UNews - Paul Vasey

Unlocking the mystery — Dr. Paul Vasey’s new data analysis reveals insights into male homosexuality

caroline.zentner — Mon, 11 Dec 2023 18:07:04 +0000

A deeper analysis of a decade’s worth of data from Dr. Paul Vasey’s Comparative Sexology Lab at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge has lent clarity about the influence of two separate but linked literatures on biological variables influencing male homosexuality.

Vasey, a Professor and Board of Governors Research Chair, and his team of former students (Drs. Doug VanderLaan, Scott Semenyna and Francisco Goméz Jiménez) wanted to determine if there was evidence for both the Fraternal Birth Order Effect (FBOE) and the Female Fecundity Effect (FFE) in data they collected over a decade while working in Samoa.

The FBOE is a widely established finding that each biological older brother a male has increases the probability of homosexuality in that male by 20 to 35 per cent.

The FFE suggests that the female relatives of homosexual males have more children than those of heterosexual males, which provides an evolutionary means to offset the lower reproduction rate of homosexual male relatives. Previous research has also shown support for this hypothesis.

“More recently, people have been saying we need to use different statistical approaches when assessing the FFE that control for the FBOE,” says Vasey. “In order to see if there’s truly a fecundity effect that is occurring, we should see more children in all sibling categories including older sisters, older brothers, younger sisters and younger brothers. In contrast, the FBOE specifically predicts the existence of more older brothers.”

Vasey and his students collected data in the Polynesian island nation of Samoa over a 10-year period working with the support of the fa’afafine community. Fa’afafine are feminine, same-sex attracted males who are recognized as a third gender (neither men nor women) in Samoa.

The team subjected their data to a more robust analysis to determine whether the FBOE occurred in conjunction with the FFE.

“We didn’t find a generalized fecundity effect that influenced all sibling categories,” says Vasey. “We did, however, find that fa’afafine had more older brothers, which is consistent with the fraternal birth order effect.”

Vasey adds that the team’s analysis using a more refined approach is now the fourth to find no evidence for the FFE.

“What we originally thought was support for the FFE was actually just the fraternal birth order effect,” Vasey says. “Without my Board of Governor’s Research Chair, I never would have been able to conduct a decade of fieldwork in Samoa. I’m extremely grateful to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge for awarding me my BoG Research Chair and for all the support I have been shown over the years.”

The study was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and has been published in the prestigious journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS).

The Research Support Fund supports a portion of the costs associated with managing the research funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, such as salaries for staff who provide administration support, training costs for workplace health and safety, maintenance of libraries and laboratories, and administrative costs associated with obtaining patents for inventions.

Puzzle of Sexual Orientation conference brings world-class researchers to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge

caroline.zentner — Fri, 01 Sep 2023 22:19:13 +0000

While many attitudes about sexual orientation have changed dramatically in recent decades, sex researchers can still face immense backlash about their work.

It’s no wonder then that an invitation-only conference like the Puzzle of Sexual Orientation, recently held at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, drew leading sex researchers from around the world to discuss their work in the company of fellow scientists who are also seeking to build knowledge in the field.

“In the United States and certainly parts of Canada, during parts of the past decade especially, academia has become intellectually intolerant,” says Dr. Michael Bailey, a professor at Northwestern ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ in Evanston, Illinois who attended the conference. “In certain ways, people have valued so-called social justice and identity politics at the expense of knowledge seeking, particularly about controversial topics and our domain includes some very controversial topics.”

Organized by Dr. Paul Vasey, a professor in ULethbridge’s Department of Neuroscience, and Dr. Kelly Suschinsky (MSc ’07, PhD ’12), program evaluation coordinator at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre, the conference drew 37 participants from as far away as South America, Europe, and Australasia.

“It’s the primary conference for researchers studying the biopsychology of sexual orientation broadly construed,” says Vasey. “These are the people who are advancing science in the area; these experts think about sexual orientations being more than just whether you’re attracted to men or women or both.”

Along with drawing world-class researchers, the conference was also a get-together for several ULethbridge alums who studied under Vasey and have gone on to establish their own successful careers.

Suschinsky’s work looks at how people respond to unwanted non-consensual sexual encounters. Some of her earlier work has shown that women can physically respond to fairly aversive stimuli while men don’t have the same response. Her research is geared toward finding out why men and women differ in this regard.

Dr. Francisco Gomez Jimenez (MSc ’17, PhD ’22), now a lecturer at Brunel ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ London, UK, concentrates his research on determining what aspects of same-sex sexuality are cross-culturally universal.

“What are the traits that same-sex attracted individuals, whether males or females, share across the world, which gives us some insight as to what the underlying biological components and etiology might be,” he says.

Dr. Scott Semenyna (MSc ’15, PhD ’20), an assistant professor at Stetson ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ in Florida, looks at cultures where feminine males and women compete for the same male partner, including the Istmo Zapotec in southern Mexico and the Polynesian island nation of Samoa. Another focus is examining how females with different sexual orientations can be objectively categorized.

During the conference, researchers addressed a wide range of topics. Bailey discussed his work in paraphilias, which are unusual sexual orientations or sexual interests, such as intense sexual arousal to atypical objects, situations, behaviours or individuals.

“This was the best meeting I think I’ve ever attended,” he says. “We had nonstop talks over three days and it was tiring intellectually and I was tweeting the talks. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t have left the room.”

A former student of Bailey’s, Dr. Gerulf Rieger, now at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Essex, Colchester, England, focuses his research on finding an objective measure of female sexual orientation, a task that is much easier with males.

Catherine Salmon, a professor of psychology at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Redlands in southern California, studies the differences between male and female reactions to erotica. At the conference, she discussed the factors, including sex differences, that influence people’s perceptions of sexual images.

Dr. Ken Zucker, a professor at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Toronto and editor of the Archives of Sexual Behavior, studies gender dysphoria in children and adolescents. His presentation was a meta-analysis of data across studies looking at the sex ratio of adolescents who have gender dysphoria or are identifying as transgender.

“One of the really new developments in the area of gender dysphoria over the past 15 years among adolescents is a marked increase in the number of adolescent girls who are saying that they’re transgender,” Zucker says. “The meta-analysis I conducted shows that this is something that is being observed universally, across North America, Western Europe, Scandinavia, Australia and China.”

Ray Blanchard, who retains the status of professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Toronto, is a devoted attendee of the Puzzles conference. Blanchard studies the fraternal birth order effect, which is the finding that having older brothers increases the odds of homosexuality in later-born males.

The conference was made possible by funding from a SSHRC Connection grant, the American Institute of Bisexuality, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge and private donors.

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers find sexual competition isn’t always against only your own gender

trevor.kenney — Wed, 29 Jul 2020 19:33:31 +0000

If the proliferation of dating apps and websites in our western culture is any indication, finding and keeping a mate can be a fairly daunting, difficult and sometimes discouraging task. But take heart, at least the competition for your prospective mate is largely limited to your own gender because as ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers found in at least two disparate non-Western cultures, the competitive field is much broader.

PhD student Scott Semenyna will defend his thesis this fall.

Scott Semenyna, a PhD student in Dr. Paul Vasey’s Laboratory of Comparative Sexology, is the lead author on a paper just published in PLOS One, a peer-reviewed open access scientific journal published by the Public Library of Science. The paper, Inter-sexual Mate Competition in Three Cultures, examines when women engage in sexual competition for a man with female rivals, as well as with male rivals.

“Sexual competition typically occurs among members of the same sex. Women compete with other women, and men with men, to attract the most appealing opposite-sex partners,” says Semenyna, who will defend his PhD thesis this fall. “Same-sex attracted individuals also exist, such as gay men, making it possible that women and gay men might engage in sexual and romantic competition.”

These interactions are relatively rare in western cultures such as Canada, where only 15 per cent of women report having competed with gay men over the same object of desire. And even in these instances, such competition is generally not taken seriously. The same cannot be said for two other cultures Vasey’s group studied, Samoa and the Istmo Zapotec of southern Mexico. In both of these cultures, feminine, same-sex attracted males regularly adopt gender identities outside the man or woman binary. These individuals are known as fa’afafine in Samoa, and muxe in the Istmo Zapotec.

Vasey’s research group found that a sizable proportion of Samoan women (43 per cent) reported having competed against a fa’afafine for the sexual attention of a man, while an even larger number of Istmo Zapotec women (85 per cent) reported having competed against a muxe.

“We know these cultures have these non-binary genders that engage in this type of competition,” says Semenyna. “I think the biggest surprise was in the Istmo where a quarter of the women had no response to the muxe flirting with their husbands or their boyfriends, mostly because they thought their partners would not be interested in that. When I read the narratives though, I saw a certain level of naiveté because, in reality, lots of men were interested.”

The tactics these unfamiliar rivals use to try and poach and/or keep mates aren’t unfamiliar at all and have been used since the beginning of time. The fa’afafine and muxe frequently use flirtatious and sexually alluring tactics to try and entice men away from their female partners, whereas the women engage in guarding and emotionally punitive behaviours with their partners.

“Part of our findings are an acknowledgment that individuals who are same-sex attracted are not removed from broad mating interactions, they are actually embedded right in it,” says Semenyna. “It’s not like they are on the sidelines, they can be active participants. There are more studies in my dissertation that revolve around this area. One is women’s responses to infidelity, including infidelity that might occur with a female versus infidelity that would occur with a male.”

And while this behaviour is not as common in western cultures, its framework can be applied here and is something Semenyna may look at for future study.

“In a western frame, it’s much more likely taking place between a heterosexual man and a bisexual woman, or even a lesbian woman, just because female bisexual behaviour, identity and attraction seem to be quite a bit more common in western culture,” he says.

He is also looking ahead to his post-doctoral studies, which will be conducted in Vasey’s lab, and examining competition between bisexual women and men for the same woman. Semenyna will be the first post-doctoral fellow at the U of L to obtain post-doctoral funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

“The work is important because it demonstrates that reproductive and non-reproductive sex develop and evolve in concert, and each can influence the other,” says Vasey. “Consequently, our research on inter-sexual mate competition can help furnish transformative new insights into sexual selection, as well as the processes that underpin mating systems.”

Vasey adds that “psychologists have expressed a pressing need within the pages of the leading scientific journal, Nature, to conduct research on non-student, non-Western populations, to replicate that research, to triangulate it in disparate populations, and then relate such work to comparable research on non-human species using both field and laboratory approaches. This is a herculean task, but one my lab has been working hard to fulfill.”

For a look at the full paper, visit the PLOS One journal.

Leading the gender revolution

trevor.kenney — Thu, 14 Jun 2018 20:54:50 +0000

Dr. Paul Vasey garners a lot of attention for his work and he’s not the least bit surprised as to why.

Dr. Paul Vasey was recently recognized by the Canadian Sex Research Forum (CSRF) for his significant input to the field of sex research.

“Not to make a pun but, the stories are sexy,” says the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge psychology professor and Board of Governors Research Chair who heads the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ’s Laboratory of Comparative Sexology.

“You can’t study sex and monkeys and evolution and third-gender individuals in other cultures perceived as being exotic without getting attention,” says Vasey, who was recently recognized by the the Canadian Sex Research Forum (CSRF) for his significant input to the field of sex research with the CSRF Outstanding Contribution Award.

Vasey’s research programs have literally taken him around the world. He first gained notoriety in 2000 for his work studying the female homosexual behaviour of Japanese macaque monkeys. The study, which formed the foundation for his doctoral dissertation at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Montréal, challenged decades of received wisdom about how animals should behave sexually.

After short post-doctoral positions at Concordia ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ and York ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, Vasey was initially hired by the U of L to teach a class on sex and gender. Not wanting to talk about men and women because he felt others were already covering that territory, he turned his attention to cultures with more than two genders.

“It took me a long time to wrap my head around the third gender phenomenon, but I became completely fascinated with it,” he says. “I thought it’d be really interesting to have that as an anchor for a class on sex and gender, that idea of gender and sexual diversity.”

Working to write a paper with a colleague on distress and gender atypicality, they sought a field site where they could collect data that would speak to the issue. They settled on Samoa, where the fa’afafine community resided – feminine, biological males who are recognized as a third gender.

“In 2003, we headed off to Samoa to do that work and, to make a long story short, 15 years later I’m still working there,” says Vasey. “I’ve moved on from that initial work and have studied issues related to the evolution of male same-sex sexuality, basically using the fa’afafine as a model for testing hypotheses about how genes related to male same-sex sexual attraction persist in the population over time.”

In 2015, Vasey initiated another field site in Juchitán, Mexico, where the local Zapotec people identify feminine males as a third gender, known locally as muxe.

Over the years, National Geographic, The New York Times, The Nature of Things, Oprah, Discovery Channel and more have worked with Vasey, highlighting his research. He has carved out a reputation as the go-to voice for cross-cultural issues related to sex and gender.

All the while, he brings his experiences back to the U of L, teaching one of the most popular courses on campus and working with an impressive group of award-winning graduate students as they continue to push the research envelope.

“There’s no question that, in Canada, we have probably the most important group of sex researchers working in the world today,” he says. “When I read about the situation in the U.S., things appear to be very politically touchy on campuses, so I feel extremely lucky to be in an environment where I can get my work done.”

Vasey eager to engage healthy discussion on sexual and gender diversity

trevor.kenney — Thu, 18 Jan 2018 18:37:39 +0000

Dr. Paul Vasey garners a lot of attention for his work and he’s not the least bit surprised as to why.

Paul Vasey will present Beyond the Binary, What the West Can Learn from Non-Western Approaches to Gender Diversity as part of the PUBlic Professor Series.

“You can’t study sex and monkeys and evolution and third gender individuals in other cultures that are perceived as being exotic without getting attention,” he says.

On Thursday, Jan. 25, Vasey will garner his fair share of local attention as the latest presenter in the PUBlic Professor Series. He will present Beyond the Binary: What the West Can Learn from Non-Western Approaches to Gender Diversity. The talk takes place from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Lethbridge Lodge.

After short post-doctoral positions at Concordia ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ in Montréal and York ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ in Toronto, Vasey was hired by the U of L. Initially asked to teach a class on sex and gender, he didn’t want to talk about men and women because he felt others were already covering that territory. Instead, he turned his attention to cultures that recognize more than two genders.

“It took me a long time to wrap my head around the idea that someone could be a third gender – neither a man nor a woman – but I became completely fascinated with the phenomenon,” he says. “I thought it’d be really interesting to have that as an anchor for a course that idea of gender and sexual diversity viewed through a cross-cultural lens.”

In his talk, Vasey will relate his experiences with both the fa’afafine of Samoa and the muxes of Juchitán, Mexico – feminine same-sex attracted males who are recognized as third genders. He hopes to illuminate lessons a Western audience might learn from non-Western approaches to sexual and gender diversity.

While the theme might raise eyebrows, specifically in southern Alberta, an area many people perceive as a conservative enclave, Vasey says that has not been his experience.

“Everybody talks about this being the Bible Belt of Canada, this area being conservative and maybe I’m delusional but I just don’t see it,” he says. “I’ve never encountered anything but respect and dialogue in my classes and in the community. From my experience, the characterization of Lethbridge as being conservative is overblown.”

In his classroom, he adds, students quickly learn that evidence-based and open debate about controversial issues leads to greater insight.

“I’m very cognizant of the fact that many of my students come from religious backgrounds. I remember one such student, who upon seeing the contents of my course outline was a bit nervous about what he was getting himself into, but he ended up saying that my class was a model for what university courses should be. Those sorts of reactions are the norm,” says Vasey.

“I use the classroom to push evidence, not ideological agendas. The classroom has to be a space where you can talk about ideas, regardless of whether they offend right-wing or left-wing political sensibilities. You have to be able to discuss ideas openly and respectfully. If we lose that, then we’re in really big trouble as a university.”

He’s eager to bring a healthy discussion of sexual and gender diversity to the broader public as part of the PUBlic Professor Series.

“I don’t think of myself as being this uniquely enlightened person, I really don’t. I just happen to be someone who’s lucky enough to have had these life experiences and now I know, the way we do things here in Canada is just one way of going about doing gender,” says Vasey. “There are other ways of thinking about gender and I’m not saying, for example, that Lethbridge is wrong and Samoa is right, or vice versa. All I’m saying is that it’s valuable to know that there are these different possibilities in terms of how we live our lives and organize society.”

Vasey research honoured by Canadian Sex Research Forum

trevor.kenney — Wed, 13 Dec 2017 23:11:16 +0000

With one central question at the heart of his research, Dr. Paul Vasey has doggedly put together a body of research that places him among the elite sex researchers in the world. Recently, the Canadian Sex Research Forum (CSRF) recognized his significant input to the field of sex research with the CSRF Outstanding Contribution Award.

The CSRF award recognizes outstanding contributions to research, education, policy or clinical practice in human sexuality/sexology in Canada.

“Dr. Vasey is recognized as one of Canada's best sex researchers and his research is influential internationally,” says Dr. Lori Brotto, CSRF president and professor in the UBC Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. “Dr. Vasey has made fundamental discoveries related to sexual attraction, sexual identity and sexual orientations.”

Considered the premier honour for Canadian sex researchers, the CSRF award recognizes outstanding contributions to research, education, policy or clinical practice in human sexuality/sexology in Canada.

Vasey’s vast body of human research has stemmed from one fundamental question, how do genes related to male same-sex sexual attraction persist in the population over time? His work has literally taken him around the world, but the majority of his research over the past 15 years has centred on the fa’afafine community in Samoa and more recently, the muxe community in Juchitán, Mexico.

While the CSRF award is a lifetime achievement honour, Vasey is hardly interested in slowing down and feels a responsibility to continue to push his research forward.

“I think the trick is to remember that so many people slow down and rest on their laurels and their contributions taper off,” he says. “I’m really proud of the fact that I haven’t plateaued yet, and I take very seriously the responsibility of getting a lot of money from the government and the university to do my work. I try to honour that as much as possible by working hard.”

He says the accolades that go with such a significant award are validating, mainly because they come from people he holds in high esteem.

“There’s a handful of people I hold up as being ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ who are making very valuable contributions to this field, and for them to say good things about my work, it means a lot,” he says. “I don’t sit around waiting for such accolades to come my way, but it sure is nice when it happens. I don’t think you can be really successful as an academic if you’re motivated by external validation. You have to have a certain kind of personality where you’re obsessed by certain problems and it is intrinsically motivating to get answers to those problems.”

Although Vasey keeps up a grueling work schedule that takes him around the globe, he feels extremely privileged.

“If you're doing what you love, it kind of becomes easy to live a life that outsiders might think of as arduous,” says Vasey. “I essentially get paid to do my hobby, to do research on the questions that interest me most in the world.”

Vasey hopes to head back to Mexico in February to collect more data on the muxe and to contribute to the ongoing recovery efforts in the wake of September’s earthquake in Central Mexico.

U of L researchers awarded more than $907,000 in research funding

caroline.zentner — Wed, 15 Nov 2017 17:40:49 +0000

Today, Kirsty Duncan, Canada’s Minister of Science, announced the recipients of several Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grants and seven ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers are among those who secured funding for their projects.

“I want to commend the grant and scholarships recipients whose tireless efforts help us better understand our world and our relationships with each other,” says Duncan. “Our government is proud to support these talented researchers and scholars who are pushing the boundaries of knowledge to the benefit of Canadians and our growing middle class.”

“We are extremely pleased that seven U of L research projects were successful in this competition,” says Dr. Claudia Malacrida, associate vice-president (research). “It demonstrates the strength of our researchers in the social sciences and humanities and we congratulate each one of them.”

The funding includes Partnership Development Grants, designed to foster new research with new or existing partners, Insight Development Grants that support research in its beginning stages, and Insight Grants for long-term research initiatives. The research projects are diverse, spanning the fields of visual arts, anthropology, psychology, digital humanities, finance and history and gender studies.

Dr. Dan O'Donnell

Dr. Dan O’Donnell, a professor in the Department of English, conducts research in the Digital Humanities, where tools and methods from computer science are applied to humanities fields like history, philosophy and literature. His digital tools, like the Internet, make it easy to share research information widely, but O’Donnell has found the world of research publishing hasn’t changed much, with the same major publishers running the market. He began working on building a different kind of research network called Future Commons where research is freely shared and publicly available and where corporations can still make a profit. The Partnership Development Grant, which includes three other organizations, will facilitate research to further the Future Commons network. For more information visit Future Commons.

Mary Kavanagh

Mary Kavanagh, a professor in the Department of Art, will examine nuclear anxiety in the post-Cold War era through interviews with visitors to Trinity, the site of the world’s first atomic bomb detonation. A rehearsal for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Trinity was the codename for the test blast in 1945, deep in the desert south of the Manhattan project’s headquarters in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Tourists now flock to the site during bi-annual open houses. Kavanagh, through interviews conducted at the site, plans to generate a series of art works or “chapters” that include moving-image vignettes, photographic works, book works, installations and an experimental documentary film that explores urgent questions of the nuclear age. For more information visit Atomic Tourism.

Dr. Catherine Kingfisher

Dr. Catherine Kingfisher, an anthropology professor, will explore urban collective housing communities as non-individualistic approaches to well-being. Such communities work to balance independence and interdependence by including both personal/private and shared/collective spaces, and, unlike many intentional communities, are integrated with, rather than segregated from, society at large. Kingfisher will compare communities in Tokyo and Vancouver to gain insight into how this model of the good life operates in cultural contexts that historically and ideologically have stressed different aspects of individualism and collectivism. The project is situated in the context of increasing academic and governmental interest in happiness and well-being. For more information visit Intentional Communities.

Dr. Fangfang Li

Dr. Fangfang Li, a psychology professor, will examine factors that may influence speech errors in second-language learners. She found that errors made by local students in French Immersion programs persisted over time, even though researchers expected the students would make fewer speech errors when they reached higher grades. Li hypothesizes that the errors persist because opportunities to speak with native French speakers are limited in a community where English is the dominant language. Li’s research will look at a mixed bilingual program in Edmonton to see if the second-language learners there, who have more opportunity to speak with native speakers, produce more accurate speech as they advance to higher grades. For more information visit Second-language Learning.

Dr. Yutao Li

Dr. Yutao Li, a professor in the Faculty of Management at the U of L’s Calgary campus, will explore the costs and benefits of banks’ involvement in lending networks. While greater connectivity in a network can be helpful because it gives a bank more information it can use to evaluate a borrower’s credit risk, it can also be detrimental if risk enters the financial system and spreads throughout the network, as it did during the financial crisis of 2007-2008. Li’s study is the first to investigate banks’ lending networks and the research will help build understanding about how banks’ network connectivity affects information acquisition, lending practices and quality of financial reporting. For more information visit Banking Networks.

Dr. Paul Vasey

Dr. Paul Vasey, a psychology professor, will delve into competition for mates in cultures that recognize third genders, specifically the muxes in the Istmo region of Oaxaca, Mexico and the fa’afafine in Samoa. The fa’afafine and muxes are same-sex attracted feminine males or what could be termed transgender in North America. They engage in sexual activity with masculine men who are bisexual, thus creating a competitive atmosphere for heterosexual women. In contrast, women in Euro-American cultures most often face competition from other women. Vasey and his students will conduct research in Canada and at their field sites in Samoa and Mexico to see how the presence of third-gender males affects the behaviour and psychology of heterosexual individuals. For more information visit Mate Competition.

Dr. Carol Williams

Dr. Carol Williams, a professor in Women and Gender Studies and History, and her collaborators, Linda Weasel Head, Hali Heavy Shield and Faye Heavy Shield, will assemble diverse and new historical accounts of Kainai women’s social reform work between 1968 and 1990. The researchers will engage with the Kainai community and propose a series of cultural and historical workshops for all age groups to encourage conversation and storytelling. The study hopes to challenge the colonial character of the archives as they exist and the myths of Indigenous-Settler relations. The study, in line with the recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, seeks to expand historical literacy about how Kainai women transformed their communities. For more information visit Kainai Women’s Activism.

New Take Two speaker series to focus on U of L research

caroline.zentner — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 17:34:17 +0000

As Associate Vice-President Research, Dr. Claudia Malacrida wants to demonstrate the diversity and depth of research done at a small, liberal arts institution like the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge. To that end, she created a new speaker series called Take Two. Once underway, the Take Two sessions will feature two researchers who approach a topic from different perspectives.

For the inaugural talk, Malacrida will provide the community a report on the federal review panel, of which she was a member, and its findings on Thursday, Sept. 21 at 3:30 p.m. (Markin Hall Atrium). Attendees will have the opportunity to sign a petition to increase support for research funding that will be submitted to the Minister of Science, Kirsty Duncan.

Dr. Claudia Malacrida

“Part of my rationale for wanting to give this talk is to galvanize our response to the recommendations of the review panel and to garner support for the idea that fundamental research in Canada should be a level playing field for universities, regardless of their size,” says Malacrida.

Following consultations across the country, evidence gathered by the panel points to a research system that is underfed and overworked. The Alliance of Canadian Comprehensive Research Universities, to which the U of L belongs, has thrown its support behind the panel’s recommendations and is advocating for increases to annual federal spending on research and that it be distributed fairly to universities, both large and small.

The balance of the Take Two series will take a different direction, offering fresh insights on research being done at the U of L. The events will offer talks by two researchers who take different approaches to a related issue. Each researcher will have about 20 minutes to present, followed by a question-and-answer session.

“We wanted to create a novel format for the Take Two series,” says Malacrida. “We are asking these researchers to talk across disciplines in a way that will help people understand that exciting work happens here. We want to show that we have people working in all areas on campus who are contributing to our understanding of our social, cultural and physical worlds.”

The second session on Oct. 25 will focus on understanding childhood and difference. Dr. Jeffrey MacCormack (Education) conducts research on attentional issues in the classroom in children who experience difficulty socializing and regulating emotions. He’s interested in how play-based interventions can help regulate and modulate children’s behaviour in the classroom. The other speaker, Dr. Jan Newberry (Anthropology) will discuss the partnership between the U of L’s Institute for Child and Youth Studies and the Opokaa’sin Early Intervention Society. Through the Raising Spirit project, they’ve been collecting stories and images for a digital storytelling library to highlight Indigenous ways of knowing and to build community capacity collaboratively.

“Despite differing approaches, both researchers’ work is not about fixing kids who don’t fit in; it’s about changing the way we think about what ‘in’ ought to look like,” says Malacrida.

The third session on Nov. 23 brings together Drs. Maura Hanrahan and Monique Giroux (Native American Studies) to talk about their research. Hanrahan examines policy, especially as it relates to the way current approaches to Indigenous health research can operate to exclude the health concerns of Métis peoples. Giroux is both a scholar and fiddler. She studies how Métis identity is produced and regulated through dramatic works, as well as through performances at fiddling contests and cultural festivals.

In the fourth talk scheduled for Feb. 1, Dr. Chris Hopkinson (Geography) will talk about his research using LiDAR (light detection and ranging) sensors to create three-dimensional topographical maps used by governments and industries to assess flood hazards, manage wildlife habitat or create greenhouse gas strategies. Leanne Elias, a New Media professor, will talk about her experimental visualization of agricultural data, such as crop production.

“Elias visualizes those data through sound, light and visual images to produce art but also to convey information,” says Malacrida. “Both she and Hopkinson are working very different approaches to sustainability and environmental visualization.”

The fifth session of the series features Drs. Paul Vasey (Psychology) and Suzanne Lenon (Women and Gender Studies) talking about their research into gender, sex and sexuality. Vasey does fieldwork looking at both gender and sexuality in two cultures that recognize a third gender, the fa’fafine of Samoa and the muxes of the Istmo region of Oaxaca, Mexico. Lenon’s research focuses on the history and material aspects of marriage law, with respect to race, gender and sexuality, especially regarding same-sex marriage and polygamy.

Talks are scheduled to begin at 3:30 p.m., with the Sept. 21 session taking place in the Markin Hall Atrium. Light refreshments will be provided and everyone is welcome to attend.

Vasey’s gender studies research featured in National Geographic magazine, documentary

trevor.kenney — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 17:44:39 +0000

While popular culture is just beginning to wrestle with questions surrounding transgender individuals, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s Dr. Paul Vasey has been at the forefront of research in these areas for the better part of 15 years. It’s no wonder then that National Geographic sought his expertise when putting together it’s January magazine focused on gender issues and that he’d be central to the accompanying documentary, Gender Revolution: A Journey with Katie Couric, to be broadcast Feb. 6, 2017.

“Right now, debate about transgender individuals and their place in society is omnipresent. So, it’s not surprising that there’s a lot of interest in my work because it takes place in cultures where transgender people are well integrated into mainstream society and not treated as problematic,” says Vasey, who heads the U of L’s Laboratory of Comparative Sexology. “People from more transphobic places are interested in how those sorts of cultural dynamics work.”

Dr. Paul Vasey, right, with his partner, Alatina, who identifies as fa'afafine.

It’s not the first time Vasey has been sought out by a major media organization for research insight, rather it’s just the latest in a long line of international media hits that have included the New York Times, The Atlantic, The Economist, TIME, and Oprah, as well as documentaries by The Nature of Things, the Discovery Channel, and a previous one by National Geographic’s Ultimate Explorer.

Since 2000, he has conducted research on the development and evolution of female homosexual behavior in free-ranging Japanese monkeys at various sites in Japan. He also studies the development and evolution of male same-sex sexual attraction in humans. Since 2003, Vasey has worked in Samoa with members of the fa'afafine community – feminine, biological males who are recognized as a “third gender.”

This research captured the interest of National Geographic and late last fall, they flew Vasey to California where he sat down with Couric for a lengthy interview.

“There’s certainly a prestige that comes along with National Geographic that might not be associated with a lot of other media, but I never get too excited about these things because it’s my job, it’s work,” he says, adding that Couric was extremely approachable, professional, and well versed on his studies. “I’ve done enough interviews now to know that journalists need me to communicate about what I do in a completely different way than how I would go about communicating with other ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ. Some researchers get very up-tight about this, but I’ve learned to relax.”

Vasey says that at one point during the interview Couric turned to the producer and said, “this guy is a sound-bite machine.” “I was happy Katie said that because I felt like I was making everyone’s job easier.”

Vasey with his Samoan fa'afafine research assistant, Trisha.

The basic question Vasey has been attempting to answer for years is that if reproduction is the engine that drives evolution, why engage in non-conceptive sex? And if homosexuality is heritable, but homosexuals are much less likely to produce offspring than heterosexuals, shouldn’t the genes for this trait have died off long ago?

To answer these questions, Vasey has been working with Samoan fa'afafine who are exclusively sexually attracted to masculine adult men. His Samoan research has subsequently led to the establishment of a second field site in Juchitán de Zaragoza, Mexico in 2015 with another third gender group, the muxe.

“Everything we’ve done in Samoa we are going to try to replicate in Mexico,” says Vasey. “We want to know, are the results we’re getting in Samoa culturally specific or do they generalize to other very distantly related cultures?”

Over the years, Vasey’s work has been recognized through awards, grants from all three tri-council agencies, and the attention and respect of his peers in the sexual orientation research community. In 2015, the Vasey hosted the Puzzle of Sexual Orientation conference on the U of L campus, attracting over 50 of the world’s leading authorities on sexual orientation to campus. He plans to hold the next one at the U of L in 2020.

By then, Vasey’s work will have evolved as he now seeks to go beyond examining why third gender males exist to how these males impact the heterosexual community.

“In the next 10 years of my career, I want to turn things around a bit and ask, ‘What are the consequences for heterosexual mating systems of having third gender males in the sexual or social environment?’” he asks. “What are the consequences for men’s mating psychology, and what are the consequences for women’s mating psychology?”

As those answers emerge, it is likely Vasey will be in the spotlight once again.

Conference marks U of L as leader in sexuality studies

trevor.kenney — Thu, 20 Aug 2015 16:27:59 +0000

It was billed as one of the highest-profile conferences to ever grace the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, and yet it was intentionally given no profile in advance.

Conference co-organizer Dr. Paul Vasey says what draws researchers to Lethbridge is the U of L’s solid support for sexual orientation research. PHOTO by Mary Kavanagh

The Puzzle of Sexual Orientation conference that ran July 20-23 at the U of L attracted more than 50 of the world’s leading authorities on sexual orientation to campus. Experts from throughout the United States, Canada and even as far off as Europe and Brazil made their way to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, attending on an invite-only basis, to discuss a broad range of topics related to sexual orientation.

“The Puzzle conference is renowned as the venue worldwide at which a group of preeminent sexual orientation researchers convene once every five years to assess the state of our science and talk about the way forward. Not surprisingly, invitations are highly coveted,” says Dr. Paul Vasey (professor & Board of Governor’s Research Chair in Psychology), one of the conference co-organizers.

What draws them here is the U of L’s solid support for sexual orientation research and the groundbreaking work that Vasey and his students have been conducting for the past 15 years.

“Conference attendees were extremely impressed that understanding the genesis of sexual orientation is embedded in the U of L's Strategic Research Plan,” says Vasey. “Many attendees were blown away that the Vice-Provost & Associate VP (Academic), Dr. Lesley Brown, took time out of her busy schedule to open the meeting and declared that "understanding sexual orientation is key to understanding human nature".”

Among those who were favorably impressed was Dr. Michael Bailey from Chicago’s Northwestern ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, a world-renowned researcher who spoke about his work on male bisexuality.

“We have many cities that are much (larger) than Lethbridge but none of them are as high profile as the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge for the studying of sexual orientation,” Bailey told the Lethbridge Herald upon completion of the conference. “It’s really an international treasure.”

The conference did not allow media access prior to or during the event as Vasey wanted to ensure that researchers could openly discuss their findings, some of which might be considered controversial or taboo. Select researchers were made available to media once the event wrapped up and garnered significant interest.

“There is an enormous amount of public debate about the nature of sexual diversity. All too often these discussions occur in an information vacuum that is driven by personal politics and morality, but divorced from any evidence," says Vasey. "The Puzzle of Sexual Orientation conference is a key event at which evidence is brought to the table, which helps inform these public debates.”

One exception to the no media rule was an invitation to Boston Globe writer Neil Swidey who was given exclusive access to the researchers and their presentations throughout the conference. A respected journalist who 10 years ago created one of the most-read Boston Globe stories in its web history (What makes people gay?), Swidey chose the conference as an opportunity to revisit and update his seminal piece. It has just now been released on the Globe website.

“Going forward, I believe that all of the conference attendees will sing the praises of the U of L, thereby contributing to my goal of promoting our ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ as a destination research institution for sexuality studies,” adds Vasey.

The next conference is scheduled to take place at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge in 2020.

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