Abstract
This chapter is a thirteen-year longitudinal Case Study of Jesse, a transgender social scientist whose Ph.D. dissertation involved studying issues related to “atypically gendered” people—his preferred term for individuals like himself. In addition to teaching statistics at an R1 university, he is now an award-winning GLBT+ advocate who travels the country speaking about sex and gender. While aspects of graduate school were painful for Jesse, his academic work contributed meaningfully to his self-understanding. Moreover, his many opportunities to speak publically on campus facilitated his coming-out process. As a professor, he values his unique combination of personal and professional insights for their role in educating others. Viktor Frankl’s existential psychology (logotherapy) is used to interpret Jesse’s motivation for unusually personal scholarship.
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Notes
- 1.
The term “intersex” is often used to describe a person who is born with “reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male.” There are many intersex conditions. Examples include a baby born with some cells that are XX and some that are XY, or an infant with genitals exhibiting both typically “male” and typically “female” characteristics (Intersex Society of North America 2008).
- 2.
I have chosen to use the broad descriptor “social science” to avoid specifying Jesse’s academic discipline.
- 3.
Jerry Springer hosted a sensationalist daytime television show in the 1990s and early 2000s.
- 4.
Chaz Bono is the transgender son of Sonny Bono and Cher. Caitlyn Jenner is the trans woman formerly known as Bruce Jenner. Jesse had the opportunity to meet Chaz Bono through his work in this area.
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Esping, A. (2018). Social Sciences: Coming Out as a Scholar Activist. In: Epistemology, Ethics, and Meaning in Unusually Personal Scholarship. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73718-8_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73718-8_3
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