The Research Symposium was first launched by SMF faculty and students in 2009 to bring together an academic community of shared interests in scholarship and research. It is our hope that it will continue to serve as a forum for growth and development within the fields of sexuality, relationships, and families, as well as provide a space for future innovations and professional exploration. The SMF department encourages an overarching vision of social justice and anti-oppression through research and scholarship, and emphasizes the importance of that vision through the Research Symposium.

Each year, the SMF Symposium offers an opportunity for students, faculty, and community members to present their research and engage in critical discussions about important issues in the relationships and sexuality fields. These critical discussions often take on a practical or applied focus – how research translates into practice in the human services fields. The Symposium team remains committed to creating a venue where we can explore and discuss theory and research in critical and accessible ways!

ABSTRACTS

Parenting with Disability: An Opportunity to Shift the Narrative

Emmi Doerr

Parenthood is a complex, challenging endeavor that is difficult for all, but especially for parents with their own disability. This presentation examines the current, limited research on parents who have a disability. It examines the challenges and barriers, the coping strategies, and strengths of this unique experience. It challenges the widely held assumption that people with disabilities are not competent in parental roles, and looks at external factors that influence the experience and outcomes for both parents and children. This presentation makes recommendations for societal changes grounded in the concept of setting parents with disability up for a successful and supported parenting experience. My research addressed the questions: “How does the experience of parenthood differ for those who have pre-existing physical disabilities that they are aware of before becoming a parent?” and “How can society and policies enable parents with disabilities to fully and joyfully embrace their parenting role?”. The research currently indicates that a parent’s disability is related to positive outcomes for children by increasing empathy, responsibility, and resiliency. Any negative outcomes reported are due to societal oppression not the disability itself. However, society continues to assume that a parent with disability is incapable of raising a child without negative outcomes for both child and parent or extensive intervention by social support agencies. Understanding the parenting experience from the perspective of the parents themselves allows a more comprehensive analysis on what services are needed and which cause more harm.

Support Seeking for Gender Dysphoria in Intimate Relationships

Jayden Bousfield

There is an overall lack of research showing how individuals seek social support for gender dysphoria and how it may impact intimate relationships. The purpose of this study is to explore the experience and relational implications of gender dysphoria within an intimate relationship in which at least one partner experiences gender dysphoria. The objectives of this study are to 1) evaluate how individuals navigate gender dysphoria alone, with partner, and/or support their partner(s) in navigating gender dysphoria, and 2) to determine how this influences relational outcomes such as level of interdependence and satisfaction with giving and receiving care in the relationship. For this study, approximately five couples, with at least one partner self-identified as experiencing gender dysphoria, will partake in individual semi-structured interviews. A qualitative thematic analysis will then be done to organize, analyze, and identify themes and patterns within the interview data.  Findings will help create further awareness of the need for extra-relational support for those experiencing gender dysphoria and bring attention to the possible connection between a lack of support for gender dysphoria and poor relational outcomes. This information is essential for developing effective resources for gender dysphoria and understanding its social implications.

Re-reading Historic Queer Manga: Heteronormativity in Moto Hagio’s The Heart of Thomas

Liam Gardner & Andrew Deman

Moto Hagio’s The Heart of Thomas holds a unique place in the history of queer representation in manga. Created in 1974, Hagio’s magnum opus is widely considered by Japanese and North American scholars as the foundational text of the boys-love genre (shonen ai) and a deeply important precursor to the wildly popular yaoi genre, defined by Nagaike as “female fantasies about idealized male homosexual relationships.” In light of this critical consensus, reading The Heart of Thomas as an innately heteronormative story rather than a truly queer one, holds the potential to unsettle our critical understanding of not just this text, but of its wide-reaching influence as a heralded queer manga touchstone. This team-taught presentation undertakes just such a process by drawing in critical queer theory through the lens of Wallace and Alexander’s concept of the “just like us” trope, which focuses on the “heteronormative erasure of queerness in literacy development” and the subsequent failure of culture (or specific aspects of culture) to “fully account for the complexities of queer lives and literate practices.” By analyzing The Heart of Thomas using these and other key frameworks - including a morphological description of queer narratives, a portrayal of heteronormativity through queer characters, and an analysis on the use of visual androgyny - it becomes increasingly clear that not only is The Heart of Thomas NOT a queer narrative, but that it was never intended to be one in the first place. As such, our counter-reading of this text within the discourse of queer manga opens new vistas for consideration and contemplation of the broader heteronormativity that is endemic to our processes of discursive and historical criticism.

Queering the Edge: Representation Politics in the Harley Quinn Franchise 

Laura Grafton

Representation of marginalized communities is an important part of building the popularity of the DC Comics character Harley Quinn in all her media forms. Harley’s queerness has been a key part of her character since it was first implied in Batman the Animated Series (BTAS), and eventually brought to light in her canonical relationship with supervillain/anti-hero character, Poison Ivy. Additionally, representational politics have been a part of Harley’s journey as a survivor of domestic violence. This presentation will explore research that was a part of my undergrad thesis, which focused on the shift in the way in which Harley’s queerness has evolved from implicit and subtextual to explicit and confirmed in canon. Looking at the canonical representation of queerness alongside social media reception to the comics, tv shows and movies show us that despite growing acceptance for the queer community, bias still exists and potentially slows representational progression in the character - a conclusion that also manifests through the study of Harley Quinn Fan Fiction.

My presentation will discuss the importance of representation for sexual minorities and  the increasing potential of this massive serialized collaborative fiction (MSCF) (Cook, 271) to push past mere representation and into the humanizing of these characters. Through the use of gaze and queer theory I’ll look at the ways that Harley's character has re-conceived what representing queerness and normalizing sexuality looks like.