Re: Queer Student Needs Help for Thesis--please forward widely

I got this email today. It was just another snub to the T of the LGBt community. Kind of sad it is still going on.

My reply is below the email.

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On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 2:43 PM, Sarah Baillie wrote:

Hello,

The Social Identity Lab at the University of Washington would like to represent the lesbian, gay, and bisexual community in a study on cognition and social groups. We are conducting an anonymous, online study on cognitive processing about social groups. The study takes about 15-20 minutes to complete. For more information, please see the message below. Please forward this opportunity to your group and any friends you know that may be interested.

Best wishes,

Sarah Baillie
Senior Honors Student
Department of Psychology
University of Washington
sbaillie@u.washington.edu

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We invite you to participate in a study on cognition and social groups. In this study, you will be asked to answer a variety of questions about yourself. You will also complete two timed categorization tasks. Participants will have the opportunity to enter a drawing for $50.

The purpose of this study is to gain a greater understanding of cognitive processing about social groups in the world.

This is an anonymous, web-based study run through the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington. For more information, please go to https://catalysttools.washington.edu/webq/survey/sbaillie/95609 , or contact the Social Identity Lab at silab@u.washington.edu or (206) 685-4229. Please remember that we cannot guarantee the confidentiality of any information sent by email.

This study has been approved by the University of Washington Institutional Review Board, Certification of Exemption #38239 under 45 CFR 46.101 (b)(2).

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I am a transwoman. I started doing your study, but it quickly became obvious, that it was not written to with transgender folks in mind. Actually I felt a bit left out.

There are a lot of MTF and FTM people, that would feel not be able to fill out the study, because the questions were not written with us in mind, but definitely conceder ourselves as part of the "community."

You even talked about the "lesbian, gay and bisexual community" in your email. I thought we were past leaving transgender out of the "community."

Hugs,

Vickie

Here is her lame response. I know our issues are different, but it is obvious we are not part of "her" community. Just seeing how she does not feel that transgender does not belong as part of the LGB community.

Hi Vickie,

Thank you for your interest in the study and your feedback.

You are correct, the study is not aimed at transgender people. I was referring to the community as LGB because I am not looking at transgender individuals specifically.

In research, trans individuals are usually not clumped with LGB people, because studying trans individuals is very different from studying LGB individuals. Keeping with this, I am not specifically looking at trans participants in my study. I believe that, given the unique experiences of trans individuals, trans and intersex people deserve their own study that is aimed specifically at them.

This is my honors thesis that I am working on now. However, I want to extend the scope of this research to include a study aimed specifically at trans people in the near future.

Thank you so much for your feedback. If you feel you would like to discuss this further, then I would love to hear more from you.

Best wishes,

Sarah Baillie