Interview: What is sex therapy?

This virtual interview took place on February 20, 2024, to explore the specifics of sex therapy. A recording of the interview was used to supplement a lecture for one of Dr. Robin Milhausen’s courses. The script has been edited for clarity and length. Rahim and Robin have been friends and colleagues for a number of years and collaborate whenever the universe allows it!

Dr. Milhausen is a Professor in the Department of Family Relations & Applied Nutrition at the University of Guelph. She is an award-winning teacher and a passionately engaged mentor of undergraduate and graduate students. She is an active member within the Canadian Sex Research Forum and the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality and s a Senior Research Fellow at The Kinsey Institute and a Research Fellow at the Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention. Most recently, she is a registered psychotherapist (qualifying) and a graduate of the Masters of Counseling Psychology program at Yorkville University. She is an affiliate member with the Association of Sex Therapy in Ontario (ASTO).

Rahim Thawer is a registered social worker and psychotherapist. He developed and taught SMF 208 Introduction to Systemic Therapies and Anti-Oppressive Practice and SMF 309 Sex Therapy in the Department of Sexuality, Marriages and Family (SMF) Studies at St. Jerome’s University at the University of Waterloo. He’s been a keynote speaker at a number of sexuality and sexual wellbeing conferences. He is a Fellow at the Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto. He is currently enrolled in the Professional Certificate in Psychosexual Therapy offered by the Contemporary Institute of Clinical Sexology (CICS) based in the UK.

— — — -Interview begins — — — -

Milhausen

Rahim, tell us how you got into social work.

Thawer

Sure. Before going into social work, I was considering a career in teaching. And then I thought, I don’t want to do that! I applied for an MA in counselling psychology in 2007 but didn’t get into the program. I then began working in sexual health and, in particular, in the HIV sector in Toronto. I met other people who had social work backgrounds. What I loved about social work was that it brought together conversations and analyses about systemic oppression and the impact of the world on the individual. It also came with the possibility of doing clinical (psychotherapy) work. That was the route I took. During my Masters of Social Work at the University of Toronto, I took the ‘mental health and health’ stream. Since graduating, I’ve worked in counselling roles. I’m still learning. I’m constantly learning about gestalt therapy techniques, psychodynamic theories, and cognitive behavioural approaches. And much of that is directly applied to my sex therapy practice. Most people who come to see me for sex therapy are people from the 2SLGBTQ+ community. But, queer folk have similar genitals to straight people. So it’s similar work to other sex therapists!

Milhausen

And so you have done therapeutic work in organizations and private practice?

Thawer

Yes. I worked in community-based organizations and on a family health team. That was about ten years. Then, I moved into working exclusively in private practice. I also do clinical supervision for other therapists and offer group supervision to therapists and case managers at non-profit organizations.

Milhausen

As a new therapist [myself], supervision is one of my favourite things. I’ve talked about it a bunch in class as well. But, it’s a time when new or established therapists get to sit either in a group or one-on-one with more established, seasoned therapists and talk about their cases and get some advice and support around ways to proceed in the most effective and ethical ways. It’s so dynamic, those conversations. I especially love group supervision.

Thawer

Yeah, I think for anyone who wants to go into the field, I would say there’s the formal education, and then there’s the education that happens while you’re in practice, and that comes from the reflection time you set aside for clinical supervision. For anyone in this class, clinical supervision isn’t always offered if you’re considering going down a medical route. Physicians sometimes participate in Balint groups, which are other reflective groups designed to enhance practice. So, think about what reflective spaces are [offered to you] because a lot of the learning happens in practice.

Milhausen

Awesome. And I know you are always doing many things, writing books, writing manuals, speaking, et cetera, but have there been times when you were a full-time therapist, like 30 hours a week?

Thawer

Yes, whenever I worked at a non-profit, for about ten years, my full-time job was to be a therapist. But then I also did additional things. The thing for me was that therapy took a particular kind of energy, so switching up to [offering] workshops or training was good. It didn’t feel demanding in the same way. I also found that if you’re working with people with complex histories, you need a bit more time between sessions. Personally, I can’t see more than four or five therapy clients on a given day because I feel pretty tired. It’s one of these professions where, if you are strapped for cash, you can’t just extend your hours because the quality of care changes. I often say to myself and my supervises: if you see too many people today, you’re borrowing energy from tomorrow.

Milhausen

I love that. That’s so important. Many people wonder, “If you’re working 15 or 20 hours a week as a therapist, what are you doing with all the rest of your time?” But actually, that’s a pretty full clinical caseload, given the preparation needed in advance, plus any other scheduling work or administrative work. The work of a full-time therapist is not 40 client hours per week.

Thawer

Agreed. I would say it’s common to have anywhere from 10 to 20 clinical hours per week. I know many people who aim to have about 20 clinical hours per week; I know some that do more. Some would say 1 clinical hour is (energetically) similar to 2–3 hours of work. So people think about it in different ways.

Milhausen

Take me through a day in the life of a (sex) therapist, then. And tell us about the variety of cases you might see as a sex therapist.

Thawer

I have to say that some people come in for sex therapy specifically, but in my experience, it’s not a massive portion of people. A lot of people will come in to talk about relationship issues, body image issues, or anxiety and isolation. And those become the entry points to talking about sex and sexuality. So when we talk about sex therapy, it’s imperative to contextualize what it is we’re talking about. It can be about genital function; it can be about pleasure. It can also be about how satisfied you feel in your relationship. It can be about sexual communication; it can be about your relationship to your body, a body memory. Sex therapy is also about, and believe it or not, it’s also about family, which might sound weird at first. But, it can be about reproduction, infertility, and family values; specifically, how values that you grew up with around the function/purpose of sex is now getting in the way of your pursuit of sex for pleasure. In which case, you’re now exploring shame, gender roles, and how that manifests in your sex life. So, I just want to broaden the scope for a moment.

Milhausen

I think that’s so true. And I think that’s what I’ve learned. Like, I’ve only been a therapist for a couple of years, and I don’t know what I thought sex therapy was going to be, but perhaps more nuts and bolts (and problem solving). But, oh my gosh, it’s everything you discussed. And I think that people come for therapy in the other direction — thinking they have a sex-specific problem. Still, they have broader relationship issues: tension, communication, grudges, trauma, family of origin and cultural “stuff” they’re hanging on to. So, I think people may sometimes come and think they have a straightforward sex problem, but it’s way more complicated than that.

Thawer

Totally. And one of the biggest misnomers is people will come in and say, I think I have a sexual addiction. And I’m thinking, okay, it’s not impossible. I have met some people who struggle with that. But for something to be an addiction, it would have to be compulsive. And when something is compulsive, you reorganize your life to optimize the opportunity to do that thing. And once you start doing that thing, it’s hard to stop, and that thing gets in the way of other things. So, you could be compulsive with work, with alcohol, with travelling….anything that takes you away and serves as an escape…and interferes with your daily life. But when people say, “I have a sexual addiction,” I immediately think about the compulsive criteria. Often, they’re actually talking about shame or guilt about having a desire for somebody outside of their primary relationship. And that’s completely normal. That happens. But they have ideas about why that’s not normal, and they might be worried about what that means for their relationship, what that says about them as a person, and what that will mean for their future.

Thawer

To answer your question about cases. A common topic in sex therapy us around arousal difficulties. They’ll say, “I’m not excited. I can’t get an erection. I’m not getting wet.” Some people are appropriately aroused, but they worry that they’re not aroused enough because they need lube and they see that as a physical deficit. Sometimes it is. Often not. Other common problems include erectile difficulty or ejaculation happening earlier than someone would like, or it’s taking much longer than someone would like. Clients will often talk about desire discrepancy. They might say, “Here’s where I think my sex drive is. Here’s what my partner’s sex drive is or here’s what my partner is expecting.” Less common in my practice, but present, are explorations around genital and pelvic pain. Unfortunately, there aren’t easy, quick fixes for some of those things.

I think people find themselves in challenging situations when they have this perfect relationship structure that provides the kind of safety they longed for. Then they realize, oh, they have an aversion to sex, or they avoid sex, or sex (or any physical contact) brings up things around past traumas, and those are things that they didn’t necessarily expect. I will say that there are aspects of sex therapy that are less talked about. All the things I just talked about are very DSM-focused, meaning they’re centred around the diagnoses people might have. And they’re pretty medical. Of course, there’s a psychosocial component, but they are about arousal, desire, response, expectations, and completion. But sex therapy can also be about body dysmorphia. Talking about opening up a relationship. Gender dysphoria. Sex and the role of fantasy and racial stereotypes. Support resulting from a mental health diversion program for sexual offenders. For these folks, what they desired was not okay, legally and culturally speaking, and they had the genuine potential of causing harm, or did cause harm. So, it gets into some tricky territory. But I want to name that because I think that’s also part and parcel of the work.

I work a lot with gay men; there’s sexualized drug use, which is the pairing of substances and sexual experiences and figuring out which part of that is good. I often explore, “What part of you do you get to access when you use substances? Are there lessons learned from an intoxicated experience that can translate into a sober moment or experience?” There’s much more that I could talk about, but I’ll let you ask the next question. I just get excited about this and want people to know there’s so much that’s part of what sex therapy is!

Milhausen

I’m so glad you did that because I think anybody reading a textbook chapter on this might have a narrow scope. So, I love everything that you just provided there. But that means then, if I ask you, how do you do sex therapy? Because it’s so big and it’s so many things. There’s a lot of ways to do it. But maybe you could start with what a person might expect if they came to you for sex therapy, as some people watching this video might think they might want to get sex therapy at some point. Then maybe you could talk about some typical elements, like work that might span treatments.

Thawer

Absolutely. So, one thing that’s become very popular is people will say they do systemic sex therapy or intersystem sex therapy. That means they could be trained in various modalities so they could do something experiential that involves role-play. They might talk about your childhood. They might do cognitive behavioural work, discussing the link between your feelings, thoughts, and behaviours. But they put the modality second. What comes first is a particular kind of assessment. If you think about the intersystem has four main components. First, the individual is a system. That includes your own fundamental beliefs about sex, including how do you define sex? What does it mean to you? How do you feel about having it? What does it feel like when you don’t have it? How do you respond to your partner initiating sex?

Then we’ve got the contextual influences, the societal system. And that is in your current realm of being. What are you being told? What are the beliefs of your culture or subculture? So those could be about gender, those could be about religion. Those could be about marriage. To understand this system, you want to explore who your society, your peer group, your family, and your community are. What are they telling you, teaching you, making you feel about sex? And that could also include television shows. This is important because this is where people’s ideas about body image, who should initiate sex, etc., come from.

The third component is the intergenerational system. This could still be part of your societal system in the present but we want to focus on experiences and people over a long period of time. People often have experiences in sex education at a younger age, talking about sex with their peer groups at a younger age, feeling like they fit in or don’t fit in with their peer groups, and ideas about femininity and masculinity. And what did Mom and Dad say about sex and sexuality? What was your first experience around STIs, sexual health, and the introduction to that? Was it fear-laden? Those could be societal, but if they’ve happened earlier in your life, it’s an older group of people who are dictating the norms and transmitting this information to you. Here, you’ll also have a conversation about trauma. For example, Did you experience sexual abuse? Did you experience someone violating your physical boundaries? I’ve had clients talk about stepsiblings with whom they had sexual interactions, stepparents, people who have had incestuous relationships, like mom and son, etc. People will have complicated conversations and explorations about these events. Trauma is not just assessment; that can sometimes become the centre of treatment, but getting some of that information is essential.

The fourth component of the systemic model, or the intersystem model, is talking about your current sexual and relationship system. Your current relationships. Maybe you’re just having casual sex, and that’s fine. Maybe you’re looking for relationships or are actively dating. Perhaps you’re polyamorous and in partnership with people, or you’re solo polyam. Maybe you’re in a monogamous relationship currently. Maybe your relationship just ended, and you’re thinking about it and reflecting on it. So I’m really asking the client about the context of connection, whatever that looks like for you and how it feels. What is your sexual history? What is your own experience with sexual communication? What are your sexual patterns? Some people will say, for example, I’m not that sexual person. But then late at night, they’re on Tinder, and I’m like, there’s a longing that comes at night. So that’s part of the pattern, right? Or I flirt with somebody, I have a few drinks, we have sex. Or, I go out dancing, I’m inebriated, I have sex with somebody, and then I feel awkward about texting them the next day. Okay, no problem. We’re not judging it or treating it. But that’s an interesting sexual pattern. Right?

Once you’ve got the systemic assessment, you’ve got a sense of everything that has influenced the presenting problem. You’ve done an intervention by doing the assessment because that’ll take a few sessions. However, through this dialogue and exploration, people will often have new insights.

I’ll pause here for a moment because you probably have to redirect me!

Milhausen

No, I’m just thinking about how awesome it would be to be your client! I love that you are so open to all the possibilities, and you’re demonstrating a non-judgmental stance, curiosity, and unconditional positive regard, all the things we’re looking for in therapy. So, I can see how an assessment with you would also be an intervention. So, no, keep going. Then what happens?

Thawer

Okay. So, let’s say we’ve landed on a specific issue, right? We’ve done a systemic assessment. Let’s say a client is experiencing sexual pain, for example. I want to know some specifiers about the pain: Is this lifelong or for several years, or is it acquired or more recent? I also want to know, is it generalized, as it happens with all the partners all the time, even when you have solo sex, or is it situational and with particular people? Then, I’m asking about the severity of your distress. “So you’re telling me this thing is a problem. How much of it is a problem for you? How much of it is a problem for somebody else?” I ask because lots of people will have sexual encounters where they won’t have an orgasm. The question is, was it satisfying? Did you still enjoy it? Did it feel upsetting to you that you didn’t come or have an orgasm? Did the other person feel disappointed or like they did something wrong; or what came up for them? If it’s casual sex, they might not have an opportunity to go back and talk to the other person and process it. And I’m somebody who thinks casual sex is a lot of fun. I’m also somebody who would say that there’s a specific part of refining and enhancing; there’s an essential part of sex that doesn’t get the kind of enhancement it could have if there’s an opportunity for conversation. And so I say to folks, even if they have primarily casual encounters, see if you could have some casual people who are ongoing because that gives you the chance to talk, provide subtle feedback. I’d be curious, if you see the person a second, third, or fourth time if the pain changes; if there’s more safety, and somehow the pain is less now. So those are what I would call specifiers.

Back to the pain. I’m thinking, how do you understand the pain? And if it shows up in some situations and not others, what do you make of the differences? Tell me about the headspace you were in when the pain got intense. And was it before you were penetrated or before you tried to penetrate somebody else? Was it when somebody was performing oral sex on you? When did it happen, and what was going on in your mind? And often, they’ll say, I’m worried it’ll be disappointing. Okay. And if that can’t happen, tell me what that means, and what do you think it says about you? Well, people say, well, like, I’m a failure or I’m broken. One person said to me, oh, I feel like my vagina is broken. I said, have you considered sex in other ways that don’t involve penetration? And people will often say no. So I’ll say, okay, I see that penetrative sex is essential to you. I want you to be able to do that. I don’t know that you’ll be able to do it without pain completely, but let’s create a parallel, right? A parallel practice of understanding, defining and practicing sex that doesn’t involve penetration. Now, this is a lot of work, right, because it’s tough. But I have to say, sex is more than penetration, right? That’s part of the education we do. And people need to take some time to think about what it is. Is it pleasure? Is it physical contact? Is it transactional? Is it for me? Is it for the other person?

And then I would say, what function does it serve? So, if you could do that, what would it say about you? What would it say about your partner? And what would it say about the relationship? So what I’m doing here, this kind of inquiry, is all cognitive behavioural, right? I’m looking at what are called sexual mythologies or ideas people have about sex where the script or the idea does not fit with their experience. So we’re unpacking that script or the negative thoughts or the beliefs and trying to rework them to change them. But of course, people still want to do the thing right that they came to get help with. So now we’re looking at more behavioural interventions. So if you’re somebody who is experiencing pain and you’re the one being penetrated, I might say, let’s think about how you want to do this on your own. Let’s reduce all the variables and discuss ways this could happen. So maybe it is using fingers, toys, music, lube, different kinds of lube, different times of day, something before, something after, and setting an intention for expectations for yourself; what are you going to tell yourself if you can’t do what you set out to do? What’s your internal dialogue going to be? This is how we evaluate a behavioural experiment.

From a Gestalt perspective, which is more experiential, I might say “I noticed you were critical when your body didn’t do the thing you wanted it to do; what do you think you would tell your body if you could?” And then I’d facilitate a conversation between the client and their body part. I’d prompt, “What would that body part say back to you? I want you to pretend you’re that body part.” This approach about fostering a deeper connection with yourself where there’s fragmentation. It’s similar to what some people call parts work.

A psychodynamic approach would be about exploring the unconscious. It’s about defense mechanism. It’s about the impact of early childhood in a nutshell. Let’s say a client said, “I was able to do this [penetrative solo sex] on my own, but I can’t seem to do it with somebody else.” What meaning can we ascribe to that? What is it telling you, if we’re interpreting your body’s cues, unconsciously? What from your past might be coming up now? Perhaps your body developed a way to protect you when you were younger, and that exact mechanism is showing up now, but you slowly have to teach your body that the threat is no longer present. Unless it is? Then we have to explore that.

Milhausen

And there are many different therapeutic approaches that you can take to sexual problems. So, I appreciate that you shared a few of the other lenses that you use to work with sex therapy in our last few minutes. What is the length/duration of sex therapy treatment? Have you seen people for four sessions, and they all feel great and have a new understanding, or are there others you might see for years? Or, what do you see as how sex therapy progresses in your work?

Thawer

It depends on the person and their context. Some people start to focus on making the sex in their relationship better as a way to repair bigger things that are the problem in the relationship. And so they’re already on the brink of dissolution or breaking up. And unfortunately, you can have a conversation about making your sex life better, and maybe that will impact the relationship lifespan. But if the relationship dissolves and you stay in individual therapy, much of the work will shift to reflect on the breakup and what that means for you.

A lot of people who are in long-term relationships who know they want to stay together have the luxury to explore underlying issues. For example, a client could begin talking about sex therapy issues but they’ll also talk about other things because other things are influencing their sex life. For example, their relationship to alcohol, or the emotional tension in the relationship, resentment around the division of labour, frustration about doing a lot of caretaking…and other issues related to care and connection, or power and control. When those other things come up, sometimes the specificity of sexual issues takes a backseat, and we focus on those different things.

I’ve had some people talk about their sexual issues for maybe ten or twelve sessions while others will attend therapy every other week for a year or two. And the specificity or the focus can shift over time. So it’ll depend. I would also say that people’s insight and approach will change. That’s the goal. Some people won’t get rid of their pain. I will say if your pain is at a ten out of ten, with insight, practice, compassion, maybe we can bring it down to a four. I’m not going to promise we’re going to get it to a zero. It’s possible, but I can’t guarantee that. The goal can be adaptation to a new circumstance. Let’s say, for example, you have had cancer treatment and you’ve had your prostate removed. You might not be able to have erections. That’s just a new reality. So we’re talking about building a new sexual menu and adjusting to aging, sex after cancer, etc. Sex therapy is often not simple-solution-focused; it’s exploratory. It’s adaptation. It’s creativity. It’s shame and grief.

Milhausen

I remind myself that we are 1 hour in a person’s week or two, and many other things influence their lives, such as systemic constraints, income worries, and other health concerns. So, we work with clients to support them and help them achieve what they want in their lives. But tons of different factors significantly influence all the other hours that they’re not with us, too. So that’s challenging also.

Thawer

Yes. Absolutely.

Milhausen

Given the weight of all the stories you’re hearing and the people you support, how do you take care of yourself? Especially when you can’t always make all the changes you would like. And how do you take care of yourself in this role?

Thawer

This is an excellent question because I believe there are some things we have to do within the context of work that are different from self-care practices. I do self-care: like connecting with nature, connecting with myself, making sure I still have time for a social life and a sex life. For self-care built into work. I need time to reflect, and for me, some of that happens with writing. Everyone hates doing their clinical documentation. I’m not an exception, but I think about documentation as a time to reflect on what we’ve done and where we’re going. I take care of myself when I leave time to review notes before a session and when I don’t book things back to back. I’m taking care of myself when I write in a way that helps guide my treatment planning.

When things are complex, it’s self-care to reflect on them. There’s a tendency to avoid things that feel challenging, even when you have clinical supervision because we all want to be; if you want to be a good student now, when you’re a therapist, you will want to be a good therapist! Or you’ll want to be a good patient with your clinical supervisor, so you might avoid discussing the hard things. And then, even on your time, sometimes you have to create space for grief. I’ve had clients who left my practice clients who were experiencing intimate partner violence. I’ve had a couple of clients who died, one in particular, by suicide. And so it’s not like you can’t leave it at work. You have to create time in your personal life to grieve, slow down, and re-evaluate.

Another thing I tell people I supervise is that, after you get a sense of what your caseload is like, you’d identify some clients as more complex. You might want to see them first thing in the morning. Or whenever you’re at your best. Being in control of your schedule and hours is connected to boundaries, and that’s connected to self-care.

Some therapists say, “For accessibility reasons, my client needs an hour-and-a-half session.” If you can do that, sure. If I start doing that, it feels like a slippery slope. I notice myself getting resentful. And then I can’t listen in the same way. So, I need to maintain that boundary of session duration. Otherwise, I’m all over the place. So, you must consider what makes you feel centred in your work.

Last thing: I’m somebody who loves drugs and alcohol, and I’m now seven months without any alcohol. I would have argued before that substances and partying were my self-care….and they were. I wasn’t wrong. And now, this mental place that I’m in, not drinking, is also self-care so that I can be present in a different way. It’s not about what you do or don’t do, but the meaning you ascribe to it and how intentional you are. So, your awareness of your body is part of self-care.

Milhausen

I love how, just like you broadened the therapy process, you broadened what self-care is to think about your use of substances, scheduling and everything in between and outside of that, and modelling that reflective piece that even and not just reflecting on our clients but on what’s going on for us. These are vital parts of the role.

Okay, the last question is, what would you like a whole bunch of people to know about sexuality that you think would be helpful for their own sexual lives? Like, what is one thing you wish everybody knew?

Thawer

That is a tricky question. I wish everybody knew that your experience of sexuality, meaning your relationship with yourself, your physical body, and your partners, will change over time. You should expect that it’ll evolve. Your experiences will rarely look and feel like porn. And that we all have some shame around sex. And we need to work through that, and we need [psychologically] safe spaces for that. And that sex is for every body. This means sex isn’t [just] for young people. Sex isn’t [just] for people who are non-disabled. Sex is for every body.

And you are allowed to define sex in different ways. Some people will be delighted with manual stimulation (i.e. hand jobs) while they’re making out, and that’s sex. So, I just want people to broaden their idea of what sex is because satisfaction comes from letting go of the garbage scripts that don’t work for you anymore. And so we need to do that in our lives if we’re going to help patients do that in theirs.

Milhausen

Awesome. Thank you so much. This is Rahim Thawer, social worker, author, activist, advocate, and educator. And he is now coming to you from Mexico on a writing retreat. Thank you so much!

— — end of interview transcript — —

RELEVANT RESOURCES

SEX THERAPY TRAINING PROGRAMS

https://modernsextherapyinstitutes.com/https://councilforrelationships.org/post-graduate-program-sex-therapyhttps://www.ciis.edu/public-programs/sex-therapy-certificatehttps://sexualhealthalliance.com/aasect-sex-therapy-certificationhttps://ccaps.umn.edu/sex-therapy-certificatehttps://www.antioch.edu/academics/counseling-therapy/certificates/sex-therapy-cert/https://www.adler.edu/program/certificate-in-sex-therapy/https://icpnyc.org/stp/https://www.widener.edu/academics/graduate-studies/sex-therapy-certificatehttps://ssw.umich.edu/offices/continuing-education/certificate-courses/sexual-health/sex-therapy-sexuality-educationhttps://www.theinstituteofsexology.org/

RELEVANT SEXUALITY ASSOCIATIONS & CONFERENCES

American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counsellors, & Therapists (AASECT) https://aasectannualconference.com/

American Association for Marriage & Family Therapy (AAMFT) https://www.aamft.org/

Association of Sex Therapy in Ontario (ASTO) https://www.bestco.info/

International Academy of Sex Research (IASR) https://www.iasrsite.org/

Society for Sex Therapy and Research (SSTAR) https://sstarnet.org/meetings/

Society for Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS) https://www.sexscience.org/

Canadian Sex Research Forum (CSRF) https://www.canadiansexresearchforum.com/about

Contemporary Relationships Conference (CRC) https://www.contemporaryrelationships.com/conference

European Federation of Sexology (EFS) https://europeansexology.com/

Sex Down South (SDS) https://www.sexdownsouth.com/

International Association of Relationship Research (IARR) https://www.iarr.org/conferences.html

International Conference on Gender, Sexuality and Diversity Studies (ICGSDS) https://www.icgss.org/

This essay was first published on Medium on March 4, 2024.