This is the paper I presented at the 25th Lesbian Lives conference: Solidarity in Cork, Ireland 4-5th March 2022.

Title: How we fuck and unfuck the world: Intimacy as method in trans sex research

Abstract: What does research look like when consent, creativity, and connection is valued over truth, rigor, and impact? What happens to academic knowledge production when we refuse the erotophobic sterility that lingers like a bad hangover from modernity’s myth of scientific superiority, and instead return to what we have always been: beings hard-wired to connect meaningfully with other humans, non-humans, and more-than-humans? In this presentation, I reflect on what a peculiar and terrifying time it is to be a trans disabled scholar, and show how coalition building is the only way to unfuck ourselves. Drawing on my PhD project ‘how we fuck’ I show how love, hope, vulnerability and solidarity coalesce to produce what I term ‘intimacy as method’. Intimacy as method intervenes to help liberate both trans sex from its dominant narratives of suffering, and tans sex research from its customs of squeamishness and histories of Eurocentric philosophy.

This is a presentation I made for the 6th Bedfordshire International Systemic Summer School: New Territories, New Maps, New Movements, 15-17 June 2021

Title: Intimacy as Method and the Ethics of Embodied Consent:

Abstract: Four years into my PhD researching trans sex practices, I still find it hard to accurately describe what I actually did; the research language I inherited when I entered academia left me ill-equipped to describe the role intimacy, connection, and consent plays in my method. In this presentation, I attempt to communicate intimacy as method. I invite you to watch the presentation; consider your thoughts, responses, and questions; and then join me for an interactive, embodied discussion about intimacy and the ethics of consent in research.