This reading group provides a space to explore the relationship between medicine, sexuality and reproduction, in both the UK and non-UK contexts.
Drawing on texts from across disciplines, as well as on personal, professional and academic experience, group members are invited to critically consider the healthcare experiences and outcomes of gender and sexually diverse individuals. While impossible to ignore the historical (and continuing) criminalisation, pathologisation and othering of sexual minorities in healthcare environments, group members will also be invited to reflect on the emancipatory potential of well-designed healthcare services, and the place for sexually diverse subjectivities within them.
Intended Audience
This group is open to all, regardless of training or disciplinary background. The most important qualities to bring to this group are openness, curiosity and a willingness to grow. Through both structured and unstructured discussions of the medicalisation of sexuality and the sexualisation of medicine, this reading group will be a space to rupture rigid knowledge categories and tease playfully at the conceptual borderlines that divide healthy bodies from deviant bodies.
Indicative Reading List (participants are only asked to read one text each month. An up-to-date list of suggested readings will be circulated 1-2 weeks before each event)
Session One: SEXUAL OTHERS: MEDICAL GEOGRAPHIES OF BLAME
Suggested Readings:
McKay, R. M. 2017. “Chapter 2” in Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
McKay, R. M. 2017. “Chapters 0 & 1” in Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Campbell, D. 1998. “Introduction & Chapter 4” in Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Session Two: AIDS: A PANDEMIC OF THE PAST?
Suggested Readings:
Díaz, R. M., Reisen, C. A.,& Zea, M. C. 2003. “Methodological Issues in Research on Sexual Behaviour with Latino Gay and Bisexual Men.” The American Journal of Community Psychology 31 (3-4): 281-291.
Bersani, L. 1987. “Is the Rectum a Grave?” October 43: 197-222.
Crewe, T. 2018. “Here Was a Plague”. London Review of Books 40 (18).
Session Three: MIGRATION AND SEXUAL HEALTH: PRODUCTION AND MEASUREMENT
Suggested Readings:
Burns, F., Evans, A., Mercer, C. H., Parutis, V., Gerry, C. J., Mole, R. C. M., French, R. S., Imrie, J., & Hart, G. J. 2011. “Sexual and HIV risk behaviour in Central and Eastern European migrants in London.” Sexually Transmitted Infections 87: 318-324.
Mole, R. C. M., Parutis, V., Gerry, C. J., & Burns, F. M. 2014. “The impact of migration on the sexual health, behaviours and attitudes of Central and East European gay/bisexual men in London.” Ethnicity & Health 19 (1): 86-99.
Evans, A. R., Parutis, V., Hart, G., Mercer, C. H., Gerry, C. Mole, R., French, R. S., Imrie, J.,& Burns, F. M. 2009. “The sexual attitudes and lifestyles of London’s Eastern Europeans (SALLEE Project): design and methods.” BMC Public Health 9: 399.
Evans, A., Burns, F., Mercer, C. H., Parutis, V., Gerry, C. J., Mole, R. C. M., Imrie, J., & Hart, G. J. 2011. “Central and East European migrant men who have sex with men: an exploration of sexual risk in the UK.” Sexually Transmitted Infections 87: 325-330.
Session Four: TRANSNESS AND TRANSITION: ACCEPTABLE OTHERNESS AND THE MEDICAL GAZE
Suggested Readings:
Aizura, A. Z. 2018. “Introduction” in Mobile Subjects: Transnational Imaginaries of Gender Reassignment. Durham, NC: Duke UP.
Puar, J. K. 2015. “Bodies With New Organs: Becoming Trans, Becoming Disabled”. Social Text 33 (3): 45-73.
Illich, I. 1982. Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health. New York City, NY: Penguin Random House.
Session Five: INTERSEX SUBJECTIVITIES: LIFE AT THE BORDER
Suggested Readings:
Carpenter, M. 2018. “The “Normalization” of Intersex Bodies and “Othering” of Intersex Identities in Australia”. Journal of Bioethical Enquiry 15: 487-495.
Anzaldúa, G. E. 1987. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books.
Puar, J. K. 2012. ““I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess”: Becoming-Intersectional in Assemblage Theory”. PhiloSOPHIA 2 (1): 49-66.
Scherpe, J. M. 2017. The Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP.
Session Six: LESBIAN MOTHERHOOD AND EXPERIENCES OF IVF
Suggested Readings:
Gregg, I. 2018. “The Healthcare Experiences of Lesbian Women Becoming Mothers”. Nursing for Women’s Health 22 (1): 40-50.
Kellas, J. K., & Suter, E. A. 2012. “Accounting for Lesbian-Headed Families: Lesbian Mothers’ Responses to Discursive Challenges”. Communication Monographs 79 (4): 475-498.
Session Seven: DEVIANT REPRODUCTION: MEN WHO GIVE BIRTH
Suggested Readings:
Hoffkling, A., Obedin-Maliver, J., & Sevelius, J. 2017. “From erasure to opportunity: a qualitative study of the experiences of transgender men around pregnancy and recommendations for providers.” BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth 17 (332).
Armuand, G., Dhejne, C., Olofsson, J. I.,& Rodriguez-Wallberg, K. A. 2017. “Transgender men’s experiences of fertility preservation: a qualitative study”. Human Reproduction 32(2): 383–90.
Lampe N. M, Carter S. K.,& Sumerau, J. E. 2019. “Continuity and change in gender frames: the case of transgender reproduction.” Gender & Society 33(6): 865–87.
Reis, E. 2020. “Midwives and pregnant men: labouring toward ethical care in the United States”. CMAJ 192 (7).
Wingo, E., Ingraham, N.,& Roberts S. C. 2018. “Reproductive health care priorities and barriers to effective care for LGBTQ people assigned female at birth: A qualitative study”. Women’s Health Issues 28(4): 350–7.