I propose we search again! This time, with science!

Despite all the crazy adventures I've had in India so far, and all the classes I've taken and places I've seen, it has been clear that the central experience of the Alliance program is the research experience (or, for most people, the internship or documentary filmmaking experience). This past week and a half the majority of my days have been taken up with doing this research, so I figure I should share it with you.

We're all assigned organizations to work with based on our stated interests. I had said that I was interested either in studying agricultural organizations or LGBTQ+ (or, as they say in India, LGBTIH, which includes intersex and Hijara people) issues. After being informed that the nearest agricultural organization was miles outside of Pune, I decided on the latter. So I was paired with Samapathik Trust, as I have mentioned before.

On the subject of pride and advocacy.

Samapathik Trust organized Pride, but they're primary goals are HIV/AIDS testing and prevention among MSM, transgender women, and tritiyapanthis in Pune through interventions such as condom repositories, HIV testing, and health education for these communities. However, the organization also works on advocacy around political causes, most notably in opposition to section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which deems all non-procreative sex "unnatural" and illegal (in a country in which sterilizing women is state policy). Thus, one of the research topics the Trust offered me was looking to see what social science professionals, such as psychologists, sociologists, and social work professors, thought about the law and how they taught it to their students.

AIDS-prevention posters.

However, I didn't choose this topic. The Alliance program and Samapathik Trust also happened to notice that I had taken a class on Thai-based gender affirmation surgery and had some base knowledge on the subject, and so also described a research project on the attitudes of mental health professionals toward the gender identity of their transgender clients. Basically, because for a long time "gender identity disorder" as a diagnosis pathologized gender variance, mental health care as a field has not been very welcoming to transgender and gender variant people. In India there is reason to believe that is changing, and with the removal of gender identity disorder and the adding of "gender dysphoria" (which is experienced by some, but not all, transgender and gender non-conforming folk when their bodies and how society perceive them does not match how they perceive themselves, and also as a diagnosis addresses the problem as one of finding ways to help people match their gender identity rather than seeing the gender identity itself as a problem). My research is to see how mental health professionals deal with and understand the gender identities of transgender people, and also what mental health issues are most pressing among Indian transgender people.

Rameshwar Market. Samapathik Trust is on the top floor.

I have been working on my research proposal and literature review in Samapathik Trust's office, and while most people prefer to speak Marathi too each other, several people speak English and I've made friends with them all. I make sure to eat lunch (provided by the Alliance in a tupperware tiffin) with the organization every day, and while I only pick up a few of the words (mostly English terms or queer terms), it's great to have people around doing awesome stuff while I'm writing and analyzing abstracts and such.

Mmm, lunchtime.

However, as of today I have finished my proposal, so I will be spending a lot less time at the organization and a lot more time out and about, interviewing people. I'll still return here to transcribe the interviews (which is the hardest part of the research in my opinion), though, so that'll be good.

The entrance to the Law College. I have an interview scheduled for Thursday here!

Interactive question time: Are you close your workplace colleagues? Or, if you don't have a job currently, do you prefer to do work around other people or alone? Why?