Major in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies will no longer be available
Ashland.news staff report
Two Southern Oregon University faculty members from a program set to be cut from the university amid $10 million in budget cuts have co-authored a book about transgender experiences.
Carey Jean Sojka and Kylan Mattias de Vries, faculty members of the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Program, have co-authored “Transgender Intersections: Race and Gender Through Identities, Interactions, and Systems of Power.” The book centers around the identity experiences of trans individuals. The book was published in August by Polity Books, an international publisher in the social sciences and humanities often on topics that draw media discussion.
Sojka and de Vries co-chair the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies (GSWS) program at SOU, which, under the Resiliency Plan for the university, will transition to a combined minor.
Both faculty members are recipients of SOU’s Distinguished Teaching Award — Sojka in 2017 and de Vries in 2020, respectively.
Sojka is an associate professor with research and teaching interests in transgender studies, embodiment, gender, sexuality, race, disability, and fat studies. She conducts community training on LGBTQ+ issues in Southern Oregon. She holds bachelor’s degrees from Luther College in Women & Gender Studies and Sociology and a master’s degree in Women’s Studies, along with a doctorate in sociology from the State University of Albany in New York.
De Vries is a professor with a joint appointment to the GSWS and Sociology and Anthropology Programs at SOU. His academic interests include, inequalities, transgender studies and social psychology. He holds a bachelor’s degree in communication at Antioch University Santa Barbara, and a master’s degree and doctorate in sociology at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.
“While transgender lives are at the forefront of contemporary politics, what do we really understand about the complexity of trans experience?” the publisher asks on the new book’s webpage. “Trans people who go through various aspects of gender transition experience shifts not only in their gender, but also with regards to other categories of identity such as race, social class, sexuality, disability, and more.
“Centering the stories of trans people and their loved ones, Sojka and de Vries investigate how intersectionality operates at various levels of social meaning – the individual, the interpersonal and the structural – in the experiences of transgender people.”
Reviews of the 176-page book say it effectively captures the breadth of trans experiences and social connections through the stories it shares of transgender people and their loved ones.
Information obtained from an SOU news release. Reach Ashland.news reporter Holly Dillemuth at [email protected].
