When I wrote my candidate statement when I ran for president-elect in 2020, I highlighted emerging and re-emerging sexual and gender identities as a cultural development that we would benefit from paying attention to, one that would challenge our science, clinical practice and advocacy as a division [acknowledgements to our esteemed past president, Mira Jourdan, for pointing out the “re-emerging” aspect of our current cultural development as we slowly shake off a colonizing mindset].
I said in that candidate statement: “Pansexual, queer, omnisexual. Asexual, sapiosexual, nonbinary. Agender, kink, demisexual. These emergent identities challenge the idea that the sex or gender of the person that someone is attracted to is the foundation of sexual orientation. They challenge the idea of the binary in our understanding of gender. Fluidity of sexuality and gender also challenges the idea that a constant, essential characteristic is captured by knowing someone’s sexual and gender identity.”
I had planned to form a task force to help the division to respond. I still think it is a good idea. But as every president before me knows, your year rarely is about your initiatives or trying to implement your new ideas. Life has a tendency to place challenging events in your path, one’s that you did not foresee. And you will have to respond to those challenging events.
But before I discuss the year that actually happened, and what I learned from it, I do want to acknowledge this dream I had, this goal of addressing emerging and re-emerging sexual and gender identities. There are two ways I can honor this. One is the Presidential Citation, and this year it will go to the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom. More on that in a moment. The second way is to propose a task force that would address a particular flavor of sexual diversity that is close to my heart: the leather/kink/BDSM community, which significantly overlaps with the LGBTQ community, but goes beyond that community, too. LGBTQ leather has a long history and has made some significant contributions to queer life, but often gets little attention from our field.
I haven’t talked about this second idea of a task force with anyone yet (because we have had so many other urgent challenges and threats to face this year), but I see it as a task force that would explore whether or not it makes sense for this division to address these issues, and whether a committee might be needed to address these issues. Let’s see what will happen with that idea down the road.
Back to the first way to honor the dream of addressing emerging and re-emerging sexual and gender identities. I would like to give the Presidential Citation now, as part of this address. We have representatives from the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom to accept this citation today. Before I ask them to come up and accept the award and to say a few words, let me share why I chose NCSF for this citation.
The NCSF’s mission statement: “The NCSF is committed to creating a political, legal and social environment in the US that advances equal rights for consenting adults who engage in alternative sexual and relationship expressions. The NCSF aims to advance the rights of, and advocate for consenting adults in the BDSM-Leather-Fetish, Swing, and Polyamory Communities. We pursue our vision through direct services, education, advocacy, and outreach, in conjunction with our partners, to directly benefit these communities.”
They have been in existence for 26 years now, starting in 1997. They have done work documenting discrimination and violence against people who engage in alternative sexual and relationship expressions (including discrimination by medical and mental health practitioners), examining consent practices and consent violations affecting these communities, and partnering with researchers to examine the minority stress and high suicidality rates in these communities, specifically. Our own Committee on Consensual Non-Monogamy is very familiar with the work of the NCSF and its contributions. For all these reasons, I’m very glad to give the 2022 Presidential Citation to the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom.
Now, let me tell you of the year that actually happened, and what I learned.
There were two major ongoing challenges and one newly developing threat this past year. One of the major ongoing challenges was the number of people stepping back from leadership roles and the number of people stepping forward to take on those leadership positions in the division. The degree of change in leadership in this year seemed higher than usual. We practiced a more open call process for leaders, and I learned that we have many great people in this division who want to contribute. Rarely did we go very long without finding new leaders to take up the mission of the division through various efforts, committees, task forces and positions.
The second ongoing challenge was the work we do to address anti-racism in our division. We have had critical incidents where race became the focus of some harmful behavior on our part, and we continue to struggle to find a way to make our Division a place where black, indigenous and all psychologists of color can feel at home and work among colleagues who see and value their contributions and experiences. I have seen how invested we are as a division to do this work, and I’ve also seen how easily we get discouraged. But I believe we have a dynamic division that is poised to begin a new phase of our life together, and I’m excited to see what happens in the next few years.
The newly developing threat this past year was the increased, concerted legislative and cultural attack on LGBTQ people, especially our transgender, gender diverse and nonbinary siblings. Of special affront were the attacks on our youth. In response to these sharp, harmful attacks, we created a Working Group on the Healthcare of Transgender, Gender Diverse, and Nonbinary Children and Adolescents. The Working Group consisted of members from Division 44 (Society for the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity), with representatives from Division 17 (Society of Counseling Psychology), Division 37 (Society for Child and Family Policy and Practice), Division 53 (Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology), and Division 54 (Society of Pediatric Psychology). The statement reviews the relevant science and uses that as a basis to advocate for particular policies. The draft resolution is currently being crafted into a policy statement to be adopted by these divisions and possibly other divisions, and we are expecting to go through the process of having it reviewed by the relevant committees and offices of APA for consideration.
And we continue to do amazing work in this division on so many issues. What have I learned? We are a division, a people, a family that is called to do the hard work of healing this world and making it a safe and delightful place to be queer in every way that lifts up the human condition. We are a division, a people, a family that inadvertently can fail to live up to that calling and can get exhausted and confused and hurt. But most importantly, I have learned we are division, a people, a family that is always willing to persist.
Thank you for the honor of being your president this past year. I look forward with hope to what’s next.