Springfield, VA, USA. Two graduate students have scored an academic trifecta. They learned how to launch their careers via publish-or-perish principles, google the obvious, and cozy up to transgenders. The results of their efforts (referred to in some circles as, um, research) awaits the unwary in the Journal of Career Development.

 

The University of Oregon is a public research university and a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), one of only two such universities in the greater Northwest. It is located in Eugene, Oregon, two hours from Portland and one hour each from the Pacific Coast and the Cascade Mountains. The UO library holds 2.6 million volumes and 18,000 periodicals — the second largest such collection in the Northwest. At least that’s what the OU public relations department says.

 

They seem to be very fond of their almost 4000 graduate students as indicated by this press release blurb:

Right here, in the Cascade Mountains, two graduate students have discovered the Tao of Transgender and have shared their wisdom with the world. This is where they have shared their vision:

 

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Transgender Identities and Gender Variance in Vocational Psychology: Recommendations for Practice, Social Advocacy, and Research. Maya Elin O'Neil, Ellen Hawley McWhirter, and Alison Cerezo. Journal of Career Development 34(3) 286-308. doi: 10.1177 / 0894845307311251  [ Download PDF ]

The Great Northwest, Gateway to Transgender and filling a void in both the academic literature and support possibilities. Ok. I’m game. Let’s read the paper and discuss. I’m always looking for incisive new insights into the transgender phenomena even though I was not aware of there being a “void” in the scientific and professional literature.

 

Oh, my bad. They said a void in the academic literature. I forgot that if it doesn’t happen at University, it just doesn’t happen. Nothing counts unless blessed by the proper academic credential board.

 

On to the insightful published paper. Passengers should refrain from criticizing any authorial flurries of post-mod prose or writing that would barely get a C grade in any college class I attended or taught and probably a D grade in my post-graduate classes. The paper and discussion follows.

This is just academic hubris and ignorance. There are a lot of working therapists out their with decades of experience and effective counseling practices — including vocational counseling — they just don’t publish in the social science journals or teach at OU. TS-Si itself has numerous, real world articles on how to transition at work, what to do to find or keep a job, and other practical advice from successful post-op HBS (Harry Benjamin Syndrome fna transsexuality) men and women.

 

The paper contains numerous flurries of proper post-mod obscurity

and borrows its terminology, for better or worse, from the politically correct Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation, using the umbrella term transgender to refer to “individuals whose gender identity or gender expression falls outside of gender norms.”

 

Like many other soft science social scientists, the writers treat everything under their Big T umbrella as if it were a social construct or a psychological problem — effectively ignoring the neurobiological physical basis for HBS. Not willing to stop there, they expand their transgender definition to include “intersex individuals or those born with ambiguous genitalia,” once again merging physical realities into the cultural confines of the Big T.

 

This lack of scientific and medical understanding of the neurobiological root causes runs throughout the article (which must give one pause to consider the state of the social sciences if this paper was accepted by a respected social science journal). Most obviously, the authors have no understanding of the precise medical term “disorder,” confusing its actual meaning with the common every day use of the word.

 

Their sources of information are sparse. They consulted with “members of our local transgender community” — all SIX of them. I can find more than that on a street corner in the District. Perhaps all those trees in Oregon make finding transgenders difficult but you’d think that with a student body of over 20,000, the authors would have been able to find more than six people who were transgendered.

 

A review of the psychology and counseling literature using something called Psychinfo and a variety of terms yielded only FOUR relevant publications. You have to wonder if they thought to browse through the 2.6 million volumes and 18,000 periodicals in the OU library. You know, do actual, hands on research.

 

But what do you do if you want to find some information quickly and don’t really feel like doing the grunt work?

 

Tell the truth. We all do it. We google for the information.

 

So did our “researchers,” just like any high school student faced with a paper to write that is due the next morning for class. The laundry list of references at the end of the paper would suggest the authors are competent googlers even if their research skills may be somewhat lacking.

 

Later in the paper, the authors discuss discrimination, a real possibility when you don’t look like everyone else or act like others expect. Discrimination exists, but they could not stop there.

 

They also identify the problem of “stress associated with the ANTICIPATION of discrimination.” I expect their next paper will identify the additional problem of the stress associated with the anticipation of the stress associated with the anticipation of discrimination. You can see where this is going. No one is responsible for the situation they find themselves in. Everyone is a victim, even if they are only an anticipated victim.

 

Halfway through the published paper, it becomes apparent that the authors are talking about “gender ambiguous individuals,” the outer reaches of even the most expansive Big T rather than HBS men and women, rather than full time transgenders living as the opposite sex, rather than crossdressers. They even resort to using trendy, academically precious gender neutral terms like ze and hir.

 

The authors’ idea of analysis is to present a hundred word or less vignette of a transgendered person encountering a life experience and then provide a couple hundred word analysis of the situation and what might be done to smooth the waters. Sounds suspiciously like a semester final I had in Psych 101 or Social Anthropology back in the late 1960s — but perhaps that’s graduate level work now (it’s been so long).

 

One of the paper's key findings (lifted from another, credited paper) is that

Duh.

 

I prefer to go to dentists who actually have experience in dentistry. I hope the US taxpayer didn’t pay for that bit of astute academic wisdom.

 

Here are the paper's theoretical models to guide a counseling practice:

All the above is fine and good, but none of it is new, unique, or even insightful. A lot of it comes right out of the parenting handbook (that most of us learn by experience). It’s called life and getting through it.

 

And, as with all papers in search of government money, the authors observe that “it is clear that additional research is a priority in developing new theoretical frameworks as practice recommendations and guidelines.” I see burgeoning career possibilities here.

 

The paper does offer some pragmatic guidance:

You can find all of the above, however, (except perhaps the bit on the counselor’s bathrooms) in various papers here at TS-Si.org and in other sources. Nothing especially original in the advice. There are certain practical considerations that must be considered in the workplace.

 

At the end of this published paper, the authors’ assert that

The paper might represent the current knowledge of the graduate students at the University of Oregon, but it’s a wide, wide world out there and the authors have only put their toes in a small pond in the Cascades.

 

That this paper, as written, could pass peer review and be accepted for publication in the Journal of Career Development says more about the sorry state of the social sciences than the research skills of the authors.

 

Transgender Identities and Gender Variance in Vocational Psychology: Recommendations for Practice, Social Advocacy, and Research. Maya Elin O'Neil, Ellen Hawley McWhirter, and Alison Cerezo. Journal of Career Development 34(3) 286-308. doi: 10.1177 / 0894845307311251  [ Download PDF ]

Abstract

Effective practices for career counseling with gender variant individuals have yet to be identified for reasons that may include perceptions that the population is too small to warrant in-depth research, lack of funding for such efforts, and practitioners' lack of training and experience with transgender concerns. In this article, we describe the status of research and practice with respect to gender variant individuals. Definitions and terminology, vocational and workplace concerns, and vignettes of vocational and work-related situations that career counseling professionals may encounter when working with gender variant individuals are presented. Recommendations for practice, social advocacy, and future research are provided.

 

 

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