Tag Archives: So Good

Transgender in Science: The Power of Mesearch

This blog post is a part of the series, “So Good,” developed by the APAGS Committee for Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity. This series will discuss current events and how these events relate to LGBTQ+ graduate students in psychology. If you are interested in contributing to the “So Good” series, please contact Mallaigh McGinley (they/them).

I believe that science can help us move towards a more kind, more just, and more equitable world, and that science can truly change lives for the better. When I initially attended undergrad from 2004-2006, I found I was consistently questioning myself and my life’s path. I felt, as I had for my entire life, that there was something wrong with me. No matter how hard I tried, I could not come up with the answers I needed to be successful. What I needed was to take the time necessary to figure out what I perceived was wrong with me, and to figure out what my path could actually be. I finally returned to continue my undergraduate degree in the Spring of 2015 after pursuing a completely different career in the restaurant industry. While I hadn’t exactly figured out what felt off, I did have a path – I saw the way the world treated those who did not fit within the standard conceptions of what was “normal” (e.g., transgender people, queer folks, BIPOC), and I wanted to do something to make it better. It’s the typical undergraduate student’s reason for pursuing an education in psychology: I wanted to help people. Less than one month after returning, I began to see news articles about the first in a series of papers from a longitudinal study following transgender children (Olson, Key, & Eaton, 2015). Reading the coverage of this article, and eventually the article itself, helped me realize that there were children out there who felt the way that I had felt as a child, and that they were remarkably similar to their cisgender peers. What this told me in that moment was that the way that I had felt all my life wasn’t beyond normal human variation; there was nothing wrong with me. It was then that I realized the power of scientific research to impact individuals and societies, while engaging in positive social change. While we have talked many times since I initially reached out to her, I don’t know if I have ever actually told Kristina that the article itself actually led me to becoming comfortable with who I am, and it led coming out. So… thanks, Kristina!

But we still live in a world where transgender people are misunderstood and discriminated against, in spite of landmark court decisions like Bostock v. Clayton County as well as the so-called “Transgender Tipping Point” that Time magazine declared in 2014.

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When You Said You See Me

This blog post is a part of the series, “So Good,” developed by the APAGS Committee for Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity. This series will discuss current events and how these events relate to LGBTQ+ graduate students in psychology. If you are interested in contributing to the “So Good” series, please contact Mallaigh McGinley (they/them).

When You Said You See Me

By Aldo M. Barrita

“But do you see me?” – this is the question I often ask as I navigate academic spaces that were never meant for people like me. Exploring the intersectionality of my salient identities as an immigrant Latinx queer graduate student while facing gaslighting statements of inclusion from a system that fails to acknowledge the harm of their oppression is a daily routine in my existence. For some, choosing how to “show up” in academic spaces is as simple as choosing what to wear for the day, for others like me, the process is much more complex as, I must moderate parts of who I am in white-hetero spaces to prevent yet another attack. Being queer and Latinx means having to negotiate pieces of my soul, in order to make it through a heterosexist, heteronormative, white supremacist world. 

            Every time I talk, there must be control: “Don’t move like that, don’t sound like that.” It never stops! It wasn’t enough growing up in a traditional macho Latinx house where femininity was simply unacceptable; it continues to replicate in academic spaces where there seems to be a clear preference for and comfort with normative gender roles. I am a cis-queer man who often benefits from hetero/cis-normative spaces. This has led to a lot of internalized homophobia, especially when I am reminded of it with things like “I couldn’t tell you are gay,” while thinking what that would even mean and what I unconsciously have done to silence a part of me in an effort to exist. I remember being asked on a professional interview, “so you identified as queer, is that like gay?” triggering an internal negotiation, thinking what would make them feel safer to accepting me and then responding “Yes!”while losing another part of myself. You see, the beauty for me about being queer is that I do not conform, yet with every question, I am being asked to, fit into a box less threatening for them. When would it be enough, when would I be enough?

            Being Latinx – from an indigenous background of Zapotecan heritage from the beautiful region of Oaxaca, Mexico – comes with other layers of continuous invalidation: the anxiety before speaking up in a class or in a presentation, thinking about the “proper” colonial pronunciation I must adhere to before saying a word. “Interesting accent”, someone says as I realize I have been identified; I have been othered – knowing that my audience has focused on the discomfort of hearing my immigrant accent, the dare to sound different, instead of the message, the knowledge I tried to communicate. How am I supposed to excel in academia, when my own voice is used to keep me from fully entering these spaces of knowledge? When I first immigrated at the age of 16, I was warned by a Latinx school counselor, “You should work on losing your accent.” feeling betrayed, as I was asked by someone who looked like me to let go of who I was in order to fit. I resented them; I still do.  

            I was told grad school would be difficult, and I knew being a first-generation student would present additional challenges. However, the difficulty does not manifest in the rigorousness of the academics, but in the effort to erase people like me. I am a Latinx queer person, who is minoritized by a system that keeps trying to make me small, a statistic. I am not under-represented in these spaces; these spaces are systematically and intentionally excluding people like me. 

As long as conversations of inclusion and equity are made about the person impacted and not about the system that impacts them, the real issue is avoided, and white cis straight academia lives another day. Using performative rhetoric to claim that we belong while continuing to see only what is safe and comfortable harms marginalized students – forced to choose between leaving their dreams of higher education or staying while continuously giving up part of themselves in order to exist. Perhaps it’s time for academic programs to SEE the systems of oppression that surrounds marginalized students, the ways they foster it, perpetuate minoritized students, and replicate the harm. Perhaps it’s time for these institutions to first SEE themselves for who they are and acknowledge the damage they continue to cause (and often ignore to recognize), to those they describe as “minority”. Perhaps it’s time to be intentional and action-oriented when condemning systems of oppression, increasing funds for D&I initiatives, and adding value to the invisible labor marginalized scholars constantly engage in in order to survive academic spaces.

So, I ask again, when you say you see me, do you see me, do you REALLY see me?

By Aldo M Barrita

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She Went That Way? A Pathway to Graduate School

This blog post is a part of the series, “So Good,” developed by the APAGS Committee for Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity. This series will discuss current events and how these events relate to LGBTQ+ graduate students in psychology. If you are interested in contributing to the “So Good” series, please contact Mallaigh McGinley (they/them).

If you are a fan of RuPaul’s Drag Race, ball culture, or queer nightlife, then you have probably heard gay men reclaim femmephobic or homonegative slurs, such as playing with pronouns or using the word “girl” as a term of endearment. And if you are wondering whether your invisible psychosocial disability bars you from graduate school, then girl, let me tell you something.

She—meaning me—took the path less traveled.

Of course, the reclamation of effeminacy from a heterosexist environment—spaces where there is one way to be masculine—comes from a place of privilege. Shifting between pronouns is relatively safe for a gay cisgender man. For my transgender or nonbinary peers, a change in pronouns is too often life-threatening. So, my intention is not to make light of pronouns, but to honor the gay male community that nourishes me.

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The Only Queer Latinx in Ohio: The Start to My Graduate School Experience During a Global Pandemic

This blog post is a part of the series, “So Good,” developed by the APAGS Committee for Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity. This series will discuss current events and how these events relate to LGBTQ+ graduate students in psychology. If you are interested in contributing to the “So Good” series, please contact Mallaigh McGinley (they/them).

Going into graduate school during a global pandemic was not in my plans when I was applying to programs in the fall semester of 2019; it was also not in my plans when I received an acceptance to a Ph.D. program in Counseling Psychology in February 2019. What was in my plans was the fear and process of needing to find a community of queer people of color in a new location. Surprisingly, this process was easier than expected despite being in a time where isolation is sanctioned. While this pandemic has created much uncertainty and anxiety in my life, it has also opened my eyes to the importance of community. The Latinx community I grew up with all my life prepared me to understand that community provides support and can relate to experiences I thought I was going through alone; this is what I needed as I began my journey into a new graduate program as the only queer Latinx. Over the last nine months, I have seen my grandparents lose their income source, I have moved to a different state, and I have never had more access to a supportive community than I do now. 

My birthday was the first day of quarantine in the state of Illinois back in March 2020; it was also the day I realized my maternal grandparents had lost their source of income. Ever since my grandparents moved to the United States from their hometown in Aguascalientes, Mexico, they have been working as photographers – taking photographs for baptisms, confirmations, quinceñearas, and weddings in churches in Chicago. Unfortunately, they have not been able to earn an income since the start of lockdowns. Thankfully, the Mexican community in Chicago is very community-oriented, and because my grandparents are well known with many Mexican Catholics in the area they have received a lot of support. Their connections in the community were not evident to me until I helped my grandma pick up food at a Chicago Public School food drive and we were waiting in line. During the one hour it took for us to go through the line, my grandma talked to all those around us, about how their daughter was doing, how they were dealing with lock down, and memories from Sunday church, among many other things. Even during a time of uncertainty and isolation, my grandma fostered connections to others and thrived emotionally from a social distance. In my experience, I always understood that being Mexican meant being in a tight-knit community that supported each other, but the depth of that connection did not hit me until I saw my grandmother smile through her face mask while talking to others in the line.  

I regretted not forming that kind of connection at home with others who shared that identity as I began my journey to moving away from home and my family for the first time. Moving from Chicago to Akron, Ohio was a terrifying endeavor, not only because I would be in a place I had never been to before and away from those I love, but because I did not know how much those around me would accept me. A queer Latinx is not a new concept in the middle of a big city, but was it new to a small city in the Midwest, much less my program? It has felt like it as I have looked for panaderias on Google and have only come up with the Wonder Bread factory 0.7 miles away and a Starbucks located on campus. It has felt like I was the only nonbinary individual at my university every time I have needed to correct a professor about my pronouns. I know I cannot be the only queer Latinx in Ohio, but this is how I felt as I began navigating my first semester of graduate school. I did not inherit my grandparents’ ability to find community wherever they went and this was clear with every pang of homesickness. 

My circumstances were not all that hopeless as I did have a supportive cohort and graduate program. Ever since the interview weekend, I introduced myself with they/them pronouns. While I have heard my professors slip up in using them, they continue to do better and catch themselves when they make a mistake. My cohort members have been consistent in using my pronouns, even offering to correct our professors if they use the wrong pronouns. Although these people have been the ones I interact with the most, they are not the only supportive group I have found. Surprisingly, the COVID-19 pandemic has opened many doors to me for finding my community, and it has done so virtually. Through social media, I have been able to join groups where people share my identities and share resources. One of these resources has been virtual meetups to network with others, one of which was specifically directed at transgender and nonbinary graduate students in psychology. Here, I was able to ask questions that no one in my graduate program could satisfy, such as “Should I disclose my pronouns to my students?”, “How open are you about your identity with faculty?”, and many others. There have been so many more groups I have been able to join through virtual means that have helped me to feel closer to those in my communities and my own identity, even if I am living in an unfamiliar place. 

Almost a year since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I have seen my grandmother still feel connected to her neighborhood, I have become the first in my family to move out of state and to pursue a graduate degree, and I have felt connected to my identity through the support of my cohort and from those online. Despite living through a time where isolation is expected, I have never felt more linked to others in my life. Knowing what I know now, I would advise my younger self and others that face similar challenges to find their community and supporters. While it may not look how I expected, it turned out better than I could have hoped. Going to graduate school during a global pandemic was never in my plans, but I am glad to have gone through my first semester knowing I have others I can look to for support and I am excited to continue doing so for the next five years. 

Janessa Garcia is a doctoral student in counseling psychology at the University of Akron. They received their bachelor’s degree in psychology and women’s & gender studies from Roosevelt University in Chicago. Their research interests are focused on the evolution and exacerbation of post-traumatic stress symptoms for those who experience gender-based violence. 

Introducing the “So Good” Series: Sharing LGBTQ+ Graduate Student Perspectives

The APAGS Committee for Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity (CSOGD) is proud to introduce a forthcoming blog series exploring the unique needs of LGBTQ+ graduate students in psychology, including experiences at the intersection of multiple minority identities. The series, titled So Good, will showcase narratives authored by winners of the first-ever APAGS-CSOGD Writing Grant. The initial inspiration for this series was based in admiration of the consistent, timely, and informative blog posts shared through the CARED Perspectives series, sponsored by the APAGS Committee for the Advancement of Racial and Ethnic Diversity. The series was also intended to build upon prior blog contributions by CSOGD under the leadership of J. Stewart to support LGBTQ+ research and psychology.

Our vision for this series was to provide a space for LGBTQ+ students to share their diverse personal and professional experiences, with the explicit intent of amplifying voices that have historically been excluded from dominant narratives of the “typical” graduate student experience. Culturally inscribed understandings of leadership traits and styles are often grounded in white dominant norms (Ospina & Foldy, 2009; Parker, 2005) and APA leadership, including graduate student leadership, tends to be predominantly white. Such representation does not reflect the increasing diversity of psychology graduate students, who embody a range of racial and ethnic minority identities (Michalski et al., 2019; Bailey, 2020), as well as sexual and gender minority identities. As such, we were determined that this project go beyond an illusion of diversity, as is often true of institutionalized projects of “multiculturalism” (Ahmed, 2006, 2012; Stewart, 2017). Thus, this series reflects nuanced depictions of students’ lived experiences, integrating rich personal narrative with exploration of unique research areas salient to the student authors. Another goal of this series was to provide students with support in navigating the authorship process. As graduate students we are aware that it can be challenging to publish in a peer-reviewed journal as an early graduate student. We hoped this series would provide students with the opportunity to engage with a formal submission and review process, including built-in editorial support, and result in an additional item for their CV.

The Current Project

This series emerged from discussions with the CSOGD 2019-2020 members as students navigated a challenging year through the COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing racialized violence targeting Black folx, and the 2020 presidential election – in addition to the typical stressors of graduate school. As we planned the series, we were aware that LGBTQ+ people, especially LGBTQ+ people of color, have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, across various safety and financial concerns (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020; Katz-Wise, 2020). Given the disproportionate impact on Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) LGBTQ+ graduate students, we prioritized these narratives in our call for submissions. We therefore also felt it important to provide financial support to the student authors for their time and for sharing their stories. Obtaining funding to pay people for writing is a complicated task, particularly in a large system like APA. We were lucky enough to work with APAGS staff who supported our vision for and values underlying this project, and through their dedication and ongoing collaboration we were able to secure a small grant to award the hard work and openness of our writers.

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