The Multiple Lives of Sexual and Gender Diversity in the Psy Disciplines

This project allowed a one year research fellowship at the University of Brighton for Tomas Ojeda, who further developed the findings of doctoral research which critically interrogated what has been called the ‘turn to sexual and gender diversity’ in the psy professions.

The project aimed to achieve impact by developing collaborative knowledge exchange workshops among LGBTIQ+ mental health professionals and advocates from Chile and the UK, which fed into a co-produced report with practice recommendations of interest to different stakeholders.

Over the last two decades, various forms of 'diversity work' with LGBTIQ+ people have become a requirement for professionals and activists working under the framework of 'diversity and inclusion' as a means to tackle the structures of inequalities that discriminate non-heterosexual, trans and intersex individuals. The mainstreaming of diversity in academic, activist and corporate spaces has increased significantly as a result of these efforts.

The psy disciplines (psychology, psychiatry, psychoanalysis) have undergone similar changes. Having been introduced as a response to a long history of pathologisation, diversity arrived to fix and repair past wrongs, enabling research and therapeutic interventions that are respectful of the human rights of LGBTIQ+ people. The latter has led to the development of affirmative approaches to mental health, LGBTIQ+ cultural competence training and a disciplinary field of LGBTIQ+ psychology, with the US and the UK being one of the main 'exporters' of such models, particularly in Latin America.

However, overt and subtle forms of pathologisation, regulation and exclusion still exist and are implemented even by those working within a diversity framework. And this might be seen as expressive of the flaws of diversity work in bringing about structural change at the disciplinary and social policy level.

This fellowship aimed to make sense of the progress and setbacks brought about by diversity work in the psy disciplines in ways that not only account for its efforts to repair historical wrongs, but also interrogate diversity's political place in producing new forms of sexual and gender regulation that act via practices of normalisation and mechanisms of categorical capture.

Different forms of diversity work and knowledge production initiatives reproduce some of these regulative practices, particularly those aimed at trans and gender diverse people, who, in Ojeda's research, are found to be subjected to practices of professional gatekeeping that threaten access to gender affirmative care.

This project, The Multiple Lives of Sexual and Gender Diversity in the Psy Disciplines, addressed some of these issues by further developing some of the questions that informed Ojeda's PhD research.

In particular, the fellowship sought to explore what a non-pathologising, affirmative and culturally competent approach to mental health means and does for LGBTIQ+ diversity workers.

Given the still precarious place of diversity work and the ongoing attacks on gender affirmative care in Chile and elsewhere, attempts to critically explore the political effects of diversity work on the life and wellbeing of LGBTIQ+ people face a crucial dilemma: How can we undertake that critical endeavour without compromising the work that activists, scholars, service users and community representatives have been articulating? This project took this challenge seriously and suggested a novel path to explore some of the racist and pathologising logics still present in the psy disciplines that need critical attention.

The Multiple Lives of Sexual and Gender Diversity advances knowledge about diversity work with LGBTIQ+ people and raises crucial questions for depathologising and liberatory politics. This project stems from and further develops the findings of my PhD thesis, which I will publish as a book and a series of written articles aimed at practitioners, scholars and LGBTIQ+ activists. The fellowship will allow me to produce these materials and intervene in ongoing discussions on LGBTIQ+ mental health, which I hope will positively impact the lives of those who rely on the provision of affirmative care for their wellbeing.