addition, transgen-
der students have not been able to
change their names on class rosters,
so they must choose between.answer-
ing to their non-preferred name, or
outing themselves to professors,
often in front of an entire class. As
the conversation shifted toward the
question of being out in the class-
room, students noted significant dif-
ferences across disciplines, observing
that some classrooms are more com-
fortable than others and asking, “Is it
as relevant for students and faculty to
be out in math as it is in social work
classrooms?”

Students then traded places
with faculty, who emphasized that
UVM is not a place where people
endanger their jobs by coming out.
Faculty asked, “How do we come out
in the classroom?” Some faculty said
they choose to come out at a particu-

lar time in the course such as the first
day, the last day, or National Coming
Out Week. Others said that coming
out “just happens.” Faculty discussed
the issue of losing credibility by
coming out in the classroom. Will
students interpret the class through
the lens of the professor’s sexual ori-
entation?

Some faculty who identify
as straight allies said they choose to
“come out" as heterosexual in their
classrooms in order to raise students’
consciousness about assumptions of
sexual norms. Discussing the ques-
tion of students, coming out, faculty
said they have the power to control
the climate of their own classrooms,
but they cannot protect students out-
side of class, and coming out has
serious implications in academia as
well as in the larger world.

After the discussion. stu-

dents and faculty lingered to continue ,

talking with one another. Brauer said.
“The universal response from faculty
was “I’m so glad I could be there.
I’m so glad I could hear what the stu-
dents had to say.“. V