Publications

Does witnessing violence between parents set young people up to repeat it in their own relationships? Using data from TRAILS, a longitudinal, multi-informant, dual-cohort Dutch study, researchers examined 522 participants who reported childhood exposure to physical interparental violence and whose romantic partners answered questionnaires about dating violence. Controlling for childhood maltreatment, hierarchical logistic regressions found no association between that exposure and either perpetration or victimization of physical and psychological dating violence in young adulthood. The pattern held regardless of sex, socioeconomic status or antisociality. The authors read this as evidence of resilience against an assumed intergenerational cycle of violence.

Nursing education can leave graduates unprepared to care for transgender and gender diverse patients, and can harm trans students along the way. This interpretive description, informed by queer theory and Hafferty's three levels of curriculum, engaged 18 undergraduate nursing students in initial focus groups or interviews, with 13 returning for follow-up. Students described cisnormativity running through every level of the curriculum, the framing of trans people as a problem to be othered, and the importance of individual educators who welcome and affirm. Their recommendations include normalizing gender diversity in coursework, accountability and representation in nursing schools, and action from governing bodies.

Clinical trials need diverse participants, yet gender minorities are frequently left out, weakening how well results apply to everyone. This two-stage expert survey asked specialists to rate the importance and practicality of measuring sex, gender identity, and gender expression in clinical research, to judge which terms were suitable and understandable, and to refine existing definitions, with consensus set at 70 percent agreement. Experts endorsed asking separately about sex assigned at birth, with female, male, and intersex options, and gender identity, with categories including woman, man, nonbinary, trans woman, trans man, genderqueer, genderfluid, agender, and two spirit.

Little research investigates what resources are useful in helping patients to feel prepared to undergo phalloplasty or metoidioplasty, and how assessments and resources can promote patient autonomy in the process. This study sought to fill this gap by utilizing data from PROGRESS (Patient-Reported Outcomes of Genital Reconstruction and Experiences of Surgical Satisfaction), a cross-sectional, community-based survey of trans and nonbinary adults from the United States of America and Canada who had undergone one or more of these surgeries. Results revealed most participants felt prepared to undergo surgery, though the majority of our sample did not find referral letter assessments to be helpful. Peer support such as online resources/blogs were rated as highly useful, along with surgical consults.

Pandemic restrictions reshaped both chemsex and the services meant to support it. Using interpretive description, researchers interviewed eight key informants with chemsex expertise and 13 gay and bisexual men (GBM) with lived experience in Quebec between July 2020 and January 2021. Three themes emerged. Participants described the public health response as heteronormative and moralizing, deepening shame, isolation, and drug-related risk by obstructing harm reduction. They also described how already scarce chemsex-specialized services worsened, with the shift online making trusting therapeutic relationships harder. Yet online delivery also improved access to personalized, culturally sensitive care, supporting a blended in-person and virtual approach.