Seven local high school students will present findings May 2 from research projects they've undertaken over the past two years as part of Youth Research for Social Change.
YRSC, which is meant to give LGBTQ+ youth a voice in issues that matter to them, is a collaboration between Cleveland State University and the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland.
The program provided students with nine months of training in clinical research skills, followed by nine months of student research on topics of their choosing, said Gulnar Feerasta, managing director of the LGBT Community Center.
The program is meant to help remedy an imbalance where LGBTQ+ youth have historically had little say in issues that affect them, Feerasta added.
"Visibility matters," she said. "Representation matters, and oftentimes the research relationships between the researchers and the community, there's a power imbalance. In this case, it was really cool to be able to shift that power dynamic and have it be equal, right," she said.
Greater representation is especially important as the Ohio legislature considers changes to a law that could limit the rights of LGBTQ+ community members, said Katie Clonan-Roy, who helped facilitate the project with her colleagues in Cleveland State University’s THRiVE Research Collaborative.
“It really draws attention in our region to critical issues that are rooted in systems of oppression that have become even more difficult and challenging in the state of Ohio in recent legislation," she said.
The symposium will run May 2 from 5-7 p.m. at the LGBT Community Center in Cleveland's Gordon Square neighborhood. It will include opportunities for attendees to interact one-on-one with the students, formal presentations of each student's findings and a Q&A period.
Students will explain why they selected their research topic, how they did their research, what kind of design they used, what they found, limitations of their study and how they hope to use their findings to promote change, Clonan-Roy said. The students will also discuss why this work is important to them and other LGBTQ+ youth.
The event is also meant to be as much a conversation as a presentation with particular stakeholder groups invited to help potentially move this research forward.
"We've been very intentional about who we tried to invite to the symposium," Clonan-Roy said. "Of course, all are welcome, but we wanted to gather folks from local hospital systems, local government structures, folks who work in schools and neighborhood associations and community development kind of programs, because that is who the youth research really speaks to. We want those stakeholders to be able to offer feedback and suggestions for next steps in future directions, and that hopefully those stakeholders, to varying degrees, are partnering with youth to promote social change."
The students' research focused on the following topics:
- Decolonizing methodologies: How colonization has shaped our notions of gender, reinforced the gender binary and attempted to erase gender expansiveness,
- How the language we use impacts how we experience sexuality (in health care and non-health care settings) — specifically, how trans folks navigate lack of affirming language related to sexuality, intimacy and sexual health,
- The lived and health care experiences of intersex individuals,
- How gender and sexually diverse youth use fashion to affirm their identities,
- The experiences of queer folks living in rural areas, and their ability to find and form community,
- How identity (racial/ethnic, gender, sexuality) impacts political affiliation and action,
- The experiences of gender expansive folks in team sports.
