The University of Illinois at Chicago presented the work of some of its LGBTQ faculty and students at its first annual Lavender Research Forum Wed., March 12. This year’s event focused on scholars from the fields of psychology, public health, history and gender studies.

Stacey Horn and Brian Mustanski, both in psychology, presented their separate projects on adolescents. Horn’s research focused on homophobia and sexual prejudice among heterosexual adolescents, and her findings currently indicate both these impulses are ‘multifaceted phenomena.’ For example, teenagers might not indicate prejudice towards someone who is perceived to be of a particular sexual orientation, but they are less tolerant of peers who deviate from norms of gender expression. Mustanksi’s presentation was about the purported link between increased internet dating among youth and risky sexual behavior; his work indicates that that link has been exaggerated. From the field of public health, Alicia Mathews talked about the issues around the complex link between minority and underserved LGBT communities’ experiences of social stigma about homosexuality; their cultural marginalization; and their mental and physical health problems.

Historian John D’Emilio spoke about his incipient research project on Chicago LGBT history between the 1950s and 1980s, which draws upon the archives at Gerber/Hart Library. Jennifer Brier’s current work on the politics of AIDS organizing from 1980 to 2006 suggests that ‘we need to expand our definition of what counts as political as we teach the 1980s.’ Her work indicates that while there was certainly governmental apathy towards AIDS, there were also state officials who strongly criticized the Reagan administration’s AIDS policies. Catherine Batza spoke about her work on the gay and lesbian community health movement in the decade before AIDS, which focuses on the questions of ‘How [did] gay liberation [play] out in terms of AIDS?’ and how feminism in that era worked with lesbian movements in the field of women’s health. Beau Gratzer, who is both in the School of Public Health and director of the HIV/STD Program at Howard Brown Health Center, discussed how he and his colleagues were using the resources of Internet dating sites like Manhunt.com to notify the partners of people infected with HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

The talks emerged from different disciplines, with people connected with psychology and public health using empirical data and those affiliated with history and gender sStudies relying on oral and written narratives of record. This generated questions and responses about each field’s methodology and forms of evidence, even as some commonalities were expressed. A lunchtime presentation featured a commentary by Kevin Barnhurst on his recent anthology, Media Queered: Visibility and Its Discontents.