post by Matthew Levesley (2021 cohort)
Who is Trade Sexual Health?
Trade Sexual Health is a charity working in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland that provides sexual health resources- among other services- for LGBT+ individuals who live in these areas, as well as HIV related care for people outside of the LGBT+ community. Trade is also involved in activism- most notably for my academic purposes, it has ties to the trans healthcare project run by the Leicestershire branch of Citizens UK.
Trade seeks to ensure that all facets of the LGBT+ community receive high-quality sexual health care. While the charity was founded as a resource for presumed cisgender men who might be at risk for HIV, the charity seeks to protect the rest of the community, both because they are part of these men’s sexual networks and due to the limited resources that are available to the wider queer community.
My relationship with Trade Sexual Health
My academic focus is on transnormativity in transmasculine YouTubers. Transmasculine is defined here as a person who has undergone, is undergoing, or intends to undergo some form of masculinising gender transition- they may intend to achieve androgyny through masculinisation or achieve a presentation that is as close to cisgender manhood as possible, or any identity between or around these two points. This is a topic that is important to me, as I am transmasculine myself.
A YouTuber is defined as a social media influencer who uses the video sharing platform YouTube as their primary space for publishing content. Due to a variety of factors, including a lack of representation in mainstream media and an inability to learn about their history and identity in formal education, transmasculine people- along with other queer people- often turn to YouTube for education and community seeking.
While Horizon has provided me with a large amount of opportunity to talk to and learn from researchers in the field of social media, I wanted to ensure I was able to have experiences with researching queer people and environments. I have been given a number of opportunities to do this, including my attendance at the summer school run by the European Professional Association for Transgender Health, but Trade allowed me to form consistent, long-lasting relationships with both those working in queer activism in my local community and those familiar with working with the LGBT+ community in a professional or academic context.
What have I done for Trade?
Trade was able to give me experience in two skills- Performing research in a non-academic environment and communicating information about transmasculine people to those who were uninformed or only partially informed about the issues that transmascs
Trade had me perform a number of research activities- including surveying the local trans population as to their experiences with certain aspects of gender affirming healthcare, and sexual health procedures such as pap smears that may have an element that affects trans people negatively. I was able to see how this data is used in practice to communicate with local health services, and change the experiences that queer people have in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.
I was also able to provide my input as both a trans individual and an expert on transmasculine experience in different forums- including a project on HPV prevention within queer spaces, the local NHS Integrated Care Board, and Leicester Partnership Trust’s training on trans experiences with the NHS.
How have I benefited from my placement at Trade?
As mentioned previously, my experience with Trade has allowed me to see one way in which the kind of data I am collecting and wider research that I am doing might be used in order to benefit the trans community. It has also allowed me to see how prominent the research gap I am filling is and the real-world impact that filling it will have. Organisations want to be able to help transmasculine people, but more research needs to be done on the ways that society marginalises us in order for that help to have full and proper impact.
My connections at Trade- specifically through their Transductive support group for trans academics and allies- have also allowed me to meet and discuss my research with a larger group of queer academics in a number of fields I would never have considered reaching out to, such as Geography and Physics. This has allowed me to discuss ways in which I would like to grow my academic career beyond Horizon, as well as to seek support when dealing with difficult topics, such as the current legal battle over trans rights in the UK.
My future relationship with Trade
I intend to continue interacting with Trade on both a personal level- through volunteering and participating in the Transductive group- as well as an academic one. I have received an impact grant from Horizon and I intend to use this to do some research on what an ideal world would look like for transmasculine people- with Trade acting as support for both recruitment and grounding the study in reality. For example, Trade might provide a context for participants to discuss what an ideal social club might look like, or how a medical professional would interact with transmasculine people in an ideal way.
I am excited to carry out this research, and grateful that I have been able to interact with a charity that does such useful and interesting work in my local area. I hope to continue to engage with Trade and other organisations like it throughout my academic career.