Oscar Sharples

My research interests lie at the intersections of queer studies, marginality, health inequality, and the co-production of knowledge with minoritised communities. I am particularly interested in how alternative and community-based practices challenge dominant medical paradigms and contribute to more equitable forms of care. I am committed to research that produces tangible social change and centres the lived experiences and resistant knowledge of those at the margins.

Oscar Sharples (he/they) is a Paul Cottingham Trust PhD Scholar whose doctoral research explores the use of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) as a form of harm reduction within the trans community. This interdisciplinary project draws on ethnographic and participatory methods to mobilise resistant knowledge within trans communities, engaging with frameworks from Sociology, Social Anthropology, and Public Health.

Oscar holds both a BA and MPhil from the University of Cambridge. Their undergraduate dissertation examined the gender-affirming capacity of piercings and tattoos as a form of alternative medicine, while their MPhil research focused on autism self-diagnosis as an act of epistemic resistance. During their time at Cambridge, Oscar was awarded the Beatriz Huron Prize for academic achievement and received a Cambridge Opportunity Scholarship to support their postgraduate studies.

Their academic contributions include a co-authored chapter in a Palgrave Macmillan volume on epistemic injustice in youth mental health treatment, as well as research presentations at the Cambridge Queer Studies Conference, the School for Public Health Research AGM, the Trans Virtual Centre of Excellence Annual Symposium, and the Feminist Gender Equality Network’s Trans Liberation NOW! conference. Oscar is also a member of the Trans Virtual Centre of Excellence.

Beyond academia, Oscar is the co-founder of Transilience, a youth-led grassroots organisation supporting the trans community in Devon.