Sexuality and Gender Studies at UofG: Fostering Pride in Academia

Adam Davies (they/them) is a professor in the Department of Family Relations and Applied Nutrition at the University of Guelph. They are also a co-lead of the Sexual and Gender Diversity cluster at the Live Work Well Research Centre. They hold a PhD in Curriculum Studies & Teacher Development with collaborative specializations in Sexual Diversity Studies and Women & Gender Studies, though their research interests also include critical disability studies, K-12 schooling, and queer theory. In addition to their own research, Adam is a proud educator in the Sexualities, Genders and Social Change program at UofG. For Pride Month, we reached out to Adam to hear more about this program and the impact it has had on the 2SLGBTQIA+ community on campus.  

While Pride Month is typically a time of celebration and community, there are, unfortunately, ongoing political attacks against the 2SLGBTQIA+ (Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual) communities, which have intensified since the recent American election of current President, Donald Trump. Meanwhile, ongoing cuts and pauses to women and gender studies and sexuality studies programs across universities threaten the place of feminist and queer knowledge in the academy. Women and gender studies and sexuality studies programs started appearing within higher education institutions within the later part of the twentieth century and have historically and currently had to continually advocate for their spaces in the academy—along with other critical theories in the humanities and social sciences—against claims of gender and sexuality studies being unscientific or even biased.  

However, the undergraduate program in Sexualities, Genders and Social Change (SXGN) and graduate specialization in Sexualities, Genders and Bodies (SGB) at the University of Guelph aim to cultivate a space for queer, trans, and feminist knowledge and activism. These programs seek to foster student interest in queer, trans, and feminist scholarship, which is particularly important within this current political moment of increased 2SLGBTQIA+ hate and political persecution. As a core faculty member in the program, I wish to note the particular importance of programs such as our undergraduate program and graduate specialization as well as the activist and academic space currently being cultivated at the University of Guelph for gender and sexuality studies.  

Sexualities, Genders and Social Change 

Since the launch of SXGN 1000 (Introduction to Sexualities and Genders), the SXGN undergraduate program has been welcoming undergraduate students to major or minor in SXGN and explore courses related to 2SLGBTQIA+ and feminist knowledge and activism through an intersectional frame. As a core faculty member, I have had the pleasure of teaching SXGN 1000 and SXGN 2000 (Sexualities & Genders: Research Methodologies) and have witnessed the impact of creating specific classroom spaces for queer, trans, and feminist histories and knowledges. In these classes, we cover the history of queer, trans, and feminist activism from both Western and non-Western perspectives. Some of the topics are the civil rights activism of the 1960s—including the famous Compton Cafeteria Riot and Stonewall Riots—and the Black lesbian poetry of Audre Lorde and womanist poetry and writing of the 1980s and 1990s. In our first-year introductory SXGN course, over 200 students learn about queer and trans theories, including content that relates to unpacking and deconstructing pop culture, music videos, and film and television. The aim of our courses is to focus not only on queer, trans, and feminist theories, histories, and activism, but also on how these theories apply to everyday life.  

Sexualities, Genders and Bodies 

Our graduate program in SGB aims to provide graduate students from a range of disciplines and programs (including, but not limited to psychology, family relations and applied nutrition, political science, and philosophy) with an interdisciplinary space to engage with queer, trans, and feminist theories. Our two courses in SGB (SXGN 6000: Somatic Entanglements: Methods and Issues, and SXGN 6100: Theorising Sexualities, Genders, and Bodies) provide graduate students with an opportunity to learn about how queer, trans, and feminist theories overlap with other intersectional and critical scholarship. Teaching in this graduate program has provided me with an avenue to work with graduate students from across the University of Guelph campus in a variety of disciplines. 

The Importance of Queer and Trans Space on University Campuses 

Given the ongoing cuts and pauses to gender and sexuality studies programs on university campuses, it is more critical than ever to celebrate and amplify queer, trans, and feminist knowledge and activism on university campuses. With our new undergraduate and graduate programs in gender and sexuality studies, we hope to promote cultures and campuses of belonging where students can see themselves reflected in the knowledge learned in their classrooms. With Pride month almost over, my hope is that queer, trans, and feminist knowledge can be celebrated all year long, and that university campuses can continue to be flourishing spaces for women, gender, and sexuality studies for all students. 

-written by Adam Davies