J. R. Latham @j-r-latham - Tumblr Blog

Understanding the specific sexual health needs of trans and gender diverse people, as well as experiences in seeking healthcare services, is a critical issue to be addressed if Australia is to meet this ambitious goal. For too long, trans and gender diverse people’s sexual health needs have been obscured by a medical model of disease that pathologises the experience of being trans and/or gender diverse itself (as the psychiatric disorder ‘Gender Dysphoria’) with dire consequences for understanding the sexual experiences and healthcare needs of trans and gender diverse people. While momentum is building to de-pathologise trans and gender diverse experiences and desires, with many medical associations including the World Health Organization suggesting this is appropriate, significant issues remain for trans and gender diverse people’s healthcare access as a direct result of these practices.

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.

Latham, J.R. (2021) HIV prevention needs of trans and gender diverse people in Australia. HIV Australia Read here

A poster developed from the 'Experiences of LGBTIQA+ people with disability' project: A collaboration between colleagues at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation (ADI) and the Institute for Health Transformation (IHT) at Deakin University, 2019-2021, funded by Pride Foundation Australia.

All welcome to download the poster for free distribution here.

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 opportunity to recognise and respond to the issues faced by LGBTIQA+ people with disability as a way to pay attention to how overt and subtle practices of discrimination continue to operate despite repeated attempts at or claims of being ‘inclusive.’ Our research suggests actual inclusive, accessible services can be achieved in part through policy and practice that actively responds to the specific needs of LGBTIQA+ people with disability, in addition to LGBTIQA+ education for disability services and disability and accessibility education for LGBTIQA+ focused services. As we do in this article, we argue that this work must be done by prioritising authentic participation of LGBTIQA+ people with disability in the services and research that is about them.

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. Read here

Assemblages of sex are continuously being enacted by policymakers, scientists, and medical providers across a range of settings, resulting in multiple and often contradictory notions of what “sex” is and how it is expressed in the body. As feminist scholars have shown, such enactments are mutable yet resilient, often with the net effect of restricting how “sex” can emerge as a material dimension of our embodied, lived experiences. What happens when feminist scholars seek to intervene in order to promote more complex, entangled, dynamic, and just enactments of “sex” in policy and practice? This lab meeting gathers interdisciplinary scholars to reflect on their experiences of pursuing change in the laboratory, the gender clinic, and on the athletics track.

Pape, M., Karkazis, K., Latham, J.R. & S. Ritz (2020) Resisting and remaking sex in the petri dish, the clinic, and on the track. Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience 6 (2): 1–17 Read here

Assemblages of sex are continuously being enacted by policymakers, scientists, and medical providers across a range of settings, resulting in multiple and often contradictory notions of what “sex” is and how it is expressed in the body. As feminist scholars have shown, such enactments are mutable yet resilient, often with the net effect of restricting how “sex” can emerge as a material dimension of our embodied, lived experiences. What happens when feminist scholars seek to intervene in order to promote more complex, entangled, dynamic, and just enactments of “sex” in policy and practice? This lab meeting gathers interdisciplinary scholars to reflect on their experiences of pursuing change in the laboratory, the gender clinic, and on the athletics track.

Technoscience is a new initiative supported by the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S) to share the exciting work being done in science and technology studies (or STS) with wider audiences who are curious about the field. In this episode, Konstantin Georgiev speaks to J. R. Latham about his research on the politics of sex, ageing and medicine.

I talked with Konstantin Georgiev at the Society for the Social Studies of Science 4S conference in New Orleans last year for the STS podcast Technoscience - “a new initiative to share the exciting work being done in science and technology studies (or STS) with wider audiences who are curious about the field.” If you haven’t heard me laugh for a while, luckily there is this recording: Listen here.

Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society DruGS program

Drawing on the work of Margrit Shildrick, this article considers how men who inject PIEDs understand their bodies, with a particular focus on injecting practices, blood awareness and infection control, in order to inform hepatitis C prevention efforts. We draw on qualitative interviews we conducted with 60 men who inject PIEDs, which suggest that they closely monitor potential external infection risks, such as dirt and bacteria that might intrude upon the ‘purity and security’ of the body. Less attention appears to be paid to what might be transferred out of the body and potentially to others, such as blood. Notions of trust and cleanliness, and normative perceptions of intravenous drug use, also shaped injecting practices and cursory attention to blood management. Read here.

Fomiatti, R., E. Lenton, J. R. Latham, S. Fraser, D. Moore, K. Seear & C. Aitken (2020) Maintaining the healthy body: Blood management and hepatitis C prevention among men who inject performance and image-enhancing drugs. International Journal of Drug Policy 75

For a century, scientists studied an array of human characteristics that inform our ideas of what makes someone a woman or a man, seeking to pin down a single, definitive biological indicator of sex. Bodies troubled these schemes and socially untenable categorisations ensued...

“If what we know of sex is its multiplicity, this introduces a conundrum: which factors to use in categorising and defining sex? Policy makers who formulate sex categorisations and definitions overwhelmingly rely on biological features to ground membership. Biological factors hold appeal and power since reference to “biology” and “science” lends any suggested trait or combination of traits the appearance of neutrality and thus objectivity. But biological definitions of sex are at odds with the understanding that sex involves multiple biological and social factors. They are also at odds with social scientific work that complicates the idea that sex is biological whereas gender is cultural; sex, as much as gender, is culturally contingent and produced...” Read here.

On this episode we chat with J.R. Latham, Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Deakin University, and Honorary Fellow in Cultural Studies at The University of Melbourne... http://media.rawvoice.com/joy_archives/p/joy.org.au/transgenderwarriors/wp-content/uploads/sites/435/2019/11/JR-Latham-Podcast.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 55:54 — 67.7MB)

I talked about my research on transgender health and medicine with Sam & Gemma on Transgender Warriors on JOY 94.9. Listen here

#transgender

Tuesday Breakfast 19 November 2019With Ayan, George, Anya, and Zoya7.00 am Acknowledgement of Country7.05 am News headlines with Chris Woods

I was interviewed on Tuesday Breakfast on Melbourne’s community radio 3CR 855. Listen here

The SSAC team’s newly published report finds men who inject PIEDs have limited knowledge about hepatitis C transmission. Many nominate GPs as their preferred source of information about PIED …

Proud to be a part of this great project and research team!

Understanding Performance and Image-enhancing Drug Injecting to Improve Health and Minimise Hepatitis C Transmission: Findings and Recommendations from a National Qualitative Study (2019) with Renae Fomiatti, Suzanne Fraser, David Moore, Kate Seear, Emily Lenton, Campbell Aitken and Kay Stanton. Read here

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.

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. Read here.

Presented by: The Drugs, Gender and Sexuality Program and The BBV Program, ARCSHS

Looking forward to presenting some work from my research at the National Drug Research Institute at this upcoming forum

The discussion aims to progress discussion on these issues in an inclusive way, without shying away from challenging or contested issues. It also aims to bring academic debate into conversation with the lived realities of TGD individuals in a space of mutual learning and respectful engagement.

Great to start this much needed conversation on trans politics in university life and beyond with Prof. Raewyn Connell, Assoc. Prof. Sandy O’Sullivan, Amao Leota Lu, Michelle McNamara and Dr Angela Dwyer. Watch here.

Featured on “Transgender Warriors” on JoyFM - Listen here.

4S New Orleans, Meeting of the Society for the Social Studies of Science

This panel considers how the imagined futures of trans and intersex people act in clinical practices. We examine how the pasts, presents and futures of trans and intersex young people constitute particular possibilities for gender and sexuality. How are sexuality, pleasure and sexual possibilities entangled in these gender treatment practices? What assumptions about sexuality, progress and development inform youth gender medicine and how are these intra-acting with temporal models and assumptions about gender? Informed by STS approaches to reality, multiplicity, time, actor network theory and research ethics, we consider what it would mean to be a good social citizen in the face of systems that act-as-if eradicating trans and intersex people from our shared future is a desirable, if difficult to attain and ambiguous, objective.

Australian Feminist Studies 34 (100)

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. Read here.

Transgenerational Politics, Solidarity and Justice-to-come. Keynote conversation with Jack Halberstam. AusSTS Interdisciplinary Workshop. July 4, 2019. Watch on YouTube

Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Research Fellow

I’m over the moon to be taking my talents to Deakin University as Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation.

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J. R. Latham