Open AccessShaping an ethical approach to trans research: Some reflections from my doctoral project
Author(s) -
France rose Hartline
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
digest. journal of diversity and gender studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2593-0281
pISSN - 2593-0273
DOI - 10.21825/digest.v7i1.16511
Subject(s) - engineering ethics , sociology , postgraduate research , process (computing) , political science , pedagogy , engineering , computer science , operating system
From 2016 to 2019, I conducted my doctoral project research on trans and gender-diverse experiences in Norway, focussing on the impact of a new law on gender recognition through which the previous sterilisation requirement for legal gender change was overturned. Over the course of this research, I have been exploring what it means to be an ethical feminist scholar and working to foster what I feel is a more ethical approach to research on trans individuals. In this article, I outline what I have found to be essential theoretical and methodological considerations to ethical trans research. I apply these to my own doctoral research process to demonstrate the importance of trans-focussed research, reflecting on the challenges I faced when writing my thesis.