Membership Committee
The Membership Committee announces a free one-year membership for lapsed members. The offer will be valid until December 15, 2021. The free membership excludes journals. Please pass the word on to colleagues who may have recently fallen off to let them know they can get back on the train for free for this limited time. Interested parties may contact me, Stephen Forssell, directly via email.
The Membership Committee is seeking a co-chair to work with me in efforts to increase membership in Div 44.
Public Policy Committee
I am writing as a new co-chair of the Public Policy Committee (PPC). Our committee’s previous co-chairs, Michele Schlehofer and Christina Patterson, have rotated out of their leadership positions on the committee. The PPC is incredibly thankful for their stellar leadership as co-chairs. They have been instrumental in developing a collaboration between the PPC and staff from the APA Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity Portfolio. This collaboration focuses on creating and disseminating public-facing resources to assist with state-level advocacy efforts. We are excited to continue this collaborative work moving forward. We are committed to supporting advocacy efforts, including grassroots advocacy. We are also open to exploring other areas related to public policy that membership may find useful.
The PPC is in need of a male or nonbinary identified person to fulfill the second co-chair position for the committee. Please reach out to me, Kim Skerven, if you are potentially interested in co-chairing with me or in joining the committee. I look forward to continued great work by the PPC.
Science Committee
The Science Committee works to promote psychological scholarship focused on sexual orientation and gender diversity, as well as to support psychologists and graduate students who are involved in such scholarship. At APA 2021, the Science Committee hosted an interactive discussion session entitled “Thought Provoking Conversations About LGBTQIA+ Research.” Topics included how we can conceptualize LGBTQIA+ research, navigating grant applications, and methods of disseminating research findings, among others. The session was recorded and available to review until November 15 for folks who were not able to attend live.
Current activities of the committee include:
- Continued work on a manuscript providing guidance to psychologists, and social science scholars broadly, on developing, executing, and publishing sexual and gender minority research.
- Ongoing discussion and exploration of how we can systematically address anti-Blackness and incorporate decolonial perspectives in sexual and gender minority research.
- Initial development of webinars based on division interest and need.
- Building intra- and inter-divisional relationships and collaborations through which the committee can support sexual and gender minority research efforts.
We continue to seek out BIPOC, trans and nonbinary, graduate student, and post-doc/ECP (and intersections thereof) representation on the Science Committee. If interested, please contact the committee co-chairs, Cindy Veldhuis and Kevin Delucio.