Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To whom it may concern,


I am writing to request credit standing in PSYC 333, Human Sexuality.


I am in my third year at Queen's, and this course was the third course in a row to include transphobic content. As a trans man, this has been incredibly harmful to my mental health and made engaging with the course difficult.


Last year, in the winter semester, PSYC 236 taught trans conversion therapy (specifically aimed at trans youth). Not as a cautionary tale, but as something that should be practiced. As someone who went through the medical system at a young age, this not only brought back awful memories but violated my human rights. Since it was close to the end of the semester, I persisted and did well in the class, after filing a human rights complaint. That meant that I had to out myself, which was something I did not want to do. In Fall 2021, another course, PSYC 371, used outdated language, misgendered people, and presented my community as freaks. I contacted the psych department head and the course instructor, and they apologized but did little to nothing to change it. I still managed to do well in that class, though I lost most of my motivation since outside of the transphobia, it's a topic I'm very interested in.


Now, this past semester, Winter 2022, I was hypervigilant. When I saw the author of the textbook chapter on gender/sex I was immediately suspicious. I contacted the course instructor who got a trans person to review it. The other trans person agreed that the content was harmful, so the instructor changed the content.


However, the midterm included a question that I found to be offensive. When I saw that question, I had difficulty focusing on the rest of my exam. And, outside of the chapter on gender/sex, there was more transphobic rhetoric, including citing a notorious transphobe extensively. The fact that this has happened three semesters in a row, in different classes, and that despite my best efforts, nothing has changed has hurt me and my mental health immensely. When I first realized that this was the third course in a row to include transphobic content, I lost most of my motivation to do the work. When I further saw a transphobic/problematic question on the midterm, I felt utterly defeated. When I had to continue reading a textbook citing a transphobe, I felt completely broken.


I did notice early on that the textbook chapter author for the chapter on gender/sex was suspicious (they trained under a notorious transphobe) but seeing as the author is employed at Queen's, I held out some hope that it wouldn't be the same thing. By the time the trans expert came back and said that it was harmful, it was nearing the drop date. So why didn't I drop this course? Three reasons; firstly, I thought that I had dealt with the transphobia and that there wouldn't be anymore in PSYC 333. I was wrong. Secondly, I need a clinical psychology class to earn my degree at Queen's (since I didn't take social psychology in my second year). Why drop this course, when the next would likely be transphobic as well? I was taught conversion therapy last year. There is no reason to expect any course offered in clinical psychology to be different. I was halfway through the class- why start all over with another. I thought human sexuality would be the least likely to include upsetting content, while still being interesting to me. I was wrong. Finally, I need to graduate next year (2022-2023). I can't stand to be at Queen's for longer than I have to; I want to move on to grad school. Dropping a course would mean having to take six courses next year or spending a fifth year at Queen's. I work all summer so I can't take a summer course, and I also work during the school year, so taking six courses isn't feasible. My experience of being a queer trans man at Queen's has been awful, I just want to get my degree and move on.


I currently see a counselor, and I have been attempting to be more involved in the trans community so I can better cope with Queen's transphobia. I also plan to avoid courses that I think might be transphobic, though I shouldn't have to; instead, the faculty should make sure that their courses aren't transphobic in the first place. I feel that my learning has been greatly impacted by the discrimination I've experienced in my courses, and because of that, I have been unable to achieve to my best ability. I do not want my experiences of discrimination to negatively impact my GPA and therefore jeopardize my application to graduate studies.


Thank you.


Jason Burns