Philosophy, Identity, Activism: Exploring Queer and Trans Sexualities

Join us as we bring together an interdisciplinary mix of speakers—including psychologists, philosophers, activists, artists, and other practitioners—for a series of accessible presentations that really push the "field" (broadly construed) forward!

Schedule for October 22nd and 23rd, 2022:

1st Session - 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM

2nd Session - 11:45 PM - 1:15 PM

Session: Lunch and Learn

3rd Session - 2:45 PM - 4:15 PM

4th Session - 4:30 PM- 6:00 PM

Topics Include:

Dr. Jerrica Kirkley: The Intersection of Gender-Affirming Care and Sexuality:

• Develop an understanding of the intersection between healthcare and the gender diverse community;

• Develop a basic understanding of the principles of gender-affirming healthcare;

• Develop an understanding of how gender-affirming healthcare can impact sexuality

R. Featherstone, MSN, PMHNP, WHNP, PMH-C: Gender Expansive Reproductive Experiences:

• Identify how the assisted reproductive technology (ART) environment currently centers the cisgender, heterosexual couple and lacks LGBTQ+ specific information on the internet;

• Discuss how pregnancy can exacerbate gender dysphoria and other mental health conditions, especially with the cessation of gender-affirming hormone care;

• Analyze the spectrum of social, hormonal, and neurological changes associated with postpartum, and how they affect LGBTQ+ parents and their relationships

Yasmin Benoit, MSc Asexuality 101: Debunking the Myths of Asexuality:

• Providing a deep introduction into asexuality, it's place in contemporary society and it's history;

• Understanding through lived experience - insight into how asexuality intersects with Blackness and womanhood;

• What asexual activism looks like and my experience leading the UK's first asexual rights initiative

Ley David Elliete Cray: Autosexuality as Queer Identity

• Review extant literature on autosexuality (sexual attraction to the self)

• Situate the concept of autosexuality in the context of current understandings of sexual orientation and sexual identity

• Explore particularly queer characterizations of autosexuality and how they can inform our understanding of other aspects of sexual orientation and identity

Justin Hall: Graphic Novels and Graphic Content: The History and Potential of Using Comics for Sexual Health and Education

• Discuss the history of the use of comics for sexual health and sex education

• Analyze the unique potential of the comics medium in these fields by illustrating elements of comics theory and practice

• Propose creative ways in which comics could be used in the future in these fields, encouraging dialogue with the attendants of the lecture.

Jerrica Kirkley: The Intersection of Gender-Affirming Care and Sexuality

• Develop an understanding of the intersection between healthcare and the gender diverse community

• Develop a basic understanding of the principles of gender-affirming healthcare

• Develop an understanding of how gender-affirming healthcare can impact sexuality

Taylor Mizuno-Moore: Straddling Identities: The Intersectionality of the Queer and Biracial Experience

• Gain insight into the experience of a queer and biracial person

• Approach identity work from an integrated perspective

• Show up clinically for your queer and biracial clients with expanded knowledge and skills

Margaux Underwood: Realitys of Trans and Non-Binary Sex Workers

• Summarize and cite specific research focused on the difficulties trans sex workers face

• Develop more ways to empathize with trans sex workers & bodyworkers

• Attend to the needs of a trans sex worker or bodyworker with more humility and mindfulness

NEED A SCHOLARSHIP FOR THIS WEEKEND CONFERENCE?

In collaboration with the BIPOC Collective, SHA donates two full weekend scholarship spots to every conference for BIPOC-identifying individuals.

APPLICATION HERE

*The BIPOC Collective's mission is to support the diverse community of BIPOC adult performers and sex-workers within the adult industry through mutual aid and advocacy with dignity and respect.

STUDENT DISCOUNTS

Are you a current college or graduate student? Email shacertifications@gmail.com with a copy of your student ID and current or next term’s course schedule to get this conference at student rate.

*Please note, this discount does not include CEs.

WANT TO BECOME SHA CERTIFIED?:

Want to stop paying for conferences one by one and gain hours towards AASECT Certification too? This program can also be registered for and included as part of SHA’s full Sexuality Educator/Counselor/Sex Therapy Certification & Sexuality Consultant Program. Apply HERE to become SHA Certified and to gain all the CEs you need to apply towards AASECT Certification. Take your sexuality education even further and become sexceptional.

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS:

Yasmin Benoit, MSc

Yasmin Benoit is a British model, award-winning asexual activist, writer, speaker, and project consultant. At 18, she began modeling with the goal of diversifying the fashion industry and became one of the UK's most prominent Black alternative models. 

In late 2017, she publicly came out as aromantic-asexual and quickly became an unlikely face and voice for those communities. Her goal is to empower the aromantic and asexual people, bring those identities into the mainstream, fight for their social and legal inclusion, and dispel misconceptions about them in an intersectional, cross-sectional way.

Yasmin created the popular #ThisIsWhatAsexualLooksLike movement to show that there is no asexual way to look or dress, which has been embraced by asexual people worldwide. In 2019, she became a board member of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) and in 2020, she made her presenting debut with her 'Me and My Asexuality' BBC Sounds series. Her unconventional approach to activism has attracted the attention of international press, including Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Glamour Magazine, British GQ, and Sky News.

​She has given talks and seminars at a range of companies, institutions, conferences and Pride events about asexuality and aromanticism, including Prague Pride, the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, and Twitter HQ, and she has worked as a project consultant.

​Yasmin has recently signed with literary agency, Gleam Titles, acting agency International Actors London, and made her literary debut in the LGBTQ+ anthology, 'We Can Do Better Than This.' (Penguin, June 2021) She also gave a TED Talk with the University of Arkansas on asexual representation in the media.

R. Featherstone, MSN, PMHNP, WHNP, PMH-C

Rachel Featherstone’s career in healthcare began in 2005 in Richmond, Virginia. Their experience focused on labor and delivery, along with prenatal and behavioral health care. Originally beginning training as a nurse-midwife, Rachel discovered that the important work of developing relationships to support the mental health of parents happened outside the birthing environment. Rachel strives to bring the ‘heart’ of midwifery to mental health care, to improve the quality of life for the entire family. Their passions are sexual health, gynecological concerns, breastfeeding, and birth control.

Justin Hall - Cartoonist and Queer & Erotic Comics Scholar

Justin Hall is Associate Professor and Chair of the MFA in Comics program at the
California College of the Arts, as well as the first Fulbright Scholar of comics. Hall
created the Lambda-Award-winning and Eisner-nominated No Straight Lines: Four
Decades of Queer Comics and was Producer for the award-winning film of the same
name. Hall created such comics as True Travel Tales, Hard to Swallow, and Theater of
Terror: Revenge of the Queers, and is at work now on a graphic memoir/queer
history graphic novel for Abrams Books. justinhallawesomecomics.com

Margaux Underwood (They/Them)

Margaux Underwood (they/them) is a Surrender & Intimacy Coach, a sexuality and BDSM educator, an embodiment and mindfulness coach, and a former s-x worker. In addition to Embodied Sex Coaching sessions, they offer deeply intimate journeys that are informed by various wisdom traditions under their new business Coalescent Coaching LLC. Some of their passions are leading holistic rope bondage education and providing [potentially] cathartic journeys through rope with clients and members of their community. They have been in the Dallas Polyam, BDSM, and Mindfulness communities of Dallas for over 3 years. Additionally, they lead two regular events, the Queer Temple Gathering and FUSE (Fostering United Sexual Energy), in person, for individuals who have the desire to build intentional community around authenticity and alternative means of processing emotion in the body.

Dr. Jerrica Kirkley

Dr. Jerrica Kirkley is the chief medical officer and co-founder of Plume, a virtual healthcare center of excellence dedicated to the transgender community which provides gender-affirming medical care at the convenience of a smart phone. She completed medical school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her family medicine residency at the University of Colorado and has taught widely on gender-affirming care across academic institutions and large clinic systems. Dr. Kirkley has cared for thousands of gender-diverse individuals and has also been a recipient of gender-affirming care as a patient and trans woman herself.

Taylor Mizuno-Moore, LPC

Taylor (she/they) is a queer-identified, biracial (Japanese-American), neurodivergent psychotherapist at The Expansive Group based in Chicago, IL. She received graduate clinical training at Northwestern University, Yale University, and the University of Southern California. Informed by her work as a professional musician for over 25 years, Taylor works primarily with LGBTQ+ artists, musicians, actors/actresses, and other folks working in a variety of creative fields. Empowerment rooted in how identity development and the intersection of our various identifiers, including sexual and gender identities, frame our understanding of the world is Taylor's greatest passion. Taylor is a Doctoral student at the University of Southern California studying organizational psychology and systemic change.