Remnants of Resistance: Queering Neuroscience—Researching Under the Umbrella

November 10, 2023

As part of the One Institute's Circa Queer Histories Festival, CSUN's University Library and Queer Studies Program have partnered to produce a limited podcast series called Remnants of Resistance. Episodes will be hosted by Queer Studies faculty, and will delve into the unique and hidden stories in queer history contained within the Vern and Bonnie Bullough Collection on Sex and Gender and beyond.

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About the Episode

The history of psychological research on nonbinary individuals is a history of writing about these folks, making them the object of study. While key sexologists and researchers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries such as Havelock Ellis, Magnus Hirschfeld, and Richard von Krafft-Ebing made claims viewed as progressive in their own times, their work also spurred a kind of fascination with the "Other," or what Michel Foucault called "an entire pornography of the morbid.” This episode explores original texts by those three authors while focusing on the work of CSUN graduate Ari Roby, who set out to design a master's thesis in Psychological Science that would not fall prey to the same disenfranchisement of nonbinary research subjects. Ari explains how they were inspired by events in their own life and by the problematic research of the past to engage nonbinary folk in every step of project design. Ari discusses those choices with two members of their thesis committee, Stefanie Drew and Heidi Schumacher, then explains the findings of their study, and implications for future ethical, thoughtful research on nonbinary identity.

About the Hosts

Ari Roby is a post-graduate student of the Clinical Psychology program interested in investigating the effects of perceived gender expression and identity on folks from the LGBTQ+ community through VR. They are also interested in exploring the efficacy of evidence-based treatments and technology to treat PTSD and trauma experienced by individuals in the LGBTQ+ community.

Stefanie Drew is a professor of Psychology and leads the Visual Information Sciences & Neuroscience Lab at California State University, Northridge. Research in the VISN lab focuses on visual perception, learning, and technology, using a variety of methodologies that include psychophysics, optometric measures, and neuroimaging.

Heidi Schumacher is the Director of the Graduate Resource and Academic Development Center at California State University, Northridge and teaches in the Queer Studies, Gender & Women’s Studies, and English departments. Her work focuses on feminist and queer theory, and on approaches to student success rooted in equity, inclusion, and justice frameworks.